novelraw Chapter 174: Assimilation Experiment
Chapter 174: Assimilation Experiment
The Lanfang Republic’s final choice was naturally to submit to Spanish rule.
At least submitting to the Spaniards still offered options; without Spanish support, what awaited Lanfang was only the outcome of annihilation.
“Diplomat Wu, you have made the correct choice.” Inside the Madrid Royal Palace, Carlo smiled with satisfaction and reached a preliminary agreement with Wu Yongxiang on cooperation between Spain and the Lanfang Republic.
Since Wu Yongxiang was the Lanfang Republic’s plenipotentiary representative, the signing of the cooperation treaty between both sides only required him to write and sign on behalf of them.
As for whether the Lanfang Republic would break the agreement, Carlo had no worries about that at all.
Before the Lanfang Republic defeated the Dutch, they would always face colonial pressure from the Dutch East Indies archipelago.
The timing of when they defeated the Dutch was entirely determined by Spain. As long as Carlo was willing, the Lanfang Republic could completely keep consuming with the Dutch like this, forever.
On February 12, 1875, Spanish Prime Minister Primó and Lanfang plenipotentiary representative Wu Yongxiang, under the witness of some media, jointly signed the document of the 《friendly cooperation treaty between Xilan and both sides》, and left behind precious image materials.
The vast majority of media had no interest in the Lanfang Republic; what they were interested in was why Spain would choose to sign a cooperation agreement with the Lanfang Republic, which had little fame or strength.
The only country paying attention to this might be the Netherlands. Because Lanfang was theoretically within the Dutch colonial scope, and they even nominally submitted to the Dutch East India Colony.
However, by the time the Dutch received the news, several days had already passed since both sides signed the cooperation treaty.
Even if the Dutch were dissatisfied, they could only swallow their broken teeth.
After all, Spain crushed the Netherlands in terms of volume and overall strength. Unless the Netherlands was still the United Kingdom that led Belgium and Luxembourg, the Netherlands could not be compared to Spain.
But then again, if the Low Countries three nations were still united, there probably wouldn’t even be competition between Spain and the Dutch; great powers would intervene to make the Low Countries three nations dissolve on their own.
Being in the angular range of Britain, France, and Germany doomed this region to impossibility of existing a true great power.
Not to mention great power-level superpowers; even regional great powers were not allowed to exist.
In plain terms, none of the three parties—Britain, France, and Germany—allowed a country in the Low Countries region that was more awesome than themselves or posed a threat to them.
When Prime Minister Primó learned that Carlo had already negotiated the cooperation matters with the Lanfang Republic’s representative, he did not express any opposition.
After all, such cooperation was beneficial to Spain; the vast majority of terms in the entire cooperation agreement could help Spain better carry out colonialism in the Borneo region.
However, regarding the loyalty issue of this newly acquired little brother, the Lanfang Republic, neither Carlo nor Prime Minister Primó truly trusted it.
The difference was merely that the Dutch wanted to annihilate this country and fully annex the Lanfang Republic’s land, while Spain wanted to control the Lanfang Republic, and while confronting the Dutch, obtain help from a country with a population exceeding 4 million and relatively developed agriculture.
It had to be admitted that this land in Southeast Asia was naturally suitable for planting crops.
Due to being in the tropics, the rice planted here could achieve two or even three harvests a year, with grain yield several times higher than in temperate regions.
Don’t look down on the Lanfang Republic just because it had only 4 million population; the grain they produced was enough to feed 15 million people for more than a year.
This was quite exaggerated and made Lanfang Republic’s agriculture the pillar industry of the entire country, as well as the main source of economic income.
For Spain, the grain yield from the Lanfang Republic could well compensate for the grain shortage in the East India archipelago, that is, the Philippine Region.
By having Lanfang people provide sufficient grain, the Spaniards could focus their energy on higher-value crops, such as rubber or other industries.
Of course, for Carlo and Spain, the greatest role of the Lanfang Republic was not providing grain yield and confronting the Dutch, but existing as something like a vassal state, providing Spain with more army.
Yes, Carlo had no intention of abandoning the Lanfang Republic. In Carlo’s strategic plan for Spain’s future, the Lanfang Republic would serve as Spain’s permanent vassal state, helping Spain expand territory and build a golden age empire.
Don’t underestimate the Lanfang Republic just because it currently had only 4 million population; the Lanfang Republic backed by the world’s most populous country.
The current reason for only 4 million population was, besides the Dutch’s constant colonial suppression, that the populous country had not completely weakened.
As long as the Lanfang Republic built considerable fame, it would definitely attract more population, thereby breaking the Lanfang Republic’s population through 10 million.
A country with 10 million population would play a greater role for Spain, and the army it could form would reach hundreds of thousands or even millions.
Such an exaggerated army size, let alone a small Dutch East India Colony, could pose no small threat even to the India that the British yearned for.
Of course, Carlo wouldn’t be foolish enough to really compete with the British for India. Whether they could win or not aside, Spain’s volume was insufficient to suppress such a large country as India.
But having an army of hundreds of thousands or even millions would undoubtedly make the British pay more attention to Spain’s existence and allow Spain to conduct diplomatic activities more confidently.
After all, if it truly came to blows, even if the final victor was Britain, Britain would absolutely suffer heavy losses.
Moreover, even if the enemy wasn’t Britain, the Lanfang Republic could still play a role. After all, in this era, population was the most important; with sufficient population, whether colonial pioneering or waging war, it represented sufficient confidence.
But to achieve such a purpose, it was necessary to achieve dual economic and military control over the Lanfang Republic.
Achieving dual control was very difficult, after all, the Lanfang Republic wouldn’t sit idly by. Lanfang people weren’t fools; facing Spain’s intention to completely control the Lanfang Republic, they would definitely be more defensive, even developing hostile ideas.
But it wasn’t completely without methods, such as cultural infiltration and selecting some talents for cultivation from a young age.
Select some gifted Lanfang Republic children, cultivate them in Spain from childhood, and after they grow up and graduate from university, send them back.
Because these people grew up in Spain from childhood, they would involuntarily feel close to Spain. When these people entered the upper echelons of the Lanfang Republic, a pro-Spanish faction in the Lanfang Republic would gradually form and gain right to speak.
At that time, Spain only needed to support the pro-Spanish faction in the Lanfang Republic to influence or even control this country.
This was also a routine used by some countries in posterity. Spain didn’t even need to show up much; just relying on the pro-Spanish faction cultivated within the Lanfang Republic could grasp sufficient right to speak.
Additionally, by controlling the Lanfang Republic’s volume and ensuring its population stayed at the 10 million level, it could ensure the Lanfang Republic wouldn’t backlash against Spain.
It could even form checks and balances through local indigenous people, letting the Lanfang Republic and local indigenous people compete with each other, allowing Spain to rest easy.
After both sides signed the cooperation treaty, Wu Yongxiang stayed in Spain as a diplomatic ambassador.
Since the relevant cooperation treaty had already been signed, further cooperation with the Lanfang Republic was definitely next.
At least before Carlo’s purpose was achieved, Carlo was unwilling to see the Lanfang Republic annihilated by the Dutch.
The biggest current problem between Spain and the Lanfang Republic was communication. The Lanfang Republic was also relatively backward, naturally without any means of ocean-going communication.
The most urgent issue to solve now was communication between the Spanish Mainland and the Lanfang Republic. After some discussion, it was finally decided to build wired telegrams between the Lanfang Republic and the Spanish East India Colony for contact.
Contact between the Lanfang Republic and the Spanish Mainland basically relied on relay through the East India Colony.
This was unavoidable, after all, the technology of this era was like this, with no wireless calls or network technologies.
The reason telegrams could span oceans was thanks to the transoceanic cables laid by European countries across oceans.
Moreover, transoceanic cable technology was not mature, having only been around for a decade or so since its birth.
This led to long-distance telegram transmission taking a very long time, and sometimes due to sudden signal interruption or other issues, the received information was incomplete or erroneous.
But there was no way; it was already humanity’s most effective and fastest long-distance communication method currently.
Besides using transoceanic cables for telegrams, the only option was personally traveling across thousands of miles to spread messages.
Not long after, Spain’s first batch of weapons and equipment to support the Lanfang Republic had smoothly loaded onto ships and, under Wu Yongxiang’s gaze, slowly entered the Atlantic Ocean.
To express Spain’s sincerity in supporting the Lanfang Republic, this batch of weapons and equipment would be provided free of charge to the Lanfang Republic.
Carlo and the Spanish Government wouldn’t lose out doing this, after all, these were weapons and equipment eliminated from the original army—some backward muzzle-loading rifles and paper cartridge bullets, without even a single cannon.
It merely required some transportation expenses to ship this batch of weapons from Spain to Borneo; there were no other additional expenditures.
If the Lanfang Republic wanted to purchase weapons and equipment later, it would have to spend real gold and silver, or exchange with other valuable materials of equal value.
Whether backward muzzle-loading rifles or the Royal arsenal’s latest breech-loading rifles, they were all on the weapons export list.
After all, the Lanfang Republic had no ability to build ammunition production lines; even if they bought guns, they would have to rely on ammunition imported from Spain.
By selling weapons and equipment to better arm the Lanfang Republic, it could also divert the attention of the Dutch and British.
Arriving at the Lanfang Republic along with this batch of weapons was a military dispatch group of several dozen people.
The purpose of this dispatch group was to help the Lanfang Republic army train a powerful new army capable of confronting the Dutch.
On one hand, the Lanfang Republic army’s combat effectiveness was indeed poor; on the other hand, Spain indeed needed to conduct military infiltration into the Lanfang Republic.
It was also to observe the true performance of these weapons on the battlefield. Although only a batch of muzzle-loading rifles was currently shipped to the Lanfang Republic, who could guarantee the Lanfang Republic wouldn’t purchase advanced breech-loading rifles from Spain?
In the Lanfang Republic’s army, Spain’s military could also test some conceptions regarding army organization, helping the Spanish Army carry out better reforms.
True war was the only means to test the army; currently, Spain lacked war experience, so it could only gain some experience this way by closely observing the battlefield.
To save transportation expenditure, while shipping weapons and equipment to the Lanfang Republic, Spain would also simultaneously ship a batch to the East India Colony.
Spain’s colonial expansion in Borneo had not stopped, and war would inevitably occur. To guard against eventualities, it was certainly necessary to supply weapons and ammunition to the colonial army in East India.
There was also the East India Colony’s expansion plan. Besides Borneo, Carlo also planned to have the East India Colony expand toward New Guinea.
New Guinea was an island larger than Borneo, the world’s second largest island after Greenland.
Considering that Greenland was quite close to the North Pole with cold climate unsuitable for development, New Guinea was already the largest developable island by area.
More importantly, compared to Borneo, which had already been infiltrated by British and Dutch forces, large areas of land on New Guinea Island remained unstepped by great powers.
Spain had a full opportunity to occupy a piece of land on New Guinea Island to expand its colony. Whether setting up a new colonial region separately or merging it into the already unified East India Colony, both were good choices.
These places, whether planting economic products like rubber or reclaiming land to plant grain, could bring huge harvests for Spain.
Perhaps Spain alone was insufficient to develop these regions, but utilizing the Lanfang Republic for development could yield unexpected results.
In the future, the main development region for Spaniards would still be Africa, especially the South Morocco region. After all, the Morocco region was the truly localizable place; the probability of localization for the vast majority of other colonies was very small, and they would eventually detach from Spain’s control.
Yes, Carlo saw this very clearly.
The collapse of the colonial system was inevitable, unless the outbreak of the two world wars could be prevented. Fortunately, Spain had already lost the vast majority of its colonies; even when the day of colonial system collapse came, Spain’s losses wouldn’t be that great.
What Carlo had to do was, before the colonial system collapsed, to carve up Spain’s colonies. For those that could be localized, intensify development and achieve complete localization before that day arrived.
For those that couldn’t be localized, squeeze out their final value as much as possible to exchange for more interests for Spain.
Speaking of the South Morocco Colony, the construction since its establishment had been quite successful. The railway running north-south through the colony had been completed, which not only greatly facilitated material transportation within the colony but also strengthened Spain’s control over this land.
Morocco’s population was not large, even smaller than the small Lanfang Republic’s population. The Lanfang Republic’s population had just reached 4 million, while Morocco’s population had barely broken through 3 million.
The land occupied by Spain was not small; all land from the Agadir to Tata line south to the Sahara Desert belonged to the South Morocco Colony’s scope.
But the population of this land was only about one-tenth of Morocco’s total population, with the majority located in the largest city Agadir, which was also currently the capital of the South Morocco Colony.
This was bad news, but also good news.
The bad news was that the South Morocco Colony, with a population of less than 300,000, would be hard to develop into a highly prosperous region like Cuba in a short time.
Even in the long future, Spain’s investments in the South Morocco Colony would be loss-making. To make the South Morocco Colony continuously generate income for Spain like Cuba, it was impossible to see in the next ten years.
But there was also good news. Because the South Morocco Colony had sparse population, Spain could use it as an experimental site to explore the possibility of assimilating Moroccans.
As Africa’s most special region, Moroccans were white people, relatively similar to Spaniards. Besides the two most obvious differences of language and religion, if a Spaniard and a Moroccan wore the same attire standing together, it was really not easy to distinguish.
Morocco’s population was also not large, making assimilation relatively easy. Even if only a part could be assimilated, it could effectively increase Spain’s population, laying a good foundation for Spain’s future strength.
If Moroccans truly couldn’t be assimilated, Carlo could only choose a relatively tough method, thoroughly driving these Moroccans out of Morocco.
After all, to localize Morocco, it was necessary to ensure that the majority of residents living in Morocco were true Spaniards.
Only then could true localization be completed, making Morocco one of Spain’s regions, rather than existing as a colony.
Currently, Spain’s main pilot project was in Agadir of the South Morocco Colony. Through building Spanish language schools and vigorously spreading Catholicism, it aimed to include these Moroccans in Spain’s embrace as much as possible.
Secondly, educate these Moroccans from childhood, making them see themselves as Spaniards from young.
Through this two-pronged approach, assimilate Moroccans as much as possible. Before Spain fully occupied Morocco, there was still a long time to experiment with assimilating Moroccans.
When the moment of completely occupying Morocco arrived, this experiment would also have to yield a result. Whether Moroccans stay or go, and how to ultimately handle the Morocco region, would depend on the outcome of this assimilation experiment.
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