Located on the Azuero Peninsula in Panama, the Viceroyalty of Haizhou was the least populous of Qi's many overseas territories, with a population of just over 6,500 (excluding local natives) as of the 20th year of Taiping (1725). Even with the administered Xuanwu Islands (i.e., the Galapagos Islands), the population does not exceed 8,000.

Haizhou is bordered by the Gulf of Panama in the east and Montijo Bay in the west, with a length of about 100 kilometers from east to west and a width of about 90 kilometers from north to south, and is diagonally inserted into the Pacific Ocean to the south. The whole area is mainly mountainous, with only narrow plains along the coast. Huangcao Mountain (now Kanajagua Mountain), with an altitude of more than 900 meters, is the highest point on the peninsula.

Precipitation in Haizhou is lower than in other parts of Panama, and the dry season in the east is cool from November to March.

In addition to its proximity to the Isthmus of Panama and its great strategic value, Haizhou itself has no mineral resources and no surprising economic characteristics, mainly agriculture and animal husbandry, corn, rice, vegetables, fruits, cattle, pigs, poultry breeding, etc.

However, in the past two months, one merchant ship after another has arrived from Hanzhou itself, loaded with rails, cement, locomotives, steam buckets, and a large number of railway engineers and technicians, filling the largest port in Haizhou, Ruiqing Port (now Chitre City, the capital of Herrera Province in Panama), in a very short period of time, and at the same time driving the unusually strong consumption of this small city with a population of less than 2,000 people.

After more than two years of negotiations and line exploration, construction of the Isthmus of Panama Railway officially began on February 1.

This railway, which is only 75 kilometers long, can only be regarded as a small project for the people of Qi State, and it will not even attract the attention of many investors in terms of large projects that are often hundreds or thousands of kilometers in domestic railway planning.

However, in the eyes of the cabinet and the military, this railway is of great strategic value, once the railway is controlled, then Qi will indirectly open up the fast passage from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, not only can better control the newly acquired Caribbean islands and Kip (formerly British Belize) territory of Qi, but also expand Qi's influence in the Caribbean.

The railway, with an investment of 1.2 million yuan – nearly twice as much as the cost of building a domestic railway – was built in a joint venture between the American Railroad Company and the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru (at the time, Panama was the main land route for transporting gold and silver, and was under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of Peru).

The American Railroad Company invested 800,000 yuan and provided technical guidance for the construction of the whole line, accounting for 70 percent of the shares, and the Viceroyalty of Peru invested 400,000 yuan and provided land and labor conditions along the railway, accounting for 30 percent of the shares.

In fact, with the withered and chaotic finances of the Viceroyalty of Peru, a son could not come up with a share of 400,000 yuan, equivalent to more than 1.8 million silver pesos (1 tael of silver is about 1.3~1.4 silver pesos).

But it doesn't matter, we have the money in the country and can provide you with a full loan.

That is to say, basically all the money of the Panamanian Isthmus Railway was funded by the Qi people, but the money turned around in front of the Spaniards, and then flowed back to the Qi country, and then deducted part of the loan fees and interest, and finally transferred to the account of the domestic factory that produced related railway engineering equipment, contributing a positive force to the industrial added value of the Qi country.

Compared with the Spaniards, who are so cautious in building railways, Qingguo, which is located at the southern tip of the Americas, is open and close, directly opening up all domestic railway construction plans, actively cooperating with Qi railway investors, and preparing to plan and build several railway lines in China.

As early as four years ago, when the war with England was still underway, Qingguo and the Qi American Railroad Company had begun a joint venture to build a railway from Zhongjing (now the city of Viedma in south-central Argentina) to Junzhou (now Puerto Blanca, Argentina), which was completed and opened to traffic two years ago, becoming the first country in the Americas to have a railway.

However, considering the pro-vassal relationship between Qi and Qing, it is natural that their measures are fully understood.

In order to support this South American subject country with a small population and a relatively complex ethnic composition in China, the people of Qi have spared no effort.

However, although the Spaniards felt that the construction of the Panamanian Isthmus Railway was extremely beneficial to themselves, at least in the future, when transporting gold and silver, they no longer had to rely on time-consuming and laborious pack horses and carts, which made it easier for the goods and personnel to come and go in the American territory. But the Spaniards always muttered in their hearts, the Qi people should not be so kind, so they should spend money and efforts to help them communicate with each other to facilitate exchanges between the two oceans.

"Of course, we Qi people are not the parents of the Spaniards, how can we spend money in vain to help them build the territory of the Americas?" After inspecting the new storage area of the port, Lu Xuanming, the governor of Haizhou, stood on a high platform near the wharf and looked out to the sea, "According to the railway construction agreement, the commercial rights, mining rights, transportation rights, and protection rights within five kilometers along the line belong to the railway company. Relying on these subordinate rights, it will not be long before the entire Isthmus of Panama will be infiltrated and controlled by our Qi country. In the future, what do the Spaniards want to transport, and when will they start shipping, and they will not be able to carry it out with the permission of our Qi country? ”

"In the future, are we going to take the Isthmus of Panama?" Chen Shouchang, commander of the Haizhou garrison and captain (major) of Xuanjie, listened to this, and his heart moved.

"Captain Chen, what do you think is the meaning of the existence of our Haizhou Governorate?" Lu Xuanming smiled and said, "Haizhou, the Pearl Islands, and the outer Xuanwu Islands, aren't they just to watch the western exit of the Isthmus of Panama?" On the east side of the Isthmus of Panama, the Caribbean Sea, the Spaniards, the French, the English, the Dutch, and the Danes, a bunch of European countries are mixed up. If we let them pass through the Isthmus of Panama and enter the Pacific Ocean, wouldn't it be to cause chaos for us, and even to endanger our geopolitical and commercial interests in Yinzhou? Therefore, when the right time comes, our Qi country will definitely seize the Isthmus of Panama. But before we can do that, we need to help the Spaniards defend this strategic place. Whoever dares to reach out will chop off his claws! ”

"What the Governor says is very true." Chen Shouchang nodded in response, but he didn't think so in his heart.

Our Qi country is on the Pacific side, and perhaps there is still some prestige, and we can say with great brazenness who is fighting whom. But if it is in the Caribbean, I am afraid that it will not have this ability, which is definitely the place where our Qi country's influence is weakest and its military power radiates the farthest.

Several major European players have been operating in the region for a hundred or two years, and they have deep roots, and they are not easy to shake their status as a newcomer.

"The General Office of the Isthmus Railway issued a document to the Governor-General of Haizhou, requesting the provision of a corresponding number of armed guards to protect the engineering and technical personnel of Qi and ensure the smooth progress of the railway project." Lu Xuanming stepped down from the high platform and walked towards an official carriage, "These days, Captain Chen has taken a lot of trouble to select more than 100 brave villagers in the local area and send them to the Panama Isthmus railway construction site on a certain day. ”

"Oh?" Chen Shouchang was a little surprised, "Didn't the Spaniards provide the necessary armed escort for the railway project?" ”

"They can't trust the Spaniards." Lu Xuanming shook his head and said: "In addition to taking care of thousands of Indian laborers, the Spanish American Colonial Army also has to take care of the railway equipment and locomotive parts along the line, so it has neglected to protect our technical construction personnel. So they came to us, hoping to find some reliable armed guards. ”

"The Spaniards allowed our armed escorts to enter their territory?"

"It's not my Qi country's economic army, and the number is only about a hundred, and the Spaniards won't stop it."

"The matter will be dealt with in the next few days, and we will try to send the armed escort to Panama by the end of March."

Lu Xuanming nodded, turned his head to look at the noisy port again, and then got into the carriage and headed towards the city.

——

"Now that you've been chosen, let's go."

He Baozhong squatted under the eaves, smoked his cigarette pouch sullenly for a while, and then looked up at his eldest son, who was only sixteen years old in front of him, wearing a gray village soldier training uniform, looking high-spirited, he couldn't help sighing, and turned back to the house.

"Big brother, are you going to war?" The ten-year-old third brother looked at his brother with admiration.

"Big brother, are you going to die?" The young fifth sister asked childishly.

When the mother who was silent next to "......" heard this, she immediately looked at her eldest son nervously.

"I'm not going to war." He Jianing squeezed out a smile, stretched out his hand and rubbed it vigorously on the fifth sister's head, and then walked to his mother's side with a worried face, "We are going to the Panama Railway construction site to act as a guard to prevent the local soil from ...... Saboteurs hurt the construction crew, make sure that ...... The railroad was built normally. ”

His mother was an Indian, an indigenous person he almost spoke, but after a few years of school education and a long period of living environment, he did not identify himself as an indigenous descendant at all.

His father is a pure Qi person, and he also has a Han face, and he also speaks Chinese, so he is naturally a Qi person, which is beyond doubt.

In fact, in order to control and permanently occupy the important overseas territories that were seized, in addition to spending a lot of money to emigrate and exile prisoners, the Qi State also encouraged these people who stayed in the colonies to intermarry with local women as much as possible and give birth to mixed-race offspring. Then, after several generations, the mixed-race offspring can be gradually purified into Qi people to achieve the purpose of racial change.

In terms of cultural invasion, the colonial government exhausted all means. Mainly through tampering with local history, changing living traditions and customs, establishing education, changing religious beliefs and many other ways, forcibly brainwashing local youth, in order to wear out the local culture.

In this process, the work of the colonial government was to erase the local history and civilization as much as possible, so that the local natives would forget their roots and willingly accept the rule of the Qi state.

In this era when the national consciousness has not yet fully awakened, with the passage of time, the Qi people may really be able to transform everything in the colonial territory into the imaginary model of Chinese civilization.

During the reign of Qi, the former churches and relics of Indian civilization in Haizhou were almost completely destroyed, and the Castilian civilization and local traditional Indian civilization introduced by the Spaniards for hundreds of years also gradually declined.

In addition, in order to reduce the difficulty of governance and change the demographic structure of the region, the colonial government will also deliberately deplete the local population.

When the Qi State ceded Haizhou and the surrounding affiliated islands from the Kingdom of Spain, it once ordered a ban on Catholicism and restricted the holding of various religious ceremonies with cohesion, forcing the Hispanics and mestizos who remained there to flee and move to Panama.

The more numerous indigenous Indians were forced to build cities, roads, ports, deforestation, wasteland, and water conservancy.

In poor working conditions, a large number of indigenous people died of disease or overwork. The colonial government ruthlessly suppressed and purged the indigenous tribes who dared to resist, and countless natives were sentenced to death, hard labor or exile, which more than halved the number of the indigenous population in Haizhou in less than 20 years.

For the remaining indigenous population, the colonial government of Haizhou refused to grant them the status of nationals of overseas territories on the grounds that they had not paid any taxes and were not proficient in oral Chinese, leaving them at the bottom of the entire society.

To put it bluntly, the Qi people were no different from the Spaniards, and they were no different from the oppressive policies imposed by the unruly and refusing to assimilate the indigenous American Indians. The only difference is probably that the Qi people did not make the mixed-race race as complicated as three, six, nine, etc., but simply stipulated that the identity division of mixed-race offspring should be based on the paternal line.

That is, as long as the paternal line is a Qi person, his mixed-race children are all Qi people.

If your matrilineal is Qi and your paternal is native—of course, this is extremely rare for a colonial territory that is desperately short of native women—then you are still an inferior native.

This model once attracted the ridicule of the Spaniards, who felt that the Qi people's identification of bloodline was too careless, which was a blasphemy against the purity of blood.

Roll the calves!

China's Chinese civilization is the most advanced civilization in the world, and it has an absolute advantage in the culture of "Zhuyi".

Well, to put it in layman's terms, the difference between Yixia is not purely about blood and regional differences, but based on cultural differences or differences in etiquette.

In the colonial territory, as long as you wear a Chinese surname, speak Chinese, wear Hanfu, learn Chinese customs, and have a heart for Sinicization, you can become "Chinese" by learning "Chinese culture", even if you are a face and origin that is very different from that of Han people.

The civilization of our Qi country is still extremely "tolerant".

(End of chapter)