Chapter 560: Civil War Breaks Out
Intervention is bound to bring both good and bad effects. Sheffield is separated from Mexico by a river, so he must carefully consider this issue. If it goes against one's wishes and there are effects that are detrimental to his own class, things will be bad.
But if you think about it, the risk is not that great. What makes Sheffield most confident at the moment is that the biggest threat has not yet been born and the Soviet Union does not exist in this world. There has never been a day when he felt the greatness of the Russian Empire so much. If the Soviet Union did not exist, there would be no reference. Even if Mexico could have a revolution, it would not become a proletarian country.
With this bottom line, Sheffield no longer cared about anything else and treated Mexico as a testing ground for the First World War, modeling and estimating what benefits the joint company could gain from the world war.
Airplanes still cannot be deployed on the battlefield, and mustard gas is not an option. The war mode of head-on shooting and artillery bombardment is more exciting. At least the cruelty is more direct. This is the current situation that Sheffield is happy to see.
A few days later, Rodriguez, who had returned to Mexico, sent a telegram to Sheffield, saying that many places were indeed in chaos. Sheffield was not surprised. Mexico has a population of 13 million and an area of 2 million square kilometers. Like the United States, it is a sparsely populated country.
This kind of country actually has a good soil for guerrilla warfare. Slave owners remember that the Mexican Civil War lasted for ten years. The intensity of the war was only average, but the long-term conflict was one of the few bright spots.
The evolution of the situation also made Rodriguez no longer say that the situation was not just good but great, and expressed his hope for support. Sheffield replied in a telegram, "I will support Mexico's restoration of order at all costs."
Rodriguez was very pleased with Sheffield's statement, but he didn't know that what Sheffield meant by "at any cost" was referring to the lives of Mexicans. As long as either party was unwilling to admit defeat completely, the United Company would ensure an adequate supply of arms when it could make money.
Support was already underway. Sheffield had not been idle in the past few days. He integrated the media outside the United States into the International League News Agency, abbreviated as the Associated Press, which focused on reporting on the internal conflict in Mexico, set aside the constraints of the Associated Press, and connected to the domestic media system.
To celebrate this brand new moment, the first fake news story published by the Mexico City-based Associated Press that day was headlined, “The Blasphemous Monster Is Devouring Mexico.”
The report called Madero's group puppets supported by the United States and the culprits who disrupted the good situation in Mexico. These so-called progressives blasphemed God and should be judged by God on the stake.
Although Madero was directing the affairs of the country within the United States, Sheffield's newly established League of Nations directed its attack towards Mexico's northern neighbor. On the one hand, this was to add fuel to the fire of the current situation, and on the other hand, the slave owners themselves felt confident and felt that it would not hurt them to curse the United States.
As the center of the entire country of Mexico, the precursors of war have already appeared around Mexico City. No one expected the battle to come so soon, just like when the Civil War in the United States just started, neither Washington nor Richmond thought that the war would bring such a heavy price. Washington thought that Richmond would surrender as soon as the federal army appeared.
Richmond thought that if he could let Washington know that he was not easy to mess with through a battle, he could successfully secede from the United States. As a result, he really got angry. This is how the Civil War was. At the beginning, people always thought that blood was thicker than water and that fellow tribesmen would not be ruthless. But in fact, it was just the opposite. Just because they were fellow tribesmen, they thought that they could not lose to the other side and would not stop until they had fired their last bullet.
Mexico City is irregular in shape, slightly longer from north to south and slightly narrower from east to west. Surrounded by steep mountains, the city was the core of the Spanish colonial empire. As a plateau city, the climate here is quite comfortable, but the comfortable climate is not as real as the sound of gunfire that appears from time to time.
Although it is the core city of Mexico, Mexico City is by no means a city that can effectively deal with war. The capital of Mexico has been occupied many times in history. It was occupied by the United States during the Mexican-American War and by France during the Civil War. Even the residents of Mexico City itself have little confidence in the city. There was a wave of exodus as soon as the war approached.
Countless residents of Mexico City left the capital and fled to the countryside for refuge, but this kind of refuge was only limited to middle-class and above residents. If you wanted to escape to the countryside for refuge, first you had to have a good estate, and preferably servants to protect you, so as to ensure your safety in the upcoming war. As for the escape of civilians, it all depended on luck.
As Mexico City was getting closer and closer to war, armed conflicts broke out in other administrative regions of Mexico. Madero's advocacy of land reform caused dissatisfaction among the Catholic Church and large families like Rodriguez. There are individuals who betray their class, but there is no class that betrays its class. At this time, they also joined the melee, and even took the initiative to preemptively attack the forces supporting Madero.
"Great!" Sheffield jumped up after returning to Arlington Manor, reacting to the good news in the most intuitive way. "Rodriguez actually thought it through very clearly. Although I charge for my weapons, as long as they win the war, they can still make money back from the Mexicans and the land. If land reform is really implemented, they will lose all their money, and without money, no one will work for them."
"It seems that this guy is not bad, much more reliable than Madero hiding in San Antonio." Anne sat on the sofa, one leg dangling, and said playfully, "It seems that with such a quick reaction, President Diaz should be able to get through this difficult time."
"Even if he gets away with it, he's already too old. Once he dies, the conflict will break out again." Sheffield reached out and pulled Anne, pinching his wife's feet. "Fortunately, I don't care who wins. It doesn't matter who wins. It won't affect my arms sales. But it's not okay for the war to end quickly!"
The current situation in Mexico cannot be solved by slow adjustment. It has come to that point only after the two sides had fought each other out. The root cause lies with Diaz himself. Although Diaz hopes to develop modernization, he will not go against the wishes of the landowners, because he mainly relies on their support. In fact, the senior officials he appointed all used local armed police to support the landowners in gradually encroaching on the collective land in rural areas.
In order to establish capitalist farms in the countryside, the Diaz government plundered a large amount of land from Mexican farmers, who were mainly Indians and mixed-race Indians. Both the public land of the Indian community and the land cultivated by farmers for generations were seized without compensation by government officials, landowners and land speculators because they could not provide legal evidence. The annexation of land reached an alarming level.
One fifth of the land in Mexico is in the hands of seventeen people, including Rodriguez. Otherwise, why do Sheffield and Rodriguez have so much in common? It's their class composition as large landowners that brought them closer.
As for the fact that out of a population of 13 million, 9.5 million are said to be farmers, who are essentially farm laborers, this is the Mexicans' own problem. Sheffield has already told Rodriguez the reason. It is better to kill three thousand people by mistake than to let one go.
Not long after, the first major battle of the Mexican Civil War broke out in Chihuahua, which is located in the northwest interior of Mexico, bordering New Mexico and Texas in the United States to the north. It covers an area of 250,000 square kilometers and is the largest state in the country. The capital is Chihuahua City.
Chihuahua is the place where the most intense resistance to President Diaz is located. Compared with the area of the largest administrative region in Mexico, Chihuahua, which is mainly agricultural, has a large number of farmers. A large number of farmers without land have become Diaz's biggest opponents. This is a neighbor not far from Rodriguez's hometown.
Rodriguez first mentioned to Mexican President Diaz that he would lead the assembled armed forces to disintegrate the local rebels, and with Diaz's consent, the war began.
In the city of Chihuahua, the vested interests who have decided to fight to the end are eagerly awaiting Rodriguez's arrival while stepping up preparations for war.
The Chihuahua peasant army began to attack the city. The Catholics and the big landowners gathered to defend the city, which had three battalions, and the police force of Chihuahua State and President Diaz were responsible for supporting them. It can be imagined that to command such an army, loyalty is not the first thing needed.
Most of the time, the defending vested interests could only rely on high morale and rifles to deal with the massive number of rebels. The two sides fought fiercely for every street, every building, and even every piece of ruins. For a while, all kinds of shouts and cries of killing resounded throughout the city.
At least in terms of bullet consumption, the fighting in the city was very fierce, and a few corpses could be seen on the streets, proving that the fierce fighting between the two sides did cause casualties. This was only temporary. As casualties continued to increase, the so-called idea of shedding less blood in the same country would not last long.
Compared with the more powerful peasant army, the government forces had more reasons to persist and were more ruthless in their attacks. The upper class often understood the seriousness of the problem earlier, and the city government, which was already full of government troops and police, was more professional than the peasant army. Although they had more numbers and more power in the initial confrontation with the peasant army, they did not gain any advantage.
(End of this chapter)
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