Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 269: Acapulco Agreement

"What conditions do you think the Spanish will make appropriate concessions on?"

After the second round of negotiations reached a deadlock again, both sides announced a five-day recess to give each other time to regain their existing "rationality" and "calmness."

The negotiation conditions proposed by Xinhua far exceeded the Spanish people's psychological expectations, including the demarcation of territorial boundaries between the two sides, trade exchanges, and freedom of navigation in the Americas. Any one of them deeply stimulated the Spanish people's sensitive nerves.

Although the Spanish had only established a colonial outpost in San Diego Bay the previous year, they had no de facto rule over the northern California region, including San Francisco Bay and Oregon Territory, and did not even have a mission.

But this did not prevent the Spaniards from incorporating large tracts of "unowned land" in northern America into their colonies, and then declaring sovereignty to all countries and regions in the world.

As a result, after fighting such a battle with Xinhua, the Spanish were directly demarcated by the other side to the vicinity of San Francisco Bay, which was something the Spanish could not accept deep down.

How could a group of pirate gangs, controlling a population of only a few thousand, "cut off" such a large piece of territory from us all of a sudden?
In their view, allowing Xinhua to "steal" its current location on Qiming Island is their greatest gift.

The desire to suddenly extend the sphere of influence to the San Francisco Bay is indeed too big a step of expansion.

As for bilateral trade, free navigation along the Pacific coast of America was even more unacceptable to the Spaniards.

You have to know that the trade restriction decree on Spanish America was issued by the Madrid court and represented the will of His Majesty the King. Their colonial authorities could only comply with it. How could they have the power to grant a pirate force to come to America to trade?
We don’t even allow the Portuguese to come to America at will, let alone you Xinhua!
Free navigation and port calls for supplies are even more impossible.

Where does this put the dignity of our Kingdom of Spain?

"I think the Spanish might make some concessions on the issues of border demarcation and missionary work," Xu Yi said. "After all, they haven't extended their colonial influence far enough into the north. They still need us to provide them with a lot of geographical information."

"So, for a piece of land they don't control and barely understand, they're bound to make compromises. Whether they can meet our bottom line depends on their resolve and courage. The lives of the Spanish prisoners and civilians we've captured hang in the balance."

"What about trade rights?" Huang Shaoping asked. "The committee members seem to attach great importance to this condition, saying it is related to the future consumer market for our Xinhua industrial products."

"However, the trade ban issued by the Madrid court stipulated that all trade activities in their American colonies must be conducted through designated ports in mainland Spain and transported by officially organized fleets. No foreign merchants or merchant ships were allowed to freely travel to the Americas for trade."

Xu Yi showed a hint of helplessness on his face and shook his head, saying, "So, we can foresee that the Spanish will definitely not agree to our trade request. Otherwise, if their Spanish government learns of it, they will definitely be dismissed from their posts."

"Then what should we do?"

"What should we do?" Huang Shaoping said with a wry smile, "Perhaps we can only continue to sell our goods to Spain through smuggling channels as in the past. Is it possible that we can cross the American continent and force the Kingdom of Spain to sign an agreement on free trade in the Americas?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Xu Yi glanced at him sideways after hearing this. "With our current strength, we won't be able to cross the American continent and enjoy the Atlantic Ocean breeze for at least thirty to fifty years!"

"Who says it isn't?! The bottom line for our Xinhua negotiations this time is to stop the war and gain a period of peaceful development." Huang Shaoping said, "As for the several conditions proposed, they are just incidental."

"It would be best if the Spanish agree, because that would be a free profit for us. If they refuse, we won't lose much either. We can take advantage of this rare period of peace to speed up immigration, develop rapidly, and strive to accumulate strength."
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In the following negotiations, the two sides began to argue endlessly.

It is obvious that the Spanish representatives obtained certain authorization from the governor and made appropriate concessions on several terms proposed by the Xinhua side.

A new division was made on the territorial boundaries between the two sides. Xinhua's territory was no longer limited to Qiming Island. They were allowed to cross the Qiming Strait and extend appropriately to the south, but not to cross the Columbia River at the farthest.

Regarding the eastern border of Xinhua, the Spanish made a very hasty provision that prohibited crossing the snow-capped mountains (i.e. the Rocky Mountains).

The Spanish deliberately ignored the northern border of Xinhua because they had never truly explored the cold region further north and were not aware of the specific conditions there.

I think it should be a wild world of ice and snow, and give it to them.

After a brief protest, the Xinhua representative reluctantly agreed.

After all, with Xinhua's current strength and population size, the territory it can control is quite limited, and it has no ability to expand to the vicinity of San Francisco Bay for the time being.

In another ten or twenty years, as the population of Xinhua gradually increases and their power grows stronger, they will believe that the existing territory can no longer meet their "needs" and will come to the Spaniards to redraw the boundaries.

Whether the other party agrees or not is not important.

As long as we are strong enough, we will force the Spaniards to agree.

Regarding the issue of missionary work in the northern part of America, especially in the territory controlled by Xinhua, the Spanish gave up this condition without much entanglement due to the firm opposition of Xinhua representatives.

If they don't want to go, even if you force a missionary to go there, they might turn around and kill them, and you won't have any way to reason with them.

As for trade, as expected, the Spaniards, constrained by the strict trade ban in their homeland, refused to make any concessions and resolutely refused to allow the new Chinese to come to Mexico to engage in trade activities.

They even warned the new Chinese not to sneak into Mexican ports and engage in shady smuggling trade.

Otherwise, the Spanish colonial authorities will severely punish such behavior. All captured smugglers will be thrown into prison, and the intercepted ships and cargoes will be confiscated.

Imposing a strict trade blockade and material embargo on Xinhua will surely curb their strength growth to a certain extent, playing a key role in finding opportunities to eliminate them in the future.

The Xinhua representative expressed great dissatisfaction and protest. After arguing with Spain for several days, seeing that the other side refused to make any concessions, he reluctantly gave up the clause.

If open trade is not allowed, then we will engage in smuggling.

Given the Spanish's crude governance methods and the secret connections among colonial merchants, it would probably be impossible for them to completely ban smuggling trade.

Humph, I originally wanted to do business with you Spaniards in an orderly manner. At least I could pay some taxes to your customs, which would be a considerable income for the financial deficit of your colonial authorities.

Then, we can only carry out smuggling trade secretly in the future, and your local colonial government may not be able to collect even a single peso.

Spain also rejected without hesitation the request for free navigation and anchorage along the Pacific coast of America for its own security reasons.

In this way, after more than ten days of negotiation, the two sides reached four points in the armistice agreement, namely, ceasefire, boundary demarcation, ban on religion, and exchange of prisoners.

All in all, this is an agreement based on the comparison of the strengths of both parties, and several clauses basically meet the short-term needs of each party.

Xinhua needed a period of peaceful and stable development, so it chose to feign complicity with the Spaniards in order to accumulate more strength.

The Spanish were unable to spare any effort for the time being and had to temporarily appease the other side to prevent it from continuing to harass and invade the coastal areas, so that they could maintain the ruling order of the colonial territories, fully supply the homeland, and safeguard Spain's hegemony and interests in Europe.

On January 1, representatives from both sides formally signed the Acapulco Agreement at the city hall, ending the state of war between them.
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End of Volume 2
(End of this chapter)