Empire Rising: Spain

The colony of Gambia in Spain naturally receives the largest number of indigenous Ashanti.

As the main colony for agricultural development in Spain’s West African development plan, the Gambia Colony requires a large workforce to cultivate the land and maintain the operation of plantations.

The land cultivated by these indigenous laborers is used to attract more European immigrants; only by increasing the number of European immigrants can the colony maintain stability.

European immigrants certainly engage in farming, but these are a minority. Most can obtain loans from Spain’s two major official banks, using this money to rent affordable indigenous labor, which is definitely more profitable than farming themselves, whether starting a farm or plantation.

Of course, agriculture is not the only outlet for European immigrants. Immigrants with more substantial capital can explore mineral resources, and if they find valuable minerals, their assets could multiply several times, even instantly becoming millionaires.

There’s also engaging in commercial activities and other work that is more profitable and easier, which is what European immigrants, especially Spanish immigrants, should do.

As more and more indigenous Ashanti are transported away, other tribes within the Federation finally sense that something is wrong.

Although the Spanish Army has not attacked them, Spain’s governing strategy in Ashanti is clearly not going to let this matter rest easily.

Several larger tribes reunite, attempting to reconstruct the Chief Council to discuss how the Federation should sustain itself without the Ashanti Tribe and avoid war with Spain as much as possible.

The actions of these larger tribes have caught the attention of the Gold Coast Colony. To dispel doubts among these indigenous people, the Gold Coast Colony made a significant decision—to directly launch a war against these indigenous people.

The reasons for launching a war are easily found, and sometimes it isn’t even important to have a reason.

A few days later, the Gold Coast Colony used the excuse that the Asante Federation sheltered a large number of Ashanti soldiers during Spain’s war against the Ashanti Tribe and directly launched a war against the Asante Federation.

Without sufficient preparation, the various tribes of the Federation experienced the same panic and fear that the Ashanti chiefs went through half a month ago; they feared following the Ashanti chiefs’ footsteps, where not only their entire families were slaughtered by Spaniards, but tribes that have been passed down for hundreds of years would also be extinguished.

The Spanish Army’s attack decision, like the previous attack on the Ashanti Tribe, emphasizes swift and decisive action, aiming to resolve these indigenous tribes in the shortest possible time.

Within a short period, these indigenous tribes cannot muster much manpower. Transmission of information takes time, and mobilization of these indigenous tribes also requires time.

And this period is precisely the golden time for Spain’s attack. Since the tribes haven’t yet reacted, the Spanish Army can defeat them one by one, without worrying about these tribes forming a Federation army to resist Spain’s attack.

As long as they control the chiefs of these tribes, it’s equivalent to controlling these indigenous tribes. Indigenous chiefs are afraid of death; as long as they don’t want to lose their lives immediately, they have to cooperate with the Spanish colonial government.

It is worth mentioning that the first target of the Spanish Army’s attack was the tribe that handed over the Ashanti chief to the Spanish-controlled area half a month ago.

At that time, Spain rewarded the chief of that tribe with a large amount of food, which also calmed the hearts of the other chiefs within the Federation, making them believe that they and their tribes had escaped danger.

No one expected it was merely Spain’s delaying tactic. After Spain completely controlled the situation with the Ashanti Tribe, the butcher knife swung towards these remaining tribes.

The anxious tribal leaders quickly gathered the tribe’s indigenous people, planning to regroup the Federation army to resist the Spanish colonial attack.

But they forgot one crucial thing. When faced with the United Kingdom’s colonial invasion earlier, they handed the army over to the Federation’s ruler, the Ashanti chief, managing their individual tribes to ensure the safety of the entire Federation.

But now, there is no federation ruler, and the major tribes have never decided on a new chief for the Federation.

Without unified effective management, even if these tribes are willing to send troops to resist Spain’s colonial invasion, it’s destined to be futile.

The ultimate result of lacking leadership is that the tribes fight individually, without unified orders, each tribe’s first choice is to protect its own tribe, since these indigenous soldiers’ families live in their individual tribes; they can’t ignore their family’s safety.

This also gives Spain the opportunity to defeat them one by one. The largest tribe left in the Asante Federation only has a population of a few hundred thousand, while smaller tribes have only tens of thousands or even fewer than ten thousand.

In such circumstances, tribes fighting individually cannot rely on their own strength to resist the Spanish Army’s attack.

It only took less than a day for the Spanish to successfully occupy the large tribe closest to the Ashanti Tribe.

Much like toppling a domino, in the following week, several tribes were conquered by the Spanish Army, with two among them having populations reaching hundreds of thousands.