The Rise of the European Emperor

Occupation or control, it seems that beginning in the 19th century, control prevailed. When the great powers carved up Africa in the 19th century, including the Qing Empire, they all adopted more cost-effective control methods.

However, this also has prerequisites. The premise is that the colonists are only for profit, not land...

If you just want to gain benefits from the colony, then it is the most trouble-free and cost-effective way to find an agent. Even in the 21st century, Laos and the United States are still fighting proxy wars.

But Marin's colonization of the Americas is different. What Marin wants is not profit, but living space. Europe is too narrow. Where farts are big, there are many countries. Even, at the beginning of the 20th century, in order to compete for living space, a world-class war broke out.

It is precisely because of the small territory of Europe that the great powers competed for the first place, so the United States was able to take advantage of it and rise. Marin's vision is ahead, and he naturally doesn't want to be taken advantage of by Lao Mei in the future. Therefore, he simply opened a sub-mine in North America. When the time comes, enfeoff your descendants in the Americas, all over North and South America. In this way, even if someone takes advantage of the melee in Europe to take advantage of it in the future, it will be their own descendants, and there will be no outsiders!

Therefore, for those colonists who only want to find gold and profit, it is the most cost-effective to control the colony and foster agents. But for Marin, if he wants the future hundreds of years later, he really must occupy it.

It's just that Marin, who knows the future well, can choose to occupy the most elite place. As for the unimportant places, just do whatever you want. Of course, in the early stage, Marin will still desperately protect the entire Americas, preventing people from participating. As long as you can delay your opponents, try to delay your opponents from entering the Americas. If you let your opponent go to the Americas too early, maybe the elite's territory will be robbed.

Only when the North Sea State has controlled the most elite areas and gained a firm foothold can it let the opponent pass by.

And because he was afraid that his opponent would crazily rob America, which was rich in gold and silver, Marin did not even dare to send troops to destroy the Mexican Aztec Empire and the Inca Empire. After all, if people know that there are gold mountains and silver seas in America, it is estimated that all of Europe will unite to deal with themselves.

Fortunately, America is a wonderful place. In this rich and vast continent, gold and silver are basically distributed in the Cordillera Mountains near the Pacific Ocean in the west. Ordinary explorers, even if they secretly sailed to the eastern coast of America, would not be able to find gold and silver mines. Throughout the eastern coast of America, Marin remembered that there were gold mines in the mountains over Guyana.

However, in order to divert the attention of other European countries, Malin specially threw out the two gold-rich centers of the Zimbabwe Empire and the Songhai Empire's Tinaktu to attract the two biggest competitors in the Great Voyage Period-Spain and Portugal.

Not to mention, these two countries are really strongly attracted. It's just that the Spaniards seem to have a bit of a hole...

Because of Marin's memory error, the Zimbabwe obtained by the Spaniards no longer has the super gold mine near Stone City in Great Zimbabwe. However, because the Mutapa Kingdom attaches great importance to gold mining, and Zimbabwe is a place with more gold mines. Therefore, the sum of income from large and small gold mines across the country is also a large number every year.

However, compared with the Timbuktu scheduled by the Portuguese, the gold output of the Mutapa Kingdom is not enough. After all, Timbuktu gathers most of the gold produced in the Gulf of Guinea throughout West Africa. For example, later generations of the Gold Coast (Ghana) and Guinea and other places.

In other words, Timbuktu is the distribution center for the entire West African gold trade. At this time in West Africa, in addition to the powerful Songhai Empire that controlled Timbuktu, there was also the declining Mali Empire, as well as countries such as Ashanti, Hausa, Oyo, and Benin. And these small West African countries, although their national strength is not strong, are very difficult to conquer because they are located in the tropical rainforest of West Africa. Otherwise, the mighty Songhai Empire would have moved them long ago.

It can be said that Timbuktu is a big hole that Marin dug for Portugal. Because, with the strength of Portugal's army, it is very reluctant to deal with the Shangsanghai Empire.

Not to mention annexing all of West Africa. So far, the Portuguese have not been able to open the road to the interior.

Moreover, Marin remembered that the size of the Portuguese army in overseas colonies in later generations had always been small. For example, in Mozambique, they have only a thousand troops, and they can only have a small number of troops in a few cities such as Lorenzo Marques (later Maputo) on the coast and Tete, which is temporarily sheltered by the West River in the interior.

Letting this kind of army and war scum conquer the Songhai Empire, which is now powerful, is simply letting Portugal run into a wall!

At the beginning, Marin just thought about it-let Spain, which has a strong army, go to the Zimbabwe Empire with less gold production, and let Portugal, which is a scumbag of the army, go to Timbuktu, the golden city of West Africa.

Because, if it is changed to let Spain go to Timbuktu, it is likely to be right in its arms. After all, the Spanish army is much stronger than Portugal. If Spain occupied Timbuktu, Marin would have sent Spain to the sky with his own hands.

Although the current Mutapa Kingdom has a lot of gold, it still cannot be compared with Timbuktu, the gold center of West Africa.

However, this was based on the premise that Spain sent troops to capture the Kingdom of Mutapa. Because, if Spain sends troops to capture Zimbabwe, then a lot of troops will be needed to control this area in the future. Moreover, it will cost a lot of money to develop the local gold mines... In short, it can hold back a lot of Spanish troops, energy and financial resources...

However, Marin didn't know that there was a small discerning official named Gonzalez in Spain, who knew that the gains outweighed the losses by capturing the landlocked countries in Africa. If Gonzalez's suggestion is really adopted, then Marin's plan to hold back Spain's energy will go bankrupt. Because, if only the Mutapa Kingdom is controlled, the Spanish people in Mozambique are enough for now. At most, it is necessary to send some warship support to block the mouth of the Zambezi River and prevent Arab businessmen from grabbing business.

...

In contrast, the Portuguese are much more stupid. The ambitious Portuguese had already formulated a battle plan to capture Timbuktu, the capital of gold. Sadly, it had been several years before the Portuguese had just opened their way across the future Republic of Guinea. For this, the Portuguese paid the price of hundreds of deaths. It wasn't until two years ago that Marin's partner, Jorge de Rencastre, Duke of Coimbra in Portugal, proposed to use a large number of expeditions composed of black slaves, which greatly reduced the casualties of the Portuguese. After all, blacks are better suited to the climate of the West African rainforest.

But passing through the rainforest of Guinea is just the beginning. Today, Portuguese expeditions enter the southwestern mountains of the later Republic of Mali. And here is the territory of the Mali Empire that has begun to decline.

However, although the Mali Empire has fallen and Timbuktu has been lost, the military power of the Mali Empire is still very strong because a lean camel is bigger than a horse. Moreover, there are quite a few cavalry. Therefore, don't talk about going to Timbuktu for the Portuguese, let's settle the Mali Empire first.

Moreover, even if the declining Mali Empire is settled, there is still a stronger Songhai Empire ahead...

In addition, what the Portuguese didn't know was that the wicked Marin had already bought Arab businessmen through spies in Egypt, and went to the Songhai Empire for trade with camels and Turkish matchlock guns-Rumi guns.

As long as the Songhai Empire bought arquebus guns and experienced the power of arquebus guns. Then, when you fight against the Portuguese colonial army in the future, you won't be surprised because you haven't seen muskets. Then, the result of the battle is hard to say.

So, how sad the Portuguese are! Although the seemingly largest "cake" was allocated, it was a pity that it was too difficult to eat it. What's more, Marin, a bad guy, is still "poisoning" the "cake" behind his back...