I want to be emperor

Chapter 794 The Cruel Indian Legion

It is not uncommon for the Shanghe tribe to attack the settlements of the Chu people, and then they were counter-killed and the tribe perished. This kind of thing is not uncommon in the western region of North America. In fact, it happens very frequently, basically several times a year.

Otherwise, how do you think the Xiayang Mansion, Jinshan Mansion, and Luhe Mansion that Chu people now control and develop and cultivate on a large scale came about?

It will never be the local aborigines handing over to the Chu people.

The lands of the three North American prefectures of the Great Chu Empire were all typed, without any adulteration.

The whole process is also very cruel. From time to time, a small settlement in Chu State that is remote and deep in the hinterland is attacked by the natives, causing heavy casualties and even massacring the village.

It also often happens that some indigenous tribes are wiped out by the Chu army.

There is no hatred between the two parties, and there is no situation where you are bad or I am worse. Everyone is fighting for living space.

Chu immigrants need a lot of developable arable land, so they continue to go inland from the coastal areas, especially some places that are suitable for farming and have convenient transportation.

It is mainly flat land on both sides of some rivers, such as the Golden Valley.

The North American Governor's Office attaches great importance to this valley, which is tens of kilometers wide from east to west, five to six hundred kilometers long from north to south, with flat terrain, many rivers, and a mild climate, because this place is almost the most likely to be developed on the entire west coast of North America, and it is also the most Plain arable land that is easy to develop on a large scale.

Therefore, immigrants were continuously organized to go deep along the river. After a large amount of gold was discovered in Shuanghe County, the scale of immigration became even larger. There were not only a large number of official immigrants, but also a large number of self-funded immigrants.

The arrival of a large number of immigrants from Chu State has also continuously occupied the living space of the local indigenous tribes.

The survival mode of these indigenous tribes still stays in the very primitive mode of fishing, hunting, grazing and gathering. Such a survival mode requires a large number of sites for hunting, such as North American bison. In addition to eating the hunted bison, they will also sell the cowhide to Chu State Merchants in exchange for matchlock guns and other cold weapons or other survival supplies.

At the same time, the existence of horses and arquebuses also greatly improved the ability of the local aborigines to hunt large animals such as bison. They were no longer satisfied with hunting bison just for food, but also hunted them on a large scale for fur. bison.

At the same time, when immigrants from Chu State arrived, they would occupy the local living space and also hunt and kill bison on a large scale.

The cowhide of bison is a very good leather material. Many immigrants from Chu State will bring guns and hunt large animals such as bison in groups in the surrounding areas after they are farming. This is not only for hunting bison to obtain fur and Eating meat is also to prevent these large and ferocious animals from destroying crops and causing casualties to people.

This also led to large-scale hunting of large animals in the western Americas by the Chu people and local indigenous people, and the number decreased sharply.

After the number decreased, there were conflicts between the two sides. In many places, the aborigines began to be hostile and even expelled the Chu immigrants, thinking that they had robbed the buffalo.

Similarly, in the eyes of Chu people, the barbaric and unreasonable aborigines are also a huge threat, and these aborigines are also stealing a large amount of high-quality developable land.

When there are more conflicts between the two sides, there will naturally be mutual attacks and even wars.

Behind many contradictions, in the final analysis, is the competition for living space.

This competition for living space is very cruel.

Of course, this situation is not limited to the Chu people, and the Spanish, Portuguese and other European colonists are similar in the Americas.

Even the Spaniards and Portuguese did a little more. These people still play slavery. They will capture a large number of natives as slaves for farming, and they don’t care about property at all when using slaves, so that the native Americans quickly, A lot of them disappear.

Even because the natives in some areas such as South America were not played much by them, they were forced to import black slaves from Africa.

This gave birth to the infamous Atlantic Triangle Trade, also known as the slave trade.

And Chu State does not engage in slavery.

As for the large number of indigenous prisoners of war working on the manors of Western Trading Company and Dongyang Trading Company in Chu State, they are military prisoners of war, not slaves, and the two are not the same.

The prisoners of war caught in the war were directly massacred, and the impact would not be good, but they cannot be released to make these natives potential rioters, and it is even more impossible to let them eat and drink for free...

So prisoners of war also need to work.

It's not just prisoners of war. In fact, those criminal prisoners in Chu State also need to work.

In the Great Chu Empire, it is not said that after committing a crime, they can live in prison leisurely and eat and drink for nothing with taxpayers' tax money. Criminals need to work to support themselves.

However, in the previous battle between Songxi Village and Shanghe Tribe, the militiamen of Songxi Village did not capture many prisoners. They've almost run away.

And in the process of chasing and killing, many aborigines fled into the mountains in order to survive.

In order to avoid unnecessary losses, Wu Jintang did not order the militiamen to enter the forest to continue the pursuit.

So there were some other captures, but there were really few prisoners, and those prisoners were also handed over to the military.

After this battle, Songxi Village regained its calm, but there were two households that did not recover. Although this time the battle was a great victory, casualties are always inevitable in wars.

This time, in the militia team of Songxi Village, a militiaman was shot in the chest by an arquebus gun from an aborigine, and a big hole was punched out in his chest on the spot, and he died without even having a chance to rescue him.

Another person was seriously injured by an arrow. Although he had undergone emergency treatment on the battlefield, he was unable to survive and died on the way back. This was a 16-year-old young man who rushed too far ahead when chasing and killing the enemy. Not too bad, the natives shot back with an arrow, which pierced through the chest and seriously injured.

Seven or eight other people were slightly injured, and even Zhao Gantong himself was slightly injured due to carelessness, but the problem was not serious, it was just a small scrape on the arm.

After the battle, after disinfection with medical alcohol, it is enough to bandage with medical gauze, and there is no need for stitches.

In war, casualties are normal.

The militia team of Songxi Village died because two people went out to fight, and the superior and other villagers naturally would not sit idly by.

Soon, people from the county's garrison brigade came over and paid pensions to the two families of the deceased, and explained to the family members a series of preferential treatment conditions for the family members of the sacrificed military, such as a limited time reduction and exemption of unified agricultural tax, and preferential treatment for children's education, etc. .

At the same time, Songxi Village also organized internal donations to raise some money for the two families.

Although the families of the militiamen who died in battle were grieved, they eased up a lot after receiving pensions and donations, as well as the subsequent preferential treatment policies from the government.

In fact, they also know that immigrant settlement itself is risky... Needless to say, there are only more than 200 people in Songxi Village, and there are more than 70 militiamen. Even old and young women and children can use guns to protect themselves. come out.

It is because of the risk, and the risk is not small, that so many militiamen and firearms are needed.

If there is no risk, there is no need for so many guns!
The land in North America is good. Anyone who comes here can get dozens or even hundreds of acres of free land. If you give some symbolic money, you can get more land.

And you can also get interest-free land reclamation loans, even if you come to North America empty-handed, you can directly transform into a small landlord with hundreds of acres of land.

Such a good thing, of course, has a price!
Indigenous attacks, unacceptable water and soil, and disease invasion are all costs.

This is still in Jinshan Mansion, where the people of Chu have strong control. If it is in some wild lands, the cost will be higher, and of course the profit will be greater.

Some courageous Chu people have even left the actual control area of ​​​​the North American governor's office, and went further inland along the river for reclamation.

In those places, North American government offices can't control it. The real lawlessness, you can do whatever you want, provided you don't die.

Relatively speaking, Songxi Village is only close to the edge of the indigenous control area. Not only does it have the ability to protect itself, it is attacked by a large number of indigenous people, and it can also receive support from the regular army. The situation is much better.

What's more, the Shanghe tribe, which is the biggest threat to Songxi Village, has also been wiped out. There are no large-scale indigenous tribes within [-] to [-] kilometers, and the safety factor has been greatly improved.

Within a few days, Zhao Gantong got the news that the higher-ups decided to carry out a larger-scale development of the Songxi Village area, and planned to organize more immigrants to come to settle the land.

Some old immigrants who are familiar with the situation in North America said that their Songxi Village will become Songxi Town in a few years.

This is also a common practice of the Chu State when it colonized overseas. First, it sends an official immigration team to open up settlements, and then gradually increases the number of immigrants at their own expense. Relying on the settlements in the country, large-scale organization of immigrants began to come over for reclamation and development.

Village-level settlements will gradually expand into towns and even counties, in fact fully controlling and developing the surrounding areas.

Many towns and counties in the Jinshan Prefecture area basically come from this way.

Shuanghe County is an exception. According to normal circumstances, Shuanghe County has developed to the size of a town at most, but because of the emergence of gold, this place has experienced explosive growth. In the end, within a few years, it has grown from a A village-level settlement has developed into a county seat, and even has an extremely large population.

After Zhao Gantong heard that his superiors would increase the development of the Songxi Village area, he felt that this was an opportunity.

At that time, those new immigrants, even if they have land, will also have official support for land reclamation loans, but they will always need food and other consumer goods.

You can increase the planting area by yourself, and you can also raise some cattle, horses, sheep and other livestock. At that time, you can sell the grain, meat and livestock on the spot to make a profit.

Even if it cannot be digested locally, it can be sold to those buyers.

In fact, crops such as grain and cotton are sold to merchants, and then these merchants organize transportation to coastal ports such as Jinshan Port, and then load those returning ships back to the mainland for sale. An important economic model of the territory.

Overseas territories have a lot of land and produce a lot of crops, but the local area cannot consume so much.

At the same time, the ships that come and go, after transporting the domestic goods to the overseas territories, will always go back, and the empty ship will definitely lose money, so even if the freight is cheap, they will bring the goods back to the voyage.

As a result, a material transportation channel between the local and overseas regions has been formed.

If there is no accident, the cotton planted by Zhao Gantong will eventually be transported back to the mainland through this channel, enter a spinning factory to produce cotton yarn, and finally be woven into cloth. One of the countless raw material suppliers.

The textile industry of the Great Chu Empire has maintained a high-speed growth up to now. Not only is there huge overseas demand, but also a large amount of cloth is exported.

At the same time, with the gradual development of Chu's internal economy, the people's consumption level of textiles is also gradually increasing, which has led to a huge demand for textile consumption, and the domestic demand for textiles actually far exceeds the overseas demand.

Regardless of the fact that the Great Chu Empire’s machine-made fabrics were conquering cities overseas, in fact, 90.00% of the large amount of cloth produced by the Great Chu Empire was consumed internally, and only about [-]% of the textiles were exported.

An empire that has completed initial industrialization and currently has a population of more than 3 million, its internal demand is extremely strong, and its consumption power far exceeds the sum of other feudal agricultural countries in the world.

Therefore, export trade is actually not that important to the contemporary Great Chu Empire!

Moreover, these export trades are basically concentrated in some vassal states, puppet states, and colonies controlled by Chu State, mainly in Southeast Asian countries and the Indian Peninsula.

As for the trade with West Asia and Europe, although the total amount is larger than in the early days, the overall proportion has dropped sharply. It can even be said that this amount of export has no practical impact on Chu's economy.

In the early years, in order to maintain the export trade, the Great Chu Empire generally maintained a certain amount of restraint towards the Dutch and the Portuguese. After all, they needed their help to export and transport a large amount of goods.

But now, the Chu people see you are upset and call you.

The trade with Europe became less and less important, which also made the Great Chu Empire's attitude towards these European colonists more and more radical.

After all, there is nothing to worry about.

Of course, if one day directly kills Europe and turns the European region into its own colony, a place for dumping goods, that's another matter.

This is also what Chu has been doing in its overseas expansion policy.

The seizure of South Africa was not only for gold, but also for controlling the sea lanes to Europe.

And in this process, the Portuguese fell into bad luck.

Because in the process of the Chu people opening up colonies in Africa and establishing coastal supply ports, they basically met the Portuguese.

This is not because the Chu people have any hostility towards the Portuguese. It is simply that the Portuguese control a large colony on the east coast of Africa, and the East African region is an important stronghold of the Portuguese in the African colonial system.

The Portuguese is in East Africa, and the Chu people have to pass through East Africa if they want to go to South Africa.

How to do?
What else can I do, call me directly.

After the expansion in Northeast Africa, especially in Somalia, the people of Chu State carried out large-scale construction here, mainly to build the port city of Mogadishu, making this place the state of Chu in the Northeast Important military bases and supply bases in non-regional areas.

After the preliminary construction, the Chu State has accumulated thousands of troops here, and at the same time has a huge fleet, and has also accumulated a large amount of logistical supplies.

The Great Chu Empire turned these into a stronghold in Africa.

In the autumn of Chengshun's 31st year, the expansion and construction of the Chu State in Northeast Africa came to an end. At the same time, the Great Chu Empire formally established the Governor of Africa. The governor's resident is Mogadishu, and he governs the affairs of Africa and the West Asian Peninsula.

The establishment of the African governor also announced the beginning of the next round of large-scale expansion of the Great Chu Empire in the region.

In the autumn and October of the 31st year of Chengshun, Mao Yuanhang, the former deputy director of the Department of Civil Affairs of the Ministry of Ritual and Education of the Great Chu Empire, who was in charge of affairs in Europe, Africa, and West Asia, officially assumed the post of Governor of Africa in Mogadishu.

After taking office as the governor of Africa, Mao Yuanhang's first order was to order the already prepared army to go south to seize East Africa, including Mozambique Island, the Portuguese stronghold in East Africa.

In fact, before this, Chu State occupied the Pemba Port in East Africa in the name of the Western Trading Company, and built ports, forts and other facilities here, making the place a nail for the Great Chu Empire in East Africa.

The Portuguese later discovered that after the Chu people occupied Pemba Port, they once wanted to send troops to recover the area, but they all failed in the end.

They couldn't beat them, and they couldn't drive them away. In the end, the Portuguese could only pretend that they hadn't seen it.

But now, after the Great Chu Empire officially launched the expansion of the entire East African region, Pemba Port immediately became the bridgehead and logistics supply base of the Great Chu Empire in this region.

In the past few months, several batches of Chu State fleets arrived at the port, transporting a large amount of logistics supplies and more than 4000 ground combat troops.

It made Pemba Port the second largest large military base of Chu State in Africa.

Among the more than 4000 reinforcements, more than 3000 of them are from the third regiment of the Indian Army, and the Chu Army's regular army has only one battalion.

After the Chu Army used the Indian Army in Somalia, they found that the Indian Army was particularly useful.

First of all, it is a non-national soldier. It does not hurt to use it. The casualties in the war will be killed and injured. Don't worry about the adverse effects caused by too many casualties.

The cost of use is low. The salaries of these soldiers of the Indian Legion are very low, and they don’t even need to pay pensions when they die...

The weapons and equipment basically used are second-hand goods replaced by the regular army, which are very cheap.

Moreover, the soldiers of these Indian legions are particularly brutal in fighting in this poor place in Africa... These people don't have the concept of civilized people. Will take the initiative to do something that angers others. After all, as a civilized person, most of them still have some basic moral concepts.

But the soldiers of the Indian Legion don't have so many thoughts and scruples. When performing combat missions, for the sake of convenience and trouble, they often engage in various massacres, and sometimes they even find an indigenous village for live-fire drills for live-fire drills... ...so that some people in the Chu army couldn't stand it anymore. They reprimanded the Indian army many times and told them not to mess around. This killed all the natives, and went there to capture prisoners of war.
But the effect was not great. The Indian soldiers of the Indian Legion themselves were of untouchable origin, and they didn't regard themselves as human beings, let alone the aborigines as human beings.

Sometimes they even feel particularly wronged... I'm not doing this to better complete the task, as for killing a few batches of local aborigines...it's just a few aborigines, that's all.

However, such an Indian army also had some positive effects, that is, it killed more, and its notoriety became bigger and bigger.

Now the aborigines in Northeast Africa are more afraid of the Indian army than the regular army of the Chu army.

After all, the regular soldiers in the Chu army are still normal people, who are more or less civilized and occasionally reasonable.

But those Indian soldiers of the Indian Legion don't talk to you about civilization... let alone reason, they play massacre at every turn.

After encountering the Indian Army, many aborigines did not even dare to resist. They either ran away or surrendered, for fear of being slaughtered directly after surrendering.

Such an Indian army also made the upper echelon of the Chu army sigh and had to strengthen its use.

Although this knife is a bit vicious, it is really easy to use!

No, the Indian Legion, which performed well in Northeast Africa, soon ushered in an increase in troops. The Chu Army recruited thousands of untouchable soldiers in India, and then organized transportation to Africa.

Until now, the Indian Army in Africa has four regiments, organized into the third regiment, fourth regiment, fifth regiment, and sixth regiment, with a total strength of tens of thousands of troops. The natives fought.

The third regiment of the Indian Army, because of its rich combat experience and strong combat effectiveness, strengthened its artillery and even cavalry, and after its logistical strength, it was dispatched to Pemba Port as an advance force.

If there is no accident, the regiment will serve as the main force in the war against East Africa.

The third regiment of the Indian Army was collectively transferred to Pemba, East Africa, and Lieutenant Lehar, who served in the third regiment, naturally also went to Pemba with the team.

As one of the very few in the Indian Legion, Lehar, who was awarded the rank of "Lieutenant" exclusively for indigenous officers, was also one of the very few among the indigenous soldiers who knew that his army was about to face a war.

But he didn't feel scared about it, he even felt excited and looking forward to it.

Only when there are battles can there be military exploits, spoils of war, and more gains.

He has already heard that with the expansion of the Indian army, more indigenous officers are needed to assist Chu officers in handling various affairs. After all, you can't let Chu officers directly command those indigenous soldiers, right? They don't understand the language... …

The higher-ups are already preparing to carry out certain reforms on the indigenous officers, expanding the single lieutenant to second lieutenants, lieutenants and even captains to assist Chu officers in managing the larger Indian Army in Africa.

He hoped that he could catch the first batch of free rides and get a rank with the second lieutenant or even the same lieutenant.

But if you want to be promoted, in addition to your qualifications and ability, you can't let this military merit go.

In terms of promotion, the Chu army has always attached great importance to military exploits. Only qualifications but no military exploits, and time alone cannot be promoted.

This is true of the regular army, and the same is true of the Indian Army of the slave army.

(End of this chapter)