Chapter 1532: It's Not Even Just Thirty Thousand!

"Three hundred men. That should be a colonist group, right?"

Hearing De Pierre's report, the Marquis de Marignan did not doubt that the Apache mathematician Soaring Eagle had miscounted. According to the intelligence he possessed, a colonist group of the United States of New Continent was composed of roughly 300 to 600 people.

Any more than that, and feeding them would become a problem!

Although the land in North America is fairly fertile, farming is an uncertain business. Whether God grants bread depends on whether God chooses to grant it. The land of the North American Great Plains is fertile and the climate is moist, but winters can sometimes turn bitterly cold, and summers bring hurricanes. If a winter cold snap arrives a little early, or a summer hurricane blows a little too fiercely, a colony could end up with a total crop failure!

Under such circumstances, newly arrived immigrants, lacking sufficient reserves, could very well starve to death en masse!

In earlier years, when the colonies on the East Coast first opened, quite a few colonies met the fate of being wiped out entirely by extreme cold snaps and hurricanes. The West Coast where the Chinese landed, by contrast, has a better climate — winters are warm, summers are cool, there are no hurricanes and no cold snaps, and the terrain is not open enough to support many bison, so there are not many Indians there either. Moreover, the Indians there have had little contact with Westerners, so they are extremely backward and simply cannot defeat Chinese colonists armed with flintlock muskets and dragging cannons!

It must be said that God has indeed looked after these Chinese who "discovered Him."

But however much He looks after them, He would not go so far as to open a back door for them and spare them from the cold snaps of the Great Plains, would He?

So they should not dare to send out an overly large colonist group. If the colonist group is not large, then when the harvest fails completely, they can still obtain food by hunting bison. If there are too many people, there would not be enough bison to feed them.

Moreover, according to intelligence, the Chinese colonial forts in the Rocky Mountains each have only a few hundred residents. With so few people, they could not supply a large eastward-bound migration group.

Therefore, the Marquis de Marignan believed that the eastward-bound Chinese colonist group would not be overly large — even if it exceeded 300 people, it absolutely would not exceed 3,000.

"We will send out 3,000 men! Of these, 1,000 will be French, the remaining 1,000 Apache, and 1,000 Great Sioux. Do you know how much 1,000 is? Ten 100s!"

At the emergency military council, the Marquis de Marignan announced the scale of the expedition to Mad Bull, chief of the Plains Apache tribe, and Steel, chief of the Great Sioux Lakota tribe.

He planned to use 3,000 men to annihilate the United States' 300-man colonist group, which should be absolutely foolproof.

Before his words had even been translated into Apache and Lakota, the young Lakota chief Steel began speaking in fairly fluent French.

"Of course I know how much 1,000 is!" This young and robust Indian, with very regular features and bright, piercing eyes, told the Marquis de Marignan in French, "I can count, and I can also do addition and subtraction, and even multiplication!"

He can even do multiplication — what a learned man! The Marquis de Marignan nodded admiringly. This Great Sioux nation is about to rise! To have such a formidable chief, who not only speaks French but can also do addition, subtraction, and multiplication. By the way, can he do division? If he can, that would be even more impressive!

After De Pierre translated the Marquis's words into Apache, he said to the Marquis de Marignan: "My Lord Marquis, the Sioux are more civilized and more powerful than the Apache, because they have learned more things from us. In Chief Steel's tribe, there is even an immigrant from France who married a Sioux maiden and joined them. Chief Steel learned French and some simple mathematics from this French immigrant."

Because the French could not muster enough immigrants, and also could not turn the hunting Sioux into serfs (conquering agrarian peoples is relatively easy, while nomadic and hunting peoples are very difficult to conquer), their relations with the Sioux were fairly harmonious. They exported quite a bit of technology to the latter, and some French vagabonds who could not find wives married Sioux women and joined the Sioux tribes.

The Marquis de Marignan smiled and nodded, then said to Chief Steel: "Chief, after we defeat our common enemy, I would like to invite you to visit New Rome. It is a true city that has inherited European civilization, and it will stand in the New World for a thousand years!"

Steel also nodded. "I accept the invitation, because I too would very much like to see what New Rome looks like!"

It seems this is a Sioux who opens his eyes to see Rome.

But the first thing he would see would not be Rome, but the nomadic United States men! At least 150,000 United States men!

150,000 is more than 300, after all!

However, the mathematics of that Plains Apache Soaring Eagle warrior was actually not that bad. Although he did not know what numbers beyond 300 were, he could still find ways to express it — for example: as many as the bison on the Great Plains!

And the reason he said 300 was that what he had encountered at the time was a patrol sent out by the United States' Prince Huai's Chiliarch, numbering only a hundred and several dozen men. But because each man had two horses, they looked more numerous, and so the Soaring Eagle warrior counted them as 300.

At the time, the two sides had merely caught sight of each other and had not exchanged fire, and both had turned back to report.

And this time, the "Franco-Sioux allied army," numbering as many as 3,000 (there really were 3,000; the Marquis de Marignan counted them one by one), after leaving Fort Saint Louis, marched westward along the Missouri River for five days. Then the Great Sioux and Apache warriors scouting ahead came galloping back to report.

"My Lord Marquis, they are coming! They are still a day's march from us, advancing along the great river (the Missouri River)!" The Sioux Chief Steel, in rapid, urgent French, relayed all of his scouts' findings to the Marquis de Marignan.

"We attack at once!"

On the morning of April 15, just after finishing breakfast and preparing to set out, the Marquis de Marignan made an immediate decision. He looked at Steel and Mad Horse and said, "I hope you can capture as many of the enemy alive as possible. I will pay one musket for every Chinese taken alive, in exchange for them — but they must be alive!"

His desire to take them alive was of course not because he believed in God and was unwilling to slaughter the innocent, but because he needed Chinese immigrants to exchange for captured French, Dutch, and New Spanish sailors. The problem now was that 300 people was a bit few — not enough to exchange for that many captives!

So when leaving camp, the Marquis de Marignan silently prayed to God, hoping that the enemy they encountered would be a little more numerous, and a little more still.

The 3,000 men were quickly assembled. The Marquis de Marignan ordered the Apache to march ahead and open the way, while he himself led the French troops, and Chief Steel led the Great Sioux, advancing together about three or four French leagues behind the Apache.

They marched westward along the river winding through the great plains for about five hours. Just as the Marquis de Marignan began to feel hungry and wanted to stop and take a meal, Chief Steel, riding stirrup to stirrup with him, suddenly reined in his horse, his brow knitting slightly.

"What is it?" The Marquis de Marignan noticed the young Indian chief had stopped advancing, so he turned and asked.

"There seems to be a herd of bison ahead of us, a great many of them, moving in our direction!"

"What?" The Marquis de Marignan was startled. He was just about to ask Chief Steel what he intended when — crack! — a gunshot shattered the stillness of the grasslands on both banks of the great river.

Marignan hastily reined in his horse, then listened intently. Gradually he heard thunderous hoofbeats, and then the sound of flintlocks firing, one report after another in rapid succession. The Marquis de Marignan's face changed at once. From the sound alone he could tell that the Apache scouting ahead had encountered the eastward-bound United States colonists. But the problem was that this thunderous hoofbeats, this dense, unbroken gunfire — no matter how one listened, it did not sound like 300 men! Far from sounding like 300, it seemed to be not even less than 30,000!

How many Chinese have come, after all? What exactly do they intend to do?

(End of Chapter)