Chapter 283: The Effect of Sowing Discord

Clearly, the Spanish government had made quite sufficient preparations for this war. No matter how much the Asante chief struggled in his death throes, his tribe faced nothing but the fate of being annexed.

The reason is also simple: the technological gap between the two sides was simply too vast. The effects brought about by cold weapons versus firearms are completely different, not to mention that the Asante tribe's level of cold weapon manufacturing was uneven, lacking a mature ironware manufacturing industry.

Expecting tribesmen armed with wooden spears and stone axes to fend off the attacks of the Spanish colonial army is less realistic than expecting the poisonous insects and viruses in the African primeval forests to stop the Spaniards.

In the Asante chief's imagination, his tribesmen would take up arms to heroically resist the Spanish colonialists' offensive. But the reality on the battlefield was that the Asante natives fell into extreme panic amidst the gunfire and artillery of the Spanish army, with some even dropping their weapons and running home.

The army of sixty thousand that the Asante chief had painstakingly organized vanished in just a few hours, leaving only a little over ten thousand troops still willing to obey the chief's orders.

However, these ten thousand-plus people no longer posed any threat to the Spanish army. Amidst the Asante natives' gazes of terror or hatred, the Spanish army quickly breached the outermost perimeter of the tribe and marched in force toward the very center where the chief was located.

At this moment, the Asante chief finally realized that his tribe alone could no longer stop the Spanish offensive. To drive the Spaniards out of the Asante Federation, he needed the strong support of other tribes.

After ordering the remaining men to resist the Spanish army's advance as much as possible, the Asante chief took his few hundred remaining confidants along with some food and supplies and fled toward a large tribe in the vicinity.

As long as the remaining ten thousand could barely hold off the Spanish army's attack, and as long as they could stall them for even a little bit of time, he would have enough opportunity to reach the surrounding large tribes and use food, supplies, and future related power to win them over to help him.

Although his tribe was about to be occupied by the Spanish army, if other large tribes united, they could also organize an army of hundreds of thousands to resist the Spanish offensive.

The Asante Federation had dealt with the British colonial offensive in this way before. Although they had lost a large amount of territory to the British, they had at least managed to preserve themselves and avoid being completely swallowed by the British.

Just as the Asante chief was rushing toward other nearby indigenous tribes with his small group of confidants, the Spanish army had already advanced into the interior of the Asante tribe.

As the chief of the federation's largest tribe, the Asante chief's residence was significantly different from those of the other natives.

The materials for other natives' dwellings were basically wooden planks, thatch, mud, and wooden stakes, and the area of the dwellings was also very small; things like beds did not exist at all.

As chief, the Asante chief's house was built of stone and cement, and the perimeter of the house was surrounded by a circle of wooden stakes, serving as a fence.

Of course, the roof was still made of thatch. It was just that the chief's house was much larger in scale, and even the entrance was covered with a layer of straw mats made of thatch.

On both sides of the chief's residence, there was a slightly smaller building, which looked like the tribe's meeting room and the living quarters for the confidant soldiers.

Except for the chief's residence where one could see some walls made of cement and stone, no cement products could be seen in the entire Asante tribe.

This was also the reason why the Spanish army quickly broke into the tribe; walls plastered with mud could not stop the offensive of a regular army, unless the width of such mud walls reached several tens of meters.

But clearly, these natives did not have the technology to build high walls tens of meters wide. It was even more impossible for Europeans to leak reinforced concrete technology to them, and of course, whether they could learn it was another question.

It was precisely because of the Asante chief's residence standing out that the Spanish army discovered this quite unique building at the first opportunity.

The ten thousand-plus soldiers whom the Asante chief had ordered to remain inside the tribe to obstruct the Spanish army's advance also fled one after another when the Spanish army broke into the tribe.

They had no choice but to run. If they didn't run, the Spanish army would not show the slightest mercy. When witnessing with their own eyes their friends blooming with crimson blood flowers under the enemy's gun barrels, and some who were unfortunately hit by artillery shells not even leaving behind a larger body, these natives who originally obeyed the chief's orders finally gave up their faith quickly.

There was no help for it; their lives were important. There were also some who disregarded their own safety to follow the chief's orders, but these people were eliminated the moment the Spanish army arrived, without any chance of resistance.

With these people gone to obstruct the Spanish army's advance, the Asante chief's residence was also quickly occupied by the Spanish army.

However, this was only the first step. Regarding the Asante Federation, composed of the Asante tribe and other tribes, Spain had only one attitude: to drive them to the primeval forests further north, and to directly eliminate those who were unwilling to leave.

Of course, a portion of the indigenous population would be left behind to serve as free labor. This portion of the population did not include the women among the local natives, which was also to avoid these African natives from multiplying in the land under Spanish control.

The reproductive power of Black people is astonishing; if the growth of the Black population could be avoided, then naturally, every possible means must be taken to achieve it.

After the central area where the chief's residence was located was occupied by the Spanish army, the Asante tribe basically gave up resistance.

The Spanish army thus controlled the situation of the entire Asante tribe and implemented Spanish-style militarized management over the tribe.

To prevent these Asante natives from finding opportunities for rebellion, the elderly and children among them would be executed, and male and female natives would be managed separately.

A portion of the male natives would be transported to other Spanish colonies; dispersing them was not only conducive to management but could also help other colonies with land development.

The remaining male natives would stay on the Huang Jinhaian to become glorious miners serving Spain. Their fate was already sealed: either work themselves to death in the gold mines or die of illness in the gold mines; there were no other possibilities.

The remaining female natives would also be divided into two parts. A portion with relatively poor conditions would be left on the Huang Jinhaian as a reward for those native laborers, giving them more sufficient motivation to mine gold for Spain.

The remaining female natives would be sold to other African Black people, including those who had already immigrated to the Americas.

These Black people who immigrated to the Americas had no human rights, but they also had the needs and desires to reproduce offspring. However, because the demand for male labor was greater than that for female labor during the initial population trade, this resulted in the number of men among the Black people in the Americas being higher than that of women.

The imbalance in the male-to-female ratio also meant that a considerable portion of male Black people in the Americas could not find women.

White women were noble existences they could not reach. Under such circumstances, dealing with these Black women through indirect sales could not only exert their maximum value but also solve the trouble of excessive Black population for Spain.

While the Spanish army had officially implemented militarized management and had divided the Asante tribe's population into the elderly and children, adult males, and adult females, the Asante chief had finally arrived at a large tribe in the vicinity.

When this tribal chief learned from the Asante chief that the Spanish army had already broken into the interior of the Asante tribe, this tribal chief showed great panic.

He was not panicked by the speed at which the Asante tribe fell, but worried that the Asante chief running to his tribe for refuge would implicate his own tribe.

After all, before launching the war, Spain had already declared that this war would only target the Asante tribe and would not implicate other tribes within the federation.

In the Asante chief's terrified gaze, the chief of this large tribe made a decision that directly destroyed the entire federation: to escort the Asante chief to the Spanish army to avoid his own tribe being implicated.

When the Asante chief returned to his tribe in such a ridiculous way, the Spanish army had also roughly completed the population classification of the Asante tribe.

The commander in charge of the team saw the Asante chief being escorted back by another tribal chief, and a rare, meaningful smile appeared on his face.

He had not expected the colonial government's plan of sowing discord to be so effective; when the Asante tribe faced the crisis of extinction, none of the other tribes had any intention of fighting the Spaniards to the death.

This also facilitated the Spanish army's actions. Opposing the entire federation, even if they could eliminate these natives, would certainly cost a greater price.

At least an army of ten thousand was definitely not enough; after all, the Asante Federation was a country with a population of millions, and an army of over one hundred thousand could be gathered easily.

It was not that the Spanish army could not defeat an indigenous army of over one hundred thousand. The problem was that even ten thousand pigs would be quite troublesome to manage.

Let alone one hundred thousand natives; they were even more troublesome to manage, and one had to worry about whether these natives would take advantage of the chaos to attack the Spanish army, thereby creating even greater confusion.

Under the current situation of sowing discord, the Spanish army could easily defeat them one by one. As long as the largest tribe in the federation was eliminated, even if the other tribes united, it would be like a mantis trying to stop a chariot to Spain.

The Spanish commander praised the large tribe's chief for his decision to escort the Asante chief back and rewarded this native chief with some food on the spot.

This made the native chief beam with joy, and he became even more certain that his choice was correct, believing that his tribe would not be affected by this war.

Under the Spanish army's send-off, the chief of the large tribe returned to his tribe happily with a lot of food.

The news that he had been rewarded by the Spanish army also immediately spread to the entire federation, making those large tribes firm in their ideas; they decided that no matter what happened, they would not help the Asante tribe, and ensuring the safety of their own tribes was the most important thing.

As for the future development of the federation, that had nothing to do with the Asante tribe.

At worst, these remaining large tribes could continue to unite to resist the Spanish colonial rule, while moving a further distance into the African interior.

Anyway, under the original ruling environment of the federation, their tribes had not occupied very good land. The truly good land was occupied by the largest tribe, the Asante tribe. Since they could not occupy the best land whether the Asante tribe existed or not, why should they let the Asante tribe, the largest tribe that rode on the heads of all their tribes, continue to exist?

In the following few days, Spain completely occupied the land controlled by the Asante tribe and carried out a perfect sorting of the entire tribe's population of over 1 million.

The number of elderly and children secretly executed reached over 200, 00, which was just about all the elderly and children of the entire Asante tribe.

After all, the medical environment of African indigenous tribes was even worse, and the average life expectancy was shorter than in Europe. Under such circumstances, it was difficult for anyone in the tribe to live to old age.

Even if someone could live to old age, the tribe would not support an old man who could not provide labor value. Among those 200, 00 elderly and children, the number of children was actually the largest.

After all, the value of children was far greater than that of the elderly. The continuation of the tribe also relied on these children, which was also the reason why the Asante tribe had a large number of children.

When secretly executing these indigenous populations, it inevitably caused some resistance from the natives.

Fortunately, without the participation of other tribes, the resistance of a small number of Asante tribe natives could be easily suppressed.

These natives' resistance did not cause much trouble for the Spanish army. Except for wasting a few more bullets, there was no cost.

As for the Asante tribe, in just a few days, the tribe's population plummeted from over 1 million to less than 1 million.

The war just a few days ago when the Spanish army occupied the tribe caused the entire Asante tribe to suffer casualties of nearly one hundred thousand.

If it weren't for these natives panicking and choosing to surrender quickly in the face of Spain's steel guns and artillery, the death toll of the natives would probably have been even higher.

And the casualties on the Spanish army side were minimal, most of which were caused by accidental incidents, such as spraining their own feet, being bitten by snakes or other poisonous creatures, etc.

After dealing with the elderly and children in the tribe, the next time should be used to deal with the remaining adult male and female natives.

According to the plan, the Spanish army drove most of the male natives to the port of the Huang Jinhaian colony. They would be loaded onto ships at the port and then transported to other Spanish colonies.

It was not that Spain's other colonies did not have natives. It was mainly because other colonies did not have plans to use troops against natives on a large scale for the time being, and the natives within the colonial range had already been ravaged by the British, and their numbers were insufficient to support the development of the colonies.

These native laborers did all the hard labor, and it was hard labor with a high casualty rate. Things like mining were not easy, and the probability of mine collapses was not low.

This kind of work with a relatively high casualty rate was done by natives, which also led to the fact that if the native population in each colony was not controlled, it would plummet by a large portion in a short period of time.

And what Spain took over from the British were all small colonies; unless they launched large-scale wars against the natives to obtain labor, they were still very short of population.

A good opportunity like the Huang Jinhaian launching a war against the Asante Federation must certainly be used to distribute some labor to other colonies to ensure that all colonies had enough labor to develop land and mineral resources.

There is another update of 6000 words waiting until after twelve o'clock; the reason is still the same as yesterday's.

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(End of chapter)