Empire Rising: Spain

Although there are still 8 years before 1889, it is only a blink of an eye. The construction of warships takes a long time, and without two to three years, a warship cannot be commissioned into the navy.

The act of building six ironclads on a grand scale, like France, may result in the era of battleships arriving before these six ironclads can be fully integrated into the naval fleet.

France’s investment in ironclads is substantial, which means they cannot abandon the construction of ironclads.

When the era of battleships arrives, Spain can vigorously construct its own battleships, and the investment in ironclads can be suitably reduced.

Although it inadvertently triggered a European naval arms race, the Spanish Government did not focus much on the naval arms race itself.

After sending off the Italian ship purchasing mission, the Spanish Government decided to launch a war against the Ashanti Federation.

During this period, Spain’s efforts to sow discord among the tribes of the Ashanti Federation were quite effective. At least the attitudes of other tribes towards the strongest tribe, the Ashanti Tribe, became much colder, even leading to a fierce argument during the Ashanti Chief Council.

The argument’s reason was the Ashanti chief’s long-standing encroachment on the interests of other tribes. Although officially, the Ashanti chief had no power to interfere in the affairs of other tribes, as the ruler of the Federation, the hidden power of the Ashanti chief was much greater than his apparent power.

This also led to considerable resentment from other tribes towards the Ashanti chief and the Ashanti Tribe, almost causing internal strife within the Federation due to Spain’s instigation.

Although it did not lead to a civil war within the Ashanti Tribe, this situation was already sufficient for Spain.

After all five Colonial Defense Corps were fully prepared, the Spanish-controlled Gold Coast Colony Government used the excuse of Ashanti Tribe natives invading the land of the Gold Coast during hunting to issue an ultimatum to the Ashanti Tribe, demanding that they hand over the natives who invaded the Gold Coast’s land within 24 hours and pay compensation to the Gold Coast Colony Government.

When the original words from the Gold Coast Colony were translated into the native language and conveyed to the Ashanti Tribe chief, it immediately caused panic throughout the tribe.

It is worth mentioning that the Gold Coast Colony Government stated that it only found evidence of Ashanti Tribe natives invading the territory and did not find evidence of other Ashanti Federation tribes invading Spanish territory, thus the diplomatic ultimatum only targeted the Ashanti Tribe and did not include other tribes in Spain’s actions.

This additional statement by the Golden Territory led to a split in the Ashanti Federation’s Chief Council into two factions.

One faction, led by the Ashanti chief and some weaker native chiefs, believed they should completely deny facing Spain’s diplomatic note, after all, the natives were already avoiding Europeans, so how could they have possibly intruded into Spanish territory?

They believed that Spain’s so-called invaded territory was merely an excuse, and their real aim was to annex the Ashanti Federation and eliminate all native tribes under this federation.

The remaining larger native tribes believed that the main fault of this incident lay entirely with the Ashanti Tribe and was unrelated to their other tribes.

Since it was the fault of the Ashanti Tribe, the responsibility should be borne by the Ashanti chief and his tribe. Unless Spaniards openly invaded the territories of other tribes, they were unwilling to bear the consequences of the Ashanti Tribe’s mistakes; after all, it would be their soldiers and population who would die in war.

The Ashanti chief was surprised to find that the number of native tribes supporting the second opinion was greater than those supporting the first.

If not for the lingering influence of the Ashanti Tribe, even those small tribes might have chosen the second opinion.

This situation of isolation greatly alarmed the Ashanti chief, who tried to explain that the incident of Spain’s so-called territory invasion never happened, but by then the leaders of the other native tribes no longer believed him.

The discussions in the Chief Council reached a stalemate, because the Ashanti chief was the highest chief of the entire Federation, which resulted in the majority of chiefs supporting the second opinion, but still unable to make the Chief Council decide on a final choice.

However, this stalemate was not a good thing for the Ashanti Tribe. Spain’s diplomatic ultimatum was limited to 24 hours, and if the Ashanti Tribe could not hand over the culprits who invaded Spain’s territory and pay compensation within 24 hours, the Spanish Army would mercilessly counter-invade the territory of the Ashanti Tribe.

In the midst of the Ashanti chief’s anger and fear, the 24 hours quickly passed.

Without the slightest hesitation, the Spanish Army boldly invaded the territory of the Ashanti Tribe after roughly 20 hours had passed.

As the largest native tribe of the entire Federation, the Ashanti Tribe was located along the Volta River, occupying the most fertile land and forests nearby.

Various tribes, big and small, attached to the Federation, were distributed along more distant riverbanks or surrounding the Ashanti Tribe.

Some smaller tribes were forced by larger tribes further inland, where they could only exchange the gold dust and gold ore mined from within their territories for food from European colonists along the coast, barely sustaining the continuation of their tribes.