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

However, there are also prerequisites. The premise is that the colonizers are only for profit, not land......

If you just want to get benefits from the colonies, then finding an agent is the easiest way to save money and money. Even, in the 21st century, the United States is still fighting proxy wars.

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

It is precisely because of the small territory of Europe and the competition between the great powers that the United States was able to pick up the cheap and rise later. Marin has a forward-looking vision, and naturally he doesn't want to be picked up by Lao Mei in the future. So, he simply opened his own mine in North America. When the time comes, they will divide their children and grandchildren in the Americas, all over North and South America. In this way, even if someone takes advantage of the European melee to pick up cheap in the future, it will be their own descendants, and there are no cheap outsiders!

Therefore, for those colonists who only want to find gold and profits, it is most cost-effective to control the colonies and nurture the talents of agents. But for Marin, if he wants a future in a few hundred years, he really has to 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 whatever. Of course, in the early stage, Marin will still desperately protect the whole of America and prevent people from getting involved. As long as you can delay your opponents, try to delay their opponents' entry into the Americas. If you let the opponent go to the Americas too early, maybe the territory of the essence will be robbed.

Only when the Beihai Kingdom controls the most elite areas and gains a firm foothold can the opponent be let go.

And because he was afraid that his opponent would frantically snatch the gold-and-silver rich Americas with him, Marin now 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 mountains of gold and silver in the Americas, it is estimated that all of Europe will unite against them.

Luckily, America is a wonderful place. In this rich and vast continent, gold and silver are basically distributed in the Cordillera Mountains in the west, near the Pacific Ocean. Even if the average explorer secretly sailed to the eastern coast of the Americas, it was impossible to find gold and silver mines. Throughout the eastern coast of the Americas, Marin remembered that there were gold mines in the mountains on the Guyana side.

But in order to divert the attention of the rest of Europe, Marin deliberately threw out the two gold-rich centers of the Zimbabwe Empire and the Songhai Empire, which were Aktu, to attract the two biggest rivals of the Age of Discovery, Spain and Portugal.

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

Because Marin remembered incorrectly, the Spaniards got Zimbabwe without the super gold mine near Stone Town in Great Zimbabwe. However, because the Kingdom of Mutapa attaches great importance to the mining of gold mines, and the Zimbabwe region is a place with a lot of gold mines. Therefore, the combined income from large and small gold mines in the country is also a large number every year.

It's just that, compared to the Timbuktu ordered by the Portuguese, the gold output of the Mutapa Kingdom is a bit under-looking. After all, Timbuktu is home to the bulk of the gold produced in the entire Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. For example, the Gold Coast (Ghana) and Guinea in later generations.

In other words, Timbuktu was the hub of the gold trade in West Africa. At this time, West Africa, in addition to the powerful Songhai Empire, which controlled Timbuktu, also had the declining Mali Empire, as well as Ashanti, Hausa, Oyo, Benin and other countries. And these small West African countries, although the national strength is not strong, but because they are located in the West African rainforest, it is very difficult to conquer. Otherwise, the powerful Songhai Empire would have moved them a long time ago.

It can be said that Timbuktu is a big hole dug by Marin for Portugal. Because, with the strength of the Portuguese army, it was very reluctant to the Shangsonghai Empire, let alone annex the whole of West Africa. Until now, the Portuguese have not been able to open up the road to the interior.

Moreover, Marin remembers that the size of the Portuguese army in the overseas colonies in later generations has always been small. Mozambique, for example, had a garrison of only 1,000 men, and could only have a small garrison in a few cities on the coast, such as Lorenço Marques (later Maputo) and in the interior, on the banks of the West River.

Let this kind of army war scum conquer the now powerful Songhai Empire, it is simply to let Portugal hit a wall!

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

Because, if it is changed to Spain to find Timbuktu, it is likely to be in the right place. After all, the Spanish Army was much stronger than the Portuguese. If Spain were to occupy Timbuktu, Marina would have sent Spain to the sky with his own hands.

And the current kingdom of Mutappa, although there is 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 conquer the kingdom of Mutapa. Because, if Spain sends troops to conquer Zimbabwe, then it will need a lot of troops 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 Spain's troops, energy and financial resources......

It's just that Marin didn't know that Spain actually produced a small and far-sighted official named Gonzalez, who actually knew that the gain of conquering the landlocked countries of Africa was not worth the loss. If Gonzalez's suggestion had been adopted, Marin's plan to hold back Spain's energy would have gone bankrupt. Because, if only the kingdom of Mutapa is controlled, the few Spanish people in Mozambique will be enough at the moment. At most, it is necessary to send some warships to support the blockade of the Zambezi estuary and prevent Arab merchants from stealing business.

……

In contrast, the Portuguese are much more stupid. The ambitious Portuguese had long drawn up a battle plan to capture the golden capital of Timbuktu. Sadly, it had been several years since the Portuguese had just opened the way through what would become the Republic of Guinea. For this, the Portuguese paid the price of hundreds of deaths. Until two years ago, Marin's partner, the Duke of Coimbra of Portugal, Jorge. Morality. Lencastre's proposal to use a large number of black slave expeditions greatly reduced the number of Portuguese casualties. After all, blacks are better attuned to the climate of the West African rainforest.

But passing through Guinea's rainforests is just the beginning. Today, Portuguese expeditions have entered the southwestern mountains of what is now the Republic of Mali. And this is the territory of the Mali Empire, which has begun to decline.

However, although the Mali Empire has declined and has lost Timbuktu, the emaciated camel is bigger than the horse, and the military power of the Mali Empire is still very strong. Moreover, there were quite a few cavalrymen. Therefore, the Portuguese don't talk about going to Timbuktu, let's settle the Mali Empire first.

Moreover, even if the declining Mali Empire is settled, there is an even more powerful Songhai Empire in front of it......

In addition, what the Portuguese did not know was that Marin, who lacked virtue, had already bribed Arab merchants through spies in Egypt to trade with the Songhai Empire with Turkish arquebuses on camels.

As long as the Songhai Empire bought an arquebus, he had seen the power of the arquebus. Then, when you fight against the Portuguese colonial army in the future, you will not be shocked because you have never seen a musket. And then, the outcome of the battle is very difficult to say.

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