The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 83 Distribution of the North American Colonies

Zhu Jianxuan confirmed the territorial exchange plan with Spain and continued to look at French Foreign Minister Charles Gravier:
“The areas west of the Appalachian Mountains, east of the Mississippi River, and along the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River were once colonies opened up by France.

“It was all transferred to the British after the Seven Years’ War.

“In this war, the American militia, led by the Ming Expeditionary Force, recaptured most of the territory.

"The Ming used the British prisoners captured by the expeditionary force to exchange the rest with Britain.

"I am now going to give to the United States the territory south of the Ohio River and north of Florida.

“The Great Lakes and the area north of the St. Lawrence River were returned to France.

“The Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River south, and the Ohio River north, are reserved by the Ming Dynasty.

"On this basis, the Ming Dynasty is willing to exchange the Caribbean islands of Antigua, Barbuda and Dominica for the part that should belong to France.

"Are France and the United States willing to accept such conditions?"

The American representative directly expressed his acceptance.

In name, the land between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River belonged to the Ming Dynasty. This distribution was certainly not an ideal result for America.

The Ohio River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, almost bisecting the land between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains.

Originally, all of these were America’s ideal outcomes, but now half of them have been nominally given to Ming Dynasty.

However, after the Ming Dynasty and France complete the exchange, America will merge with His Majesty the King's North American territory to achieve a nearly perfect result.

It stretches from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to the Hudson Bay in the north, and encompasses the entire eastern region of North America, including the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River.

In the eyes of several American representatives, this was simply the foundation of a brand new empire.

If we can later obtain the entire Great Plains west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, it will be truly perfect.

But France was not very satisfied. French Foreign Minister Gravier immediately raised questions:

“Dominica also belonged to France before the Seven Years’ War, and France should get the other islands that also belonged to France at that time.

"One, Tobago Island, two, all the islands from St. Vincent to Grenada, three, the entire former British Leeward Islands."

Zhu Jianxuan listened to the French conditions, which were to leave only Barbados Island to the Ming Dynasty, and the rest of the Lesser Antilles would belong to France.

Zhu Jianxuan felt that the French were somewhat unable to recognize reality, so he replied with a slightly angry face:
“The fourth basic principle I mentioned earlier is that Ming has the right to retain a portion of the land it recaptures for its allies as compensation.

"Otherwise, why did our Ming army come all the way to America? It's not to work for you French for free!
“So the subsequent islands mentioned by His Excellency the Earl should be the compensation that Ming Dynasty deserves, and there is no need to use them as a transaction.

“Antigua, Barbuda, and Dominica are more than enough to be traded for Canada.”

Gravier discussed with his companions for a while, then came back to continue bargaining with Zhu Jianxuan:
"Ming Dynasty should indeed be compensated, but the price paid by Quebec and Montreal should at least be...slightly higher.

“We can give up Tobago, but we should at least get the whole of the former British Leeward Islands.

"Plus this string of small islands from St. Vincent to Grenada in the south."

In the eyes of the French, Canada is basically equivalent to Quebec and Montreal, and other places can be ignored.

Therefore, during the transaction, these two towns were used to exchange for the "sugar islands" in Central America.

These islands are inconspicuous in the eyes of later generations, and you may not be able to find their location even if you look at the map.

In the eyes of today's European colonies, they are all very important assets.

The French were willing to quibble with the Ming Dynasty bit by bit over the ownership of these islands, constantly testing the Ming Dynasty's ultimate bottom line.

Zhu Jianxuan took the map of Central America and looked at it for a while.

Realizing that France's ideal goal was to acquire the entire Lesser Antilles chain, which would allow it to control the eastern entrance to the Caribbean Sea.

But the Ming Dynasty also had its own colonies in the Caribbean and certainly could not accept this situation.

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty had to retain this string of islands from St. Vincent to Grenada as a passage and supply transit station for the Ming Dynasty to enter and exit the Caribbean Sea.

So Zhu Jianxuan knocked on the table again and said:
"I'll propose a final plan, which is to give the former British Leeward Islands to France on the basis of my original plan, but forget about the rest.

"If you still can't accept it, then wait until the war is over and think of other solutions yourself."

(In the Lesser Antilles, the former British colonies are marked with red and green. The green part in the north belongs to France, and the red part in the south belongs to Ming. Those without color markings were originally colonies of France or other countries.)
The scene was quiet for a while. Gravière realized that he could no longer persuade Zhu Jianxuan, and finally said that he could accept this condition.

The final result was roughly equivalent to France getting most of Canada, including Quebec and Montreal, plus the two small islands of Dominica and Anguilla in the Caribbean, and exchanging Canada for the British Leeward Islands.

The French did not actually occupy anything on the battlefield, so they did not dare to get too serious with the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty was willing to stand up and divide the spoils openly, rather than swallowing up all the occupied territories behind the backs of its allies. This was already very responsible.

If the Ming Dynasty really does not give France a single island, all France can do is to discredit the Ming Dynasty in Europe.

France is quite satisfied with the current conditions, which are even slightly better than expected.

During the Seven Years' War, most of France's sugar islands in Central America were occupied by the British.

At the negotiation table after the war, Britain allowed France to choose between keeping one share of Canada and a few sugar islands.

The French chose those sugar islands and gave up most of Canada.

Now the French have once again given up most of Canada and once again chosen to take back the other two sugar islands.

At the same time, it acquired several islands in the Leeward Islands that originally belonged to Britain.

Compared to the period before the Seven Years' War, there are fewer southernmost islands and more former British Leeward Islands in the north.

From Puerto Rico to the south, the entire island chain where the Lesser Antilles are located, except for the southernmost islands and Barbados and Tobago islands on the outer edge of the island chain, which were left to the Ming Dynasty, all the others belonged to France.

France thought this was a good business. These sugar islands could produce stable and very good profits, which was just enough to make up for the losses from the war.

The king will definitely praise Ming Dynasty in the future.

So the French negotiations ended. After Zhu Jianxuan arranged the French affairs, he turned to look at the "Representative of the Left Guard of Jianzhou, Nurgandusi of the Ming Dynasty".

Heshen and Ji Yun.

The art of these two people is completely different from what I see on TV.

They are two very pure bureaucrats.

Zhu Jianxuan did not have any additional ideas about them and treated them according to the mentality of officials from a hostile vassal state:
“The North American border of Jianzhou Zuowei can be divided into two parts, the east-west part and the north-south part.

“The east-west section is in conflict with the Spanish state.

“Although it has no direct relationship with the Ming Dynasty court, the nature of Jianzhou Zuowei is a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty.

“So Ming still has to participate in the negotiations.

"The Ming Dynasty now suggests that both sides use the Line of Actual Control as the boundary."

He Shen immediately followed up with:
"On behalf of the Commander of the Left Guard of Jianzhou, I accept the arrangement of His Royal Highness the King of Wu."

Heshen and Ji Yun accepted Zhu Jianxuan's arrangement on behalf of Jianzhou Zuowei.

Zhu Jianxuan nodded and looked at the Spanish representative.

The Spanish Prime Minister was certainly not very happy that someone was coming to seize his territory, but he was not very angry either.

After all, the so-called conflict between the two sides was just that some places that had been visited by Spanish explorers were actually occupied by the Qing Dynasty, namely Jianzhou Zuowei.

This is also a common occurrence in European colonial history.

Many colonial powers have visited the same places, but it is not certain who will be able to stay in the end.

Some countries came and went, and some colonies could not be maintained and had to be abandoned, only to be picked up by other countries.

However, Spain knew the difference between itself and the Qing Dynasty, and the population gap between the two sides was too large.

If the actual occupation line had always been maintained, the Qing Dynasty would have been able to continuously expand its borders through continuous immigration.

Eventually, the entire Great Plains of North America might be occupied by the Qing people.

In this situation, the best option for the Spaniards was to draw a clear border along the mountains and rivers and require both sides not to cross the border in the future.

In the eyes of the Qing court, it would certainly be better not to draw clear boundaries, so that they could continue to encroach on the entire plain openly.

However, the Qing Dynasty came to Yingtianfu to sign the contract with the main goal of getting the Ming Dynasty to recognize its land in North America.

Therefore, the Qing Dynasty could only seek to draw a border first and have the Ming Dynasty confirm it.

Then he continued to fight Spain alone.

Anyway, the Great Plains are extremely vast, and there aren’t that many Spanish people, so it’s impossible to fill all places.

Even if the boundaries were drawn, people in the Qing Dynasty would still cross the boundaries to open up land.

Until the Spaniards can't stand it anymore, then they will fight a battle directly on the Great Plains.

The Qing Dynasty did not take the Spaniards seriously and had long been prepared to go to war with Spain directly.

Directly seize the Great Plains west of the Mississippi River.

However, even if both countries are willing to draw the boundary, the basis for the demarcation is difficult to determine.

The local geographical conditions are not fully understood by both countries.

Under the supervision of the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty and the Spaniards argued over the map for more than an hour and barely agreed on a rough border.

Starting from the river valley between Oregon and California in the past, it goes west into the Great Basin of Nevada.

In the past, it turned north from the southeast of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and followed the Rocky Mountains north to the location of Yellowstone Park.

Then the border becomes the Yellowstone River, all the way east to where it joins the Missouri River, and the border becomes the Missouri River.

Where the main Missouri River turns south, approximately in the central and western part of North Dakota in the former United States, the border between the two sides turns north again.

Further north is the border between Jianzhou Zuowei and the Ming Dynasty.

So at this time, Zhu Jianxuan looked at Heshen and Ji Yun again:

“The north-south border of Jianzhou Zuowei will be the future border with the Ming Dynasty’s North American territory.

“Most of the area along this border is extremely desolate and we can only draw a tentative border now.

“As we gain more information through subsequent exploration activities, we will connect the mountains, rivers and lakes to form a long-term boundary.

"I have drawn up a tentative plan. If you think it's okay, then let's do it."

The two Qing representatives didn't waste any time and directly asked Zhu Jianxuan to explain the plan.

Zhu Jianxuan started from the corner of the Missouri River on the map and connected the known exploration points in the northwest direction.

It eventually passes through Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake and enters the Arctic Ocean in western Canada's interior.

The northern region is a real wasteland.

Zhu Jianxuan's demarcation plan was relatively fair. He even ceded a part of the British exploration area in the southern part to the Qing Dynasty. The northernmost part was between the former unexplored areas of Britain and Qing Dynasty.

Heshen and Ji Yun accepted it without much thought.

At this point, the discussion on the distribution of colonies in North America has basically ended.

(General situation of the North American colonies after the 1781 Conference)

(End of this chapter)