I want to be emperor

In the spring of the 38th year of Chengshun, new good news finally came back from distant Europe.

The battle report, which crossed nearly [-] kilometers of waterway and was brought back by the Navy's fast communication ship, departed from Spain in Europe and took more than two months to reach Jinling City.

And this battle report, which was sent back after traveling tens of thousands of kilometers, brought good news to the upper echelons of the empire.

The European Expeditionary Force of the Great Chu Empire landed in Cadiz last fall and launched an attack on Spain. After the Battle of Cadiz and the Battle of Harkasburg, they not only obtained Cadiz, a coastal port facing the Atlantic Ocean, as a The landing stronghold also wiped out more than 3 Spanish troops.

Then the Chu army continued to advance towards the interior of Spain, and fought fiercely with the stubborn Spanish army along the way, but how could the Spanish army with flintlock guns, early smoothbore guns, and line tactics be able to resist it? The rear-loading rifles and rear-loading artillery have been installed, and the Chu army mainly uses skirmish tactics to attack.

The strong field offensive ability of the core main force three divisions is not something that the Spaniards can resist at all. It is often the Spaniards who have managed to gather a certain amount of troops, and they are overwhelmed by the Chu army without even seeing the infantry of the Chu army. The army was defeated by artillery fire.

The rear-loaded rifled artillery of the Chu army, with an effective range of several thousand meters and huge explosive power, fully embodies what is called the God of War. The Spaniards were defeated all the way, and there was no way to effectively stop the attacking pace of the Chu army. .

And in some small-scale infantry battles without large-scale artillery participating in the battle, the Chu army infantry equipped with breech-loading rifles also let these Spaniards who are still playing line tactics know what modern warfare is.

They don't even need skirmish tactics... The infantry of the Chu army only need to use the ultra-long effective range and high rate of fire of the Type [-] rifles to carry out long-distance coverage strikes, and they can basically harvest the Spanish line in pieces The lives of the infantrymen.

Even...the Spaniards' infantry didn't even look to make an effective counterattack.

Because the flintlock guns used by the Spaniards have an effective range of more than 100 meters, and in order to obtain a certain hit rate in actual combat, they often fire within [-] meters... This is an inherent feature of front-loading muskets, and what army It doesn't matter, the Chu army did the same thing in the era of online ranks in the past.

What was the most typical tactic in the Great Chu Empire Army, and what was the tactic that most feared the natives in the 20s and [-]s?
Standing in line with firm steps, carrying casualties all the way forward, until the distance from the enemy is only more than 30 meters before launching a salvo. After a round of salvo, the opponent does not say 100%, but 90.00% of the nine will collapse ... No army can withstand such a salvo!

After the salvo, after the opposite side collapsed, a bayonet charge was launched directly, and then it was time to harvest the heads.

Bayonet charge after a 30-meter volley, this is the classic infantry tactic that the Great Chu Empire Army has been most proud of in the past 30 years...

It is said to be tactics, but in fact there are no tactics at all, it depends on courage and discipline.

So although this tactic is classic, in fact, even the regular army in the Chu army can do it... After all, this classic tactic has a premise, that is, it has to bear the enemy's firepower and keep going up. The gun was fired only after reaching 30 meters.

Of course, on the actual battlefield, because the enemy's firepower is thin, the Chu army will not suffer any casualties during the process of advancing. Therefore, even the second-class regular army can often play like this in actual combat... because there is no need to fight hard Advancing with casualties requires little courage or discipline.

However, if they encounter European enemies who also play line tactics and are equipped with flintlock guns, these second-class regular troops will often not do this...

If both sides are line infantry, the courage and discipline of the soldiers will be very high if you adopt this tactic... To put it bluntly, if you don’t train the soldiers to be wooden people without emotions, you can’t play like this of……

Because the casualties during the advancing process will not be small, it is difficult for the soldiers to continue to move forward without changing their expressions when their comrades are falling down in pieces, and the comrades in the back row can also take a step forward without expression. Step over the corpses of fallen comrades to make up for them, ensuring that the lines are neat.

Therefore, the difficulty of facing different enemies with the same tactics is different.

In the face of enemies who use line tactics, there are not many regular troops of the Great Chu Empire who can do this. Generally, only the elite troops of the first-class divisions can do this.

However, the commander of the Chu army is not stupid. In the past wars, when encountering more powerful enemy infantry, the Chu army would not foolishly play with the enemy in line to shoot, but would pull up a large number of artillery to bombard his mother!

And artillery is much more reliable than infantry. At least so far, no enemy army has been able to withstand the shelling of the Chu army.

The same is true on the Spanish battlefield. Although the infantry of the third division of the Chu Army has a great advantage, the front-line commanders of the Chu Army did not use the infantry to show courage and discipline. Instead, they used their own artillery advantages to attack the enemy.

The 75mm field gun and mountain gun, plus the [-]mm infantry gun, these three types of artillery have been fully utilized on the Spanish battlefield.

Especially the performance of the 75mm mountain gun is even better.

Because the transportation facilities in places like Spain are backward, the roads are not good, and the bridges are few and fragile. This has also led to relatively large limitations in the use of the one-ton 32-year-style 75mm field gun on the battlefield.

Therefore, with a lot of combat power, the artillery supporting infantry operations is often only the 34-year-old 75mm mountain artillery and the 34-year-old [-]mm infantry artillery.

Although the performance of the 2000mm infantry gun is also very good, it is a very good accompanying infantry support artillery, but the range is still a little closer, the maximum effective range is only 2000 meters, in order to obtain a certain shooting accuracy in actual combat, the maximum In fact, the range will not use the extreme 800 or [-] meters, but will choose to fire at around [-] meters.

The 75mm mountain gun is much stronger, and its effective range can reach almost 500 meters.

Therefore, on the Spanish battlefield, the 34-year-old 75mm mountain gun actually assumed the role of a long-range suppression artillery, undertaking the long-range bombardment mission on the entire battlefield, and this role should have been assumed by the 32-year-old 75mm field gun.

This change once again reflects how important the weight and mobility of artillery are in overseas regions... Under the premise of the transportation facilities in overseas regions, even the best artillery is useless because it is too heavy... ...How can it display its superior performance if it cannot be used on the battlefield?
This is also the fact that in the past many years, the 32-year-old 75mm field gun has excellent performance in all aspects, and it has performed very well in areas with good terrain and good transportation facilities in the local area, Central Asia, and even North America. It is the core artillery of the Great Chu Empire Army.

However, in many overseas battlefields, this artillery has been rejected. First, this artillery was sprayed bloody by the front-line troops in the Burma War, forcing the Army to urgently develop and purchase 75mm mountain artillery.

Then in the Indian battlefield, the performance on the African battlefield was not satisfactory.

Later, the Great Chu Empire Army simply reduced the number of this type of artillery for overseas garrisons, and then increased the number of 75mm mountain guns.

Sometimes whether a artillery is good or not depends on its own performance, but whether it is suitable for the actual situation of the battlefield is actually more important.

There is no such thing as the best weapon, only the most suitable one.

Otherwise, if the Great Chu Empire Army dared to bring military-level support artillery, that is, the 34mm howitzer of the 120 model, to Europe... It is estimated that these artillery would not be able to reach the battlefields in the inland areas of Europe after the war!
Because the marching weight of the thing is more than five tons, as far as the basic transportation facilities in Europe are concerned, it would be troublesome to make this thing go on a long-distance mobile march. To put it bluntly, if you want a battalion of 120mm howitzers To go to the battlefield in an overseas area, you have to equip it with an engineering battalion first, and this engineering battalion must have at least one pontoon company specializing in bridge repairs.

Otherwise, you basically don't expect it to be able to fight overseas...

Not to mention overseas, even in local areas, this kind of artillery is actually only used as a military-level support artillery, and the number of equipment is not large. So far, more than 100 pieces have been equipped, and most of them are equipped on flat terrain. , a local area with better traffic.

In the Southwest, Qingkang and other regions, there is no such thing, but a 120mm light howitzer is used instead.

The 34-year 120mm light howitzer is also in this context. In fact, it replaced the 120mm howitzer and became the main military-level support artillery.

In the Spanish battlefield, the 120mm light howitzer also gradually joined the battlefield in the later stage, and later participated in the Battle of Madrid. With the cooperation of dozens of 75mm field guns and mountain guns, it carried out a devastating long-range bombardment of Madrid.

Finally, the foundation was laid for the Indian Third Division to conquer Madrid.

Why was it the third Indian division of the slave army that finally conquered Madrid, instead of the third division, the core main force of the Chu army on the European battlefield?
Naturally, it was because the generals of the Chu army were not stupid, and they would not devote their own regular army troops to street fighting and suffer unnecessary battle losses.

In large-scale field battles, the main force of the Third Division is fully capable of attacking the natives, and can guarantee very few casualties.

As for street fighting, the weapon advantages of individual soldiers will be greatly offset, and backward weapons can also kill people.

After all, the Spanish soldiers can shoot you with flintlock guns at close range in the streets and alleys.

Therefore, the regular army of the Chu army basically did not fight street fighting in the European war, and let the Indian army, the servant army, fight.

And this is also the reason why a large number of Indian legions were mobilized to participate in the war in Europe, in order to undertake non-frontal and highly uncertain combat tasks such as street fighting, local garrison, and escort logistics, thereby reducing the casualties of the regular army.

It was the Indian Legion that attacked Cadiz, and it is still the Indian Legion that has entered Madrid.

When the Indian Third Division captured Madrid, the Spanish royal family, who fled early, finally gave in and agreed to a series of peace talks made by the Great Chu Empire.

To fully open the market, the tariff on Chu products shall not exceed 5.00%, and some products shall not exceed [-]%. Tariff changes need to be approved by Chu.

The Great Chu Empire invested 700 million Chu Yuan to package and acquire all the overseas colonies in the Pacific, America, Atlantic, and Africa belonging to Spain, including Mexico, Central America, and South America.

At the same time, Spain needs to pay 200 million Chu Yuan in compensation to the Great Chu Empire.

These two items, in fact, the Great Chu Empire initially demanded 500 million Chu Yuan indemnities and the transfer of all overseas colonies from Spain... But the Spanish negotiators did not know what to think, and thought it was not good to transfer overseas colonies unconditionally , proposed to increase the total amount of compensation, and then sell the overseas colonies to the people of Chu.

The core has not changed, that is, the Great Chu Empire has purchased colonies from the Spaniards in name.

It is estimated that the Spaniards want some psychological comfort?

The Chu people don't care about this, anyway, they only need 500 million indemnities and all the overseas colonies of the Spaniards.

This colony is easy to talk about, and the Spaniards will not really be unable to pay 500 million indemnities for a while... In order to resist the invasion of the Chu State, the Spaniards spent a lot of money in the war that lasted for several months, and the royal family has no money.

In desperation, they had no choice but to find a financial bank loan from the Great Chu Empire's partner in formulating war reparations!
However, the overseas loans provided by the Finance Bank to the indigenous countries are often relatively dark. This time, they provided the Spaniards with an annual interest rate of [-]% and a [-]% discount on delivery...Using the Spanish customs duties and some taxes as collateral.

This is already quite conscientious. The Finance Bank provided a loan to the Mughal Kingdom last year, with an annual interest of [-]%, and a [-]% discount on delivery... The only thing that matters is that it looks ugly.

At first glance, the annual interest rate is only [-]%, and [-]% does not seem high.

But this data cannot be compared with later generations, because the credit currencies of all countries in later generations, this money is said to be money, but in fact it is just a piece of paper, and the specific value depends entirely on one's mouth.

And the money of the Great Chu Empire is a serious gold standard currency. One Chu Yuan is equal to [-] grams of gold.

The gold standard currency has a great feature, that is, it is difficult to experience inflation. On the contrary, deflation often occurs... because the output of gold is often difficult to keep up with the increase in productivity in the industrial age, that is, The growth rate of wealth leads to insufficient currency in circulation, which leads to deflation.

Why did the Great Chu Empire go to great lengths to search for gold mines all over the world to dig for gold, and did not hesitate to set up a South African territory in Africa, just for the gold in South Africa, and what do you want gold for?
It is to increase the money supply and avoid deflation.

In fact, after the Great Chu Empire adopted the gold standard system, the actual purchasing power of gold worldwide has been rising, and the price ratio of gold and silver has even exceeded [-]:[-], and it is still rising... According to the views of some domestic economists, the ratio of the price of gold to silver may rise to [-]:[-]... and this time will not take too long, it may be reached within ten years.

For many indigenous countries in the world that still use silver as currency, such as the European countries, when they trade with Chu State, they will suffer a lot in settlement.

The Great Chu Empire, which adopted the gold standard currency, is different from the later modern countries in many economic models, so many things that people of later generations may take for granted do not exist in the Great Chu Empire, but some of the things that often appear in the Great Chu Empire This situation is actually very difficult to appear in later generations of modern countries.

For example, in the contemporary Great Chu Empire, there is no economic risk of inflation, but the risk of deflation.

In the absence of inflation, the interest on loans for bulk funds is actually relatively low, because inflation costs do not need to be considered.

In the case of inflation, if an asset wants to maintain its value, it needs a few points of annual interest just to offset the inflation guarantee. If you want to offset capital costs, labor costs, etc., you have to add a few points... These Then you can think about asset appreciation...

And in the case of deflation...the money will be more and more valuable if you don't do anything.

Under such circumstances, when the Finance Bank of the Great Chu Empire provides loans to foreign countries, it still adopts an annual interest rate of between [-]% and [-]%, plus a [-]% discount on delivery... It can be said that it is already very black-hearted.

But the Spaniards had no choice... Either they took out 500 million Chu yuan in cash, such as Chu yuan banknotes or equivalent gold, or they had to find a financial bank established by the people of Chu for loans.

In the end, only a loan contract can be signed.

In addition to opening the market, paying compensation, and selling overseas colonies, the Spaniards also leased part of the land around the port of Cadiz to the Great Chu Empire for 100 years.

And then there's a bunch of other bits and pieces.

Finally, the "Treaty of Chuxi Cadiz" was reached, and the war between the Great Chu Empire and the Kingdom of Spain officially came to an end, and the two sides entered into a state of peace.

The treaty of Cadiz was sent back with the battle report. Although legally, this treaty was signed by the full-fledged imperial envoy, it has actually taken effect and started to be implemented.

However, Luo Zhixue still issued a decree to use the seal for formal approval, which is a necessary procedure.

If Luo Zhixue was dissatisfied, he could actually deny this treaty and directly reject it.

It's just that Luo Zhixue generally doesn't do this.

After the treaty was formally signed, Luo Zhixue instructed various departments to do a good job in the next development of the Spanish market and the more important work of receiving the American colonies.

According to the treaty signed between the Great Chu Empire and Spain, plus the previous treaty signed with the Portuguese, the Great Chu Empire obtained all the overseas colonies of the above two countries, among which the American colonies are the absolute bulk.

This also means that most of the entire American region already belongs to the Great Chu Empire, because in the previous American region, the three largest colonial countries were the Great Chu Empire, Spain, and Portugal.

Among them, the Great Chu Empire controlled a large area of ​​the west coast of North America, and began to penetrate into the central inland, and began to control the Mississippi River Basin.

The Spaniards controlled Mexico as well as Central America and parts of northern South America.

The Portuguese controlled the east coast of South America, mainly Brazil.

In addition to these three countries, the remaining countries are Britain and France, and their colonies are mainly concentrated in the east coast of North America.

Now, as the Great Chu Empire landed in Europe and gained the Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas through wars, almost most of the Americas, including South America, have become colonies of the Great Chu Empire.

Only the colonies of a few countries such as Britain, France and the Netherlands are left.

Next, the Great Chu Empire will speed up the immigration and development of the American region. It will take over the large colonies of the Portuguese and the Spaniards, and garrison, immigration, development, etc. This is a very huge job that requires all aspects of the high-level empire. support.

In view of the fact that the empire has already controlled most of the Americas, a single governor of North America in the past is no longer enough to control such a large area.

Therefore, after deliberation by the Senate, the empire officially divided the North American governor's office into four, and established North American governor, Eastern American governor, Western American governor, and South American governor...Southeast, Northwest, simple and clear.

Governor of North America, whose jurisdiction covers a large area of ​​the west coast of North America, from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Mexico, the Bering Strait in the north, and the Mississippi River in the east

The governor of East America, whose jurisdiction extends from the Mississippi River in the west, the Atlantic Ocean in the east, the Arctic Ocean in the north, and the Gulf of Mexico and Mexico in the south.

The governor of West America, whose jurisdiction covers Mexico, Central America, and parts of northern South America that were controlled by Spain in the past, probably as far south as Columbia, Venezuela, and Ecuador.

The governor of South America, the jurisdiction is all South American regions south of the governor of West America, mainly the former Portuguese colony of Brazil, the Spanish colonies of Argentina, Chile and other places.

From the southeast to the northwest, the pattern of the four major governors of the Americas was established... However, although the areas under the jurisdiction of the four major governors are large, the population under their jurisdiction is actually not that large.

The largest North American governor, the population of Chu under the rule of millions of square kilometers is actually only about tens of millions of people... In the true sense, the land is vast and the population is sparse.

The population of Chu people in the other three governors' jurisdictions is even smaller, and the population of Chu people under the governor of East America is at most 30 to [-].

The population of Chu State under the rule of the governor of Western America is now estimated to be only [-] people...the governor of South America is only a few thousand sporadic people, and these people are Chu people who have already been here before. Mainly open up plantations.

So don't look at the four major governors, especially the three major governors other than the North American governor. Although they have a big name and a larger area under their jurisdiction, the population under their rule is not large, and it is not even as good as a county in China...

Therefore, for the Great Chu Empire, especially for the three newly established governors of the Americas, the top priority is not other things, but immigration... With a sufficient number of Chu people under their command, this governor can be worthy of the name!