As night falls and the lanterns are turned on, although the Chang'an Imperial Palace is not as majestic as it is during the day, it still has a quiet and peaceful beauty.
After a busy day of government affairs, he was physically and mentally exhausted, but thinking of a recent happy event, Li Mingyuan felt much better.
Concubine Xian, who entered the palace in March last year, is pregnant. In ten months' time, another baby with the blood of the Li family will be born into the world. By then, the Han royal family will also welcome a new prince or princess.
Concubine Xian was born into a noble family of the Brazilian Empire, and her father Silva was the fourth son of the Marquis of Calaveras, the founding father of the Brazilian Empire.
In 1831, Pedro I, the first emperor of the Brazilian Empire, abdicated. On the same day, the Congress elected the Marquis of Calaveras, Campos, Lima and others as representatives to form a regency committee to exercise temporary control over the country.
Shortly after becoming a member of the Regency Council, the Marquis of Calaveras opposed the abolition of the eldest son heir system and was at odds with other members of the Regency Council, so he was eliminated. Since then, the Marquis of Calaveras family has been continuously suppressed by emerging forces, and family politics have
His status plummeted.
In 1879, when Pedro II was deposed by republican officials and coup officers, the declining Calaveras family also changed. The direct family members moved to northern Brazil under the leadership of the new marquis and moved to Pedro.
Princess Isabella, the daughter of Dro II, expressed her allegiance, while other members of the collateral family, like Silva, chose to stay in the manor in Sao Paulo State to watch the development of the situation in the Republic of Brazil.
In February 1885, in order to gain support from the international community and alleviate conflicts between different ethnic groups in the country, the government of the Republic of Brazil promulgated the "Law of Free Babies", claiming to give mulattoes the same political status as white babies and encourage intermarriage and unions between whites and blacks.
The original intention of the senior officials of the Brazilian Republic to promulgate the "Free Baby Law" was still out of discrimination against black people. However, unlike the segregation and expulsion measures adopted by the United States, China and other countries, the Brazilian Republic tried to use black and white intermarriage to dilute the rights of black people.
genes, and then achieve the purpose of so-called racial whitening,
Perhaps influenced by Darwin's "Origin of Species", officials of the Brazilian Republic government firmly believe that doing so can dilute the blood of black people, and after several generations of combination, black genes can even disappear.
The executive order issued by the government of the Republic of Brazil was unsurprisingly welcomed by the majority of black Brazilians. The black people, whose total number is nearly twice the number of white Brazilians, happily celebrated the government's great decision, but reluctantly stayed and suffered from the hostility of republican officials.
After the repression of the Portuguese nobles failed, most of them chose to leave the land where they had lived for hundreds of years and migrate to northern Brazil, the United States, Canada and other regions.
The "Free Baby Law" caused another wave of population migration in Brazil, but it was different from the large-scale population migration during the two Argentine wars. Because the main force of the latter's migration was the upper-class nobility who had lost political power, the number of migrants was only less than one
Thousands of people are far from comparable to the scale of previous population migrations.
The government of the Brazilian Republic is happy to see the backward and decadent nobles leave. Without the constraints and troubles of the old nobles, the republican government is more able to implement so-called enlightened policies in accordance with their wishes.
The third wave of population migration in Brazil lasted for one year. Within one year, more than 90% of the Portuguese nobles, who tended to be conservative upper-class elites, chose to migrate to the Brazilian Empire and other Western countries.
, and a small number of others, about a hundred Portuguese families who have lost power, have chosen a high-risk path with a small amount of property.
In both Chinese and Western cultures, traitors are frowned upon. However, compared with the infamy of betraying the original ethnic group and integrating into another ethnic group, any defector who has value will be valued by the other side.
Han and Brazil have been at war for more than twenty years. In the long-term competition and hostility, there are white Brazilians who cannot withstand the temptation of money and voluntarily serve as intelligence agents and sell domestic intelligence to the Han side, and there are also short-sighted and fearful foreigners.
Hu's Chinese businessmen defected to Brazil and begged for mercy from white Brazilians.
Different from the weak national consciousness of the people caused by thousands of years of melee in the European continent, the Han Dynasty in South America, which was deeply influenced by the Zhuxia culture, treated defectors who betrayed its own nation more harshly, and its attitude towards non-Chinese ethnic groups who defected was even more harsh.
Very tolerant.
The reason why they are treated in completely different ways is that since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Zhuxia has developed a crushing advantage over known surrounding ethnic groups. In the eyes of traditional Chinese, Zhuxia is a civilized country surrounded by barbarians.
Admiring the culture of the Central Plains and defecting to the Central Plains is a perfectly reasonable phenomenon and is not worthy of doubt. However, if the Chinese betray their ethnic group and defect to the barbarians, they are betraying their ancestors and willing to fall. When encountering such people, naturally they cannot be merciful.
With this mentality in mind, the Han people did not treat the poor nobles from Brazil harshly. Anyone who could provide useful information to the government would be given different arrangements according to their abilities. Of course, the Han country was a pragmatic country.
The Portuguese nobles, who have mediocre abilities and cannot provide useful information, will not be like some monarchs and officials who like to do face-saving projects, and give them super-national treatment.
The useful people use their spare energy to contribute to the Han Dynasty's strategy for Brazil. The useless people just arrange a place to stay and honestly accept the government's orders and accept Chineseization. As for those who come and make excessive demands, then
I'm sorry, I'm going back to where I came from. Anyway, the population of Han is more than 17 million, and there are more than 1.5 million white people in the country. There is no need for a few useless declining white nobles to support the stage.
After the government's reasonable and purposeful screening, about seventy Brazilian nobles stayed to serve the government, including the family of the virtuous concubine Irina.
Concubine Xian, whose original name was Irina, was born in 1870. In March 1886, she followed her father, mother and more than ten family members to live in Han.
In June 1886, under the deliberate guidance of her father, she began to learn Chinese. In March 1888, after being introduced by several local officials who were friends with her father, she entered the palace and became Li Mingyuan's fifth concubine.
Elena has a slender figure, fair skin, and delicate and soft facial features. She not only has the advantages of Western women's fair skin and slender figure, but also conforms to traditional Chinese aesthetic concepts. Therefore, when she entered the palace, she quickly gained Li Mingyuan's favor.
The degree of favor she received in the palace was second only to the queen and concubine.
Li Mingyuan loves the country and the beauty, and he also wants to collect beauties from all over the world to include in the harem. However, the times are different after all. We are about to enter the twentieth century. Even if the national traditional concepts are deeply rooted and do not exclude the monarch's three palaces, six courtyards and seventy-two concubines, considering
In order to influence the future, Li Mingyuan still tried his best to curb his desires and limited the number of concubines to five.
The first meeting was purely out of love for Elena, which was the intuitive factor that prompted Li Mingyuan to include her in the harem. On the other hand, the Calaveras family is an old aristocratic family in Brazil, which has been rooted in Brazil for nearly three decades.
For hundreds of years, family members have spread across the Brazilian Empire, the Republic of Brazil, and Portugal. Although it is now in decline, it still has a certain influence in Brazil.
Taking into account factors such as uniting and integrating the more than 1.5 million white people in the country, as well as expanding the territory towards the Republic of Brazil in the future, it is also necessary for Na to marry a woman of white origin as his concubine.
Give him a peach and repay him with a pear. Li Mingyuan married Elena as his concubine, which later proved to be a choice that had more advantages than disadvantages. Affected by this incident, the white people in the local area responded to the government-led sinicization and integration policies.
The level of resistance further decreased. From 1888 to the beginning of 1889, the rate of intermarriage between native Chinese and white women increased by 3%. About 1.8 white women of working age married Chinese as wives during this year, while Chinese women married white men as wives.
There are only less than a hundred cases.
In addition to the influence of traditional concepts, government-oriented propaganda also played an important role in causing this phenomenon.
"Han women are not allowed to marry outside, and Han men marry Hu women" continues the custom spread among the people during the Han and Tang Dynasties. The government encourages Chinese men to marry white men and Indian women as wives. However, there are many arrangements for the intermarriage between Han women and non-Chinese ethnic groups.
obstacle,
First of all, the small number of black people who originally existed in the northern part of the mainland have all been moved to the Congo colony. The possibility of intermarriage between Han women and black people is not only blocked legally, but also impossible in practice.
Secondly, about 70% of the Indian tribes that originally lived in various parts of the country have disappeared due to various reasons, leaving less than 30%. Of the total Indians of about 270,000, about 70% have disappeared.
Half of them are Indians, descendants of mixed whites. They live scattered across the mainland and have gradually integrated into the Chinese ethnic group. The remaining more than 100,000 Indians are mainly distributed in the virgin forests in the north of the country and the Patagonian wilderness in the south. Geographical location
Being remote and with few opportunities for contact with Chinese, the probability of a Han woman marrying an Indian is extremely slim.
Finally, white men live scattered in various major cities in the country and have the best chance of contacting Chinese women. However, under the influence of traditional culture, very few Chinese women dare to break through ethnic barriers and marry white men regardless of their parents' objections.
And even if the family problems are solved, it will be impossible for a Chinese woman to marry a white man if she cannot overcome the various obstacles set by the government.
This obviously biased policy in Han China has caused dissatisfaction among many white men. Hundreds of thousands of white women have been lured by the government to marry Chinese men. The white ethnic group is also facing an imbalance in the gender ratio between men and women.
problem, and then the government set up obstacles. Although there was no explicit legislation prohibiting intermarriage between Chinese women and white men, it secretly followed this idea.
The vast majority of white bachelors are not fools. Of course they can see the government's bad intentions, but what can they do if they can see it? They don't have the courage to riot and rebel. The tragedies that happened due to riots and rebellions in the past few years are still vivid in our minds.
With the courage to risk their lives, all the hundreds of thousands of white bachelors can do besides complaining from time to time is to obey the government's orders, speed up the integration of Chinese culture, and transform themselves into a Chinese with a white appearance as soon as possible. According to the new trend, that is
Caucasian Chinese.
Then he hopes to perform well, get awards from the government, marry a white wife, and get rid of his status as a bachelor.
However, the reality is cruel. The phenomenon of more men and fewer women in local areas will exist for a long time. Not to mention white men, many Chinese men are also facing the dilemma of not being able to find wives.
The probability of marrying a Chinese woman as a daughter-in-law is very low among the local white male population. Only a few noble families like the Calaveras family, who are able to get along well within the Han government, are lucky enough to find a Chinese woman for their descendants.
Women make wives.
The Silva family belongs to a branch of the Calaveras family. As the head of the family, Silva did not inherit the family's marquis title. His highest achievement in his military career during the Brazilian Empire was only to become a major general in the Brazilian Army, and he was in charge of
His troops were also local armed forces with weak combat effectiveness. However, after his family moved to Han in South America, Silva, with a decisiveness rarely seen among Western aristocrats, completely cut off ties with the past, gave up his Christian faith, and converted his whole family to the Taiyi religion.
, forcing family members to learn Chinese, eat, travel, and dress according to local Chinese standards.
When faced with a major decision, for the first time Silva chose to stay in the Republic of Brazil and live a life of his own business. However, when he saw that the Brazilian Republican government was making mistakes and his future was bleak, he chose to defect to the South American country of Han and fully adhere to the country of Han.
The royal family intends to reorganize the family in a country dominated by East Asians.
From Silva's perspective, it is not difficult to understand his choice. During the European Middle Ages, there were countless Christians who served the Ottomans, and there were also many white European families who changed their original beliefs and fell into the arms of the Ottomans.
Among Ottoman and even later Turkish nationals, Greeks with Greek ancestry or originally converted Greeks were common in the Constantinople area.
Moreover, the Portuguese and Spaniards are not pure white people in the eyes of Europeans, so they abandon their white identity and take the initiative to integrate into another large South American country with a long civilization and vigorous vitality, in order to gain glory and status for their family and individuals, and have
