A pirate raid on a small fleet of merchants grabbed the attention of the Ming Emperor. He commissioned Zheng He to find and destroy the source of the pirates a week before Zheng He was supposed to go on his fifth voyage. Zheng He followed a supposed pirate to his port, which was in the middle of the Pacific. After destroying the pirate base, Zheng He wanted to explore further into the Pacific.
1417- Zheng He's Fifth Voyage[]
Zheng He, inspired by the location of the pirate base, wanted to explore further into the Pacific. On July 25th, 1417, Zheng He's ship landed in what is now Xīn tǔdì. He recorded his findings and went back to China.
1418[]
Ecstatic, the Ming Emperor ordered more exploration of this new area. He was determined to discover its relative
A Gúge Earth Photograph of Xīn gǎngkǒu.
location and geography. Other people tried sailing to the area, but storms took down many ships. Zheng He tried sailing around the area, but he never could decide if it was an island. It became a popular theory that this was either a very large island or the coast of Africa.
1422[]
The Chinese Emperor dies. The new emperor encourages going over to America even more. A map of America is drawn, though a great deal of it is speculation. Later on in history, it was discovered that the map was, in fact, a map of Baja. It is one of the most accurate maps of the time period in fact.
1445[]
Around this time, a permanent colony is set up in America. Unfortunately, the records of this vary, probably due to damage during the rise of the Song Dynasty. Chinese ships are mass produced and OTL Mexico is explored.
1451[]
Zheng He's Last Crusade. When the Mongols become a problem again, China pushes back and devastates the Mongol homelands. The war lasted for seven years and saw China conqor the main Khanate and parts of the western Khanates. China decided to expand westward to have contact with Europe.
1453[]
Ottomans conquer the city of Costantinopolis, spelling the end for the millenary Eastern Roman Empire.
1468[]
Contact with Europe is cut by the Ottomans. China tries to politely bargain passage through its lands, though the Ottomans decline.
1492[]
Christopher Columbus' voyages begin. The Genoan discovers what will become Hispañola. Subsequent voyages reveal OTL North and South America.
1496-1498[]
Trade outposts are founded in OTL pacific coast of Costa Rica and Panama. Chinese explorers crosses the OTL Panama lake region’s jungles on foot and reached the ‘Seas of the East’, where they make contact with Caribbean people. However, the lack of ocean ships and shipyards strictly limits their ability to explore the area.
1501[]
The Chinese decide to explore 'The Seas of East', after the explorer Chou Lu, travels south along the Western cost, finding a route to the East in 1500 (OTL , Strait of Magellan), the strait is named Lu Hâixià after him. During these explorations, the Caribbean islands are explored and mapped. The Aztecs are discovered around this time, and China assumes that they are a 'Lost Tribe of Turks'. They maintain peace with the tribes.
1502[]
A Chinese Junk is discovered sailing in the Caribbean Islands by none other than Christopher Columbus' fleet. A joint Chinese-Spanish colony is proposed.
1509[]
Yǒuhǎo colony is started. The Chinese and Spanish administration starts to get along well, though tensions between officials in China and Spain arise.
1517[]
Ninety-five thesis is published by Luther in the Holy Empire. Protestant revolution starts in Northern Europe.
1519-1522[]
Ferdinando Magellano, sailed in 1519 from Siviglia to New Spain, than made the reverse travel of Chou Lou to Xīn tûdî and travels to China naming the ocean he travels Pacific Ocean, than, crossed the Indian Ocean, doubles Africa and is finally back to Spain (differently from OTL Magellano never stops in Philippines and survived the journey).
1520[]
OTL Baja is completely Chinese. The Spanish and Chinese plan to exterminate the Aztecs, though arguments postpone the invasion for decades. The Chinese fleet expands along with the Spanish Armada.
1533 - The Incan submission[]
After apprehending from informers that Spanish conquistador Pissarro is preparing a military campaign against the Quechua Inca empire (with whom Chinese had occasionally traded in the last decade). The Chinese Emperor Jiajing sent then an armada led by the General Zhu Wan, to beat Spaniards on time. When the Chinese armada landed on Incan soil they found a civil war between the two brothers Atahualpa, who dethroned the brother and took the Incan throne and capital Quito and Huàscar, the dethroned brother that still controlled the city of Quito. The Chinese took the parts of Huàscar, helping him to take back Cuzco. Chinese army, was joining forces with Hùascar and fighting their way to Cuzco when Pissarro arrived in the Incan Empire, finding a total mess. Frustrated, since he knew he couldn’t go to war with Chinese, he decided to play a trick: he approached the desperate Atahualpa, offering him help against the Chinese and his brother. Instead, when Atahualpa met them in Cajamarca, they slayed the Inca’s Royal envoys and guards, they took the Emperor as a hostage and defeated his unprepared army. They went then to Cuzco, were they took a ransom that someone estimates in about 80 cubic meters of gold. Just than they received an emissary from Zhu Wan, congratulating them to have defeated the usurper, enemy of Huàscar, vassal of their Celestial Emperor but to give him over. Pissarro, knowing he couldn’t possibly stand up against the Chinese and Huàscar forces, ended over the prisoner and left the Incan Empire, taking with him the ransom. The Chinese put back in Cuzco throne Huàscar, who, under the vigil eye of Chinese troops and under the constant menace of sending back in the Incan Empire Atahualpa (that was taken as a further “insurance policy“ for the good behavior of Huàscar and sent to China‘s capital with his family, as a “host” of Jiajing Emperor), was officially made a vassal of the Chinese Empire.
1534 -The conquer of Aztec Empire[]
China and Spain invades the Aztec lands. The general Zhang Jing is appointed by Jiajing Emperor Supreme General of the Aztec invasion Force and lands in the Pacific coast of the Aztec Empire on the 13th of March; while Hernán Cortez, already governor of New Spain and long proponent on an invasion of mainland America, lands on 1st of April on Yucatan, appointed by king Carlos. Theoretically a treaty between the Kingdom of Spain and the Chinese Empire (signed by the respective ambassadors in Yôuhâo two years before) agreed for each Empire to have right to rule the conquered Aztec lands from their coast (Western for Chinese and Eastern for Spanish) to the median line (already calculated by Chinese astronomers and Spanish natural philosopher basing their calculations on the Earth circumference). However, the faster progresses of the Chinese army, greater, more organized and less reliant than the Spanish one on a web of alliances with local tribes, allows them to physically retain control over a portion of territory larger than the one stated by the agreement. General Jing, in particular, captures the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán in the 8 of November (the day before Cortez army arrives eastward the capital) having him acclaimed by Emperor Moctezuma like a god, sent by the god Tianzi, Emperor of China and Son of the Sky, that agrees to serve him and to give him as a present the great treasures of gold held in the capital. General Jing spares the cultural and architectural treasures of the capital and allows Moctezuma to retain some power (even if as a puppet sovereign). Spaniards conquers some eastern part of the Aztec Empire and some Mayan city-state.
1534-1580[]
Former Aztec Empire is divided among Chinese and Spanish lands.
In the Spanish side the native population soon starts being enslaved en masse (despite Cortez promise to free the population oppressed by Aztecs) in plantations and converted forcibly to Christianity, while all documents written in Atzec or Mayan languages and all cultural symbols are destroyed. The land is administrated by Hidalgos, aristocratic Spaniards that tries their best to squeeze every profit from the land, since Cortez expedition has been barely repaid by the few treasures Chinese hadn’t captured. Native population declines sharply both because of the brutal lives they are forced to live, because of emigration and escaping in Azitaikeren Tûdì and because of the many plagues decimating them. The void left by the almost disappearance of native population is filled (mostly) by immigrants from Spain and other catholic Realms and (partially) by the first negro slaves exported by Portuguese from Africa. Gradually Spanish (Viceroyalty of Spain) domains expands north and west (engulfing tribes and small nations north-East of former Aztec Empire) and south, conquering some other Mayan city-states in Yucatan. The administrative capital of the region is its main port, Veracruz.
Around mid XVI century Spanish domains extended north, to the Mississippi delta and to the Florida peninsula, with the setting of different towns in the area. Native tribes, like Calusa, were progressively converted to Christianity and either integrated in the colonial society (often in servile conditions in rage plantations) either exterminated. French attempts to set colonies in the areas were discouraged by Spanish troops, attacking and massacring the few French colonizers (often Huguenots escaping from persecutions), like the ones of Fort Caroline. Near the end of the century, negro slaves were purchased from Portuguese slave traders to integrate the native Indian workforce in the expanding plantations in the area.
The Chinese side is organized in three administrative provinces: Xīn Tûdì, Jiajing Tûdì and Azitaikeren Tûdì.
Xīn Tûdì is made of the pre Aztec War conquer colonies, in the meantime expanded north and East. By 1580 almost 1 million Chinese (mostly ethnic Han) lives in this province, filling the countryside in search of fertile land, while the few natives has mostly been pushed back in the inner lands or exterminated. (By 1560 Xīn Tûdì is made of OTL Baja California, all US California south of OTL San Bernardino, south-western Nevada and north-western Sonora State, OTL Colorado Delta area).
Jiajing Tûdì in 1580 is made of the former vassal states north-west of the Aztec Empire and the North-Western coastal part of the Former Aztec Empire (OTL Mexican states of Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit, Sinaloa, plus south-eastern Sonora and western Chihuahua). Jiajing Tûdì is administered by the new provincial capital Jingâng by Zhang Jing from 1536 until 1555, at his death, when another administrator take in his role. The province in its southern part a subtropical fertile climate and many ethnic Han colonists come to plough the land, filling the void left by the great demographic decline of the native population, due to major epidemics affecting it. However, even if some tensions between colonists and natives occurred, in most areas the two population coexisted, even because Chinese didn’t require them to relinquish their religion (even if they forbade human sacrifice), traditions or the property of land as long as they payed taxes and do not rebelled. In some areas, however, gradual ethnical substitution occurred, letting a majority of Han people to inhabit those territories.
In 1580, Azitaikeren Tûdì is made up of the former central and southern part of the Aztec Empire. The provincial capital was Tenochtilàn, the capital of the former Aztec Empire, that was mostly preserved in its architectural and cultural structure, even if Chinese style buildings started to spur, along with Chinese Han immigrants, mostly merchants, functionaries and soldiers. The government was an hybrid between a province and a vassal state. In fact, even if Tenochtilan court was full of Chinese bureaucrats influencing in various ways the politics of the province, Moctezuma and his heirs still retained their old title of Taotlāni (literally “those who speak” and in the old time equal to the term “Emperor”) and had more decisional autonomy, and special privileges, compared to other provincial governments, in particular their title was hereditary and part of the old Aztec bureaucracy still held some position in the province; even if Han functionaries had official roles both in the capital and in more remote areas inhabited by non-Aztec natives. Aztec and Mayan populations and languages remained the majority in this province, even if in some coastal areas founded and prospered Han towns and communities. Old Aztec and Mayan writing systems were still taken in great consideration and many Chinese literates (both in the colonies and in mainland China) engaged in the study of their language and literature; some pictographs, stylized as ideograms, became even part of the standard Chinese, while some ideograms started being turned in pictographs.. However, even if Mayan and Aztec writing were hold dear and used (even by ethnic Han functionaries) in Azitaikeren Tûdì and, in a lesser way, even in Jiajing Tûdì all official documents were required to be written in standard Chinese. A syncretic Taoist-Aztec/Mayan religion started to spread among the population, specially in Tenochtitlan area. The demographic decline caused by the terrible plagues affecting the native population was in great part balanced by the influx of people escaping from the hellish conditions natives were exposed to in the Spanish Viceroyalty. In Azitaikeren Tûdì, in 1580, the population was largely native, even if an affluent Chinese merchant and bureaucratic elite was there.
Chinese outposts south of Jiajing Tûdì and Azitaikeren Tûdì are not organized in a province, however an half dozen Chinese trading posts on the Pacific Coast grows to the size of towns under the administration of Chinese functionaries.
North of Xîn Tûdì in the area between OTL northern US California and Oregon started being funded some small independent Han (but even Zhuang or Koraean) costal villages, sometimes pirates, sometimes exiled, sometimes pioneers.
The Incan Empire, officially intact and independent vassal of the Celestial Empire even expanded north, while in fact it became less and less independent and more and more a puppet state. Incan and other andine peoples retained their culture, language and religion and escaped the slavery destiny they would have met had Pissarro prevailed. However Chinese (who funded the city of Hòu Hâiwān on the coast) controlled all the travel in and out the Incan Empire, the extraction of mineral resources and started organizing the Incan Empire with Chinese bureaucracy and with Han functionaries taking all the positions of power and heavy taxes burdened the Incan economy on the edge of collapse. Chinese brought anyway innovations that allowed the Incan economy to grow rapidly enough to sustain the heavy tributes: for example they brought horse powered ploughing, watermill, iron metals, carts, better irrigation and construction techniques. Incan and andine people in 1580 where the large majority, with an influential Chinese bureaucratic, militar and merchant elite. The peculiar Quechua writing system, using distance between nodes on a rope to write messages spread as a parallel writing system in the Chinese fleet.
The discovery, in 1576, in the Andean region of Yìn Shân (“the Silver Mountain”) brought colonization of the Americas at another stage in the global geopolitical race.
Portuguese Empire in the XV-XVI century[]
Attempts of exploration and establishment of new trade routes from the Portuguese Kingdom began in 1419 and 1427 with the discovery of Madeira and Azores archipelagos in the middle Atlantic, colonized some years before. In the following decades, in the first half of the century Portugueses started exploring African West coasts, progressively reaching southern shores, under the efforts of the royal prince Henry the Navigator. At half of the XV century Portugueses has lowly expanded regular trade down to Senegal and Cape Verde, going as far to OTL Sierra Leone while, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Ottomans closing the trades from Far East to Europe, the Portuguese pushed further their exploration efforts the attempt to open a way to India and China via Africa. Around 1460 they reached “the Golden Coast” of Guinea, where Portuguese started trading alluvional gold, slaves and ivory and builded in 1481 the Castelo de São Jorge da Mina (in OTL Ghana), the first permanent European trading post south of Ghana. In 1482 they explored the mouth of river congo, in 1486 they reached Namibia and 1488 they doubled Cape of Good hope under the explorations of Bartolomeu Dias. In 1497 Vasco da Gama reached India, starting a lucrative trade in spices and silk that would grant Portugal a monopoly to Indian-European trade for some decade. In India Portugal for the first time contacted some Chinese junks trading with India. After Columbus discovered America “Indias” Spain and Portugal negotiates in 1494 the “Treaty of Tortesillia” that assigned (outside of Europe) to Spain everything West of an imaginary line 380 miles west of Capo Verde, while everything East of it to Portugal (so virtually all Africa, Asia and part of South America). In 1500 Portuguese explorer sailed to Brasil (mistakenly thinking it was a large island) claiming and claiming it for Portugal, being east of the treaty line. While some Portuguese explorers in those years mapped some North America coasts, like Labrador, Terranova and Newfoundland, but Portugal never tried to claim those lands. In 1507 Portugal occupied the island of Socotra, while in 1501 it funded Kochi and Calicut and in 1510 Goa. In 1511 Portugal conquered Malacca, center of asian trade, and explored as far as to the kingdom of Siam. In 1516 Portuguese vessels reached the harbor of Guangzhou, in China and in 1517 Canton. In 1521 the Portuguese fleet was defeated by Chinese in the battle of Tunmen and in 1522 in the battle of Xicaowan, where the Chinese captured (and reversed engineered a breach loading swivel gun Portuguese vessel). (Differently from OTL Portugal never obtained Macau). Muscat and Hormuz were seized in 1507 and 1515 and in 1521 Portugal conquered Baharain. In 1519-1522 Portuguese explorer Magellano circumnavigated the world and in 1526 Portuguese explored Papua New Guinea. Between the ‘30 and the ‘40 the firsts trading post started to be funded in Brazil, with brazilwood harvesting and sugarcane plantation as economic drivers and the creation of a Regency to administer the colony. In 1560-1570 Portuguese fought and defeated the Tamoi natives, armed by French and Chinese against them. And in 1567 the city of Rio de Janeiro was founded. In 1570 the Portuguese opened a trade route with Japan, opening trade offices and a mission in Nagasaki. In 1580-1590, after Portugal was invaded by Spain the two kingdoms were united for a time, but colonies were still administrated separately. In the second part of XVI century Chinese and Portuguese entered in competition for trade in the pacific and south-East Asia, with periodical struggles. To better compete with them, China created trade posts both in Sumatra and in OTL Tamil Nadu, managing to obtain from the declining Vijayanagara empire, sovereignty over a small stretch of land the empire no longer the facto controlled, due to the Nayak revolts, funding the trade city of Lü Wān. Even if the stretches of land were small, they allowed Chinese fleet (and merchants) to extend their influence in Bengala sea area.
From 1580 to 1690[]
At the beginning of XVII century other nations other than China, Spain and Portugal entered in the American colonial game.
France, after some failed colonial project in Florida and Brazil in the previous decades, founded Port Royal, capital of Acadia colony (OTL present Nova Scotia) in 1603 and, in 1609, Quebec, capital of the New France colony. In the following decades Acadia saw a substantial increase in population, with the establishment of sawmills, fishing towns and sheep and goat herding, mostly for the production of wool, a globally traded commodity. In Acadia the Native population was either integrated either restricted to some inner areas. New France, instead, was a very big area, with not well defined borders, that remained sparsely populated: besides the capital Quebec, a growing cultural and economic hub, and some farming area along the St. Lawrence River, the colony was actively almost only in the fur trade (another sought commodity), with land and fur resources almost everywhere managed by Indian tribes allied with the French, trading with small trade outposts or directly in the capital, Quebec. Even if natives acquired some European tastes, like for alcool, horses, firepower arms and sometimes converted to Christianity, they kept almost ever their cultural identity.
After some failed colonial attempt in the second half of the previous century, England's first permanent settlement in the Americas was founded in 1607 in Jamestown, led by Captain John Smith and managed by the Virginia Company. Bermuda was settled and claimed by England as a result of the 1609 shipwreck of the Virginia Company's flagships. The Virginia Company's charter was revoked in 1624 and direct control of Virginia was assumed by the crown, thereby founding the Colony of Virginia. In 1610 the aim of creating a permanent settlement on Newfoundland was largely unsuccessful. In 1620, Plymuth was founded as a haven for Puritan religious separatists, later known as the Pilgrims. Fleeing from religion persecution would become the motive of many English would-be colonists to risk the arduous voyage: Maryland was founded as a haven for Roman Catholics (1634), Rhode Island (1636) as a colony tolerant of all religions and Connecticut (1639) for Congregationalists. The Province of Carolina was founded in 1663.
Around 1580-1590 the Dutch provinces (a small region in Northern Europe) were able to expel the Spanish forces following a Protestant uprising. In the following decades Dutch (despite its small territories) emerged as a manufacturing and trade power-house, who entered in the Colonial game adopting the English model of private companies managing colonies and the Portuguese model of small trading outposts, attacking them whenever they could, both because they competed for global trade shares and because (until 1640) Portugal and Spain -the long time enemy of Dutch- were a sole country, the Iberian Union and whose colonies, even if separately managed were closely allied. Dutch Free Republic and Chinese Empire soon became trade partners and close allies, both because Chinese perceived the joint Portuguese-Spanish colonial extent in America a threat to its own colonies and because of the increasingly aggressive Portuguese trade practices in the south-East Asia, that Chinese leaders perceived as increasingly direct threat.
As so, in 1607 the Dutch conquered the Portuguese trade hub of Malacca, in Sumatra, with the direct aid of Chinese fleet and in 1609 they took the Portuguese Indian colony of Kochi, perceived from the Chinese too close to their own colony Lü Wān. For a brief time, after the second Portuguese-Sino-Dutch war, Dutch was able to hold for a (1637-1648) the Portuguese colonies of Brazil and the trade city of Luanda in the Angolan Coast. In the war China conquered from Portugal a stretch of land between the Atlantic and the Caribbean (OTL Coastal Venezuela and Colombia), bordering with Chinese trade colonies in the Panama area. In 1648 Portugal was eventually able to take back Luanda and Brazil with British help in the Six Months War, while Chinese gainings were permanently secured.
Dutch were also able to creates colonies on their own from scratch, like Fort Nassau in the Caribbean in 1607, New Amsterdam was funded as capital of New Netherland colony in the North American East Coast in 1632 and in 1634 Jakarta in Indonesia. In 1641 they were authorized to run a trading post in Deshima, Japan, after the shogunate drove away Portuguese. In 1652 the Dutch founded a colony near cape of Good Hope, both securing the South African Trade route and started colonizing the area, with a very peasant Mediterranean climate, starting to compete with San and Koishan local people.
England gained control of the Dutch colony of New Netherland with the the taking of Fort Amsterdam, renaming both the colony and it’s main city New York. This was formalised in negotiations following the Second Anglo-Dutch War, in exchange for Suriname. English colonization of North American East Coast went on in 1681, when the colony of Pensilvania was founded by William Penn. The American colonies were less financially successful than those of the Caribbean, but had large areas of good agricultural land and attracted far larger numbers of English emigrants who preferred their temperate climates.
In 1670, Charles II incorporated the Hutson’s Bay Company(HBC), granting it a monopoly on the fur trade in the area known as Ruperts’ Land. Forts and trading posts established by the HBC were frequently the subject of attacks by the French, who had established their own fur trading colony in adjacent New France.
China and Chinese colonies and nearby area between 1580 and 1690[]
Chinese monetary system had traditionally been silver backed; as so, the discovery of Yìn Shân immense silver resources (will be extracted more silver in Yìn Shân area from 1575 to 1700 than all the silver previously extracted in the whole human history), combined with the other resources from colonial provinces and vassals, with the trade income from Chinese trade posts created in the south-western Asia and with an already century-long positive trade balance (with exports of silk, tea, porcelains and other goods), determined a situation in which Chinese economy boomed like never before, inaugurating the so called “Huángjīn niánlíng“, “The Golden century” of Chinese economy. Thanks to the silver (and gold, at a lesser extent) flowing from the American colonies, the imperial treasure started being progressively richer and richer. As so, part of the gold was spent in military (the Great Wall was extended and upgraded), the military fleet was extended in numbers and qualities of ships (with junks able to compete with European caravels in performances by 1620) and upgrading the firearms to the same level of European and Ottoman ones by 1600, was also increased the number of soldiers and their wages, with a progressive professionalization of the army and the fleet. The bureaucracy was also expanded, both in the number of employed and in a greater differentiation in professions in the State bureaucracy. All this current expenses busted economy, but also triggered inflation, that, even if not rampant, was consistent through all the century. Besides current expenses, also lot of infrastructure were funded by the Imperial government, both in colonies and in mainland China: ports were upgraded, both sea and river ones, waterways were improved, both for transportation of goods and to improve agricultural production and flood control, old roads and bridges were improved and new ones built. In 1607 was also created a program for public (payed with by the Imperial treasure and managed by local functionaries) business grants to manufacturing businesses increasing productivity. Even if the program wasn’t free from corruption, it boosted Chinese production to unprecedented levels, equaled only with the English Industrial revolution, more than a century later. This, together with infrastructural upgrading, made the already first economy of the world even bigger, creating a prosperous and numerous middle class in all major Chinese cities, and also in some smaller center and agricultural area. The colony of Xīn Tûdì also experienced similar levels of economic growth, while Jijang Tûdì, Azitaikeren Tûdì and the Incan Quechua vassal State, and other newly funded Chinese colonies in America, even if saw increasingly better life standard, saw very little economic development, remaining export-oriented economies.
Beijing, the Ming capital, saw unprecedented development, surpassing 2million inhabitants in 1650 (so being greater than the Imperial Rome of 2 century a.C.). The Imperial government sponsored a program of improvement and embellishment of city, with sewers and aqueducts in most middle class neighborhood, management of urban waste (burned in brick ovens or landfilled) and, in the inner city (and in the Imperial City), streetlights, fueled with distilled tar oil (similar to kerosene), extracted in Xīn Zhōu (OTL Los Angeles) tar ponds. A Great Library and Great Imperial Academy was created, teaching Confucian philosophy and culture and technical arts, but with courses in European (ancient Greek, Latin and Spanish literature and philosophy) and Azitaikeren and Incan cultures. The city is filled with monuments and the Imperial City is filled with astonishingly beautiful artwork masterpieces. In 1590 is also planted in the Imperial City the “Hóng shān huāyuán“, the “Garden of Sequoias”, a beautiful wood with young sequoia trees transplanted from the colonies.
In 1596 Toyotomi Japan invaded Joseon Korea, the Ming dynasty responded aided Korean Kingdom with its mighty fleet and army. Japan invasion was repelled into the sea in a matter of months. Joseon and Ming dynasties became then interwinged and trade between Chinese Empire and Korean Kingdom intensified. As a result of the military defeat Japan entered into a dynastic crisis, with the “Civil War of the Long Years”, “Naganen no naisen”, lasting 49 years, and in which different feudal lords attempted to conquer the shogunate title and Japanese economy was further feudalized, with the rise of the samurai figure and of the samurai ethics and in which Japan will be pulverized in dozens of semi independent feuds, controlled by local daymīo, many of them declaring themselves shogun (but often controlling little more than their traditional familiar domain). During this period numerous Korean and Chinese raids will sack Japanese costal settlements. Chinese Empire built the the “Vigil Eye”, “Jǐngtì de yǎnjīng“ Castle, in the Hokkaido island (still mostly controlled by Ainu people) to better patrol the island.
The Japanese long civil war will end in 1648, with the Hara family gaining the shogunate power in a stable way. Japanese society, still feudal, will regain unity and national pride, inaugurating the Hara dynasty age.
In 1616 the chieftain Nurachi, after having organized the Jurchen people in the Manchu State (situated at the north-western border of the Celestial Empire) tried to seize the power from the Ming, creating a web of alliances with different aristocratic families in the Empire. It’s attempt, thank to the great an well organized professional army created by the Celestial Empire in the previous decade is short lived and after a short civil war lasting less than an year (and going bloodily mostly in the north-East of the Empire and, in a lesser way, in the capital), the revolt is suppressed and, after a military campaign of five years the Manchu State is annexed to the Celestial Empire (as so, OTL Qing dynasty never exists and Ming dynasty keeps the power).
In 1607 the area around OTL Panama, previously hosting different independent colonial towns along the Pacific coasts is organized as the Liǎng'àn tǔdì Province “the land of two coasts”, bordering north with Azitaikeren Tûdì and Spanish Viceroyalty and south with the Incan Quechua vassal State and with Portuguese colonies, that were inglobate d in Liǎng'àn Tǔdì after the 1648 Sino-Dutch-Portuguese Wars.
In 1648 also the small Spanish colony of Rio de la Plata south of Brazil is occupied by Chinese Empire for its strategic position, despite Spain being formally neutral (while Spain economically and strategically supported Portugal) in the Sino-Dutch-Portuguese war. After the end of the war China negotiated with Spain a formal cession of the Rio de la Plata province: China agreed to pay a quite great reparation amount and Spain ceased officially the province, already the facto in Chinese hands.
In 1690 Liâng’àn Tûdì, with the exception of some coastal town and the Qún Hâi Zôuláng (a small densely-populated region near the Chagral river -river named by Spanish explorers- hosting a well maintained road linking the Pacific Ocean with the Eastern Seas/Caribbean Sea), is still scarcely populated, mostly by native Turkos jungle-dwellers and mayas or negros escaped from the Spanish Viceroyalty in the previous century and who regressed to a jungle dwelling lifestyle either. In the Atlantic area of Liǎng'àn Tǔdì province (former Portuguese colony) in 1690 there are coastal towns still inhabited by European and mulattos buccaneers and the former Portuguese port-city of Saõ João (OTL Caracas), renamed Shèng Yuēàn, where, besides a growing Han community, still lives an industrious Portuguese minority and a majority of negros and mulattos, former slaves. In the former Portuguese colony coastal area there are still plantation, who, under Portuguese rule, were worked by negro slaves, freed by the Chinese and 1690 partly working as free workers in the plantation themselves and partly emigrated to Shèng Yuēàn or other cities in Liǎng'àn Tǔdì or in the Incan Quechua vassal State.
In 1690 Rio de la Plata province, renamed He Platao Tûdì expanded East to the Andean mountains and to border with the Incan Quechua Vassal State. It still has a very large Spanish minority (which is still the majority in the inner land ranchos) and also a notable Quechuan minority, seeking for a better life in the plains. Spanish, Quechua, negro and Turkos tribes, minorities, added up are more than half of the population, with Chinese Han being a considerable minority. Those factors will lead to independence movements in the colony in the following century.
At the beginning of XVII century Xīn Tûdì is a densely inhabited Chinese colony, with a well defined provincial bureaucracy and administration. North of the province (so north of OTL Santa Barbara) in the previous decades has started to flourish small but prosperous and numerous coastal towns, mostly of Han, Zhuang and Korean ethnicity, almost totally independent from the Celestial Empire and coexisting -even if in a troubled way- with native Turkos tribes. Those villages went as far north as to “Xióng dâo”, “Bear Island” (OTL Vancouver Island). Fearing the “bad moral example of unsanctioned islands of lawlessness” and wishing to create moral impetus in the country, recently proved by the short but bloody Manchu Rebellion, the Emperor sanctioned in 1622 the creation of two different provinces north of Xīn Tûdî, naming officially the southern Kôngzî zhī dî (Confucio’s land) and the northern Táo zhī guó (Land of the flowing Tao).
The Emperor sent Li Jing, descendent of the glorious general Zhang Jing who had defeated the Aztec Empire and firstly administered the Jijang Tûdì province to create from scratch Kôngzî zhī dì Province. Li Jing (who had an impressive curricula both as a civil administrator and as a military in the Manchurian Rebellion and received maximum consideration from the Emperor) received ample autonomy in organizing the colony. He funded the new provincial capital Xīn Beijing “New Beijing” in 1624, at the mouth of the Hâidài Wān “Kelp bay” (at OTL San Francisco position, in OTL San Francisco Bay Area), turning it in a rapidly growing metropolis and in a trade and food industry manufacturing area. Li Jing, who was incidentally even a renewed poet, painter and calligrapher is also famous for having promulgated what are now considered the first effective environmental laws in Chinese history: deeply touched by the beauty of Hóng Shān “sequoias” forests, that had already been damaged by the first independent colonials, in 1632 he created protected areas (denominated Shénshèng de shùlín), encompassing more than 15% of the province territory. In such areas cutting down a tree without Imperial consent was a capital offense. The governor entrusted the remaining native Turkos (that were either already living in the protected woodlands either being forcibly transferred from other areas designated instead for Han colonization) to protect the areas in name of the Emperor. His model to manage natives was often taken as inspiration by English colonies in the west. (As a result of this policy primary redwood and sequoia forests are greater than in OTL and there is also a greater number of native population than OTL in the West Coast). Under Li Jing rule (1624-1664), the previous free colonial settlements had been -mostly in a peaceful way- brought under the Emperial rule and was run a massive immigration program from mainland China to the Zōngyāng Shāngû area (OTL Central Valley), that, originally mostly a wetland, in a matter of decades was cleared and turned in a terrifically productive agricultural area, densely cultivated and inhabited by a seemingly endless flow of landless farmers in search of prosperity -the provincial government provided free plot of ready to be cultivated land and an interest free loan to purchase work instruments and work animals- coming from mainland China. Hâidài Wān area soon became an aquaculture hub and kelp farming hub. In 1648 gold was discovered in the province, in an unprecedented quantity, both east and north of the provincial capital, determining a steady immigration both from mainland China and Korea that from other Chinese-American colonies and, to a lesser extent, from European-American colonies and from Europe itself. The “Kôngzî Gold Rush” determined almost 200,000 people migrating to Kôngzî province and a great development of the area (and also a steady cash flow both for the provincial government and for the Imperial Government, helping to keep up Imperial revenues despite the declining revenues of the Lì Shān silver mines), but also damages to the enviroment and to the native Turkos, since part of the mining area were in Shénshèng de shùlín areas. The gold rush peaked in 1652-1657, but gold extraction in the province was a large scale phenomenon until at least 1670.
Kôngzî province bordered south with Xîn Tûdì, east with Turkos territories East of of Luò jī shānmài (Rocky Mountains in English) mountain chain and north with the newly constituted Táo zhī quó province, with Zheng river (OTL Columbia River) as a border. (As so, Kôngzî province was equal to OTL northern half of US California, north-western part of Nevada, all Oregon and, while expanding east to the western half of Idaho, by the end of the century).
Tao zhī quó province, created in 1622 comprehended not only the coastal area in which Korean and Chinese coastal communities had previously settled (as north as to Xíong Dâo), but went formally extended to much more northern latitudes, to prevent other colonial powers to reclaim the area, originally going as north as to Skeena river (so the province was made of the entirety of OTL Washington State and most British Columbia), but Chinese territorial claims went as north as to Tatsheshini River (in OTL northern Yukon, near southern Alaskan border). However, north of Skeena river, Chinese presence in the territory was almost virtual and the land was controlled by native Turkos tribes, mostly allied with Chinese. South of Skeena river the previously independent settlement flowered under Chinese rule, after a short resistance in the first ten years from the creation of the province, in 1622, however, an anti-imperial libertarian spirit, favored also by a strong Korean, native Turko, Zhang and Quián tuî (the heirs of the pioneers who settled in the area before the formal creation of the province) people, who didn’t identified themselves with the imperial government, remained in the province, favoring the revolution that will start, decades the first Dúlì Gémìng “Independence Revolution” among Chinese colonies. The former Quián tuî settlement of Sōngshù (in OTL Vancouver Island) was elected provincial capital, and so started booming in the ‘30. In comparison with its southern Chinese sister colonies Tao zhī quó (Whose eastern border was conventionally the same OTL Rocky Mountains) was less populated; mostly coastal fishing and trading towns, some small farming area in its southern part and logging and fir trading camps in the innerland. Even if the official language was Han mandarine, most of the population spoke Quián Tuì, a sort of creole between Mandarin, Korean, Zhang, different native languages and Dutch (Dutch frequently traded with the local settlers before 1622).
Late 17th century-1990s[]
Countries declare independence as Chinese majority states
