Wild North America 1846

Chapter 607 Imbalance

Author: Portuguese toothless

Chapter 607 Imbalance

It was more than ten days after the imperial southern invasion army captured Medellin that the rear regiments and baggage troops arrived one after another.

The road was rugged and difficult, and the baggage troops who marched along the wide and flat asphalt road in Panama Province suffered enough after entering Colombia.

Although engineering troops have been repairing roads, more than 1,720 of the 7,600 heavy-duty carriages set out were damaged, and many supplies were stranded on the way.

along the way

There were 2,400 or 500 broken shafts, damaged wheels and tens of thousands of spokes. Some carriages even fell apart in the bumpy potholes, and the carriages carrying heavy objects were broken from them.

Thinking about the bad road conditions made people's heads ache, so the commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Mai Xiaozu, divided his troops as planned.

One army went north and one army went south, with supplies carried as much as possible on mules and horses. They swept across the coastal areas of Colombia in a rapid and violent manner and occupied surrounding towns.

As for the grain, fodder, and fine materials that the war horses are short of, they can provide the grain to the enemy and seize it on the spot. Even if there is no black beans or corn, they can make do.

Corn tortillas are the staple food in these countries in South America. They are in short supply of everything but corn.

As for the problem of feed for the war horses and what the local farming Indian tribes eat, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have never considered this issue.

The geographical features of Colombia are divided into the western mountainous area and the eastern plain area. The border with Panama is 263 kilometers long and is located in the western mountainous area with continuous mountains.

Most of its densely populated areas are located not far from the coast. Deep in the hinterland are the rolling Andes Mountains and large tracts of virgin forest, which are sparsely populated.

Including Medellin, as well as Cali, an important town in the southwest, are located in the western mountains. The surrounding roads are rugged and difficult to navigate. The entire country is covered by more than 70% of large virgin forests, with a total area of ​​1.17 million square kilometers, and the degree of development is low.

The important city of Medellin is located in a mountainous valley. It is a flat valley with an area of ​​more than 170 square kilometers, and is crisscrossed by rivers originating from the surrounding mountain collars.

The land in the valley is fertile and the climate is about 21 degrees. It is a traditional area with a history of farming development for thousands of years.

It is precisely because of the self-sufficiency of the small farmer economy that there is no need for large-scale commercial circulation.

Although Medellin is located in an important transportation area with easy access in all directions, most of the traffic is by caravans of mules and horses. It is difficult for horse-drawn carriages to pass through. You can imagine how bad the road conditions are.

Among the roads leading to the east, west, north and south, the best is the road to Bogotá, which is barely passable by horse-drawn carriages, and other roads are not.

When a large army goes on an expedition, logistics is the most important thing.

In view of the poor road conditions in Colombia, Lieutenant General Mai Xiaozu, commander of the Southern Army, simply sent all 20,000 prisoners and 35,000 young men who were sent to coolie camps to build roads.

It is necessary to build a flat gravel road about 8 meters wide from Panama to Medellin within one and a half months to lay a solid foundation for the next step of building the railway.

The distance from Medellin to the border with Panama is about 287 kilometers. Why do 55,000 people need to build the road for such a small distance?

This is because the area has abundant rainfall and numerous rivers. There are 300 large and small streams along the way, and there is not even a decent bridge.

It takes 70, 80 or even more than 100 people to build a bridge. With so many rivers, more than half of the labor force will be eliminated.

If you want to build roads, you have to build bridges. To build roads in mountainous areas, you have to cut roads across mountains, build bridges when encountering water, and then straighten some roads. As you can imagine, the amount of work is quite huge.

However, no matter how difficult it is, we still have to build roads to ensure the smooth flow of logistics for the army.

Only by building a smooth road can we lay a solid foundation for the next step of railway construction. The necessary preliminary preparations must be completed for the Pacific Intercontinental Railway to continue to extend southward.

55,000 laborers were deployed across the road, felling trees, digging trenches, and digging mountains and filling rocks. They had to go all out to build this road in just 45 days without delaying the army's logistical supply.

For this reason, Lieutenant General Mai Xiaozu had to leave a team of tens of thousands of people to urge these convicts to work day and night without slacking off for a moment.

The baggage troops in the army are also under great pressure. They must transport necessary tools and materials such as steel beams, nails, steel rivets, hammers, and iron drills for road construction. Later, they must also transport some building materials such as cement and steel bars. They must not

Panama is not required to reinforce large numbers of horse-drawn carriages.

Fortunately, the province of Panama was founded on land and sea transportation. It lacks everything else except heavy-duty carriages and mules and horses.

After giving the order, thousands of heavy-duty horse-drawn carriages quickly gathered to support the front line.

At this time, it can be seen that the Tang Empire has a strong foundation. With the power of Panama Province, it can support the huge logistics and transportation tasks of the southern invasion army, and there is no need to mobilize it from other provinces.

The mules, horses and carts used for transportation are different from war horses. The province of Panama was founded on land and sea transportation. The transportation industry is also a pillar industry of the province, with more than 300,000 employees employed.

The two major cities of Panama and Cologne have a total of 23,700 horse-drawn carriages of various types. It is really effortless to temporarily dispatch thousands of horse-drawn carriages to support the war.

The war spread throughout Colombia and the armies going north and south encountered frequent attacks from Indian tribes. The imperial conquering army did not hesitate to raise the butcher knife and adopted a policy of bloody suppression against the villages and towns along the way, killing people everywhere.

, heads rolling in...

Berlin Europe

The Chinese Building of Sanssouci Palace

In all of Europe, which country pays the most attention to the Tang Empire, apart from the United Kingdom, is Germany, which unified the entire German nation.

In the splendid palace, German Emperor Wilhelm I and his favored prime minister and close friend Bismarck were walking and chatting. From time to time they stopped to admire the silks, antiques and various artworks full of oriental elements collected in the Chinese Building. The topics were also related to this.

"My dear Mr. Prime Minister, have you heard? The Eastern Emperor has started a new adventure of his own. This time his target is the unlucky Colombia. God, this is so jealous!"

Kaiser Wilhelm I was accompanied by a giant white tiger, which was extremely large and strong, standing up and walking on all fours, it was more than half the height of a man.

This is a beast from the Tang Empire that contains a trace of the blood of mythical beasts. It was originally presented to the Kingdom of Prussia as a national gift, and it is particularly smart.

Compared with the IQ of ordinary tigers, the IQ of this pet animal named "Augustus" is more than equivalent to that of a 7-year-old human child. Apart from being unable to speak, he understands almost everything else.

When he arrived at the German court, he was just over three months old as a cub. He stayed with Kaiser Wilhelm I and slept next to the bed at night.

It has been more than 10 years now, and William I treats "Augustus" just like he treats the crown prince, or even closer.

When William I talked about the "Emperor of the East", "Augustus" stood up from his original lazy state and visibly pricked up his ears.

Its owner, William I, did not notice the abnormality, but continued in an envious tone;

"You know, it is a great place covering an area of ​​1.15 million square kilometers, with a pleasant climate, the birthplace of the northern end of the Andes, and located at the southern end of the beautiful Caribbean Sea.

When we were in the great glory and happiness of uniting Germany, His Majesty the Emperor of North America was not idle either.

It conveniently captured the Yunzhong Province (Eritrea region) and the city of Suez, established a solid sphere of influence along the Red Sea, and expanded its colonial empire to Northeast Africa.

Now it invades Colombia on a large scale and controls almost all of America.

Whenever I think about this, it makes me crazy with jealousy.

In my dream, wherever the sun shines in this world, there should be German colonies, not second-class citizens in North America."

Prime Minister Bismarck replied;

“Your Majesty;

As a member of the Junker aristocracy, I am privileged to share your strong aspirations.

There is no trace of hypocrisy in this. I sincerely hope that the German nation will have extensive colonies around the world, spanning the seven seas, and can proudly spread the glory of Germany.

But reason tells me that now is not the time.

The German Empire, which is at the center of the world stage, is both honored and unavoidable to have some regrets. Fortunately, we have noble and pure Anglo-Saxon blood flowing in us, and we are destined to be the masters of the world.

Unfortunately, our strategic environment is very bad and complex. We have to face Tsarist Russia, which is eyeing the east, Britain across the English Channel, which has ulterior motives, and France, which has rearmed and become powerful. We currently have no spare energy to invest in global colonization.

Unfortunately, we do not have the unique and superior strategic location of the Tang Empire, which enjoys the benefits of two oceans. We have deep control over the political situation and economic life of the North and South of the United States, and can do almost anything we want in the Americas.

Being in this monster house of Europe, the German Empire is facing the world’s top opponents, so there is no room for us to be distracted!”

"Dear Mr. Prime Minister, it is precisely because of this that makes me particularly melancholy."

"Your Majesty, things will not always be like this. The German Empire is rapidly becoming stronger." Prime Minister Bismarck said with confidence.

Within the German Empire, there were also two opinions: internal development and external colonial expansion. Prime Minister Bismarck was the representative of the former, and his policies firmly restricted the Germans' pace towards the world.

And this

This aroused strong dissatisfaction among German nationalists, who fiercely criticized Prime Minister Bismarck's conservative policies on various occasions, which put him under great pressure.

But Bismarck stubbornly adhered to the existing policy and received full support from Kaiser Wilhelm I.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Bismarck, after successively winning the Prussian-Danish War, the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War, his personal prestige reached its peak and he became the "Iron-Blooded Prime Minister Bismarck" known throughout Europe, and all kinds of doubts were reduced.

many.

Every successful expansion and colonization by world powers such as Britain, France, and Tang Dynasty strongly stimulated the rising national enthusiasm of Germany, making them envious, coveted, and imagined that Germany could do the same.

Strong desire stems from strength. Since Prime Minister Bismarck came to power, he has vigorously launched the industrialization process of the German Empire, and the German economy has developed rapidly.

From 1867 to 1873, Germany built nearly 100 iron-making furnaces, and the number of coking equipment increased from 920 to 1,720.

According to statistics, Germany's pig iron production increased from 1 million tons in 1866 to 2 million tons in 1873. Steel production increased from 100,000 tons in 1866 to 1.6 million tons in 1874.

With the victory of the Franco-Prussian War, the German Empire captured the important industrial and mining areas of Alsace and Lorraine in France, and received a huge war indemnity of 5 billion francs, which greatly enhanced the economic foundation of the German Empire and set off a new round of in-depth industrialization.

.

Germany's industrialization has developed extremely rapidly. It has introduced a large number of world-leading machines and equipment from Tang, Britain and other countries to set up factories. It has almost quickly entered an industrialized country. From the perspective of its national system, it looks more and more like the Tang Empire.

The two countries have a lot in common;

They are both monarchical and autocratic systems, with parliaments and cabinets established, and courts with separation of powers. However, the so-called parliaments and cabinets are just the emperor's new clothes, a false democratic system.

Real power still lies in the hands of the autocratic monarch. This is a system of national imperialism. In the hands of powerful and correct controllers, the national economy can achieve extraordinary and rapid development.

And if power is in the hands of careerists, it will lead to unpredictable and huge disasters (note; specifically referring to William II).

Prime Minister Bismarck once served as the diplomatic ambassador to the Tang Dynasty. He studied the political, economic and military systems of this emerging empire in depth, and was shocked and fascinated by it. He was slowly led astray.

this situation

Similar signs appeared not only in Germany, but also in many countries such as Fuso, Ryukyu, Lanfang and other tributary states of the Tang Empire.

After taking power in Germany, Prime Minister Bismarck implemented drastic reforms in politics and economy, reduced mutual internal friction, reduced obstruction from labor unions and vested interests, promoted the decision-making system and strengthened market economic competition, and achieved extremely significant results.

And all of this leaves traces of imitation everywhere.

London newspapers ridiculed Prime Minister Bismarck as a "poor imitator", "perhaps an egg man with white skin and a yellow heart" and "the close transatlantic relationship is Mr. Bismarck's best gift to the Emperor of Tang."

No matter how much ridicule and criticism, successful people should not be blamed.

The rapidly expanding economic strength of the German Empire gave Prime Minister Bismarck unprecedented and unanimous support, and various policies could be implemented smoothly, and the country was prospering.

It is under this fundamental background that the voices of German nationalists who advocate outward colonial expansion have become louder again.

why?

Now that I have money in my pocket, my victory over the French makes me stronger. I am completely unconvinced by France's rapid shift to foreign colonial expansion. I always think that the Germans will also colonize all over the world...

It's like your neighbor next door. Regardless of talent, education, level, or recognition in the workplace, he is far inferior to you. But you can always gain huge wealth in the stock market, which of course makes people feel unbalanced.

This global economic crisis has little impact on Germany because it was originally a traditional importer of food and agricultural products. Today, when international trade has been hit hard, it cannot feel the cold wave.

The scale of its industrial product exports is not large, and the rapidly increasing steel production capacity was quickly absorbed by the booming domestic demand.

In addition, the industrial categories are incomplete and the scale is limited. After imposing tariff protection, it can live a very prosperous life.

The Tang Empire is different. It is the largest participant in international trade in the world today. It has a complete range of industrial and agricultural categories, a huge export trade volume, a wide range of businesses and a large scale.

In the cold wave experienced by international trade, the losses were naturally the greatest.

(End of chapter)