Shanghai, Baoshan Military Port.
When the sky was dim and bright, the soldiers of the brigade were already wearing military uniforms, carrying salutes on their backs, carrying weapons and armor, and boarded 20 Dutch-style warships lined up at the military port pier amid the biting northwest wind. . Around the port area, officers and soldiers from the garrison battalion from Baoshan Fortress guarded various intersections and prohibited all intruders from entering or exiting.
It is already the fifth day of October in the eighth year of Chongzhen. The tenth month of the lunar calendar is equivalent to the eleventh month of the Western calendar. During the Chongzhen year, which was in the Little Ice Age, winter has definitely entered.
The wind and waves on the Wusongkou River were not small, causing the Dutch-style warships on the military port pier to rise and fall. The East India Company's armed galenic ship, which was not used to carry the expeditionary officers and soldiers, had already pulled anchor and left the port one day in advance and anchored outside Wusongkou on standby. They were waiting for the twenty brand-new Dutch-style warships manned by Zheng Jiajun's sailors to be loaded before setting out on an expedition together.
These twenty brand-new warships are all Western-style warships built by Zheng Zhilong at the Baoshan Shipyard in Shanghai (belonging to the Zheng family) after he moved north from Xiamen to Shanghai.
If it were not for the shipyard established by Zheng Zhilong in Xiamen, with the help of Portuguese craftsmen, he would have built 10 Chinese and Western warships with suspended hard sails and a Galenic hull, thus laying the foundation for manufacturing Western-style warships. .
If Hans Putsmann hadn't left some craftsmen with the army to serve as consultants for Zheng Zhilong's Shanghai shipyard before leaving the Ming Dynasty two and a half years ago, these 20 lightly armed Galen ships with a carrying capacity of about 300 tons would not be so Easy to make.
Without Hans Putsmann and the Western sailors he brought with him, who of course played important roles on each warship, Zheng Zhilong's old brother alone would not have been able to sail these 20 Western-style sailing ships in such a short period of time.
However, these 20 Western-style armed sailing ships can only sail. It is a no-brainer to participate in a naval battle and compete with the Spanish fleet in Manila on the ocean.
Regardless of Zheng Zhilong's ability in naval battles, he even defeated the expedition fleet of the Dutch East India Company in the Battle of Liaoluo Bay.
But the battle was fought on the sea near the beach of Kinmen Island. The hydrological conditions there were favorable to Zheng Zhilong, allowing him to arrange a fireship array to disperse Hans Putsmann's fleet.
But if the battlefield is to be moved to the open Manila Bay or the waters off Manila, Zheng Zhilong's offshore fleet will not be able to play...
However, the expedition to Luzon Island did not require Zheng Zhilong to take command. Anthony Van Diemen of the United East India Company has been appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Ming-Dutch Combined Fleet, with unified command of 18 warships of the United East India Company and 20 warships of the Ming Royal Navy. Zhu Youjian's Pinghaibohans Putsmann will serve as Anthony Van Diemen's deputy and will also be responsible for directly commanding 20 warships of the Ming Royal Navy. The landing operations on Luzon Island will also be under his full command.
In addition, Qin Yiming and Zheng Zhilong's brother Zheng Zhihu served as the commander-in-chief and deputy general of the Luzon Expeditionary Force respectively.
On the pier, Qin Yiming and Zheng Zhihu were walking with the Ming Emperor Zhu Youjian who came to Shanghai in person to see off the expeditionary force. Zhu Youjian did not wear a dragon robe, nor did he bring the emperor's guard of honor, so he did not cause much commotion.
This expedition to Luzon was, after all, a sneak attack, and it had to be in the name of the Tokugawa Shogunate, so of course it couldn't be done with much fanfare.
Zhu Youjian, Qin Yiming, and Zheng Zhihu have arrived at the dock closest to Baoshan Fortress and the most heavily guarded.
Next to this pier, a large curtain has been circled with white cloth, and a group of Zheng Zhilong's soldiers are guarding outside the curtain. Seeing Zhu Youjian, Qin Yiming, and Zheng Zhihu approaching with their guards, one of them immediately rushed in to call someone. After a while, he saw Zheng Zhilong and two Japanese soldiers coming out of the curtain to greet Zhu Youjian. .
"Your Majesty Zheng Zhilong respectfully welcomes the Holy Master!"
Zhu Youjian nodded, then glanced at the two Japanese soldiers and asked Zheng Zhilong: "Are they your Japanese soldiers?"
"That's right," Zheng Zhilong said, "One of the two of them is named Tagawaemon. He is Omi's brother-in-law. He was originally a soldier of the Hirado domain. Later, when he became uninterested in the Hirado domain, he followed me to do business overseas. The other person’s name is Zagapu, a Japanese mercenary who is good at using fire and muskets, and he followed me out of Japan together with Tagawaemon.”
The lord of the Hirado Domain, whose surname was Matsuura, was a famous Japanese pirate in the Warring States Period, known as the Matsuura Party. The Tagawa family was a small Japanese pirate under the Matsuura Party. After the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the sea ban became increasingly strict. The Matsuura family gradually lost the ability to be a Japanese pirate and became an ordinary feudal lord. Some members of the Tagawa family are accustomed to spending money lavishly and cannot be hard-working samurai at all. So I simply voted for Zheng Zhilong and followed Zheng Zhilong to collect protection fees.
Zheng Zhilong also needed Japanese thugs to charge into battle, so he recruited people from Tagawa and even married a woman from the Tagawa family.
And this Tagawa Eemon is the Tagawa family's cousin. He is in his 40s, his skin is as tanned as a black man, and his facial features are straight and delicate.
Tagawaemon bowed and said in fluent Chinese: "Admiral Tagawaemon of the Imperial Navy, I would like to extend my sincere greetings."
Zahepu, who came out with Tagawa, is much younger, only in his twenties. He doesn't speak Chinese very well, but he also imitates Tagawa and salutes, "My, grocery store, iron artillery captain works, see Long live my Lord."
"Yao Xi!" Zhu Youjian said something in Japanese, and then asked Zheng Zhilong with a smile, "How many Japanese soldiers are there like them?"
"1,000!" Zheng Zhilong laughed, "Just enough to form a thousand-man battalion... I have prepared the Tokugawa family's flag, Japanese iron cannons, swords, spears, and armor for them, and let them take the lead when the time comes. , the secret will definitely not be revealed.”
Zhu Youjian nodded and asked Tagawaemon and Zahepu, "I ask you to pretend to be members of the Tokugawa family, are you willing?"
"I am willing!"
"My, I am absolutely willing!"
"Okay!" Zhu Youjian said with a smile, "When the matter is completed, I will give you two Han surnames and titles... You will be my honorable ministers of the Ming Dynasty from now on!"
While talking, Zhu Youjian said to Zheng Zhilong: "Let's go and see yours, no, they are my Japanese soldiers!"
...
Zheng Zhilong's words of "definitely not exposing his secrets" are a bit exaggerated, because he hasn't been to Manila for a long time, so he doesn't know that the Philippine Governor Coquilla now has a Japanese mercenary force with a better reputation than the one in Zheng Zhilong's hands. The Japanese pirates are still big!
This Japanese soldier who worked for Koquilla came from Siam. He was originally a Japanese mercenary loyal to the Ayutthaya Dynasty and made great achievements in the war between Siam and Burma. Their original leader was Yamada Nagamasa, a fellow countryman of Tokugawa Ieyasu and born in Mikawa. His father was a retainer of Honda Masanobu, an important minister of Tokugawa Ieyasu. He followed the Zhusin ship sent by the shogunate to Siam for trade. He was later elected as the leader of the local Japanese mercenary group in Siam and became a general of the Ayutthaya Dynasty.
Due to the strong combat effectiveness of the Japanese ronin mercenaries who followed Yamada, they once became the gold medal fighters of the Ayutthaya Dynasty. It was precisely because they were so good at fighting and were jealous and ostracized by the Siamese and local Chinese that they were all expelled after Yamada Nagamasa died of his injuries (possibly a murder).
Since most of the mercenaries under Yamada Nagamasa were Catholics, and Japan's own country was closed, they could not return to Japan. So under the arrangement of the Catholic Church, they crossed the sea to the Philippines and were hired by the Philippine Governor Coquilla.
The number of this group of Japanese mercenaries is also around 1,000, and the leader is Yamada Nagayasu, the son of Yamada Nagamasa. Because he believed in Catholicism and was particularly good at fighting, he soon became a trump card in the hands of Governor Coquilla after arriving in the Philippines.
