Empire Rising: Spain

As long as there are those willing to surrender control of their military forces, Spain will not deal with them for the time being. But if they refuse to relinquish command of their troops, then they undoubtedly harbor ill intentions.

Andrew will not be courteous to these individuals, directly ordering the military to launch a forceful attack. After capturing the capital of the state, the ruler of the state, the Emir, would be executed.

Compared to the time taken to attack the Sokoto Caliphate Government, Spain actually spent more time attacking these nearly thirty states.

The reason is simple—these thirty states are spread across a land that is 1,600 kilometers wide east to west and over 900 kilometers long north to south, making the travel time to each Emir State the longest.

The actual time needed to attack each state wasn’t long, given that the population of each state is small, even less than the small indigenous nations like the conquered Bam Kingdom and the Alo Alliance.

The Sokoto Caliphate had nearly ten million people and close to thirty indigenous states. This means that each state had an average population of only a bit over 300,000. What could be done with such a small population?

After nearly two months of consolidation, Andrew wiped out more than ten indigenous states, leaving only ten indigenous states to govern the Sokoto region.

Besides the three states in the south originally compliant with Spanish rule, Andrew left Mandala, Ukari, Bauchi, Bed, Kano, Borgu, Kabi, and seven Emir States to collectively form the ten states governing the Sokoto region.

To prevent a re-consolidation of these ten states into a relatively strong resistance force, the Guinea Colony Government, after deliberation, decided to abolish the military rights of each Emir State.

These ten Emir States are only allowed to maintain a military force of a thousand personnel to protect the safety of the Emir State itself.

As for safeguarding the sovereignty of this piece of land, the Spanish colonial military’s protection renders these indigenous troops unnecessary.

Apart from reducing the military forces of these ten states, Spain continues the original policies of the Sokoto Caliphate. These ten Emir States must submit tributes to the Guinea Colony, and those who fail to meet tribute quotas will be penalized.

Although the original nearly thirty Emir States have been reduced to ten, these ten Emir States have not fully absorbed the land area of the Sokoto Caliphate.

The core land once belonging to the Caliph was directly taken over by the Guinea Colony. What these ten Emir States annexed was mostly land from other states, meaning that the population of these Emir States barely exceeds a million.

To prevent collusion between these Emir States, Spain has also established relevant rules within these ten Emir States.

If any state’s ruler discovers that another state intends to resist Spanish colonial rule, they can report to the Guinea Colony Government.

If the report is verified, not only will the Emir State planning the resistance operation be punished, but the reporting state will also receive a reward.

What reward? Of course, it’s the land and population of the Emir State that planned the resistance operation.

This provision’s direct benefit is placing the Emir State planning the resistance operation against the other states. If an Emir State plans to resist Spanish colonial action in the future, they not only need to avoid detection by the Spanish colonial government but also prevent discovery by other Emir States.

Because reports can earn land and population rewards, these Emir States will actively monitor the situation and actions of other states.

Thus, Emir States that might have cooperated with one another have now become enemies. Given these adversarial relationships, cooperation naturally becomes impossible.

This method of dealing has long been implemented in the Ashanti Empire and other federated indigenous nations, and Spain is no stranger to it.

After completely controlling the situation of the Sokoto Caliphate, Spain spent less than half a month establishing this system of governance.

During this time, Spain also mobilized about half a million people from the Sokoto Caliphate to other regions of the Guinea Colony.

This move not only decreases the population in Sokoto, enhancing local stability, but also increases manpower in other areas.

Spain has discovered a new gold mine in the Gold Coast range; these hands can either go to the Gold Coast to mine gold or reach the Congo region for Spain to cultivate new land.

Of course, some manpower must also be retained in the Sokoto region. Since Spain has already fully controlled this area, the next crucial task is building railways there.

Railways will not only facilitate Spain’s acquisition of resources from each state but also enable Spanish colonial troops to reach with greater speed across each state’s territory.

As long as railways can connect the lands of each state, even if rebellion breaks out in the future, it won’t be a difficult problem for Spain to solve.

It is worth mentioning that because the entire Sokoto region was incorporated into the Guinea Colony, it has allowed the Guinea Colony to become Spain’s largest colony in Africa.

Apart from being the largest in area, the Guinea Colony also has the longest coastline in Africa and the largest indigenous population of any Spanish colony.