The Spanish Navy never had a decent naval battle with the American Fleet from beginning to end, mainly because Spanish warships were deployed on the east coast, while the main forces of the American fleet were deployed on the west coast.

What the two sides really are actually fighting on land, because both sides have the right to land, and the two sides cannot go around to the opposite side to fight a battle in a short time.

Under such circumstances, the contest between the two sides was mostly on land.

The Spaniards were able to compromise with the California colony, which had a large number of troops on land, and at least they could keep the gold fields of Peru and the sugar fields of Cuba after the signing of the Treaty of Central America.

As for resistance, the Spaniards did not think much about it.

At this time, the Spanish Empire no longer had the domineering spirit that it had at the beginning, and at the same time they were facing the Ming Empire in the Far East.

In the eyes of Europeans, it was an empire that was suffocatingly large and terrifyingly powerful.

If it was before, such fears were only superfluous, but now that Zhao Yan is gradually taking control of this empire, he is showing strong fangs.

If the Spaniards increase their troops to support Central America, Zhao Yan can also increase their troops to support Central America.

The Spaniards lost the Central American War, and then had to have a smile on their faces with the California colonies, where they could only buy Ming goods, and the volume of goods was getting bigger and bigger.

By this time, the California colonies had made peace with the nations, and trade had resumed, and the more goods Spain could buy in the trade, the greater the profits they would have gained.

And in this war, the Spaniards were morally inferior. The California colonies went to war on the grounds that the Spaniards had slaughtered 20,000 Chinese in the South Seas, and had morally overwhelmed the Spaniards.

The cession of Central America was also part of the reparations, and the Spaniards lost the entire silver-producing land. First of all, at the time of the peace negotiation, the California colony had already occupied nearly half of the strongholds, and the remaining half of the strongholds could still resist somewhat, and when the California colonies offered 20 million taels of silver in compensation, the Spaniards had to pay for the whole of Central America.

Central America was the fat that the California colonies were bound to swallow whole, and the Spaniards finally agreed to this reparation plan after much debate.

Although it is bound to be swallowed, it will take some effort to attack. And then there's the staggering profits in Central America, like a chicken that has caught a golden egg.

The war ended quickly in consternation among the European countries, which had expected the war to last a long time, after all, the Spaniards had many strongholds in Central America, and it must have taken some time to deal with them.

The war ended in such a short period of time, and the Spanish Empire compromised so quickly, which also made the European countries see the strength of the Spanish Empire clearly.

The Spanish Empire was in its twilight years, and it was no longer as strong as it once was.

First the British, then the Netherlands, and now the Far East Ming Empire, the British won the war maybe it was luck, the Dutch won the war may be a fluke, but the Ming Empire won the war, relying on strength.

The Spanish compromise was not unexpected, and the Ming Empire in the Far East had already shown its terrifying national strength, just a little too quickly.

If the Spaniards lost the precious metals in Central America, then Spain's national power would be further hit.

The Spaniards had a weak industrial base, they relied on imports for many things, and imports required a lot of precious metals, so you can imagine the embarrassment of the Spaniards after losing the profits from precious metals.

It's just that the European countries don't want to go to war with this twilight empire, they are different from the Ming Empire, the Ming Empire is thousands of miles away, the two sides don't have much intersection, they just fight, and the Spaniards can't retaliate from other aspects.

However, European countries have to consider the impact of the war on trade, and both sides must make sufficient pre-war preparations before going to war, so Europe will not frequently provoke each other before they are ready for war.

…… In the first half of the twelfth year, Shandong emigrated nearly one million people overseas.

Among them, 300,000 immigrants from Nanyang, 100,000 immigrants from southeastern Australia, 100,000 immigrants from Hokkaido, 300,000 immigrants to California, 20,000 immigrants from the Hawaiian Islands, 20,000 immigrants from Alaska, and 20,000 immigrants from Sakhalin Island.

Zhao Yan gradually established an overseas colonial system, and where the Han people immigrated to the area, the alien race was bound to be purged, especially in the Nanyang region.

The whole first half of the year was accompanied by great turmoil, and such Chinese, armed by the government, wantonly enclosed in the South Seas, sweeping the indigenous tribes everywhere.

The Luzon, Java and Samqi Buddha regions are the most volatile, while the Malacca region is slightly more stable. This turmoil is relative to the Nanyang monkeys, and the Han people are very safe in the demarcated area. The situation in the Australian region is okay, although there is friction with the foreign race, but it does not take such iron-clad measures.

In the first half of this year, nearly a million people also emigrated to Northeast China, Korea, Nuergandusi, as well as the Monan, Mobei, Moxi, Tufan, and Cochin regions.

The Cochin region is a very special area, Cochin is the later Vietnam, this country is the country with the highest degree of sinicization in Southeast Asia, and has been included in the Chinese territory several times.

To be more precise, this is a Chinese province that has not been completely sinicized, or a province where ethnic integration has not been completed. The integration of the Han and various ethnic groups in the south has never stopped since the center of gravity of the Han people's development shifted southward.

It can be seen from the various dialects that there were many different tribes and ethnic groups in various parts of China, and these ethnic groups later merged into the Han Chinese, and most of these dialects emerged after the original language was merged with Chinese.

The popularity of Chinese in this era was low, but the phenomenon of language fusion was very common, for example, the northern Fujian dialect was produced after the fusion of ancient Yue and Chinese, and a large number of pronunciations were the same as Chinese, and the words were made with the characteristics of ancient Yue. The popular Cantonese language in Guangdong is also a fusion of ancient Vietnamese and Chinese. Since the Qin Dynasty, linguistic fusion has been continuous.

Cochin belongs to the kind of fusion area that was not fully integrated and interrupted in the middle of the Song Dynasty, which is somewhat similar to the phenomenon of Korea.

North Korea and Vietnam were affected by the ethnic integration of the Han nationality, but due to historical reasons, the integration was interrupted, resulting in the phenomenon of sinicization and the formation of their own ethnic groups.

After carefully studying the history, Zhao Yan felt that the ethnic integration should continue in Jiaozhi.

In this era, even Europe did not produce a national consciousness, and only China produced a national consciousness, but China's national consciousness was not strong.

Zhao Yan came to this era and successfully awakened the national consciousness.

The ethnic integration of the Cochin region is in fact a kind of cultural invasion, and the other side does not have a national consciousness at all, so it has not formed its own nation, but has only formed its own culture.

For a large country, the boundaries of race are not judged according to blood, but according to culture and customs, even if it is a small country, the race is also judged according to culture and customs, for example, two peoples who live on the same island but have different cultural customs must have the same ancestral bloodline, but why are they divided into two races?

In terms of the way of distinguishing nationalities, blood also exists to a certain extent, but this is in different races, and blacks and whites naturally cannot be the same race.

There is no blood barrier to the ethnic integration of Jiaozhi, and the people of Jiaozhi do have Han blood. Therefore, the policy of dealing with Jiaozhi is to increase cultural export.

Therefore, in the first half of the year, Shandong Zhengaxe emigrated more than 200,000 Han Chinese to Jiaozhi, and also transferred more than 1,000 teachers to Jiaozhi, and the official vigorously promoted the Chinese language.

The degree of sinicization of Cochin is relatively high, and such a cultural output is easy.

However, the Ming Dynasty suddenly destroyed Jiaozhi and took over the administration of Jiaozhi, which made the Jiaozhi people have a situation similar to that in the early Ming Dynasty, and there were constant revolts in various places.

The official attitude towards these revolts is to suppress them directly.

With 20,000 armed police units deployed in Jiaozhi, as well as a newly established 08 Mountain Regiment, it was really easy to suppress the resistance.

What guerrilla warfare, that's completely impossible.

Later, Vietnam was able to use guerrilla warfare to deal with the United States, because of the continuous support from China and the support of the Soviet Union.

In later generations, China supported Vietnam with weapons and equipment that could equip 2 million troops, and also provided resources and materials, and even directly gave money and loans, and also sent military personnel to help them command the battle.

Guerrilla warfare was a product of the maturity of firearms, and the guerrilla warfare of this era had little effect, and could be easily eliminated as long as it was served with a snack.

Jiaozhi's rebellion has always been suppressed by iron-blooded means, and every time it is suppressed, people will inevitably be arrested, and people will naturally be arrested as coolies.

The main reason for the frequent rebellion of Jiaozhi is the official enclosure.

When 200,000 Han people come to Jiaozhi, they must have land! Therefore, the official knife directly to the ground of Jiaozhi, Jiaozhi and Daming are different. There is no need to worry about dealing with those landlords in Jiaozhi, and they directly forcibly enclose the land and do not give a penny.

Under this kind of enclosure behavior, resistance naturally rises one after another, but the official is very calm, first of all, it does not affect the interests of the majority of the people, and then there are soldiers in hand, who resists and suppresses whom. After the land was collected, it was distributed to the Han people who had migrated to Cochin.

The situation in Jiaozhi was basically unstable, and those Jiaozhi civilians did not react much to the Ming takeover of Jiaozhi, because the government did not move their interests.

In other words, they have nothing to gain or to lose. The Han people who immigrated to Cochin replaced the landlord class in Cochin.

Most of them were recruited from the Central Plains and Jiangnan regions, and they all spoke Chinese or Han dialects, and their living customs were all dressed in Han clothes.

The expansion on land slowed down this year, and in the process of advancing, Nurkandus came across the strongholds of the Tsars, and all these strongholds were uprooted, and these Tsarist cavalry were not numerous, and it was very easy to pull out their strongholds. In the first half of the year, it advanced to the predetermined area, which is on the same north-south longitudinal line as Moxi.

The twelfth year of Chongzhen was not a year of rapid expansion, and Zhao Yan had to stop the pace of expansion and digest the land he had laid down.

Only when these lands are digested can it be considered a real occupation, otherwise it is just a passerby.

During the Han and Tang dynasties, the expansion was very fierce, but why was the land lost after the land? The main thing is that those areas have not been digested, and to put it bluntly, there are not enough Han people, and there are too many foreign races.

The Ordnance Bureau resumed mass production of muskets after March, because after March the number of immigrants increased, and there had to be enough weapons to train them.

All Han Chinese immigrants who migrated to areas threatened by alien races were required to undergo regular military training, and each adult male was armed with a musket.

Moreover, it is a musket currently used by the army, with an effective range of 500 meters and good accuracy.

A few strongholds that were extremely vulnerable to attack were also transported from Shandong with heavy machine guns and specially trained shooters.

After nearly half a year of research and development, the Ordnance Bureau finally determined the technology of open-hearth steel, and produced the first batch of primary cannon steel, plus cannon barrels and steel wires, which can already withstand the explosive power of yellow powder.

These new guns are not only lighter, but also very powerful.

Only a 75 mm gun, the effective range of the shell reached 6000 meters, and the explosion power is very strong, 2 kg shells, the killing radius can reach 50 meters, more fierce than the current special 200 mm guns, the weight of the gun has been reduced to 150 kg.

The firing range of the 150-mm gun reached eleven kilometers, the radius of destruction reached 80 meters, and the gun weighed 300 kg.

The shell has also changed, and due to the application of the trigger detonator, the shell has evolved into a trigger explosion, which explodes as soon as the shell touches the target.

This type of explosion is more accurate than the time fuze, and the shells fired by the time fuze are very testing the artilleryman's estimation experience, if the estimation is wrong, it is likely to explode before hitting the target.

The trigger fuse is to explode after touching the target, which ensures that most of the shells can explode, but will not produce the lethality of the mid-air explosion of the time fuse, and when the shell explodes, as long as it is not too close, lying on the ground can largely avoid the fate of being blown up.

Great progress has also been made in rifles, and according to the Mauser 98 drawings drawn by Zhao Yan, the Ordnance Bureau succeeded in building the first rifle with steel and wood structure in March.

After testing, the effective firing range reaches 1,000 meters, the accuracy is extremely high, the lethality is huge, and the rate of fire reaches 10~15 rounds per minute.

The blueprint of this Mao Shi gun is the Mauser 98B, not the Mauser 98K used by the Germans in World War II, the 98B has a longer barrel and a longer range, and later the Germans needed to adapt to trench warfare and made the barrel shorter, and the 98K originally belonged to the carbine, that is, the cavalry gun.

At present, the Ordnance Bureau is facing many technical problems, and the main problem is the establishment of production lines.

In terms of other equipment, new types of grenades, mines and other weapons have appeared, and the Ordnance Bureau can be said to have blossomed in the research and development of weapons.

Most of the ideas came from Zhao Yan.

The Ordnance Bureau has reached a fork in the road where it needs to completely change its production methods, and since the beginning of the year, five military factories have been set up in the given land.

It is not a good arrangement to concentrate all weapons in one area, so the Ordnance Bureau is decentralizing military factories, which are often located close to the raw material production areas and belong to safe areas.

Steam production has developed greatly, and many production links of the assembly line of the Ordnance Bureau have entered steam production.

Rifles, machine guns, artillery began to move towards mass production.

The construction of infrastructure throughout the first half of the year was also very fast, especially the telegraph line, which had been stretched across several provinces by June.

Now Zhao Yan can directly control the northeast, North Korea, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Monan, Huguang, and Hebei in Shandong, and telegraph lines are being erected in Sichuan, Mobei, Moxi, and Nuergandusi, as well as in the southern provinces.

These telegraph lines belong to the administrative telegraph lines, only for official use, and it is expected that by the end of the year, the telegraph lines will cover the entire Ming Dynasty, the north to Nuergandusi, the west to Moxi, and the south to Nanyang and Cochin regions. Within the next year, the telegraph will be covered in the Americas, India, Australia, and other regions.

The official telegraph was not only used administratively, but also by the Ministry of Commerce.

As for the civil telegraph, the civil telegraph network has begun to be set up in Shandong, and some people in other provinces that control the administration have also invested in the construction of telegraph networks.

Although private was permitted, the provincial telegraph network had to be networkable, and telegraph manship became a popular profession and was very popular in training schools.

In terms of railway construction, by the end of June, the rails of the Zhaotai Railway have been laid and are currently in the acceptance stage.

Most of the Beijing-Pudong railway has been laid, leaving only a small section in the middle that has not been completed. Half of the railways in the Northeast and North Korea have already been laid, and they will be completed in September.

The train operating system has also been made, which requires the cooperation of the telegraph, and the telegraph line began to be laid along the railway line, and the train was technically perfected. Trains can reach speeds of up to 30 km/h, with a general speed of 20 km/h.

Shandong's railway system is 80% complete, and some routes have been tried to open to traffic a few months ago, accumulating a lot of experience in the railway system.

Considerable progress has also been made in water conservancy, and after years of water conservancy construction, Shandong has ensured that 90 percent of its cultivated land is harvested during droughts and floods.

Irrigation systems in Northeast China and North Korea have also begun to take shape.

One-fifth of the irrigation systems in Henan, Huguang, Sichuan, and Shaanxi provinces have been built, the Yellow River flood control levee has reached the final stage, the Huai River flood control dam has been completed, and the Yangtze River flood control dam has been built by one-third.

Thermal power plants are blooming all over Shandong, and almost every prefecture and county has a thermal power plant under construction, and power lines have begun to be erected in those factories and residential areas.

Zhaojiabao took the lead in entering the stage of electricity application, and all departments and government-run factories lit light bulbs, and street lights were also erected on the streets.

A large amount of manpower was invested in infrastructure construction, and the activities of the recruitment bureau became more frequent, and with the increase in the demand for workers and the need for immigrants, the recruitment bureau began to recruit a large number of civilians in the Jiangnan area.

And this just accounted for the unemployment caused by Shandong's industrial expansion.

But it also had a great impact on agricultural production, as many tenants ran to work, resulting in a lot of land that did not have enough manpower to cultivate.

Some landlords had no choice but to abandon their land when it was uncultivated.

There are two types of landlords, one is to find long-term workers and manage the land by themselves, and the other is to lease the land and let the tenants produce.

Tenants were not necessarily able to leave the land, because people had to go out to get directions, and the Jiangnan area was stable and administratively sound.

It's just that the recruitment bureau can take people away at will, which has led to the outflow of manpower.

There are two patterns in the whole Ming Dynasty, one is like the rising east, full of vitality. A depressed hesitation, looking at the sidelines.

(To be continued)