Alternate Military Conflicts in Chinese-colonized America

I was wondering if anyone wanted to throw out some ideas about AH wars and power struggles in this kind of setting..

I'd imagine there'd be some kind of major rift between China and her colonies if dynastic change in the mainland fails to gain support in the colonies or if someone in the colonies decides to set himself up as Emperor and claim that the one sitting in Peking has lost the Mandate of Heaven. This could probably be the cause of Chinese America's Revolutionary War ITTL.
 
I'm going to assume all this happens during the Southern Song, after the Mongol conquest of the Jin Empire but before the conquest of the Southern Song itself.

If the Song Chinese colonized California, then its inevitable they would push into Mexico, and perhaps to South America. The incentive is in one word, silver.

Silver was the standard currency of the Chinese monetary system. It was highly prized and had a higher purchasing power in China than almost anywhere else. Spanish Americas happen to be the world's most productive silver producers.

Assuming the Chinese alchemists develop the mercury amalgamation process, I think there would be a tidal wave of Chinese silver prospectors to the Americas. Silver mining, unlike gold mining, tend to produce lasting settlements because its more labor intensive, require extensive ore processing infrastructure, and take a lot longer for the ore to run out. So these silver towns would likely grow into cities instead of vanishing like gold towns.

A sustained infusion of silver to China would be deepen the money supply. Since taxes was paid in silver, a drop in silver prices would be the equivalent of lowering taxes. This would greatly stimulate the economy which was exactly what happened during the Qing dynasty when Spanish silver flooded China.

Furthermore, the Chinese colonies would bring back a wealth of New World crops, like potato, corn, various types of squash, peanuts, chili pepper, etc. This would mean a faster population growth which leads to more immigration. Again, similar to what happened with the European colonial experience.

Should the Chinese settle Mesoamerica, then the Caribbean and Gulf cost of North America becomes accessible and attractive future agricultural colonies. So by the time of the European arrival, territorial wise Chinese Americas would look similar to Spanish Americas. Except the Chinese would have colonized Oregon territory earlier on and ignored the Midwest territories east of the Rockies. Politically the Chinese would likely rule with a long leash, satisfied with tributes of silver and jade, and the adopting of Chinese cultural practices. The Mesoamerican and Peruvian peoples would likely become Sinified and adopt to Chinese style agriculture.

The European colonies would likely focus on temperate eastern seaboard of North America. Then it would expand south and the first confrontations would likely be in the Caribbean to drive the Chinese out. Unlike the Spanish in OTL, the Chinese colonists would not be sugar plantation owners but rather poor rice farmers. It's likely the still nascent Caribbean colonies would not be fiercely defended.

Because of the relative slow speed of the Chinese expansion into South America. The indigenous populations would a have better chance of developing resistance to Old World diseases and maintain a very large indigenous population base. Over time the South American colonies would break away to form Sinified nations independent from North America while the earlier colonies in North and Central Americas may remain a unified empire with everything east of the Rockies the domain of European powers.

Meanwhile, back in China itself, the enriched Southern Song may now be powerful enough to avoid being conquered by the Mongols. They may even expand southward to Southeast Asia and the Indian ocean, along the lines of and probably exceeding the Ming experience.
 
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Hendryk

Banned
But then they'll just all die again when they meet Eurasians next.
Actually, thanks to the Chinese presence, the surviving native populations would develop acquired immunities. Any germ the Westerners would bring along, the Chinese would already have spread around, and usually a worse strain thereof.

I'm going to assume all this happens during the Southern Song, after the Mongol conquest of the Jin Empire but before the conquest of the Southern Song itself. (...)
Lots of good points in there. I especially agree about the economic effects of *American silver infusion, and the demographic ones of *American crops. The latter I made use of in my aforementioned TL to justify a population growth in the old country that in turn would send further waves of migrants to the colonies across the ocean.
 
Yes, because populations building up resistances is so unheard of. Of course, there should ideally be soem centuries between the two arrivals, but if its really Song China... then lets say it at least inst really implausible to have the native populations having become more resistant to disease.

Populations building up resistances like this IS unheard of.

To build up immunities you need to keep the disease alive. If a small tribe of a hundred people gets hit by small pox it'd be a fly by night thing. One year is very bad with loads of people dying of it and some surviving.
Then though it'll never be seen again. The human population is just too small to keep the disease alive. It'll totally die out amongst that tribe.
Then a few generations later the tribe will again run into eurasians and catch smallpox- none of them ever having had exposure to it it'll be like what happened to their great grandparents.

It might not be quite so bad second time around with these people being descended from those with the better immune systems but it'll still absolutely destroy them.
You'd need a fair few cycles like this to stand a chance of them evolving strong immunity.

And then of course you have to consider this is just one disease I'm talking about. In reality there are many deadly diseases that can kill the natives and they would all work on the same principle.
 
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If the Song bring back New World crops, they'd spread to the rest of Eurasia in time due to Polo brother analogues, the Mongols, Indian, and Arab merchants, etc.
 
Some thoughts:

I don't think the Ming should be underestimated; the late Ming especially was a vibrant and incredibly commercial society. And you get the Chinese-European interplay.

But yes, the iron working would lead to some interesting interplays, as illustrated in the famous play The Han who would be King.

Leej is mostly right, alas; the advantage Europeans had was the basically chronic disease pool, but things rapidly became weird. Even Colonial Americans were more vulnerable to smallpox than typical Englishmen...
 
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