Chapter 269: West Africa Development Plan

Although the colony exchange between Spain and Britain was theoretically confidential, the transfer of colonial governments and local garrisons could not be hidden from everyone, at least not from those European countries that paid attention to this matter.

Following the formal start of the colony exchange action between Spain and Britain, European countries also had certain guesses about the secret treaty reached by the two countries.

Among them, the one who was most crazy was perhaps the United States, which had been eyeing Cuba for a long time. If Spain was still an opponent that the United States could barely defeat, then the British Empire was a high mountain that the United States could never reach.

No matter how exaggerated the United States' industrial and economic development was, in the eyes of the British, the United States was just a nouveau riche that could be pinched at will.

The Banamayunhe had not yet been built, and the exchange between the east and west coasts of the United States was quite difficult.

Don't look at the distance between the east and west coasts of the United States being only 4,000-plus kilometers; the ships on the east coast wanting to go to the west coast must bypass the entire South America.

Even if they traveled along the coast of South America, this was at least a journey of more than 20,000 kilometers. Traveling from the US east coast across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Mediterranean, crossing the entire Indian Ocean, and then going to the US west coast from the North Pacific was only a journey of more than 30,000 kilometers; this was enough to reflect the difficulty of exchange between the US east and west coasts, which was also a big reason that troubled the United States' development.

After Britain controlled the Cuba colony, it was not so easy for the United States to go south to South America; in such a situation, the United States wanted to dig the Banamayunhe, and even if the canal could be dug, the sovereignty of the Banamayunhe would certainly not be in the hands of the Americans.

More importantly, the United States was about to face the north-south pincer attack of Britain. The north of the United States was Britain's Canada autonomous dominion, and the south was separated from Britain's Cuba colony and the Bahamas by the sea.

Besides Mexico, there was no direction for expansion on land. Expansion on the ocean was even more impossible; Britain relied on the Bahamas, the Cuba colony, and Jamaica to form a solid defense line, directly blocking the United States in the Gulf of Mexico.

After losing the Cuba colony, Spain's influence in the Americas would be greatly reduced. However, Spain also retained Puerto Rico, which was Spain's last colony in the Americas and also the only proof of the existence of the Spanish colonial empire.

Compared to the Cuba colony which possessed economic value, Puerto Rico was only like a military base for Spain.

Spain stationed a colonial garrison regiment in the Puerto Rico colony; here would also become a transit station for trade between Spain and various countries in the Americas.

Although Spain gave up the Cuba colony, this did not mean that Spain would give up the connection with various countries in South America.

South America existed with a large number of Spanish-descended immigrants; relying on the relationship of the same root and origin, Spain could still establish good diplomatic relations with these South American countries.

To put it bluntly, South American countries were just small countries; the most powerful Brazil, Argentina, and Chile were just small countries that were a bit powerful if placed in Europe.

Wanting to protect their own independence and stability under the situation of the law of the jungle, they must rely on the protection of more powerful power countries.

Argentina possessed vast black land, and Brazil possessed rich coal and iron mine resources; these were all what Spain needed.

Compared to the distant iron mines of Australia, Brazil's iron mines were closer to Spain and were also the mineral production areas that Spain had the most hope of importing in large quantities besides Africa.

Brazil was once a colony of the Portuguese; Portuguese immigrants were also a population that Spain could introduce.

If Spain could annex Portugal in the future, the unified Iberian Peninsula would become the European power with the most influence in the Americas.

If they could cultivate various South American countries into Spain's consumer market and economic partners, Spain's industry and economy could also develop rapidly because of this.

In the first month after the colony exchange agreement between Spain and Britain was signed, the British Gambia colony government formally withdrew, and the Spanish army also formally entered the Gambia colony later that day, and announced military management of the Gambia colony; military management would continue until the Gambia colony was formally established.

About a week later, the Sierra Leone colony was also formally handed over. The handover of the Huang Jinhaian colony took a longer time, but it was also completed within two months of the signing of the treaty.

With the six colonial garrison regiments of Spain entering the three colonies respectively, Spain's colonization of West Africa formally started.

Compared to the Cuba colony that had already made preparations for giving up, the Spanish government was obviously more serious about the colonization of the three colonies in West Africa.

Especially the British Gambia colony; although it was located in Africa, it was an excellent agricultural production area. If managed well, this might not be Spain's important food production area, making up for the shortcoming of Spain's lack of plains itself.

The Sierra Leone colony and the Huang Jinhaian, although not as excellent as the Gambia colony, were also colonies with huge development value.

Since Spain occupied these three colonies, it did not intend to give them up. Even if developing these three colonies had to face competition with the French, Spain would absolutely not retreat.

Regarding Spain's existing colonial situation, the transportation department put forward the Central-West Africa Railway Plan.

The so-called Central-West Africa Railway Plan started from the South Morocco colony in the north, went south along the coast to connect Spain's three West African colonies, then entered the Central African region from the Guinea colony to the east, and the terminal was Spain's Congo territory.

This railway plan was quite exaggerated; wherever the railway reached, Spain could incorporate these lands into its own colonial control.

But the problem was, the Central-West Africa Railway would pass through the colonies of France and Portugal; even if the Portuguese were willing, the French would probably not be willing.

If the Spanish government could achieve its own railway plan, France's dream of colonizing West Africa would be shattered. Spain's railway would block the journey of France's West African colonies expanding to the north, and the land France occupied in North Africa and the colonies in West Africa would not be able to connect.

This was similar to the conflict between Portugal's Pink Map plan and Britain's Cairo-Cape Town connection; there must be a country that retreats, otherwise, it would face serious disputes or even war.

In order to avoid conflict with France, after the transportation department put forward the Central-West Africa Railway Plan, Gao Da directly rejected the request of the transportation department and made certain modifications to the Central-West Africa Railway Plan.

Although the name was still called the Central-West Africa Railway Plan, the railway mainly connected the Huang Jinhaian and the Guinea colony and the Congo territory, and the other section connected the Gambia colony and the Sierra Leone colony; the two railways were not connected in the middle, the reason was that there was a piece of French colony in the middle.

And the South Morocco colony and the Gambia colony would also not be connected; the reason was also that there was a French colony in between.

Although Spain and France would inevitably break out conflicts regarding West African colonization, for Spain, the later the conflict broke out, the more advantageous Spain would be.

The current France was still the world's third power only after Britain and Germany; there was still a relatively large gap between Spain and France.

As the saying goes, a thin camel is bigger than a horse; even if France had already lagged behind Britain and Germany in industrial development and the Second Industrial Revolution, France was once the hegemon of Europe, and the hegemon's afterglow could also easily strangle countries that were not at the hegemon level.

The good news was that among the three colonies in West Africa, only the Sierra Leone colony and the Huang Jinhaian had a French colony in between, and between the Gambia colony and the Sierra Leone colony was Portugal's colony.

The Huang Jinhaian colony would expand to the east, striving to connect with Spain's Guinea colony. And the Gambia colony and the Sierra Leone colony would expand to the south and north respectively, striving to connect to become a larger colony.

As for the Portuguese colony in the middle that was not mentioned before, Gao Da planned to get it into his hands through purchase and exchange.

In the south of the Congo territory, there was a large area of land that had not been colonized and developed. This piece of land could be given to the Portuguese.

Of course, Gao Da was willing to take out this piece of land also for a reason, which was considering the Pink Map plan that the Portuguese were about to put forward.

If Spain took all the land in the south of the Congo territory into its hands, the Portuguese Pink Map plan would die halfway.

Without the Pink Map plan, the relationship between Portugal and Britain would not be destroyed. Compared to the land in the south of the Congo territory, Gao Da hoped more to destroy the relationship between Portugal and Britain, creating more possibilities for Spain to annex Portugal.

If Gao Da remembered correctly, one of the important reasons why the Portuguese monarchy was abolished was precisely that Portugal's Pink Map plan was directly contained by Britain.

The angry Portuguese public was very disappointed with the weak government and King, which also became the fuse for the public revolution to ultimately overthrow the kingdom.

Colonization was the trend of this era; whether it was power countries or small and medium-sized countries, the public was willing to see their own country's government constantly open up colonies.

Portugal was like this, and the Netherlands was also like this.

Only when the situation within Portugal fell into chaos did Spain have the possibility of fishing in troubled waters. If Portugal's situation remained stable, Spain wanting to annex Portugal would also have to spend no small effort.

Regarding the construction of West African colonies, the Spanish government was quite serious. This was not just talk; the government even specially put forward a proposal for the West Africa Colony Development Plan and planned to invest at least 1 billion Biseta to develop West African colonies.

The investment of 1 billion Biseta looked quite exaggerated, but this West Africa Colony Development Plan took 10 years, equivalent to investing 100 million Biseta of funds every year.

Currently, the Spanish government's fiscal revenue had approached 1 billion Biseta, which actually also meant that the Spanish government only needed to invest one-tenth of its fiscal revenue every year to successfully complete this colony development plan.

Besides the Central-West Africa Railway construction mentioned before, the Spanish government would fully build the Gambia agricultural production area, letting Gambia become Spain's important food production area.

If the development of the Gambia colony was relatively smooth, the Sierra Leone colony would be merged into the Gambia colony in the next few years, so the construction of the Sierra Leone colony would not move much, and it would be more about maintaining the status quo.

Regarding the colonial development of the Huang Jinhaian, it mainly focused on the exploration and mining of gold mines. The importance of gold naturally did not need to be mentioned; for most of the situation of the Huang Jinhaian, it ultimately still had to be mastered in Spain's own hands.

The Huang Jinhaian was not far from Spain itself; the gold mines mined here would be smelted on the spot and turned into gold transported to Spain itself.

In order to ensure the safety of the Huang Jinhaian, and also to help the Huang Jinhaian colonial government control the local gold, Spain would establish an African fleet in the Huang Jinhaian to protect the coast safety of the Huang Jinhaian and several surrounding colonies.

The Ashanti Empire in the north of the Huang Jinhaian was also on Spain's list of conquest; Gao Da would not allow an enemy indigenous country to exist in the north of his gold production area.

After annexing the Ashanti Empire, the scope of the Huang Jinhaian would expand by more than double. Spain also had hope of discovering more gold in the newly annexed land; the more gold reserves, the more currency Spain could issue, which was quite important for the stability of Spain's economy.

It is worth mentioning that a few dozen kilometers east of the Huang Jinhaian, Portugal also had a small colony, Ouidah.

Calling it a colony, it was more like a large colonial stronghold. Large gold mines were once discovered here, attracting a considerable number of Portuguese gold seekers.

It was precisely these gold seekers who entered the colonial stronghold one after another that let Spain establish this small colony.

Because this colony was on the channel connecting the Huang Jinhaian and the Guinea colony, Spain would not give up its claim to this piece of colony.

Portugal could choose to conduct colony exchange with Spain, or wait for the arrival of the Spanish army.

I believe the Portuguese were still very sensible; after all, until now, Gao Da did not hope that war would break out between Spain and Portugal.

This would not only destroy the good relationship that had been hard-won between the Spanish and the Portuguese but also affect Spain's annexation plan for Portugal.

Wanting to properly develop the three colonies in West Africa, at least one million immigrants were needed. The good news was that because of Britain's colonial development, the population of these three colonies was not small.

Spain only needed to immigrate about 500,000 people to ensure the smooth progress of the West Africa colony development plan.

Although 500,000 people were not much for Spain, Gao Da did not plan to get these immigrants from Spain itself.

Besides attracting some Spanish-descended and Portuguese-descended immigrants in the South American region, Gao Da also planned to introduce a batch of immigrants from various European countries at a great cost.

Of course, using the Lanfang Republic to attract a part of Chinese immigrants was also in Gao Da's plan. Anyway, as long as they were not black people, yellow people were within Gao Da's acceptable range; after all, South America had a large number of mixed-race people of yellow people and white people, and Spain wanting to introduce a large number of Spanish-descended and Portuguese-descended immigrants from South America also had to accept these mixed-race people of yellow people and white people.

Regarding the West Africa colony development plan, Gao Da put forward the plan of replacing black people with yellow people, and replacing yellow people with white people.

The early development of the colony needed the participation of black people; after the preliminary development of the colony was successfully completed, Spain would start the plan of eliminating black people.

Whether it was manually eliminating or expelling these people, in short, in Spain's colonies, black people were not allowed to exist.

Gao Da did not hope that the Spain of the future would become the France of later generations; although Gao Da was not racially discriminatory, Gao Da's hatred of black people was also real.

The process of Spain's colonies expelling black people was destined to be quite long, and it would also break out no small contradictions or even wars with black indigenous people and indigenous forces outside the colony.

However, this was not bad news. Only war could exercise the growth of the army, and the Spanish army also needed the tempering of war.

Letting the Spanish army practice with these indigenous people to maintain high combat effectiveness to deal with large-scale wars on the European battlefield in the future was also Gao Da's plan.

Whether such a plan could improve the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army, first let the Spanish army see blood, which could also avoid the shaking of the army's heart caused by seeing the cruel war scene on the battlefield.

As for the impact of such a plan on the indigenous people, who would care?

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 270 =====