Chapter 1518: Count, the Eighth-Class Japanese Are Coming!

The Sonora Desert, lying on the border between the Kingdom of New Spain and the Kingdom of Jiaqing, is a most unusual desert — it is not sandy at all, and its rainfall even exceeds that of many prosperous regions in the Shaan-Gan area of the Great Ming. Rainfall is even heavier in summer and winter, so much so that floods frequently occur!

Before the Westerners arrived here, a group of Indians called the Hohokam people lived here. They built cities in the desert, developed agriculture, and constructed irrigation canals, until a great flood came and forced them to abandon their homeland.

After the Spanish arrived, because of plague and slaughter, the Indian population within New Spain declined drastically, leaving only a few million. Thus the Sonora Desert, a desert prone to frequent flooding, naturally became a desolate, uninhabited land.

However, the Battle of Flood Valley more than ten years ago made the Sonora Desert lively once again. Because this desert, which is not sandy at all, became the border region between the Kingdom of New Spain and the Kingdom of Jiaqing after the Battle of Flood Valley — it is both a trading port between the two countries and a key border-defense town of the Kingdom of New Spain.

After Don Juan José became regent of the Kingdom of New Mexico, he immediately established the Province of Sonora, and appointed Salvador de Iturbide, a noble officer who had followed him from Europe, as Governor of Sonora. He also enclosed a large tract of land along the Sonora River and granted it to Iturbide. Furthermore, in the name of the King of New Spain, he ennobled Iturbide as a count, and also permitted Count Iturbide to ennoble a group of mestizos (offspring born of unions between Spaniards and Indians) as knights on his own authority.

In the end, Count Iturbide brought his knights and settled in the desolate Province of Sonora, and led them to conquer all the Indian tribes within the province, turning the local Indians into his own serfs — this is what is called "Xia rulers over Yi subjects." Oh, to be precise, it should be "Spanish rulers over Indian subjects" — the standard feudal colonial model!

Of course, this kind of feudal colonization cannot be carried out everywhere. In Zhu Hehao's United States, there is no such possibility.

First, one must have an independent or semi-independent feudal state. Without the Kingdom of New Spain and the powerful regent Don Juan José, there would be no way to enfeoff many white (creole) counts, viscounts, and barons in New Spain, let alone the mestizo knights below them. It would not work to have the King of Spain enfeoff them in the homeland — those dim-witted kings cannot even keep track of all the great nobles in the homeland, so how could they figure out the nobility of New Spain? Now that Don Juan José is stationed in Mexico City, at least he can enfeoff a group of nobles great and small who look the part, right?

Second, one must conquer one or several farming peoples! Serfs, after all, must know how to farm! If they cannot farm, how can they be serfs? So nomadic, fishing, and hunting peoples are very hard to deal with. Not to mention that they are hard to fight and hard to capture — once captured, you still have to teach them to farm, and the languages are mutually unintelligible, and they may not be willing to learn. Just thinking about it gives one a headache.

So the tycoon king's United States of the New Continent does not practice "Xia rulers over Yi subjects," but instead directly brings immigrants from the Celestial Court circle. The United Kingdom of New England on the East Coast also does not practice "Xia rulers over Yi subjects," and likewise develops by relying on immigrants from Europe (mainly the Republic of England).

But the Kingdom of New Spain has excellent conditions, with many corn-farming Indian peasants. Peasants are easier to conquer than herders and hunters — their combat strength is weak, and they do not roam about. The Americas are so vast; if they roamed everywhere, how could you conquer them?

It is precisely because of the de facto independent Kingdom of New Spain and the millions of corn-farming Indians that Don Juan José was able, over more than ten years, to transform the colony of New Spain into a feudal kingdom of "European rulers over Indian subjects."

Although the transformed country has grown increasingly distant from the Spanish motherland across the ocean, Mexico City's control over the core regions of the kingdom has been greatly enhanced, and the nation's financial and military strength has also greatly increased — so much so that it could build a border long wall in a place like the Sonora Desert!

That is right — a border wall separating New Spain from the Kingdom of Jiaqing, extending eastward from the Gulf of California all the way to the mountains east of the Sonora Desert, with a total length of nearly six hundred li.

This border wall is built of timber and sandbags, with a "sand-and-wood structure" watchtower erected every five li. There are also beacon towers linking it to Sonora Fort, the capital of the Province of Sonora.

Of course, this six-hundred-li border wall is not meant to block invading armies from the United States and the Kingdom of Jiaqing — in the view of Don Juan José and Count Iturbide, the Sonora Desert and the desolate lands south of it are enough to stop any army attempting invasion.

More than two thousand li of desolate territory! Although there are some estates along the way, these estates are feudal manors centered on castles, and are very difficult to attack.

Therefore, an invading army would find it very hard to obtain supplies along the way, and would have to march carrying at least a month's worth of rations!

To abandon the fast and comfortable sea route and insist on crossing the Sonora Desert — what is that if not brain-damaged?

So the main function of the border wall built under Count Iturbide's direction is to prevent illegal crossings — they cannot allow the Japanese over in California to sneak into New Spain to become "eighth-class Japanese."

Oh, that is of course a joke, but there really are quite a few Japanese crossing the border into the Province of Sonora in New Spain!

But these people did not run into the territory of the Kingdom of New Spain to become "eighth-class Japanese" because they believed in God — they are wicked smugglers and bandits!

Because Don Juan José adopted policies of cracking down on smuggling and raising tariffs after taking office, smuggling by sea decreased greatly. The previously neglected Sonora Desert gradually became a new smuggling hotspot — goods carried by Pacific sailing ships would first be delivered to "Qingzhou Port" (San Diego) controlled by the Kingdom of Jiaqing, and then smuggling groups composed of Japanese merchants and warriors of the Kingdom of Jiaqing would transport them through the Sonora Desert to Guaymas, a port city within the Province of Sonora.

These Japanese smuggling groups are all armed smuggling groups with strong combat capability, and they often beat Count Iturbide's border militia so badly that they threw away their armor and fled.

Fortunately, the warriors of the Kingdom of Jiaqing had no interest in conquering the Sonora Desert, otherwise Count Iturbide would have lost his territory long ago.

Still, the silk, lacquerware, porcelain, tea, and other goods smuggled through the Sonora Desert every year infuriated Don Juan José greatly.

Under his urging, Count Iturbide had no choice but to mobilize the militia and serfs within his territory to build a border wall six hundred li long.

After the border wall was completed, smuggling did decrease. The Japanese smugglers of the Kingdom of Jiaqing also changed professions — no longer smuggling, but robbing instead. Large bands of Qingzhou warriors would break through the border wall and swarm in!

And the targets of their robbery were, of course, not the cacti in the desert, but the serfs on the noble estates within the Province of Sonora. Sometimes they would also carry off white or mixed-race noblewomen!

And the people they carried off would soon appear on the slave market at Qingzhou Port. Whether it is the United States of the New Continent or the Kingdom of Jiaqing, both need serfs. And white or mixed-race girls are even easier to sell!

Because the business of kidnapping people was so profitable, more and more Japanese bandits joined in, and the losses of the Province of Sonora grew larger and larger.

To resist these hateful bandits, Count Iturbide has truly worked to the point of exhaustion these past few years — almost never taking off his armor or leaving his saddle. Whenever the beacon fires rose, he would personally lead cavalry to the border wall to fight the "eighth-class Japanese" breaking through.

So when the beacon fires rose again on January 20, 1674, this aging veteran count did not realize at all that today's beacon fire was different from before (it looked exactly the same!). The count, utterly unaware of the danger, immediately assembled three hundred cavalry and flew out of Sonora Castle, heading north toward the border wall.

(End of Chapter)