In fact, the city of Zvongombe has not only a lot of gold, but also a lot of copper ore, piled up. After all, Zimbabwe is not only rich in gold, but also copper.

It's just that the Kalanga people don't know how to smelt copper. The reason why there is gold is because most of the gold mines are monomeric gold with few compounds. Otherwise, the kingdom of Mutapa would not have received so much gold.

As for the copper mines, although the Kalanga people did not know how to smelt them, they did understand the Arab merchants who were their former trade partners. They brought the copper ore back and gave it to professional craftsmen to smelt into copper, which was also very profitable.

However, this time Cortés' expeditionary force did not bring enough mules, and it would be able to carry away the gold, which was mainly gold, and could no longer take away the mountains of copper ore. So, if you get a copper mine or something, you can only wait for next time.

And once the news of the abundance of gold and copper in the kingdom of Mutapa reached the mainland, Cortés believed that he would not be able to escape a noble title. If you're lucky, you might be able to get into the baron. After all, he had opened up the colonial route and seized so much gold......

By the time he returned to Castello del Nueva at the mouth of the River Save, González had already returned. Hearing that Cortez had sent troops without permission, Gonzalez was furious and was about to order Cortez's arrest.

But when Cortez returned, he not only brought back the exact news and specific route of the Golden Land of Zimbabwe, but also brought back so much gold. In this way, Gonzalez is not easy to accuse the other party of anything.

Gonzalez then sent clippers to the country to report to the Spanish court on the concrete results of Cortés' operation. At the same time, the fact that Cortés sent troops without authorization was also objectively reported. As for how the Spanish court will determine in the end, it has nothing to do with him......

In Fort New Spain, Cortés began to report on the information he had obtained—most of it had been provided by the captured Prophet Elder.

At this time, the northern border of the Mutapa Kingdom was the Zambezi River. The northeastern frontier is probably in the Tete area of Mozambique in later times. To the east, Tete is under the control of the Swahili of mixed Arab and black descent.

Many of these Swahili people knew Arabic and were the best intermediaries between Arab merchants and the Mutapa Kingdom. Many times, the Swahili also served Arab merchants, earning commissions.

As for the southern border of the Mutapa Kingdom, it was even possible to reach near the Limpopo River. However, the southern border is unstable, and sometimes there are tribes there who are willing to join the kingdom of Mutapa, and sometimes they will voluntarily secede. However, the Mutapa kingdom doesn't care either, they only care about the tribes that own the gold mines. Extortion of gold from the small tribes that owned the gold mines was the most important source of finance for the Mutapa kingdom, and it was also the most important source of trade between the Mutapa kingdom and Arab merchants, more important than ivory and copper ore.

It's just that, according to Cortez, the information provided by Marin was wrong before. Because, at this time, the main trade route of the Mutapa Kingdom was not along the Sawe River, but along the Zambezi River......

Going up the Sawe River, you can only find Stone Town in Great Zimbabwe, which has been abandoned for decades. Only by tracing up the Zambezi River can you find Zvongombe, the capital of the current Mutapa Kingdom.

Moreover, Arab traders and Swahili people were mostly active along the Zambezi River and connected with the Mutapa Kingdom.

If they wanted to drive out the Arab traders and monopolize the gold and copper mines of the Mutapa Kingdom, Spain had to send troops to occupy the Zambezi estuary and cut off the Arab trade routes.

Unfortunately, the Zambezi River is a stepped river, with waterfalls in two places that divide the Zambezi River into three sections. Otherwise, the Spanish merchant ships would have been able to travel directly up the river to Zvongombe to do business.

After much thought, Governor González decided that the Spaniards would go inland and still take the old route. However, they would ask for a domestic fleet to block the Zambezi River estuary and prevent Arab merchants from stealing business.

The reason for this is that if Spain should trace its way up the Zambezi River to find the kingdom of Muta, and start from scratch, God knows how long, it would be better to take advantage of the route that has now been opened.

Of course, on the other side of the Zambezi River, another group of men and horses can also be sent up the river, and the same method of transporting elephants can be used to open up the road. When the road on the other side of the Zambezi is opened, the trade route on this side of the Sawe can be considered abandoned. But before that, the Spaniards could rely on this road and invade the Zimbabwe region.

……

"So, Governor, what are we going to do next?" Cortez asked. Although the message is sent by the clipper, it still takes more than a year to run back and forth to the mainland. Therefore, next, Cortés had to listen to Governor Gonzalez.

Gonzalez thought for a moment and said:

According to the elder, most of the gold of the Mutapa kingdom had to be exchanged with Arab merchants for goods such as cloth, glass, and ironware. In that case, we might as well take the place of Arab merchants and assume the status of traders......"

Cortés was immediately dissatisfied:

"Why should we trade with them? Isn't it good to send troops directly to occupy it? This way, you can get all the gold without spending the cost! This is the typical aggressor mentality, and it is also the mainstream colonial ideology of the moment.

However, Governor Gonzalez did not think so:

"Stupid! I know how to fight and fight all day long! If you think about it, the recent situation in the kingdom of Mutapa is scattered all over the country. Then the territory is bigger than Spain. If we destroy the kingdom of Muthapa, then we will have to manage the gold mines ourselves. Think about it, how many troops do we need in such a large territory? ”

"If it's the big gold mine that used to be concentrated in Stone Town, we can grab it. However, today's gold mines in the Mutapa Kingdom are too fragmented, inconvenient to manage, and too expensive to manage. ”

"Rather than that, we should keep the kingdom of Mutapa and let them manage those black tribes to continue mining gold. Then we exchanged the gold for worthless cloth, glass, and iron. In this way, we can save a lot of management costs......"

It can be said that the thinking of Governor Gonzalez is close to the concept of colonial management in the 19th century. This is also the blood lesson that the European colonizers have learned two or three hundred years ago. Because, if you go into battle in person, you need a large number of troops, and you also need to invest in gold mining by yourself, and the cost is huge, so it is better to support a puppet regime to help you mine gold......

However, this is also Gonzalez's vision. What will happen in the end depends on how the Spanish court decides.

But Gonzalez's second clipper ship, sent home in a letter, pointed out that Spain would probably need to send more than 10,000 troops to maintain the dominance of the Mutapa kingdom and protect so much of its recent situation if the law of total occupation were adopted. At the same time, it is necessary to spend money on investing in gold mines. And by controlling the Mutapa Kingdom, it is enough to maintain the current army of two or three thousand people......