Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 570 Spring Day (Part Two)

The warm sunlight shone unhindered on the azure waters of Nanping Bay (now San Diego Bay), creating shimmering ripples.

At the entrance to the bay, the long, narrow sandbar (also known as Coronado Island), named "Dingyuan Island" by the new Chinese, lies like a sleeping giant python between the blue sea and the inner bay.

The original sand dunes and salt marshes that once covered the island have been largely leveled, exposing the yellowish-brown soil and shallow bedrock.

The sparse coastal shrubs were also cut down, leaving only a few stumps and broken branches.

On the highest point of the island, facing the strait, more than 300 Spanish prisoners were painstakingly digging the foundation of the fortress under the supervision of Xinhua soldiers.

The sounds of picks striking hard sand, shovels scraping soil, and overseers shouting mingled together, creating a scene of oppressive labor.

Antonio Morales straightened his aching back once again and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his already filthy sleeve.

He was originally a musketeer in the New Spanish colonial army. He was captured by the New Chinese army in Guadalajara last year and then transferred here.

He looked at the busy and miserable scene before him. The prisoners were divided into groups of three. Two people used pickaxes to dig through the hard ground, and one person used a shovel to shovel the loose soil and rocks into a wicker basket. After the basket was full, another group of people carried it to the edge of the cliff and dumped it into the sea.

"Hurry up! Get to work faster!" a Xinhua militiaman wielding a rattan whip shouted. "This foundation excavation must be completed before sunset, or you'll all be starving!"

Although they couldn't understand what he was saying, the raised rattan whip silently conveyed his attitude, urging the prisoners to speed up their work.

Standing next to Antonio was a plantation owner named Diego de la Cruz, who had organized the plantation guards to resolutely resist the attack of the new Chinese. After being captured, he was subjected to the most severe punishment: his two sons were hanged on the plantation, and his three daughters were kidnapped and their whereabouts are unknown.

He went from being a pampered estate lord to a pitiful laborer. His once full and round face was now sunken, and his clothes were tattered and replaced by a coarse prison uniform.

He swung the pickaxe with difficulty, each lift appearing exceptionally strenuous.

“Mr. Cruz, take a break,” Antonio said in a low voice, his gaze sweeping warily over the nearby overseers. “You’re still sick; you need to take care of yourself.”

Cruz shook his head, panting, and said, "Thank you, Antonio. But I... can't rest. If I don't finish... my share, it means I'll go hungry. Do you remember that... disciplinary lesson from two weeks ago?"

Upon hearing this, Antonio immediately fell silent.

They would never forget that just half a month ago, a young nobleman from Mexico City, exhausted from his work, failed to complete his earthwork quota for the day and even confronted the Xinhua supervisor. As a result, he was punished with twenty lashes and thrown into that dark, cramped "room of reflection," where he spent the night suffering from hunger and thirst.

As a result, he developed a high fever the next day, and three days later, no sound came from that little house anymore.

“These heretics… they are all messengers of the devil,” a tall, thin man muttered under his breath.

He was Juan Castro, a former second lieutenant in the colonial army, who straightened up and looked toward the makeshift dock: "Look what they've done to us! To let a bunch of lowly, uncivilized Indians drive noble Spaniards. It's a curse from God!"

Antonio followed his gaze: a group of prisoners were dragging huge boulders from the makeshift dock up a slope, each rock supported by logs, but it still took several men working together to move them.

A dark-skinned, expressionless Native American overseer stood to one side, holding a spear and occasionally stabbing the slower prisoners with the shaft.

Further away, some prisoners were stirring a grayish-white, mysterious slurry that the new Chinese called "cement."

“At least they gave us food, so we barely didn’t go hungry,” Antonio said calmly. “In many mines and farms in Guadalajara, those indigenous people couldn’t even get a few tortillas.”

Juan sneered, "For such a small amount of food, they make us do such heavy work! Fourteen hours a day, they're trying to squeeze every last bit of strength out of us and then throw us away like rags!"

Just then, a sea breeze blew by, bringing with it faint sounds from the opposite shore of the bay.

Everyone looked toward the inner bay—where a ship repair shop of considerable size had been built, with tall wooden cranes towering in the air, and several Xinhua transport ships moored beside the dock, where workers were carrying out repairs and maintenance.

Further away, the outlines of two stone castles on the mainland were already clear, with the red flag with gold stars flying in the wind.

“They are not just passing through, nor are they temporarily occupying the land,” Cruz said, his voice weary with a sense of having seen through fate. He gazed at the scene across the river. “Look at the scale of those castles, look at those fields being cultivated, those newly built villages with smoke rising from their chimneys… The new Chinese are going to put their roots here forever.”

Juan spat: "What are those pampered gentlemen in Mexico City doing? Just letting these infidels do whatever they want on our land?"

"The gentlemen of Mexico City?" a hoarse voice came from behind.

Everyone turned around and saw that it was Álvaro Mendoza, a junior clerk who had previously served in the governor's office. He had been captured by the Xinhua Army along with hundreds of colonial soldiers while conveying the governor's orders.

He was struggling to drag a basket of gravel with another prisoner. “Yesterday I heard from the foreman that the Xinhua Army had reached Cuotra and was only about 80 kilometers from Mexico City.”

The news was like a boulder thrown into water, causing a stir among the prisoners.

"Impossible!" Juan exclaimed. "It's only been a year since the war started, and they've already reached Mexico City?"

“It’s absolutely true,” Alvaro said, panting. “It’s said that Mexico City is in chaos, alarm bells are ringing, and many nobles have fled.”

Cruz made the sign of the cross and murmured a prayer: "Merciful Lord, have mercy on your lost sheep, protect New Spain..."

Antonio listened in silence, but his pickaxe continued to strike.

He recalled his experiences during his six months of captivity: first, digging canals, felling trees, leveling the land, and building houses on the land across the bay. It was summer then, and many people, having just arrived, were unable to adapt to the environment and, coupled with the heavy labor, died one after another.

Last month, these “decent” prisoners were transferred to this deserted island, and their mission became building this fortress that guards the choke point of the bay.

"Can we still go home?" a young prisoner asked timidly. He looked no more than eighteen years old and was a cavalryman who had been ambushed and captured in the San Martin Valley.

No one answered; only the sound of pickaxes striking the ground echoed in the sea breeze.

The noon bell finally rang, and the prisoners breathed a sigh of relief as they put down their tools and lined up to receive their food.

Each person received a corn tortilla, a bowl of fairly thick corn porridge, and a small piece of dried fish.

Although insignificant, it was a rare comfort to the prisoners who had been working since dawn.

Antonio and several familiar prisoners sat behind a sheltered sand dune, eating their lunch in silence.

“Have you noticed?” Alvaro took a small bite of his tortilla, lowered his voice, and his eyes gleamed with the keen observation characteristic of a former colonial official. “The way the new Chinese are organized, and the tools and technologies they use, are all… extraordinary.”

He pointed to the foundation of the fortress under construction: "Look at their surveying instruments, they are extremely accurate; look at their construction methods and organization, so many people are not chaotic at all, but each does their job in an orderly manner; and that thing called 'cement,' after being mixed with water, can become like rock in a few hours... These are all things we have never heard of before."

Juan scoffed: "So what? It's just building castles and fortifications! In terms of scale and grandeur, how can these projects compare to the Mexico City Cathedral and the Governor's Palace?"

“Juan…” Alvaro shook his head. “Mexico City’s glory was built over a hundred years, at the cost of countless indigenous lives and Spanish wealth. But look at this place…”

His arm traced a semicircle, pointing to the island and the opposite shore. "All of this—the castles, farmlands, canals, docks, and even this fortress beneath our feet—was built from scratch in less than two years."

"You know, before the new Chinese took over this place, we Spaniards had been managing it for seven or eight years, investing a lot of resources. And what was the result? There were only seventy or eighty immigrants, and they couldn't even be self-sufficient in food. Apart from a dilapidated wooden fortress and a few thatched huts, they left almost nothing and were constantly threatened by disease and the natives."

"..." Juan was stunned. "Mr. Alvaro, you mean..."

As he watched Juan's face change, he continued, "And the new Chinese, while waging a large-scale war, not only defended this place, but also developed it into a stronghold, immigrated thousands of people, cultivated enough farmland to be self-sufficient, and built workshops capable of repairing large ships... Isn't such speed and efficiency of construction terrifying?"

"It is foreseeable that once the fortresses and batteries here are built, even if we Spanish organize an invincible fleet to attack, we may not be able to recapture this natural harbor with its excellent geographical location. The new Chinese will turn this place into their forward base for attacking us."

Silence fell over the crowd, broken only by the sound of waves crashing against the shore. Juan glanced instinctively towards Doumen Cape (now Loma Cape) across the strait, where similar construction was underway.

It is conceivable that once the fortifications on both sides are completed, any fleet attempting to force its way in will face devastating crossfire.

“While the new Chinese are waging war against us, it seems they still haven’t stopped emigrating,” Alvaro murmured. “This means that their strength has not only not been depleted in the war, but has continued to grow… They are not just plundering, but want to occupy and colonize permanently.”

The afternoon's work was even more difficult.

The overseers had apparently been ordered to speed things up, instructing the prisoners to deepen the foundation they had dug that morning by another foot.

The exhausted prisoners could only manage to hold on, each swing of their tools a last-ditch effort.

Antonio's hands were already covered in blisters, which then ruptured and formed thick calluses.

As he worked mechanically, his thoughts drifted far away, back to his home in Veracruz with its little yard. His wife Maria's gentle smile, his son's toddler steps, his daughter's babbling… How were they now?

Having lost the breadwinner of their family, how are they supposed to survive in this cruel colony?
"Focus on your work!" a foreman's shout interrupted his thoughts. "Don't stop!"

As the sun set, the prisoners finally completed their tasks for the day.

They lined up, dragging their weary bodies toward the makeshift shed.

The so-called workers' sheds were nothing more than simple thatched huts, with dry grass on the ground serving as beds.

The evening breeze seeped in through the cracks, bringing a touch of early spring chill.

Dinner was similar to lunch, except the corn porridge was thinner.

The prisoners ate in silence; no one spoke, only the sounds of chewing and swallowing filled the air.

As night fell, the workers' shed was filled with the sounds of snoring and soft sobs from their injuries.

Antonio lay on the haystack, gazing at the starlight filtering through the cracks in the roof, unable to fall asleep.

"Can't sleep?" came Cruz's voice from beside me.

Antonio gave a soft "hmm".

"What are you thinking about?"

“I’m wondering when all this will end,” Antonio said softly. “Mr. Cruz, do you think we still have a chance… to go home?”

In the darkness, Cruz remained silent for a long time, so long that Antonio thought he had fallen asleep.

Then, the hoarse voice rang out again, carrying a calm that had been crushed by fate: "I don't know, Antonio... perhaps, our final destination is this land of infidels."

"Has God...abandoned us?"

“God has never abandoned his people.” Cruz’s voice was somewhat ethereal. “It’s just that… his light has not yet shone into this abyss where we live.”

Just then, footsteps and the flickering light of torches came from outside the shed.

Several Xinhua soldiers walked in carrying torches, led by an officer who spoke fluent Spanish.

"Attention, everyone!" the officer shouted. "Starting tomorrow, the foundation work on the fort will enter the masonry phase. We need twenty prisoners with experience in stonemasonry. They will be well paid, with an extra ration per day."

The prisoners looked at each other, and no one spoke.

The torchlight danced across his face, illuminating his expressionless features.

"Volunteers will receive an extra portion of their daily rations, including additional dried meat or beans. Those who perform exceptionally well will have the opportunity to receive special treatment after the project is completed, and may even... end their prisoner status early."

These words caused an even greater commotion among the prisoners.

End your prisoner status early!

Does this mean leaving this hell on earth, gaining limited freedom, or even... the hope of going home?

The prisoners stirred, and whispers spread like a tide.

Some people's eyes lit up with desire, while others frowned in suspicion, and still others cursed under their breath, believing it to be a prank by heretics.

Finally, a thin man who had been huddled in the corner timidly raised his hand, his voice barely audible: "I...I worked as a stonemason in Puebla for three years..."

“Very good.” The officer nodded. “Write down his name. Anything else?”

Several more people raised their hands, their hands trembling, and announced their former skills: carpentry, bricklaying...

Antonio's heart pounded violently in his chest, and blood rushed to his head.

He recalled his father's blacksmith shop in Veracruz, where he had spent his childhood, and the memories of hammering on the anvil and sparks flying were now incredibly clear.

He took a deep breath, as if using all his strength, and raised his hand, which was covered in scars and calluses.

“I…I used to be a blacksmith’s apprentice, and I could forge and repair some simple tools and…weapons.”

The officer's sharp gaze fell on him, scrutinizing him for a moment. "Alright. Tomorrow at dawn, all volunteers will report to the stone quarry on the east side of the construction site. ...You too."

The officer left with the registered list, but a more complex and indescribable atmosphere settled inside the work shed.

Envy, jealousy, contempt, anger, despair... all sorts of emotions intertwined in the darkness.

“You…you really want to help these devils?” Juan Castro’s voice trembled with rage; he almost growled, “You are betraying God, betraying the King!”

The stonemason who raised his hand first buried his face in his knees, murmuring in a tearful voice, "I just... I just want to live... I want to see my children again someday..."

Antonio did not answer Juan's question.

He simply lay down again, turned around, turned his back to the chaotic gazes and discussions, and looked once more at the crack in the ceiling.

The starlight outside seemed brighter than before, and a faint glimmer of hope ignited in his heart.

Perhaps, through limited cooperation, he could truly gain a chance to survive, and thus return to Mexico after the war to see his wife and children again.

Antonio took one last look at the starry sky outside the shed, took a deep breath of the musty, sweaty air, and then closed his eyes tightly.

Tomorrow, when dawn breaks, the new day may be just as cruel.

But at least, there was a glimmer of something different.
-
(End of this chapter)