novelSusiti Chapter 99 "You are the devil"
Chapter 99 "You are the devil"
Chapter 99 "You are the devil"
Faced with an enemy that outnumbered them and outgunned them, the Whitmans had no choice.
They had no choice but to obediently let the sailors operate the raft to the shore, and then take all the passengers on the raft ashore together.
Lu Daqi immediately arranged for the militia to control everyone, and then immediately searched their bodies and luggage, finding all books and documents.
Lu Daqi believes that these early immigrants might have some hand-drawn exploration maps, exploration records, and manuals on them.
Just as Lu Daqi had predicted, the guards found several hand-drawn maps on Whitman's body, mostly maps of roads in western America drawn by explorers.
The most important of these roads is one that starts in Independence, Kansas City, Missouri, runs west along the Kansas and Pratt Rivers through the Rocky Mountains, and then along the Columbia River Valley to Fort Vancouver.
The map marks many important landmarks, such as the mountain pass that crosses the Rocky Mountain divide, which American explorers call the "Southern Pass," as well as the situation of the major indigenous tribes along the way.
This road is the historically famous Oregon Trail, a route slowly discovered by American explorers that leads west from the Great Plains through the Rocky Mountains to the West Coast.
The Whitmans' missionary team successfully completed the journey for the first time in 1836.
They were supposed to build a mission station near Ness Perth to establish relations with the indigenous people and further explore and confirm the best route for the last stretch of the road, ensuring that the ox-drawn caravans could pass.
In 1842, the couple returned to the United States and organized a caravan of thousands of immigrants to travel along the explored road to settle in the Oregon region.
Once the Oregon Trail is open, the United States will be able to send thousands of people to the West Coast every year, and then use these immigrants to gradually control the Oregon region and eventually take over California.
Looking at the maps and listening to the interpreter explain the key information, Lü Daqi couldn't help but beam with delight: "Go back and quickly draw several copies, the key is to replace the annotations with Chinese characters, and send one to the commander!"
The Americans wanted to go to the West Coast, and the Han Chinese wanted to find a way to the Great Plains.
Zhang Zongyu also deployed many sentries to explore along the surrounding rivers and valleys, but they have not yet reached the deepest part of the Rocky Mountains.
Today, someone delivered the most important news to my door; it's like a blessing from heaven.
When Marcus Whitman and his wife were searched, they instinctively assumed the soldiers wanted gold and silver when they saw the burly militia searching their luggage. By the time they realized the officers were looking for a map, it was too late to stop them; their map was already in the enemy's hands.
Seeing Lu Daqi's joyful expression, Whitman and his wife were filled with despair.
The path that American adventurers and missionaries had painstakingly explored over decades had fallen into the hands of these suddenly appearing Easterners.
What these Easterners wanted to do was likely to go in the opposite direction, into the Central Plains, to explore and even colonize the interior of the United States.
Marcus thought about these things, about the possible consequences, and painfully closed his eyes to pray in his heart.
I hope these people can't understand the markings on the map, and I hope they can't find the right way.
After all, these maps were drawn in a very rudimentary way, and without the guidance of someone who had actually traveled these roads, it was not easy to find the correct way to travel.
Upon realizing what had happened, Narcissa, unable to control her emotions, burst into tears: "My God, what did we do wrong?!"
After confirming the map's contents, Lü Daqi instructed the interpreter to carefully keep it and make several copies.
In addition, several communications soldiers were arranged to row a small boat back to Wenjiatun to report the harvest to Zhang Zongyu and suggest that someone be sent to explore eastward according to the map.
Then they arranged for several militiamen to prop up Whitman and the others' raft and send it back to the dock in Naizitun.
Lü Daqi himself led most of the militiamen to escort Whitman and his group of twenty people back to Naizitun by land.
Whitman and his party continued their journey with heavy hearts, arriving at what was once Nezpersburg.
The area around Naizitun has a semi-arid climate with an annual rainfall of only about 200 millimeters. Under normal circumstances, such a place is not suitable for reclamation into farmland.
Although it is possible to irrigate with steam-powered pumps, farming here is clearly not cost-effective compared to the Wenjiatun River Valley downstream, where irrigation is almost unnecessary.
Therefore, Naizitun was an outpost camp that served both defensive and exploration purposes.
Their main task was to survey the surrounding terrain and roads, while also keeping watch on and monitoring several large indigenous tribes in the vicinity, and guarding against and intercepting British and American merchants who might appear in the area.
Of the 300 militia households in Naizitun, 100 households took turns cultivating a small amount of land to supply the local basic food needs.
One hundred households take turns maintaining basic training and carrying out local security patrols.
One hundred militiamen took turns going out to explore and investigate.
Whitman saw the vast farmlands outside Lizitun and the militia training around them, and felt a great threat, realizing that the enemy was significantly larger than himself.
However, in the minds of Whitman and others, the greatest threat was not these strong men, but the three hundred Han Chinese women who did odd jobs inside and outside Naizi Village.
Some of them were clearly pregnant, and others were carrying babies on their backs.
For them, a few hundred men are not scary, but a few hundred women from other tribes are very scary.
The foundation of the United States was laid by Puritans from Britain, many of whom were conservatives who were almost ascetics.
The religious and social atmosphere in the United States is very conservative, far less open than in Europe.
For overseas immigrants to the United States, the most important "resource" is European white women of childbearing age, especially their own ethnic group of British women of childbearing age.
In American history, the first white women to arrive in a new colony, even if they had nothing special about them, had their identities and names recorded.
Whitman's wife, and several other women in their group, are all worthy of being remembered in history.
In their view, only from the moment these women of their own tribe arrived in a new colony could their own descendants be born and their people truly begin to take control of the land.
This event is a very important and memorable milestone for Americans.
Because the ethnic classification of Americans is determined by their mother's identity.
Only children born to white European women were considered descendants of their own race, with the most undisputed being children born to British women.
Many states in the United States have explicit regulations that the offspring of male slave owners and female slaves are implicitly considered slaves.
The offspring of female slave owners and male slaves were considered free persons by default.
In addition, the conservative religious atmosphere prohibited abortion, so even if the mistress was raped by the male slave, the child she gave birth to, although not considered white, was still considered a legal free person.
Due to these traditional cultural characteristics, no matter where the Americans are or how large their population is, they are unable to quickly absorb the surrounding indigenous population.
It is unlikely that white men in the United States would encourage women of their race to have children with Indigenous peoples.
Children born to white men and Indigenous women are considered Indigenous by default, not their white counterparts.
Mixed-race children typically stay in indigenous communities rather than move to cities inhabited by white people.
Therefore, foreign women are not a potential source of reproductive resources for immigrants to the United States; on the contrary, they are very important competitors.
These foreign women will continuously produce more and more enemies.
So if given the chance, they wouldn't mind destroying these tools that constantly generate enemies.
Whitman and her group discovered that the Asians in front of them were not just a group of men living there, but had brought hundreds of Asian women with them, and immediately felt immense pressure.
With these women, hundreds of children will be born here every year, and the number of East Asians here will increase, thus firmly controlling and occupying this land.
In fact, Whitman and others' observations and concerns were meaningless.
Even if the Han immigrants were only men, they would capture indigenous women to bear their offspring, because the identity of a Han child was determined by the father's identity.
Although Han Chinese people also value a son's status based on his mother's, they also accept a mother's status based on her son's, and they don't particularly care about the mother's actual identity.
Even if the child was born to the emperor and a female slave, it was still a prince and had the opportunity to inherit the supreme throne.
In addition, the traditional Han Chinese system of one husband and multiple concubines allowed the Han people to quickly absorb the surrounding indigenous population when they had a population advantage, and to rapidly increase their population even when their own birth rate was low.
This is in stark contrast to the British in the United States.
After escorting Whitman and his group back to Naizitun, Lü Daqi imprisoned them all separately.
Then Lü Daqi personally led the interpreter to interrogate these people individually, starting with Marcus Whitman.
From the very beginning, Lü Daqi told Marcus his prepared interrogation strategy very frankly: "I will interrogate each of you individually in turn, and you had better answer my questions carefully and thoroughly."
"If everyone tells the truth and tells me everything they know, then you will all be able to survive."
"If what you say is different, if someone is unwilling to answer what he should know, then he is definitely deceiving me, and all those who deceive me will be put to death."
"My first question is, where did you come from, how did you get here, and what is your purpose in coming here? Have any other immigrants arrived this year?"
This interrogation method creates a basic prisoner's dilemma.
After listening to the translation and briefly analyzing the logic, Marcus Whitman immediately understood the horror and cruelty of this interrogation method.
People who haven't conspired beforehand can give the same correct answer without prior agreement, but they cannot all independently fabricate the same lie.
If those being interrogated give answers that differ from others, they are highly likely to be lying, and such lies are easily detected.
Therefore, for these people being interrogated, the best way to ensure their survival is to tell the truth.
Upon understanding, Marcus Whitman growled in terror and anguish, "You are the devil—"
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