Now that I think...
Why didn't the Austria Yamato claim the throne of Spain during the Spanish Sucession War? Or why didn't claim their independence after the Bourbon victory?

And please continue TTL. It's very interesting and I really enjoy it.
😊👍
 
Now that I think...
Why didn't the Austria Yamato claim the throne of Spain during the Spanish Sucession War? Or why didn't claim their independence after the Bourbon victory?

And please continue TTL. It's very interesting and I really enjoy it.
😊👍
Because then can lose a important node. If someone catch it, the Japanese Zaibatsu Arasaka is based in the same of Cyberpunk edgerunners. I can't avoided make it.
 
Only you would be able to turn a story of the evil Spanish Empire into a Cyberpunk prequel.
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La Guerra del Caribe Español
«Cartagena esta delante y el enemigo español pronto morira. ».
«Cartagena is ahead and the Spanish enemy will soon die.».

— Admiral Edward Vernon before the battle of Cartagena de Indias.


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When the War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1714 with the Treaty of Utrecht, the newly formed Kingdom of Great Britain sought to dismember the heritage of the Hispanic monarchy. However, they were only able to prevent the creation of a hegemonic power on the European continent (the combination of the Bourbon monarchies of France and Spain, together with the possessions of the latter on the continent). Apart from that, they had only obtained some commercial concessions in the Spanish Empire in America, such as the so-called "Asiento de Negros" (license to sell black slaves in Latin America) for thirty years and the concession of the "permission ship" (which allowed trade direct from Great Britain to Spanish America for the volume of merchandise that could be transported by a ship with a capacity of five hundred tons, an amount expanded to a thousand tons in 1716). However, direct trade between Great Britain and Spanish America would be a constant source of friction between the two monarchies, such as the border problems in North America between Florida (Spanish) and Georgia (British), Spanish complaints about the illegal establishment of dyewood on the shores of the Yucatan Peninsula around the Belize River. This situation was aggravated by the increase in English smuggling to Spanish territory in America, due to which the British and Spanish authorized, in order to verify compliance with the treaty, that Spanish ships intercept British ships in Spanish waters to check their cargo. , which became known as «right of visit». According to the «right of visit», Spanish ships could intercept any British ship and confiscate its merchandise, since, with the exception of the «ship of permission», all merchandise destined for Spanish America was, by definition, contraband. In this way, not only royal ships, but other Spanish ships in private hands, with a concession from the Crown and known as coastguards, could board British ships and confiscate their merchandise. This would be seen as piracy for English society.
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Aside from smuggling, there were still British ships engaged in piracy. Much of the ongoing harassment of the Fleet of the Indies fell on the traditional action of English corsairs in the Caribbean Sea, dating back to the times of John Hawkins and Francis Drake before the Spanish invasion of England. The numbers of ships captured by both sides differ enormously and are therefore very difficult to determine: until September 1741 the English speak of 231 Spanish ships lost compared to 331 British ships boarded and captured by the Spanish. In any case, it is noteworthy that by then successful Spanish boardings were still more frequent than British ones. In the midst of this climate of political tension, the Jenkins Ear Incident would occur in April 1731. Robert Jenkins was a British smuggler of Welsh origin who while returning home from a trading trip in the West Indies commanding the smuggling brig " Rebecca" was approached on suspicion of smuggling by the Spanish coastguard (privateer) La Isabela led by the Havana-based sea captain: Juan León Fandiño. Captain Fandiño after discovering the merchandise of the Rebecca, classified them as contraband and therefore Robert Jenkins as a smuggler, as punishment for the crime of smuggling, Fandiño had Jenkins tied to one of the masts, to cut off his left ear with his sword while threatening to do the same to King George II if he was caught smuggling into the Spanish dominions. Robert Jenkins addressed his complaint to King George II and gave a statement which was transmitted to Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle in his capacity as Secretary of State for the Southern Department (responsible for the American colonies). Although, Spain refused to give monetary reparations to Jenkins or to the insult to the name of George II. Jenkins wouldn't sit still.
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Common newspaper talking about the Spanish Coastguard (look right side) and how Jenkins ask for help.​

He would motivate various newspapers in Britain and its colonies to give the issue intense press coverage, employing tactics that would later be labeled "yellow journalism". Devoting a daily average of ten pages of news, editorials and drawings with dramatic details representative of the event. At one point, he would tell his story before a House of Commons committee, showing off his severed ear (pickled in a jar). In the summer of 1739, having exhausted all diplomatic efforts, King George II agreed, ordering the Board of Admiralty to initiate maritime reprisals against Spain. The Royal Navy while they saw the situation as a matter of national honour. On July 11, the British ambassador to Spain requested the annulment of the "right of visit." Far from bowing to the British threat, Felipe IV abolished the "seating right" and the "permit ship", and requisitioned all British ships that were in Spanish ports, both in the metropolis and in the American colonies. Given these facts, the British Government formally declared war on Spain. The commander-in-chief of all British naval forces in the West Indies was Edward Vernon, nicknamed Old Grog because of his grogram jacket (made of silk mixed with wool and rubber), who arrived in Antigua, which was considered Britain's "Gateway to the Caribbean". before ordering that several ships were dedicated to intercepting the Spanish merchant ships that made the route between La Guaira and Portobelo. This strategy ended up causing Captain Thomas Waterhouse to end up attacking La Guaira committing perfidy by lowering the British flag from his ships and hoisting the Spanish flag, to quietly enter the port and once there take the ships and assault the fort. However, the governor of the province of Venezuela, Brigadier Gabriel José de Zuloaga, did not fall for the deception and when the time came they simultaneously opened fire on the British. After three hours of intense cannonade, the English flotilla ended up sunk off the coast of La Guaira while the sailors were hanged on charges of piracy for using pirate tactics such as flag deception.
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Waterhouse avoided the fate of being treated as a pirate when his ship was destroyed by an explosion in the powder keg, however news of the defeat reached Vernon who was in Jamaica serving as an important English naval base taken in 1670 during the period of English Republicanism between the expulsion of the Stuarts and the accession to the throne of William III. Due to the defeat, Vernon assembled a large fleet with which to attack the Spanish Caribbean possessions. The main objectives were the three main ports of the Viceroyalty of New Granada, from where the Fleet of the Indies departed loaded with the riches of Peru bound for Spain: La Guaira (Province of Venezuela), Cartagena de Indias (Province of Colombia) and Portobelo ( Panama). With this, the English planned to capture the shipments of precious metals about to embark for Europe, destroy the Spanish fleet in the Caribbean and, once they had gained control of the area, attack and conquer Cuba, the pearl of the Antilles. Vernon decided to attack Portobelo leading a fleet of six ships in a larger operation. Portobelo was a small town, barely defended by three forts: the Todofierro, located next to the port, the Gloria and the San Jerónimo in the interior, whose garrisons barely added a total of 1000 men, without combat experience for years. To make things even easier for the invaders, Governor Francisco Javier de la Vega Retez had negligently not bothered in the least to reinforce the city's defenses, as other strongholds had done. The positions were practically abandoned, some cannons were not even placed and the coordination between the different units was practically nil. To top it off, the naval force in charge of defending the port was reduced to a couple of coastal defense vessels commanded by Francisco de Abarca that could not against Vernon's warships.
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The Portobelo fight lasted barely two hours. The British ships entered the port after eliminating the coast guard ships, from where they shelled the Todofierro Fort, but due to the lack of wind they did not get close enough to attack the inland forts, which paradoxically made it even easier for them to things, for they kept out of range of their cannons all the time. After neutralizing the Todofierro without any problem, the British landed an expeditionary force that captured the fortress. De la Vega died at the hands of Vernon, trying to offer some resistance from inside the town. Vernon was elated by the easy victory, and perhaps determined to shake off La Guaira's bitterness and anger that he found no trace of the gold that should have been kept there, having been sent back to Peru in anticipation of a British attack. Vernon then ordered the systematic destruction of the city, a task that went on with impunity for months while the city's population was forced to participate as slave labor where hundreds of people died for the conditions or died in executions carried out for fun. hands of British officers. The castles were demolished to the ground, the cannons disassembled and thrown into the sea with prestigious prisoners tied to them, while most of the remaining population of the city was expelled or killed. After this, the English ships weighed anchor and returned to Jamaica with a few thousand pesos that were intended to pay the Spanish garrison and the capture of a couple of smaller vessels that would be sold in Jamaica. In London, however, news of the victory was greatly exaggerated by the English press, and celebrations went on for months. Vernon himself would be received as a hero by King George II and during a dinner in his honor a new anthem created to commemorate the victory, "Rule, Britannia!"
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Paradoxically, the easy victory at Portobelo would harm England much more than Spain, since the English took the poor defense of Portobelo as a foretaste of what would be the rest of the military actions against the Spanish squads. This circumstance caused a dangerous excess of optimism in the English commanders, which would lead them to commit very serious tactical errors that would condemn the actions of the British Royal Navy. The war in 1740 would be around the possessions of Spanish Florida and the recently created English Colony of Georgia famous for its prohibition of slavery, ordered by James Edward Oglethorpe. Although England practiced slavery, its level of slavery was not as atrocious and brutal as the Spanish, causing hundreds of African slaves to flee from the neighboring Spanish colony of Florida to Georgia through pants and Indian territories, in the midst of these escapes, the so-called Black Seminoles emerged: A racial and cultural mixture between the native Seminoles and the fleeing Africans. Georgia grew thanks to the fact that Oglethorpe in England suggested that debtors recently released from prison be sent as settlers to Georgia, where they would be given land with which to build a future, this would motivate an increase in the population qualified mainly by English merchants and artisans ruined by high competition in the metropolis and refugees fleeing Europe for religious reasons. The presence of former slaves caused the colony's economy, based on cotton farming as in neighboring Carolina, to prosper to the point that when the Jenkins War, as it would be called in Georgia, began, Oglethorpe raised a militia to his position and, after allying himself with chief Ahaya of the Seminoles, launched a series of incursions into Spanish territory. Regular troops from South Carolina and Georgia, militia volunteers, some 600 Creek and Uchise Indian allies, and some 800 Black Freedmen as auxiliaries made up the expedition led by Oglethorpe, which was supported from the sea by seven Royal Navy ships.
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The expedition scored its first victory by storming Fort Santa Teresa de Mosé two miles north of St. Augustine in the far north of Florida when the British quickly managed to occupy the fort, which occupied a strategic position on a vital coastal route. However, Captain Antonio Salgado, knowing of the strategic importance of the fort, decided to recover it at the head of regular Spanish troops. The assault began but quickly degenerated into close combat with swords and muskets where the Spanish were eventually forced to retreat, when English cannon fire began killing and wounding over 100 men. Among the Spaniards who fell in the Mosé was Captain Antonio Salgado, which represented a serious blow to the morale of the Spaniards. With Fort Santa Teresa de Mosé taken, Oglethorpe was able to gain the support of several powerful Seminole Indian chiefs who gave up to 2,000 warriors on the condition that San Agustin be allowed to capture people and loot. In the end, a force of nearly 5,000 British and Indians including 2,500 Seminole Warriors, 1,000 Georgian and South Carolinian militiamen, 500 British regulars along with approximately 600 Royal Navy sailors. The battle of San Agustin would be known as El Sangriento Agustin, or the Bloody Agustin in his time. While British and allied troops attacked San Agustin, their rearguard was harassed by contingents of Spanish settlers. While the Spanish soldiers were easily held in the Castillo, the surrounding plantations and towns formed a surprisingly disciplined force of irregular fighters (partisans), armed with muskets and, in some cases, crossbows reminiscent of those used in the 1500s. While useless against forces deployed in direct and open combat, the so-called Hombres de Florida (Florida men) proved entirely effective against separate gangs amid Florida's vast swamps and rain forests. The partisans struck hard and melted away just as quickly, routing more than one group of soldiers or Georgian and Carolinian settlers.
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The Battle of San Agustin finally came to an end when the Spanish Armada made a simultaneous naval attack with an amphibious landing, liberating the besieged town, forcing Oglethorpe to retreat but leaving his Indian allies behind as bait to gain distance from the Spanish troops while he was hunted by the Spanish irregulars. Oglethorpe would return to Georgia sick and wounded, but he would survive and set about building defensive forts around the south, to prevent a possible Spanish retaliation from wiping out his prized creation. While the extreme ease with which the British destroyed Portobelo prompted Vernon to change his plans: Instead of concentrating his next attack on Havana with the intention of conquering Cuba, as had been planned, Vernon would set out again for New Granada to attack Cartagena de Indias, main port of the Viceroyalty and main point of departure for the Fleet of the Indies towards the Iberian Peninsula. The British then assembled in Jamaica the largest fleet ever seen, made up of 186 ships (60 more than the famous Great Armada of Felipe II) on board of which were 2,620 pieces of artillery and more than 27,000 men, including They included 10,000 British soldiers charged with initiating the assault, 12,600 sailors, 1,000 slave macheteros from Jamaica, and 4,000 volunteer recruits from Virginia led by Lawrence Washington. While in Cartagena de Indias, there was the veteran sailor Blas de Lezo, seasoned in numerous naval battles of the War of Spanish Succession in Europe and several clashes with pirates in the Caribbean Sea and Algeria, called "Mediohombre" since he was 25 year old. He barely had the help of Melchor de Navarrete and Carlos Desnaux, a flotilla of six ships (the captain ship Galicia plus the ships San Felipe, San Carlos, Africa, Dragon and Conqueror) and a force of three thousand men between soldiers and urban militia. which was joined by six hundred soldiers from Brazil.​

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The great British fleet composed of 186 ships was sighted upon arrival on March 13, 1741, which put the city on edge. Before disembarking, the English neutralized the network of fortresses that defended the city, the last to fall was San Luis de Bocachica, after thousands of naval cannonades and mortar shots. At that moment, Admiral Vernon, was already sure of savoring his victory, ordered his King George II to be informed, and to mint commemorative coins of the victory, which would torture Vernon until his last days. But the Spanish defenders were not ready to surrender yet. Vernon, before the last remaining fortress: San Felipe de Barajas, which was shelled night and day while the 600 Spaniards locked up there resisted. Vernon while he ordered the troops to disembark to surround the fortress through the jungle and prevent them from receiving reinforcements. The troops on land then had to face the jungle and malaria, which caused hundreds of casualties among the English while they had to go through traps and ambushes made by the expert Brazilian Lusitanian combatants, under the command of Blas de Lezo, they slowed down the English march and they prevented the cannons from getting too close. He also sent a group of Spaniards, supposedly to surrender, to lead the English into a big trap. Finally the British forces managed to reach the gate of the fortress, where they found some 300 armed men defending it. The entrance was a narrow slope and in the assault the attackers lost 2,000 men without getting past its walls. Between April 19 and 20, the English prepared a great offensive at night with stopovers, which would serve to enter the city and finish off the Spanish soldiers, but Blas de Lezo, aware of this, ordered a moat to be dug around the wall to prevent the ladders from reaching the top.
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Blas de Lezo after the battle.​

In this way, with too short stops and not knowing what to do, the English were massacred from the top of the wall. The next morning Blas de Lezo ordered a sortie and charging the enemies with the bayonet forced them to flee towards the sea, abandoning all the impedimenta. Thus ended the battle, leaving behind thousands of English corpses as a result of ingenious Spanish strategies and tropical diseases to which the Spanish were more accustomed. Although the ships continued to bombard the city for another 30 days, Vernon was forced to withdraw. On May 20 he abandoned the last group of English ships in Cartagena de Indias leaving behind 5 ships in flames due to lack of crew, 1,500 cannons and mortars, between 8,000 and 10,000 dead and 7,500 wounded. British power in the Caribbean suffered greatly, this defeat was a serious setback for the British war fleet in the Caribbean, which was practically dismantled. When King George II received news of the disaster he forbade his historians to write about such an embarrassing defeat. The already minted commemorative coins would instead circulate as a mockery of Rule Britannia. Thanks to the result of this battle, Spain strengthened the control of her Empire in America. Motivating Blas de Lezo to have authorization to lead an expedition with the aim of expelling the English from Jamaica, after having lost it almost a century ago, at the hands of Admiral William Penn. The Colony of Jamaica, as it was known to the English and later to the international scene, began as a colony with a strong pirate economy where merchants and corsairs worked together: The merchants would sponsor commercial activities with the Spanish while they sponsored the corsairs to attack the Spanish ships and pillage the Spanish coastal cities.
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Parliamentary anti-piracy politicians would say that the pirate trade has become almost a way of life in Jamaica to the point that in one way or another, almost everyone in Jamaica seems to have an interest in privateering, yet the The Dutch brought sugar cane to the British West Indies, causing sugar to replace piracy as Jamaica's main source of income, while also becoming the largest exporter of sugar in the British Empire. The sugar industry was labor intensive, and so the English government brought hundreds of thousands of African slaves to Jamaica. In 1673, there were only 57 sugar estates in Jamaica, but by 1739, the number of sugar plantations increased to 430. On the other hand, the barely existing slave rebellions meant that Jamaican militia men were poorly trained, equipped, and even motivated to fight more focused on economic benefits than on defending the territory, an occupation that they believed was the responsibility of the Royal Navy forces based in Jamaica whose main objectives in the early years were to defend Jamaica and harass Spanish ports and shipping companies.
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However, the arrival of Vernon with the defeated fleet and carrying malaria and various diseases made Jamaica weak when on October 12, the Spanish forces landed in Port Royale after an intense bombardment that included the use of several fire ships loaded with gunpowder. who destroyed the English privateer ships in the port of Port Royale. Admiral Vernon and his staff escaped with a small force by sea. A small Spanish fleet pursued them as they cruised the Cuban shores, forcing Vernon to flee to Georgia. While in Jamaica, the noisy Jamaican militiamen and the few remaining royal English soldiers felt forgotten and simply refused to fight any more. Blas de Lezo would end up occupying Port Royale, renaming it Puerto Real de Santiago de Jamaica. Months later, it would lead to the appointment of Blas de Lezo as 1st Duke of Jamaica, putting him as lord of the Island. Jamaica would essentially become the real estate property of the Blas de Lezo family, with sugar plantations handed over to the De Lezo family who would govern. the island, owning thousands of slaves while inhabitants of Vizcaya and the Basque countries would begin to populate the Island while they ethnically cleansed the English population either by expelling them through high taxes and discrimination or directly aggressive attacks in the middle of the night where they break into their plantations , they kill the slaves and then brutalize the English before hiding the corpses of the slaves as if it had been an uprising put down by the brave and always ready Basque neighbors.​
 
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Very nice chapter, Spain not only holding itself well here but also scoring wars against the English by reconquering Jamaica, hopefully more reforms will come so that in the next war they can not only get North Italy back but also strike at the ottoman empire and get something like Cyprus and Tripolitania to their empire.
 
Nice chapter and nice destiny to D. Blas, the hero of Cartagena.
I get that this Spain follows the black legend, and in fact it is legendarily dark, but now that TTL is close to the industrial revolution, I'm asking myself:
Will the part of the "black legend" that says that Spain is backwards in science and technology be truth too?
Because I remember Jerónimo de Ayanz and his first steam engine, but that was more than a century ago from the last post. So, no spanish industrial revolution?
Can you also talk in the next chapters about the inquisition (if still exists) and its relation towards science, society and more specially the enlightenment ideas?
Thanks a lot.
 
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Nice chapter and nice destiny to D. Blas, the hero of Cartagena.
I get that this Spain follows the black legend, and in fact it is legendarily dark, but now that TTL is close to the industrial revolution, I'm asking myself:
Will the part of the "black legend" that says that Spain is backwards in science and technology be truth too?
Because I remember Jerónimo de Ayanz and his first steam engine, but that was more than a century ago from the last post. So, no spanish industrial revolution?
Can you also talk in the next chapters about the inquisition (if still exists) and its relation towards science, society and more specially the enlightenment ideas?
Thanks a lot.
The Inquisition still existing but his main job is purge the prothestants and fight the infidel.

The Black Legend thing is more for explain his brutality and cruelty, but not necessary need be later a sick men of Europe. For that we have the Ottomans.
 
While being backwards would be somewhat true to the Black Legend, for Spain to be as "successfully evil" as portrayed in the myth it kinda has to be as(if not more) advanced as OTL Spain in order to pull that off
I cant speak for Paladin on wheter Spain will ne a industrial superpower ala Britain by following the Black Legend(bringing iberian oppression to the whole world in the process) or if it will remain just as successful as it is being now before things go wrong for them, but as he said above, Spain here will not be the Ottomans
 
Paladín honestly said that Napoleon woke up the Iberian beast that eats Italy and the coasts of Bereberia. So I assume they will be very harsh, on the other hand with the reference to Cyberpunk he asked me if somehow the evil Spanish empire ended up creating a corporatist world.
There is also Nationalism that will be interesting, how will Spain handle those who want to get out and ruin everything, no idea.
 
Paladín honestly said that Napoleon woke up the Iberian beast that eats Italy and the coasts of Bereberia. So I assume they will be very harsh, on the other hand with the reference to Cyberpunk he asked me if somehow the evil Spanish empire ended up creating a corporatist world.
Huh, so the idea of we living in a corporation-dominated world is also(even more) true here
This TL is one huge Mandela Effect!
 
I am happy by the path the Spanish empire is taking in this timeline. Not necessarily the way they are cruel slaving monster, though that is cool in a Grimdark way, but the way they are actually the equal or superior of any other great power, able to gain victories or draws against them even just decades after the succession disaster.

I was kinda disappointed that they didn't use the British crippling weakness to completely clean up the Caribbean of their colonies, what with Antigua being made reference to in the same chapter. It was the golden opportunity to get rid of a big part of the English piracy for the long term, and make the future Frontline be up in North America.

Nonetheless, getting Jamaica makes holding Belize impossible for the British, so this is nice.

Keep up the good work, Paladin.
 
The Inquisition still existing but his main job is purge the prothestants and fight the infidel.

The Black Legend thing is more for explain his brutality and cruelty, but not necessary need be later a sick men of Europe. For that we have the Ottomans.
Being backward for a while during the XIXth century was not a problem for Russia or now China to divent a worldpower later on.
Let me give you a possible path:
One option of being perceived as backward is diventing isolationist. Maybe after the Napoleonic wars and the unsuccesful betrayal of the English on the Americas, Spain may close herself in a mercantilist bloc (liberalizing trade inside the Empire but forbidding it outside).
So for 70 years Dark Spain concentrates on eliminating religious and political dissidence, exterminating racial minorities and expanding/securing the frontiers (Austrialia, Patagonia, Sahara, the Rocky Mountains...).
Then, at the end of the XIXth century, when the USA tries to expand south and west on spanish territory, there is a come back with new inventions, like an improved Peral's submarine or an earlier Torres Quevedo's telekino.
Anyway, I love your TL and I just want to read more. 😜
 
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