Nan Ming Sun Never Sets

Chapter 469 New Colony in Africa

After Bai Mingxiu captured southern Iraq, he took advantage of the situation and established the Lianghe Xuanwei Department here, with Baghdad as its capital.He did not actually set up a consolation envoy, but appointed the commander of the infantry battalion stationed there as the temporary chief of the consolation department. In fact, the Arabs in the area were still in a state of autonomy, and nominally they obeyed the Ming Dynasty. They ruled and paid taxes to the Ming Dynasty, but in fact they had relatively high autonomy.

The departure of the Ming army also caused these Arabs to have emotional fluctuations, but Bai Mingxiu summoned these lords and said to them very gently and kindly: "Three or four months later, we will be stationed in the Lianghe Xuanwei Division. The Legion is about to arrive. If you think that within three or four months it will be enough to overthrow the rule of our Ming Dynasty, or the Turks will make a comeback, then you can try to oppose us, but I can assure you that Ming treats its enemies and Rebels, would be very brutal."

In order to relatively maintain Daming's presence in the Persian Gulf, Bai Mingxiu allocated several armed merchant ships from the fleet for use by the Two Rivers Propaganda Department.

After leaving the Persian Gulf, Bai Mingxiu stopped thinking about it.He believed that Ming Dynasty had the ability to handle this situation. Most of the colonists in this era were actually doing this. Bai Mingxiu was just used to a very Chinese-style situation with a lot of operations and team management.

The Ming Dynasty was much more serious about the governance of almost any Xuanwei Division than the European colonists.For example, in the Xuanwei Division in Myanmar, there were actually tens of thousands of people in Ming Dynasty here, not to mention the local chieftains who themselves obeyed the orders of Ming Dynasty, and the Han people and officials who frequently came from Yunnan to support them.This is also the case in Luzon, Java and other places. Daming itself has a large immigrant population, and coupled with various policy preferences, it makes the management of this kind of propaganda department in Ming Dynasty different from that of some remote provinces. big.

However, sooner or later, Daming would still have to get out of his comfort zone, and do the colonization in a way similar to the western colonists.The small strongholds established along the coast of India, and even the Lianghe Xuanweisi, which was established almost inexplicably, were all such attempts by Daming.

From this point onwards, all the strongholds that Ming will build next will be full of difficulties like this, with only a small number of Ming Han people, troops, and officials dealing with a large number of locals, unfamiliar environments, and hostile competitors.

The following voyage became even more boring and arduous. Not to mention the ordinary tourists and businessmen who followed the Global Fleet, even the soldiers in some troops had a hard time enduring it.Fortunately, the Global Fleet carries a large amount of supplies, and there are also a lot of people.On the sea, Bai Mingxiu can always organize useful cultural and sports activities between ships, and even organize various social activities. Almost every week, Bai Mingxiu will organize various entertainment and rest for everyone on the weekends.There are all kinds of delicious food, singing, dancing and performances, which is a good distraction for many fleet members who are facing a very difficult drift.

Next, the Global Fleet came to Somalia in the Horn of Africa, another plane belonged to the port of Mtwara in Tanzania, Port Elizabeth in South Africa, and Lagos in West Africa.In these places, Ming Dynasty also did similar things, building fortresses, building docks, and carrying out preliminary colonization work.

Among them, the Ming Dynasty established the town of Longting on the south bank of the Gulf of Aden, the city of Muzhou in Mtwara, the city of Jingbo Port in South Africa, and the city of Chongwu in West Africa.Although these places are only small towns with only a hundred people living in them. To put it bluntly, they are actually castles. The officers, soldiers and colonists living here have to carry out farming and production, and even fish, hunt and gather. But at least they also helped the Ming Dynasty to establish presence in these areas.

Jingbo Port has the highest status among these new colonies, and the Tianzhu Company has shipped a large amount of coal here to support the Daming Global Fleet.The scale of the colony here will also be very large. It will also become an important supply and service port for European merchant ships visiting Asia, so the scale of construction will also be larger.Bai Mingxiu also predicted that after the colony became larger, Ming Dynasty would mine gold and diamonds here.

As for the West African city of Lagos, it was originally founded by the local Yoruba people and can hardly be called a city.The Ming Dynasty Global Fleet took a fancy to the excellent port conditions here and began to carry out activities here.When the Ming Dynasty fleet arrived, the local black people were in awe when they saw the huge ship and countless people.They had actually seen Europeans before, and had actually begun selling some of the slaves they captured from other tribes to Europeans, but they had never seen such a powerful "Sea People".

The local blacks expressed respect to the Ming people who came here, and acquiesced to the fact that Ming occupied this place.On behalf of Daming, Liang Haisheng told the local people that Daming only wanted to bring them prosperity and happiness, and had no intention of going to war unless provoked.The two sides conducted some barter transactions. Although the blacks sincerely hoped that Daming could accept their slaves, Liang Haisheng made it clear that Daming refused to conduct slave transactions and would crack down on slave transactions in the future.Everyone who comes to Chongwu City established by Daming will live as a free person. Daming can hire them and give them dignity and the right to personal property.

African people don't understand this, but they did send a group of people to Chongwu.The new colonial officers here allowed them to escape, or they could work for the colony in house construction and agricultural production. They could then own their own houses and live freely.As a result, most of the slaves became Chongwu's freedmen.

Later, Chongwu became a city symbolizing freedom. The anti-slave-catching team formed by Zhongwu would attack the Europeans who caught slaves, as well as the local tribes. The liberated slaves would come to Chongwu as free citizens. Life.So Chongwu became the largest city in Africa just ten years later.

Ming did not do this to promote the value of national equality. Historically, Lagos after 1670 was the main port of the African slave trade.Daming blocked the way for blacks to go to America. In fact, it was in disguise to provide more living space for future Ming people to immigrate to America.

The local blacks were also happy to be liberated from slaves and live as the people of the West African Xuanweisi of the Ming Dynasty.A generation or two later, the local blacks wore shirts and leather shoes and could speak fluent Chinese. They looked down on their uncivilized African counterparts and regarded themselves as civilized and educated modern Africans.

(End of this chapter)