Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 670 European Turmoil
The ability to forge good relations with the local indigenous people was not based on mere interests, but mainly on the inherently benevolent nature of the Chinese people, as well as Jia Lian's forceful demands.

In dealings and trade with the natives, do not try to take advantage. Give them what is due; land is acquired through trade with wine, ironware, cloth, and weapons.

These supplies are not of high value locally, but they are valuable to the indigenous people.

The development of the new Chinese colony is limited not only by its population, but also by various resources. After years of operation, the colony has developed the capacity to produce alcohol and cotton cloth, and recently coal and iron mines have been discovered. The next plan is to develop blast furnace steelmaking to address the shortage of ironware for daily use.

Money was the least useful thing to the natives, and the colonies employed large numbers of natives for work, providing them with supplies. This was also a way to accelerate development.

The general strategy was to assimilate the natives little by little. They were all human beings who all wanted a stable and prosperous life. As long as the colony could provide the natives with such a life, they could be gradually assimilated.

In comparison, the things done by Western colonizers are simply appalling; take a look at specific examples like scalp amputation.

Winter is finally over!
With spring in full bloom, it was the perfect time for a large-scale migration. Having conserved their energy throughout the winter, ten thousand young people, led by Xue Ke, finished their spring planting and eagerly set off northward to their new homes.

The colony didn't rest during the past winter either; they repaired roads whenever the weather was good. A road connecting New Gold Mountain to the Kaiyuan colony is already half-completed. It will definitely be finished next year during the off-season.

Life in the North American colonies was tough, but for those who came from the homeland, it was nothing.

Back home, we toiled all year round and barely had a decent meal. After joining the colony, we were able to eat our fill almost every day, with a constant supply of meat, and at least we had fish.

Everyone cherishes the life they have now, where they have enough to eat and wear, and there is something called hope waiting for them ahead on the road ahead.

Xue Ke didn't actually want to come to North America, but he had no choice; it wasn't something he could decide on his own. Fortunately, Xue Pan didn't mistreat him; he had four women serving him daily, plus a whole team.

This team is very young, the oldest being in their early twenties. They are all orphans raised by the Xue family and are completely obedient to the Xue family.

As Xue Pan instructed before his departure, he came to prepare a final escape route for the Xue family. They might never need it, but what if they did one day?
You could call it exile, but it can't really be called exile. Yet you could call it a promotion, but everything here has to start from scratch.

Xue Ke had mixed feelings. Thinking of his wife and children back home, as well as his sister and brother-in-law's family who were still in the local area, Xue Ke had no choice but to come despite his reluctance, hoping to return in the future or bring his family over.

Li Heng personally saw Xue Ke and the first batch of more than 5,000 immigrants off. It wasn't that there wasn't enough transport capacity, but rather that after a winter, half of the women had become pregnant, making it unsuitable for them to go to reclaim wasteland. Therefore, they remained in Jinshan City. They would be moved there after the children were born.

After staying for a while, Li Heng realized that the influence of the Prince of Xinhua was only so-so. The people below him weren't exactly outwardly compliant but inwardly defiant, but there was always a layer between them.

They're not one of our own people, after all!
There's nothing we can do about it. If I were so capable, I wouldn't have come to the Xinhua colony. Everything can only be done gradually.

Instead of indulging in wild thoughts, you'd be better off personally overseeing the construction of the blast furnace and striving to produce steel as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, the colony had no shortage of skilled craftsmen, and it was not difficult to concentrate efforts on repairing the blast furnace after the spring planting season.

Especially before Li Heng arrived, Xue Fang and other previous leaders had already done a lot of work, including coal washing, coking, road construction, and mining.

As time went by, blast furnaces were erected one after another. Large quantities of ore and coke were transported to the steel mill by livestock along rail tracks.

The entire process took eight months, including a busy summer harvest and planting season. Finally, the blast furnace was lit, billowing thick smoke.

Li Heng personally visited the Xin Jinshan Steel Plant and felt a great sense of accomplishment after watching the first batch of molten steel come out of the furnace.

The steel plant's workforce was mainly composed of local immigrants, but the mines, coal mining, coal washing, and coking plants employed a large number of local natives.

Xue Fang hadn't given a specific number before, but Li Heng had figured it out recently—at least 20,000 people. The settlements near the mines had all become towns, and besides the able-bodied men, there were also women, children, and infants.

With this calculation, the population becomes quite substantial. When we first arrived, the reported population was only 50,000, which referred to male laborers and did not include women and children.

Including the hired indigenous people, the male labor force could reach 70,000. At a rate of 50,000 new local laborers per year, it would take at least another ten years to reach a million people.

Thinking of all this, Li Heng could only sigh softly.

Before the third winter arrived, more good news came. Before October, ships arrived continuously, carrying young men and women. The docks were busy for more than a month, only stopping just before the New Year. More than two hundred ships from the country arrived in total, including fifty armed merchant ships carrying a thousand young soldiers and a large amount of supplies, as requested by the Empress Dowager.

The remaining 150-plus ships carried over 70,000 young men and women. All the men were local immigrants, while the women were a mixed group, including those of all skin colors except for black.

Upon inquiring, it was discovered that the Xue family, under the guise of providing wives and land as part of immigration programs, recruited young men from all over the country, each receiving a settlement allowance. After recruitment, they weren't transported directly; instead, they were first sent to the concessions of Ryukyu and Nagasaki for a period of military training. Only then were each man given a woman and sent together to the Xinhua Colony.

After these people were sent there, they would rest and recuperate in New Gold Mountain for a while. After spring, half of them would go north to the Kaiyuan colony, and the other half would go south to the Pingyuan (Los Angeles) colony.

Domestically, Jia Lian's attention is now focused on Europe. With the formal establishment of the Third Coalition against France, Napoleon faces immense pressure with an army of 500,000.

In particular, Tsarist Russia, as the main force of the anti-French coalition, was of utmost importance to Napoleon.

To alleviate the pressure on the French army, Napoleon intensified his efforts to win over the Ottoman Turks, sending hundreds of officers to serve as advisors to the Turkish army and also transporting a large number of smoothbore muskets.

In response to this change, the Zhou Empire's military advisory group, which had anticipated this, immediately withdrew from the Turkish army, and the ambassador to Turkey also indicated that the country would not interfere. When the French officer corps first arrived, they were inevitably arrogant. Born into an army that had swept across Europe, they viewed everyone else as weaklings.

But the French military advisors were quickly shocked!
First, the advisors sent to the army were from the 2nd Guards Corps under Ibrahim's command. Ibrahim was very displeased with the arrogant Frenchmen and, in particular, wanted to beat up the fool, Eldovan. In contrast, the advisors from the Zhou Empire, though assertive, always consulted with Ibrahim first and tried to appease him. Unlike the French advisors, who simply said "do as you're told" without question, and even boasted that back in North America, a group of farmers could be trained into a competent army and defeat the British.

The advisors from the Zhou Empire left, but the trained army and tactics remained. The French demanded a demonstration to see the true quality of the Turkish elite.

Despite his displeasure, Ibrahim followed Pasha's instructions and organized the army to conduct a performance.

After the exercise began, the French advisors noticed something was amiss. The tactics of this Third Guards Corps seemed unfamiliar.

Both were line formations, but the Turkish army had more scouts in front of them. The French advisors wanted to complain but didn't dare, because when line formations moved, their orderly formation and synchronized movements indicated that they were elite troops.

The key was the coordinated operations between artillery and infantry; the French advisors believed they had grasped the essence of artillery-infantry coordination. Furthermore, the artillery of the Guards was highly mobile, had a high rate of fire, and moved in perfect unison, clearly indicating a well-trained artillery force, not much inferior to the French artillery. Most importantly, their artillery had a longer range than the 12-pound and 6-pound bronze cannons used by the French.

French military advisor Brigadier General Werner cautiously inquired of Ibrahim, "Your Grace, why do your army have more hunters at the front lines?"

Ibrahim didn't want to answer, but he still replied, "Because my unit is the Imperial Guard, and all 10,000 infantrymen are equipped with rifled muskets. This formation was adjusted by the Zhou Empire's military advisors based on the characteristics of rifled muskets, making full use of the high accuracy of our rifled muskets to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy before the two armies exchange fire, thereby disrupting the enemy's formation and demoralizing them."

Werner was speechless for a moment; he dared not offer a rebuttal. What they said made sense; the Minié round was no secret, and with the increased rate of fire and the improved power of rifled guns, the firepower was greatly enhanced.

Before the Minié round, loading rifled guns was a nightmare; at most, a single shot could be fired on the battlefield before the jabman had to run. The Turkish jabmen, however, were different. They operated in groups of three, spaced fifty meters apart, advancing two hundred meters ahead, ensuring both rate of fire and accuracy—they truly could do it.

"It seems we underestimated your army's strength. I apologize for my previous attitude." Werner proactively admitted defeat, which secretly pleased Ibrahim, though he remained frustrated. Having failed to dissuade Pasha from aligning with France, he could only silently express his helplessness.

When Major General Murat of the cavalry arrived at the Turkish Imperial Guard Cavalry Corps, he encountered the same awkward situation.

At first, he also looked down on the Turkish army and demanded to act as well. As the acting progressed, Murat's eyes became increasingly fixed on the ground.

The equipment of the Turkish cavalry guardsman was enough to make him drool. Breastplates were standard issue; these weren't difficult to acquire, yet the Turkish army didn't issue them. Instead, each soldier had a revolver and a rifle. Revolvers, coveted by wealthy Europeans, were standard issue in the Turkish guardsman cavalry. Furthermore, each soldier's short rifle was rifled, firing Minié bullets, and finally, a finely crafted saber.

Murat's mouth watered at the sight of the equipment; it was simply too good. Tactically, relying on the range and accuracy advantage of the rifles, the Turkish army would employ kiting tactics at long range and rapid fire with revolvers at close range.

Murat couldn't imagine any cavalry force that could defeat this Imperial Guard cavalry when outnumbered.

After a few days, the French military advisory group finally relaxed a bit. The Turkish army had a limited number of rifled guns, at most 30,000, and revolvers, at most 20,000.

Even so, this number is still astonishing. The most speechless is the artillery, which is in no way inferior to the French army.

The French military advisory group, initially shocked, was overjoyed. The Turkish army's combat capabilities far exceeded their previous assessments, which was a good thing.

On one hand, the French military advisory group quickly dispatched a envoy to report to Napoleon, informing him of the true combat strength of the Ottoman army. On the other hand, they hoped to continue increasing aid to the Ottoman army and, through diplomacy, urge it to launch an attack on Tsarist Russia as soon as possible. Finally, they hoped that Napoleon would send an envoy by land to the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz to charter Zhou Dynasty merchant ships to travel to the Zhou Dynasty and seek recognition and cooperation.

Napoleon, who was preparing for his campaign, took the report from his advisors very seriously and agreed to all their suggestions. He was particularly impressed by the last point: while the East was far away and military cooperation was unlikely, there was potential for commercial collaboration. If the sea route was impassable, they could take the land route.

In 1805, Napoleon commanded 22 French troops to fight the anti-French coalition forces along the Rhine River. He seized on the loopholes in the coalition's deployment and launched a preemptive attack that defeated the Odono River Army. He then changed his plans to encircle the Russian army, but this plan was seen through by Kutuzov and failed.

The subsequent Battle of Austerlitz, known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, saw the French defeat the Austrian army but fail to inflict heavy losses on the Russian army. Instead, the French successfully forced Austria to withdraw from the alliance.

As a result, the Third Coalition against France broke down, and the Holy Roman Empire collapsed.

While Napoleon achieved a great victory in this battle, he also realized how formidable the Russian army was. He further increased aid to Turkey, hoping that Türkiye would launch a war as soon as possible to divert Russian military attention.

With Britain's efforts to mediate, in September 1806, Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Sweden formed an alliance again, establishing the Fourth Coalition against France.

Türkiye saw this as a golden opportunity, as Tsarist Russia was at war with France and Iran. It thus preemptively replaced the Grand Princes of Moldavia and Wallachia with armed force.

The Russian army responded strongly, forming a 40,000-strong corps and launching an offensive against Türkiye with the support of the British Navy.

The Turkish army, which judged that the Russian army would not dare to act rashly, was caught off guard by the Russian army's preemptive tactics and lost two puppet principalities that it had previously acquired.

However, they successfully defended against the British navy's attack and held the Dardanelles Strait. It can only be said that the Dardanelles Strait was truly a thorn in the side of the British.

Churchill arrived in full of confidence during World War I and commanded the landing operation. After paying a heavy price, he gained nothing and became a laughing stock. It was also one of the few victories for Türkiye.

It can only be said that the British, at times, have a strange sense of self-confidence, believing that they can definitely do it, as long as they get to the destination.

This trait was perfectly inherited and further developed by his third son. During the conflict on the plateau, Nehru's inexplicable self-confidence was shattered.

It also interrupted the path of a great power!

(End of this chapter)