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As was mentioned in the first chapter, relations with the Maoris were initially cordial, but as the Spanish colonies expanded they violated the territory of the Maoris. The Maoris initially backed down as the Spanish took posession of the whole northern coast of Ateroa by the 1620's, having stablished other 3 colonies: Villaluz [1], Santa Lucía [2] and Almagro [3] (this one will be important later on). Meanwhile, the original colony of Medina had expanded stablishing a series of outposts to the South, reaching Rotorua and founding a settlement. The explorer Martín de la Hoz crossed the entire Ateroa island by land, going south from Medina to Rotorua and then reaching Lake Taupo. He surrounded the lake and continued south until Lake Rota (A misspell of the native Rotoaira) and continuing south until reaching Mount Ruapehu, which de la Hoz nicknamed as "Pico de la Niebla" (Fog Peak) and stablished a settlement on it's southern base, also called Niebla. Then he continued down the Los Cisnes River [4] and after reaching the sea he built a ship and sailed north to Almagro. During his journey he met several times with hostile natives which even attacked his encampment at Lake Taupo in which de la Hoz was saved by his second-in-command, Juan Lugre.


This incident triggered a series of reactions in the north of Ateroa which de la Hoz ignored as he traveled southwards. A Maori caudillo named Tokoroa unified the tribes between lakes Rotorua and Taupo and decided to expel the Spanish from the surroundings. On April 1643 he laid siege to the town of Rotorua. The siege lasted for seventeen days until the Maoris breached the wood walls and executed all the remaining population, with many fleeing to Medina. The governor at the time, José Vega, formed and trained a militia force of 500 men from Medina and Santa Marta. He sent a letter to the viceroy of Peru asking for guns and soldiers, but they would take many months. Vega was forced to start a local arms industry and to build walls around the towns. Tokoroa attacked Medina itself on July, but the walls of the town held the attacks and the Spanish placed their best gunners at the top of them, where the Maoris couldn't attack the Spaniards as they had no bows or any kind of projectile besides throwing stones. The Maoris took some guns from the Rotorua settlement, but failed to use them properly. The siege stalled for two months until reinforcements from the eastern settlements arrived and flanked Tokoroa's army, trapping it between the eastern forces and Medina. Tokoroa insisted on not surrendering and after dancing a Haka (Jaca, in Spanish) he launched an all-out attack against the Spanish, resulting in an horrific battle which took a total of 960 maoris and 78 spaniards including Tokoroa which was shot in a lung and then executed by beheading. His forces dispersed after this, but the Spanish retaliated and forced most tribes out of Tokoroa's former territory, leaving it empty for Spanish colonisation. The whole northern part of Ateroa will be completely settled by 1700.


In that 60 years time frame, the southern coast of Ateroa had been settled being the two biggest settlements Cienríos [5] and San Juan [6], while the southern island of Nueva Asturias received settlers from Europe proper and Peru. The Spanish found difficulties settling the northern part of the island, but when they found the eastern part was a fertile flatland they flooded the territory, quickly overwhelming the natives, stablishing the town of Acantilado [7] which grew to 1200 inhabitants by 1700.


When Váez de Torres first found Australia, he found nothing of interest, only a semi-arid landscape, with some occasional dots of jungle. The natives themselves were really unadvanced with only those of the Salvajes Islands knowing how to use a bow. Later passerbys, such as Martínez Rubio (1657) found nothing of value in the North. In a second expedition, this time starting from Medina de Ateroa instead of Santa Cruz. He reached a southern part of Australia, cooler, but more forested. He landed in the Medialuna Bay [8] and created a settlement, the first permanent settlement in Australia called San Jaime. He continued to sail southwards until OTL Cape Howe, discovering the landscape and conditions were very similar to those of The Fernandines, then sailing back to Ateroa, reaching Almagro on 1670. His tale of a second Ateroa to the west attracted many which felt the island was getting too small for them and in 1672 San Jaime received a further 120 colonists from Ateroa. Rubio received the ownership of those lands from the Viceroy of Perú. Australia lacked native crops nor big animals for the settlements to rely on, so the first colonists released sheeps, pigs and other farm animals in the surroundings of the colonies, hoping that they expand. And hell they did, but that's out of the scope of this chapter.

However, yet again, this second wave of exploration was beaten by the Dutch. Dirk Hartog made landfall in Shark Bay in 25 October 1616. He spent three days cartographing the islands around, which he dubbed "Eendrachstsland" and then he left as he found nothing of interest, not even people. He left a plate that was later discovered by Willem de Vlamingh in 1697. Later on, Abel Tasman discovered the island of Tasmania in November 1642 and the continued eastwards following the Roaring Forties until he made landfall in Nueva Asturias on December 13th. When he continued to sail north, he encountered the Spanish in OTL Cook Strait (Estrecho de la Hoz). He feared being attacked and tried to scape, but his ship was captured. He was shocked to find the Spanish already settled these lands. He managed to convince the Spaniards his voyage was one of exploration and not one of piracy and he was released on February 12th 1643.


When Tasman came back to the Netherlands, he insisted on the urgency of claiming the lands he discovered for the Netherlands before the Spanish did the same. At the time the Netherlands were occupied fighting a colonial war with the Portuguese, but Tasman would find his idea being accepted posthumously, when the United Provinces sent an expedition to settle Tasmania in 1674. The Dutch stablished a settlement without opposition a year later. Later on, the aforementioned Willem de Vlemingh found another settlement called Nieu Den Haag [9] before sailing north and finding Hartog's plate, replacing it with one of his own. The Dutch kept using the name of "New Holland" for their territories down under.


In the last post, we described how the Spanish funded a settlement called Santa Cruz in the Vanuatu Islands. That settlement was not the first one attempted, as the Spanish tried to settle the island of Santa Isabel prior to the PoD, but the settlement failed as the natives could barely feed themselves, much less the Spanish who ate most of the local pigs and food before frictions forced them to leave the island. When the settlement of Santa Cruz was stabilised, the Spanish decided to try again with the Solomon Islands. An expedition by Juan Díez landed on the Guadalcanal island, this time bringing in seeds and food to stablish a long-lasting colony as a bridge between Santa Cruz and Manila. Tha natives initially welcomed the Spanish as did those in Santa Isabel island, but as the Spanish brought food tensions did not rise to a boiling point and the colony thrived in peaceful cooperation, unlike those of Santa Isabel or Santa Cruz.


Spanish ships from the Philippines had also laid claim to a series of island which they called the Marianas and the Carolines. IOTL these islands reamined unsettled to the point by the time of the Spanish-American War, only Palau and Guam had a proper Spanish presence. The history of the colonisation of the islands remains still unknown as most documents were lost, but it's likely that by 1670 the Spanish had settled the islands of Guam, Saipan and Yap. All the islands would gradually be colonised between that date and the 1860's, serving as guano mines and later as tropical resorts.


On 1624 a Dutch expedition reached southern Formosa (Taiwan), stablishing their main base at Fort Zeelandia (Anping). The Dutch had a though time stablishing control of the southern part of the island during the first two years. In 1626 a Spanish expedition coming from the east landed in Cape Santiago, but as the area was not suitable for defence the Spanish continued until they reached Keelung, and stablished a permanent fort named Santísima Trinidad. The Spanish then stablished a second fort to the west named Santo Domingo. The Spanish and Dutch co-existed until 1641 when a Dutch fleet attacked Santísima Trinidad and failing to take the city. The current governor sent a message to the governor of the Philippines, Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera initially refused to send a fleet, but he also received news of alleged Dutch presence close to Australia (prior to Tasman's expedition some Dutch ships passed by the Torres Strait before being forced to go back). An emissary from New Spain urged the governor to assemble a force to protect Formosa and expel the Dutch after their daring attack. The Dutch were preparing forces to attack Santísima Trinidad again, when on July 1645 a Spanish Fleet appaeared in front of Fort Zeelandia and bombed the Dutch ships, impeding them to leave the harbour. Then the Spanish "Tercio de Marina" landed close to the fort while the navy bombarded it. After eight days of combat, Fort Zeelandia surrendered and the other Dutch fort, Fort Provintia did so after ten days. The Dutch had been ejected from Formosa.


The Spanish soon discovered that Formosa was valuable to stablish diplomatic relations and trade with the Chinese Ming dynasty, that at the time was suffering from raids coming from the Manchu Qing Dynasty. During the next years the Qing pushed hard, breaching through the Yellow and Blue Rivers and securing the provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian. The Spanish sent am ambassador to the Qing monarch, asking him for trade permissions and in support the Spanish would help him defeat the remnants of the Ming. Emperor Fulin accepted, but the only thing the Spanish did was taking the Penghu (Pescadores) Islands and repelling a Ming attempt to retake them in 1647. The Qing completed their conquest of China while Taiwan was firmly under Spanish hands. The last indigenous state, the Kingdom of Middag was conquered in 1683. The Spanish would take some decades to assert complete control over the mountains of the island.

[1] OTL Kutarere
[2] In the mouth of the Motu River, no town here IOTL
[3] 8 km to the Southeast of Auckland
[4] Whanganui River
[5] West of Pungarehu
[6] OTL Lower Hutt
[7] OTL Christchurch
[8] Jervis Bay
[9] OTL Bunbury, Western Australia