The Colorado River is one of the major rivers in North America, originating in the East Kunlun Mountains (Rocky Mountains) in the west, and is fed by a large area of glacial snow melting, flowing all the way to the southwest, converging dozens of large and small tributaries, opening up a winding waterway of more than 2,000 kilometers, and finally employing into the vast Pacific Ocean.

The upper reaches of the Colorado River have more abundant water and more tributaries, while the middle and lower reaches flow through arid and semi-arid regions, with less water and fewer tributaries. The water level of the river fluctuates greatly with the seasons, and the difference between the flow during the spring and summer flood period from April to May and the dry season in winter is nearly 30 times.

Because it flows through arid areas, the river has a high sediment content and the water is dark brown. "Colorado" means "red" in Spanish. Every year, hundreds of millions of tons of sediment flow into the sea, and it is known as the "Nile River of America".

As early as 1540, the Spaniard Melcio Díaz became the first explorer to explore and document the Colorado River. However, the person who really explored the river in an all-round way and recorded the hydrological conditions of each section in detail was Cao Baiyang, a geological explorer of the Qi Kingdom.

In the tenth year of Taiping (1714), he was entrusted by the Xuanzhou Governor's Office to spend nearly two years along the location of the estuary, all the way up to the source of the river, the western mountainous area of the East Kunlun Mountains, recording and describing in detail the geography and hydrology along the way.

After the War of the Spanish Succession, Qi ceded Baja California through the Treaty of Madrid with Spain, and used the lower Colorado River as the boundary between the two countries.

Oh, by the way, the people of Qi call this river the Jinsha River. The name sounds more in line with its actual situation.

At this time, it is winter, and the water level in the lower reaches of the Colorado River has dropped to its lowest level, revealing large areas of muddy riverbed, and in some shallow locations, people can even wade directly across the water.

The banks of the river are lined with dense reeds and aquatic plants, and a flock of wild ducks happily burrow through them, picking on the tender blades of grass.

Not far away, a flock of goats "bleated" and rushed towards the river, startling a group of birds.

Suddenly, a rapid sound of horses' hooves sounded on the east bank of the river, from far to near, and after a moment they reached the riverbank, and the sound of hooves gradually slowed down, and finally stopped on the grass not far from the bank.

More than a dozen Spanish Mexican soldiers sat on horses, holding pergolas in their hands, and looked forward to the west bank of the river.

"Recently, the people of Qi have become more disciplined, and there has not been a single cross-border behavior." Lieutenant Pedro de Rivera put down his binoculars and said with a smile: "In this way, we have saved a lot of trouble!" ”

"This must be because their government has issued a corresponding order to prohibit all kinds of cross-border behavior, so as not to destroy the friendship between our two countries." Second Lieutenant Antonio Cebatian Bexey nodded and said, "This situation is the best for our two countries. ”

"Friendship?" Lieutenant Rivera couldn't help but show a mocking smile when he heard this, "Second Lieutenant Becksy, you underestimated the cunning and ferocity of the Qi people. More than twenty years ago, not only the Baja California region west of the Colorado River was sacred to our Kingdom of Spain, but even the whole of Alta California was an integral part of our Mexico. But now? Every winter, when the Colorado River is dry, we also have to worry from time to time that the Qi people will cross the border and invade the interests of our Kingdom of Spain. What is this? Oh God, there is no real friendship between us and the people of Qi! ”

As for the views of the Qi people, regardless of the Spanish mainland, in the Spanish American colonial territory, whether it is a local colonial official or a native white person, the heart is extremely complex and ...... Twisted.

In less than 50 years, Qi attacked Spain twice, not only several important ports on the mainland were attacked by the naval guns of Qi, but even the American territories were beaten by the Qi people. In the south, large areas of territory such as Patagonia, La Plata, Baja Chile, and the east coast were successively lost, and in the north, Alta California and Baja California were taken away, and in the middle, Panama was also cut off by the Qi people on the Pacific side, the island of Coiwa, the Pearl Islands, and the Azuero Peninsula near the isthmus.

The Galapagos Islands, located in the northwest of the Viceroyalty of Peru, were also openly occupied by the Qi people on the grounds that they were borderless, and built into an important naval base.

If you look at it from God's point of view, you will find that from California, to Panama, to the Galapagos Islands, and finally to the island of Chiloe in the Baja Chile region, the Qi people have created a "chain" on the west coast of the Americas.

To some extent, this "chain" is also the forward base for Qi to attack the territory of Spanish America!

In this regard, the Spaniards were shocked and frightened, but they were confined to the decline of their own country and their strength, but they had no choice but to bear this invisible pressure silently.

However, the people of Qi are here, and it is not all bad. At the very least, they brought with them a steady stream of high-end gadgets through transpacific trade with the Kingdom of Luzon.

Oriental tea, silk, fine porcelain, precious furs, soft cloth, and a wide variety of manufactured goods have raised the level of luxury of the "earth buns" in the Spanish American territory in a short period of time.

Comparing the goods imported from Spain and other countries on the European continent, I suddenly feel that the things they have bought for hundreds of years have really been cheated by those unscrupulous merchants!

The price is high and the quality is high!

Don't think that if you have money in your pocket, you can fool us with some messy things, and think of ways to make money.

Yes, after the 90s of the last century, Mexico surpassed Peru in silver production. Although most of it was brought back to the mainland by the Spanish crown, it was used for the profligacy and extravagance of the court, as well as to pay off the foreign debts of the Spanish kingdom that could never be repaid. But a significant portion of the silver remained in Mexico, in addition to meeting the country's internal budget and defense needs, through frequent and increasingly large-scale smuggling operations.

Since the beginning of this century, especially after the War of the Spanish Succession, the growing trans-Pacific trade has tended to overtake the transatlantic trade, which has led to the rise of many port cities on the west coast of the Americas.

Unlike Brazil and Peru, Mexico is both a part of the Atlantic world and an important player in the Pacific world, and with the influence of Qi countries, the entire Mexican economy has shown a kind of abnormal prosperity.

In the sixties and seventies of the last century, when the handicraft industry in Spain, which was confined to its suzerainty, fell into a continuous decline and stagnation, resulting in its inability to meet the daily needs of the colonial territories, local handicrafts and household products in Mexico dominated for a time, although the production of these products was concentrated in specific regions, especially in the urban areas of Puebla-Trusca region, Basio, Michoacán, Guadalajara, Oaxaca and villages in certain valleys and highlands, as well as in and around Mexico City. However, through the channels of many wholesalers, it is still transmitted to most of Mexico, meeting the daily needs of some local residents.

The Spanish colonizers introduced wool into the traditional cotton manufacturing process, and at the same time, commercial capital entered the textile industry, allowing immigrant artisans and indigenous textile workers from the region to expand production to meet the needs of more Hispanics and beyond.

In 1680, more than forty such workshops had been established in the Puebla region alone. Traded through a network of marketplaces, sold to lowland areas, and even mining areas in the north-central region.

However, with the two Crissi wars and the expanding trans-Pacific trade, Mexico's once-thriving craft industry and cottage production model were dealt a heavy blow. Cheap and high-quality cotton textiles are pouring into the Mexican market, whether it's flat-bottomed fine-grained cotton from Qin or mid-to-high-end chintz from Qi, which is no match for local artisanal production.

It's really unimaginable, even after crossing the vast Pacific Ocean, it takes fifty or sixty days on the way, and the various goods imported from Qi and Luzon are still extremely price-advantaged!

In less than a decade, Mexico's handicraft industry, including cotton spinning, was devastated, and one after another went bankrupt, making the whole of Mexico a supplier of raw materials and an exporter of precious metals.

Faced with this situation, both the colonial officials at the top and the influential lords and businessmen of large estates actually had an attitude of indifference.

Where do these goods come from, and does it matter to them?

Even if the Spanish American market had not been encroached upon by the Qi people, it would have been occupied by the English, the Dutch, or the French and Portuguese. Anyway, foreigners have to be cheaper, so why can't they introduce Qi national goods with a more complete range of goods, better quality, and great cost performance?

As for the many bankrupt small craftsmen and cottage producers, who would bother to care about them?

As the suzerainty of Spain weakened, the political and social relations of the American Territory were in constant flux, with the royal bureaucracy and local colonial governments increasingly serving the interests of the colonial elite.

From the sixties and seventies of the last century, local forces gradually became politically dominant and deeply influenced the Spanish colonial policy and management methods. Increasingly, the Governor's Office and the Inquisition sought to form a conspiracy with the elites of the colonial territories to seize local commercial interests and mining interests.

The Spanish royal family was involved in too many European disputes and wars that the royal government had to frantically seek financial support. During the reign of Philip II, he began to sell official titles on a large scale, and the scope continued to expand. In this way, the native-born whites of the colonial territories were able to obtain the position of high magistrate, and gradually established the monopoly of local families.

High-ranking colonial officials born in Spain also established their own industries in their jurisdictions by marrying into elite local families, once again weakening the control of the colonial territories in Spain.

Originally a defender of Castilian absolutism, the Inquisition Chamber has gradually become a body of defense for interests based in the Americas.

It can be said that as long as the suzerainty remained weak, it was Mexico City, not the Madrid government, that actually controlled New Spain.

Of course, this did not mean that the Kingdom of Spain had lost control of its overseas possessions. The authority of the crown was never significantly challenged, and the close relationship between the court and the Doge's Palace ensured the support of the clergy for the crown.

In addition, the long-term threat to the Spanish American Territory by ambitious nations necessitated close ties between the colonial territories and the Spanish government.

The Qi people, the English, the French, the Dutch, and even the Portuguese in Brazil all eyed the Spanish American territories, and they all wanted to pounce on them for a piece of the pie and a handful of wool.

Naturally, it was impossible to deal with the covetousness of the above-mentioned powers with the weak force of the colonial territory, and only by being close to the suzerain, Spain, could the vital interests and existing power of the colony be preserved.

In order to strengthen its control over the colonial territories and to better maintain the import of precious metals, the government of the Kingdom of Spain slowly initiated a laborious reform to adjust the structure and operation of the government in the country and throughout the empire.

This process began after the end of the First Cessie War, when Spain, a world power, had just experienced its worst decade, with industry and commerce in decline, diplomatically isolated, and invaded by a country thousands of miles away that ravaged its American territory.

The Kingdom of Spain had reached a point where it had to be reformed.

After the War of the Spanish Succession, the French Bourbon family established its side branch in Madrid, and the reforms were strengthened. Felipe V sought to establish a French-style system of magistrates in the Iberian Peninsula, and through a series of administrative and commercial reforms, he sought to centralize power and make Spain a more effective colonial government.

In 1720, Spain rationalized the taxation of trade in the Americas and established a formal tariff system. Qi responded positively and took the lead in signing the "Free Trade Agreement of the Americas" with the Spanish government, and the two sides agreed on a "reasonable" tariff ratio for import and export goods, turning the previously rampant smuggling trade into legal bilateral trade.

In order to crack down on smuggling and piracy (mainly to exclud the entry of other countries' forces and goods), Qi also formed a small Pacific Combined Fleet with Spain, which cruised the west coast of the Americas from time to time, investigated smuggling merchant ships, and killed pirates, so as to safeguard the common commercial interests of the two countries.

In addition, as Qi's colonial power extended to the lower Colorado River, the two countries reached a rare consensus in response to the resistance of the Indians in the northwest, and began to cooperate to exterminate this group of unruly natives.

In the 80s of the 17th century, when the Qi people had not yet entered the North American continent, the local Indians were clearly opposed to the existence of any Spanish power throughout the northern "frontier" and the northwest region, whether in villages, mines, forts or missionary sites.

During the First Qi War, the Qi invaded several ports and villages on the west coast of Mexico, and they not only completely sacked Spanish settlements, but also "drained" large quantities of weapons to Indian tribes and villages. This also resulted in a wider spread of the Indian Revolt in 1689 and between 1696 and 1697, which was more difficult to extinguish.

However, the-stirgers will eventually be splashed with.

After the Qi Kingdom ceded California from the Kingdom of Spain, the Indians who had been driven by the two countries gathered in large numbers in this very uninhabitable peninsula, numbering 20,000 to 30,000. They took up arms, heroically resisted the colonization of the Qi people, destroyed the crops of the immigrants, killed the cattle and sheep of the immigrants, and even attacked the settlements of the immigrants, abusing and killing the immigrants, which once made the Qi people anxious.

The demands of these Indians were primarily for tribal autonomy and land tenure, for the protection of their own habits and religious ceremonies, and for alliances with previously unneighboring tribes.

This move was naturally rejected by the people of Qi, who believed in "under the whole world, it is not the king's land; Under the principle of "leading the shore of the land, it is not the king's minister", how can the local indigenous people be allowed to realize tribal alliances, and also seek autonomy and freedom from control?

Therefore, the people of Qi did not hesitate to raise the butcher knife in their hands, in a vain attempt to domesticate these "disobedient" savage tribes. Several rounds of militia were mobilized to wipe out the Indians, driving them across the Colorado River into Mexican territory.

Troubled by the frequent Indian riots in the Greater Apache area (west of present-day Texas and east of the Colorado River), the Mexican colonial government was furious by the discovery of tens of thousands of Indians arriving from Baja California.

Co-author, you Qi people brought the thugs over, you want to Huo Huo us Spaniards!

After some consultation and negotiation, the two sides decided to jointly deal with the Indians in the border areas between the two countries, and had the obligation to cooperate with the other side in taking necessary military action to prevent the Indians from attacking their respective settlements.

The two countries established military strongholds on both sides of the Colorado River, Fort Fuyuan (present-day Vicente Guerrero, Mexico) and San Javier (present-day Yuma, USA), where hundreds of armed soldiers (village soldiers) were stationed on a permanent basis to work together to eliminate Indian resistance in the nearby area.

A few years ago, in order to jointly fight against England, the two countries also formed a de facto military alliance for a time, and in the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic, and the Caribbean, the two armies provided military support and assistance to each other, making the relationship between the two sides become a strong relationship between the two sides, and the fight was hot for a while.

Following the cooperation agreement reached between the two sides on the Panama Isthmus Railway, the Qi people also proposed a joint venture to build a railway from Acapulco to Mexico City in order to further promote the development of trade in the Western Pacific.

The Spaniards, however, were a little hesitant about it.

If one day the Qi and the West are at odds and the war breaks out again, wouldn't the Qi people be able to quickly kill Mexico City along the railway and give the colonial government a pot, without even having time to react.

Well, think again.

At the very least, when the Panama Isthmus Railway is repaired, it will not be too late for us to make a decision.

(End of chapter)