December 1635, Manila.
The 22-year-old Yamada Chotae, the head of the Yamada family in Cavite, rode a pure Andalusian horse and was escorted by a small group of Cavite Japanese warriors to the moat of Fort Santiago in Manila.
Two Spanish halberdiers wearing silver plate armor very vigilantly stopped the little Chinese-faced young man who was riding a tall horse and carrying a big knife in his waist.
Here in the Philippines, you don’t see many Chinese people like this!
Oh, it’s not that it’s not common, it’s that it’s not common at all! The two Spanish halberdiers immediately understood that these people were definitely not Chinese, but Catholic Japanese... They were "good people."
Although Manila and even the entire Spanish Philippine colony cannot do without the Chinese. Without them, the colony simply could not exist. The production, construction, and trade of the colonies must rely on these Chinese people to maintain them. Without them, Manila would immediately fall into depression and the most basic necessities of life would become extremely scarce.
Moreover, wasn't the purpose of the Spanish occupation of Luzon just to conduct the Pacific galleon trade? The Spanish exchanged silver from the Americas for raw silk from the Ming Dynasty. After being shipped to the Americas, part of it was processed locally and supplied to the American market. Another part was shipped to Europe and sold exclusively to several co-monarchy federations in Spain, such as Milan and the Spanish Netherlands. —Although the handicraft industry in Spain is extremely dilapidated, it is even worse than before the discovery of the New World. However, the handicraft industries in Spain's common monarchy have developed quite well because of Spain's colonial undertaking.
If the Spaniards slaughtered all the Chinese in the Philippines, they would definitely be squeezed out of the Chinese maritime trade network throughout Southeast Asia. In the future, it will no longer be possible to buy raw silk produced in China. At that time, profiteers in Italy and the Spanish Netherlands will buy raw silk from the Protestants (the Netherlands and the United Kingdom)!
This will further enhance the financial power of the Dutch Protestants. With more money, the Protestants can hire more troops to do bad things against God... So for the sake of God, the Spaniards in the Philippines cannot Kill all the local Chinese.
But if they were allowed to develop and expand in the Philippines, the colonial Spaniards would have trouble sleeping and eating again.
Because there are too many Chinese!
There are just too many!
In Nanyang and even Southeast Asia in the 17th century, the Chinese were the largest ethnic group! Although their population does not rank second among almost all countries and city-states, they must rank second.
Dozens of second groups together are of course the largest ethnic group in Nanyang and Southeast Asia!
The Chinese living in Nanyang and Southeast Asia are only a very small part of all Chinese. The real big head is still in the Ming Dynasty in the north... It is said that there are as many as 200 million!
There are only over five million people in Spain, which is only one-fortieth of the Chinese population... Do you think the Spaniards in the Philippines are not afraid?
Their number is not even as large as the local Chinese in the Philippines!
Therefore, from the first day when the Spanish occupied Luzon Island, for decades, they have been swinging between massacre and use of China - they must massacre, but they cannot massacre them all!
Massacre once, then relax a little, and wait until the Chinese have multiplied to a certain number and regained their strength, then massacre a second time!
And you can't massacre randomly, you have to find some defensible reason. Because indiscriminate killing will make the Chinese in Manila share the same hatred and oppose Spain. In the massacre of 1603, the Spanish failed to grasp the scale and forced the Chinese to launch an uprising. As a result, more than 150 Spaniards were killed.
Therefore, the Spaniards who became smart often collected "evidence" of the Chinese before massacre, either acting as pirates, evading taxes and resisting taxes, refusing to perform labor service, attempting to rebel, or serving as a substitute for the Ming Dynasty's invading army. Internal response...
In short, there must be a reasonable reason so that most of the relatively peaceful Chinese people feel that it is impossible for the Spanish butcher knife to chop on their heads, so that the cost of massacre can be minimized.
The Japanese, who look similar to the Chinese, have always been good helpers for the Spanish Tu Hua. They rely on them to charge into battle, rely on them to collect evidence, and they are also indispensable for murder and arson.
Without them and the local Pampanga people in Luzon, Tu Hua’s work would have been many times more difficult!
And Yamada Nagayasu came to Fortress Santiago today to submit to Governor Coquilla the irrefutable evidence of the Chinese rebellion.
After nearly 30 years of steady development, there are too many Chinese in the Philippines. It’s time to kill some of them!
Since the new governor of Coquilla took office, various persecution activities against Chinese people have increased. Spaniards' Japanese spies also began to move around, arresting and interrogating possible spies and pirates.
As the leader of the Japanese in the Philippines, Yamada Nagayasu has a group of capable people who have done great things in Siam (Yamada Nagamasa was a big shot who was able to participate in the struggle for royal power in Siam back then), so he is certainly good at doing dirty work.
In a conference room in the Santiago Fort, a hearing that will determine the life and death of tens of thousands of Chinese in the Eighth Chinese District of Luzon Island is underway.
In addition to Governor Coquilla, General Prosecutor Caballero of the Philippines, Archbishop Gonzalez of Manila, and several Chinese businessmen, Japanese and Filipino indigenous leaders who had converted to Catholicism and became civilized people were all present. Hearings.
"Your Excellency the Governor, Your Excellency the Chief Prosecutor, Your Excellency the Archbishop, please allow me to report a particularly urgent incident! There is currently very conclusive evidence to prove that a large-scale invasion is about to begin!
The navies of the Dutch and the Ming Dynasty will take a joint action. There will be an expeditionary force of more than 20,000 people on 100 armed Galen ships, carrying a sufficient number of artillery and supplies to invade Luzon Island. The time is this winter..."
Governor Coquilla, who had just taken office not long ago, frowned slightly when he heard this - how could he say it so true?
Prosecutor General Caballero had been in the Philippines for a while and knew that the Ming Dynasty's national strength had been revitalized in the past two years and that it had also colluded with evil Dutch profiteers... so he asked: "Yamada, tell the truth, is this true?"
The chubby Archbishop Gonzalez of Manila glanced at the "nonsense" prosecutor general, "General prosecutor...do you doubt Peter (Yamada's Christian name)'s faith in God?"
Yes, if you believe in God, don’t lie, let alone frame good people, otherwise you will go to hell.
Yamada Nagayasu also patted his chest and said: "General Prosecutor, everything I said is true...it's absolutely true! My people captured several spies sent by the Chinese and took them from where they were hiding. I found several personal letters written by Zheng Zhilong to the Chinese business leaders of the Eighth Company that had not yet been sent out!
In the letter, he asked the Eighth Company Chinese merchants to prepare enough rice to feed 20,000 people for a year for the Ming and Dutch invasion forces..."
"What?" Governor Coquilla was also startled by Yamada's words, "Yamada, where is the letter you found?"
Yamada Chotae immediately took out a stack of paper and handed it to a Spanish man with both hands, "This is the letter and confession... Oh, and there is also a token that says Jinyi Weibei Town Fusi Nanyang Qianhu Office Chinese characters.”
"Jin, Jin Yiwei?" A Filipino Chinese business leader who had converted to Catholicism for several generations quickly made the sign of the cross on his chest, "God, this can't be true, can it?"
"Yes, is there a witness?" Governor Coquilla looked at Yamada Chotae, his heart pounding. He just wanted to find an excuse to kill tens of thousands of Chinese... He didn't have to make it so real, right?
"Yes!" Yamada Chotae nodded, "We captured several witnesses. Among them, the Jinyiwei man committed suicide by taking poison, and the remaining few people were pressed into cells in Cavite. They all confessed that they were tortured They were sent by the Nanyang Qianhu Office of Fusi, Jinyiweibei Town, to Luzon Island to collect military intelligence!"
Governor Coquilla had cold sweat on his forehead. Is it true? Are the Chinese really coming? Did the Dutch come with them? why? Although the Dutch deserve to go to hell, they are white people from Europe after all...
"Dong dong dong..."
At this moment, the big bell on the watchtower of Santiago Fort suddenly rang!
This means that the enemy's fleet is likely to be approaching Manila!
