Empire Rising: Spain

During the fervent political reforms at home, the Colonial Affairs Department was also advancing the progress of colonial mergers.

Before May 1885 arrived, the Colonial Affairs Department reported a piece of good news to Carlo, which was the successful merger of the West Africa Colony.

The current West Africa Colony was no longer the once small region of just 30,000 square kilometers but had become a vast administrative area consisting of multiple colonies.

The former Gambia Colony, Jijinshao’er Colony, Guinea Colony, and Sierra Leone Colony have all been merged in, and the surrounding lands of the surrounding Niger Kingdom and Fouta Jallon have mostly been annexed.

It is precisely because of the merger of multiple colonies that the area of the West Africa Colony has exceeded 200,000 square kilometers, making it a moderate-sized colony.

For Carlo, the successful merger of the West Africa Colony was undoubtedly good news. The West Africa Colony was to be Spain’s agricultural development zone in Africa, and in terms of importance, it was no less than larger colonial territories like Congo Territory.

After the successful merger of the West Africa Colony, Spain only needs to merge the Gold Coast and Guinea Colony.

Currently, the situation along the Guinea Gulf Coast is quite clear, with only Spain and France as the main competitors.

Spain’s colony was mainly concentrated at the corner of the Guinea Bay, while France’s colonies were distributed more on the periphery of Spain’s colony, like west of the Gold Coast and south of Guinea.

In terms of colonial development in Africa, France and Spain were quite cooperative. Although they were in competition, the competition between the two countries was not intense, and most of the time, they coexisted peacefully.

France does not interfere with Spain’s colonial plans, and Spain likewise does not interfere with France’s colonial plans.

This has also resulted in relatively concentrated colonies, which facilitated Spain’s consolidation plans for the Gold Coast Colony and Guinea Colony.

Currently, the Gold Coast Colony has successfully merged Togo and Vida, and the Guinea Colony has already annexed the Alo Alliance.

The closest distance between the two colonies is less than 500 kilometers, which essentially represents that Spain’s colonial consolidation plan is soon to be successful.

Because of Carlo and the Spanish Government’s attention to the colonial merger plan, the Minister of Colonial Affairs, William, was clearly eager to prove his capabilities.

With the formation of two new colonial divisions in Congo Territory, the Colonial Affairs Department and Ministry of Defense mobilized three full colonial divisions plus five Colonial Defense Corps, totaling 70,000 troops, and launched a grand attack on the native forces like Benin Kingdom and Niger Kingdom between the two colonies.

There were only two noteworthy native forces locally, one was the inland Sokoto Caliphate, and the other was the Benin Kingdom.

The Sokoto Caliphate had been introduced before, and the other Benin Kingdom had no relation whatsoever to the latter-day Benin, they merely shared the same name.

The current Benin Kingdom was a country established by the Edo people on this land, with its founding dating back to 1180 AD, over 700 years ago.

Throughout more than 700 years of history, the Benin Kingdom had also had a glorious and splendid history. They were one of the oldest and most developed countries on the West African Coast, and till now, it remains a relatively powerful native country on the West African Coast.

But such strength was only relative, moreover, compared to its heyday, the Benin Kingdom had already considerably weakened and decayed.

Spain’s strategy for conquering the Benin Kingdom was primarily in rapidly annexing the coast and slowly eroding the interior.

Whether it was Niger Kingdom or Benin Kingdom, their more northern parts were the massive Sokoto Caliphate, a country stretching over 1600 kilometers in width.

This also means that as soon as Spain erodes their coasts, these native countries have nowhere to escape.

As their land gets eroded bit by bit, the living space of these natives will continuously be compressed. By then, they’ll only have two choices, either head north to seek refuge with Sokoto Caliphate or submit to Spain’s colonial rule.

Once Spain completely erodes these small countries on the West African Coast, they will consider launching colonial invasions against the more powerful northern Sokoto Caliphate.

This country was a super-large empire formed by the unification of various native countries, with a population of at least tens of millions, not easily conquerable.

If rashly launching an attack on this country, it could very possibly be dragged into a whirlpool of war. This is also why Spain chose it as the final target, instead of conquering it along with native countries like Benin and Niger.

It is worth mentioning that while the African colonial consolidation plan was proceeding, Spain was also conducting its actions in the Middle East.

However, compared to the grand actions in Africa, the actions in the Middle East seemed quite insignificant.

To be precise, it involved incorporating the Truce States, an area large but with not much population, into Spain’s colonial rule. The population here was a mere tens of thousands, and most of the land was vast, endless deserts, offering no economic value for development to the great powers.