After a splashing sound, Shimazu Mitsuhisa was the first to ride through a shoal and set foot on the north bank of an unknown stream. Dozens of knights followed closely. Most of the figures on the horses are wearing kimonos and are short in stature. They are riding tall horses brought to the Americas by the Spaniards, which is really a bit uncoordinated. There are also a few larger ones, all of Western race.
The stream that Shimazu had just passed merged into a large river not far away. On both sides of the river, the terrain was quite open. If you look into the distance, you can see numerous mountains. A team marched sparsely on the west bank of the river. Less than half of the team were mature men, and the rest were young women. Some of the young women were pregnant, so they rode on horses, while the others walked. There were many horses accompanying them, four to five thousand in total. Except for a small number of them carrying people, the rest were carrying large packages of goods. People walking on foot also carried large bags of luggage and trudged forward step by step.
Needless to say, these men and women on foot and women on horseback are all short Japanese refugees. They were now heading north along the Central Valley, led by de Velasco, the Californian governor of New Spain.
De Velasco also admired these short and small refugees who came from across the ocean. They all became homeless dogs and ran away from the prosperous East Asia to the desolate California. They all had high morale and could still perform from time to time. Hear laughter.
Also, these little East Asians don’t seem to get scurvy!
Those slow-moving Chinese-style bird boats drifted in the Pacific for more than two months, but not a single case of scurvy occurred!
This phenomenon made de Velasco very worried about the Pacific Maritime War that he did not know how long it would last. If East Asians were really immune to scurvy, then the naval personnel of the Ming Empire would be able to stay at sea longer, and In the extremely vast Pacific Ocean, this will be a huge advantage!
In addition, the "Bombardment Artillery Revolution" also caused great troubles to the Royal Spanish Navy, which was financially strapped. To complete this naval equipment revolution, it is not just about adding a few short-barreled large-caliber guns to the traditional armed Galen ships. Instead of bombardment cannons, we need to design a new type of battleship!
Because a traditional battleship with two to three gun decks and dozens or hundreds of cannons is basically a floating gunpowder magazine. When a naval battle is going on, the gun deck is completely in chaos. If you go down and take a walk at this time, you will definitely see powder barrels and powder bags that are not arranged according to regulations - dozens or hundreds of artillery pieces! How many gun crews would have to be squeezed into the small gun deck? In a chaotic firefight, how could everything be done according to regulations? Even if everything is done in accordance with the instructions, when a 24-pound, 32-pound or even 40-pound shell explodes in the gun deck, can it avoid causing a fatal explosion and a series of subsequent disasters? Don’t even think about such a good thing!
Therefore, designing a new type of full-bombardment gun battleship has become the primary task of every naval power in the world today!
As far as De Velasco knows, the Ming Dynasty, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, which are wealthy and have developed shipbuilding industries, have long begun to design and manufacture new battleships.
The Ming Dynasty's first-generation all-gun battleship, the Yingtianfu-class, has already been put into active service!
But what about Spain?
De Belasco couldn't help but sigh when he thought of his motherland, which should have owned the world, but was so poor that he couldn't even pay for the dowry of the princess.
At this moment, the knights in front of him suddenly stopped moving forward. De Belasco was not paying attention and almost hit the butt of a horse in front of him. After a while of fussing, he reined in a very unruly war horse under his crotch. Shimazu Mitsuhisa had already driven the horse to his side.
"Your Majesty the Governor, let's settle down here!"
"Here?" De Belasco looked around. This should be somewhere in the northern part of the Central Valley. It is a river bend, and there are several unknown streams coming down from the mountains to the west. The terrain is not very open, and is undulating. The trees are very lush and it looks relatively humid.
"Isn't this place too remote?" De Velasco thought for a moment and then asked, "And the northern part of the Central Valley often floods, which is not conducive to farming. How about we go back south and pick a better place... ….There’s plenty of land in California anyway.”
"It's very nice here!" Shimazu Mitsuhisa smiled, "This place is very much like my hometown of Satsuma."
Is Satsuma country in a valley? De Belasco said to himself: You old man must have been confused by the boat ride. When we were in San Francisco Bay, we talked about it being like Satsuma Country, and we wanted to settle there...
"Okay!" De Velasco thought for a while, but agreed to Shimazu Mitsuhisa's request - San Francisco Bay cannot be given to the Japanese, it is too important. As for the northern part of the Central Valley... it doesn't matter if it is given to the Japanese. With them blocking it here, it will not be easy for the Chinese to go south!
Shimazu Mitsuhisa asked again: "Your Majesty the Governor, what is the name of this place?"
"A name? You haven't chosen one yet," De Velasco said. "Mr. Shimadzu, how about you come up with one?"
"Okay!" Shimazu Mitsuhisa said, "From now on, this place will be called the Satsuma Valley! The Satsuma people will reproduce here and continue to live forever!"
De Velasco nodded: "Okay, let's call it the Satsuma Valley...but you have to be careful about flooding. If you want to reclaim it, you must build the dike first."
"Hai! Thank you for your concern, we will definitely pay attention." Shimazu Mitsuhisa nodded heavily.
De Velasco added: "I have already mentioned the formation of a new fusilier regiment to the Duke of Florida...The Duke has approved it. But you know, our Kingdom of New Spain is a big country, and there are many things It needs to be done slowly, and it may take two years to implement it. Before that, I hope you can build a castle in the Satsuma River Valley and build a camp enough for 30,000 people to live in. If you still have some spare power, reserve as much as possible food."
He paused, then looked at Shimazu Mitsuhisa: "Boss, can you finish this in two years?"
"No problem!" Shimazu Mitsuhisa said, "As long as the Governor's Palace can provide some more iron tools and food, my people will definitely be able to build a castle and military camp in the Satsuma Valley within two years, and can also reserve at least 20,000 koku of food."
"Is it really possible?" De Belasco still wanted to make sure.
"Absolutely no problem!" Mitsuhisa Shimazu gave an affirmative answer.
"That would be great!" De Belasco smiled, "In this case, we will soon be able to drive the Ming people away from the Gulf of America!"
He spoke very quickly, certainly very fast by the standards of the Kingdom of Spain... For the "King of the World" Philip IV, there were really a lot of things that needed to be done quickly in the summer of 1660 !
The first thing is of course to win the trust of German and Italian bankers, so that the country can get out of the predicament of being unable to borrow money as soon as possible - for Spain, borrowing usury is not the worst thing, the worst thing is that it cannot borrow usury at all!
I just don’t know how those bankers who have suffered enough from Spain can trust the credibility of Philip IV again?
Secondly, of course, we need to work out a timetable for military reform—the navy must reform, and the army must also reform! Thanks to the guidance of the suddenly powerful Ming Empire in the East, Europe's military powers, including France, Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden, have all begun to reform their armies and navies. Even the Holy Roman Empire, which has not yet completely emerged from the shadow of the Thirty Years' War, , also began army reform. The Ottoman Empire, the enemy of the Holy Roman Empire, has launched an ambitious reform plan to revitalize their navy and Sudanese Guards!
Only Spain, the "world hegemon", seems to be stuck in a quagmire and cannot use any energy to carry out reforms.
The third thing that needs to be done as soon as possible can actually be done, which is to marry Princess Maria Theresa to Louis XIV of France. This is not easy! Fortunately, Philip IV had always carefully protected his daughter and tried his best to prevent her from appearing in front of outsiders. Therefore, Louis XIV did not know the true appearance of his Spanish princess until June 7, 1660... ..
