The straight-line distance from St. Paul's Fort to the East India Company Pier in Macau's Haojiang Inner Harbor is less than three miles. However, Charlie Gough and Ji Dabao, who came out of St. Paul's Fort, walked for nearly an hour before arriving at the East India Company's commercial building where Zhu Heji was located.
The reason why they walked so slowly was not because they were afraid of being punished by Zhu Heji, but because a large number of Portuguese and English people who were trading with Chinese merchants in the market on the north bank of the Guanzha River already knew that the Chinese were coming!
Therefore, they no longer dared to continue doing business. They all packed up their belongings and ran towards the fort with their tails between their legs.
In addition, there were more than 5,000 Portuguese and mixed-race Portuguese living in Macau at this time! Of course, it is impossible for so many people to live in the St. Paul's Fortress - the fort is a bastion, but it can accommodate so many people inside. But living like that would be too crowded...and Macau has never been attacked by a powerful enemy since 1625.
Therefore, a large number of Macanese Portuguese and half-blood Portuguese people have bought spacious residences on Macau Island. Now that they know that Macau is being attacked by the enemy, they naturally go to the fort in groups, dragging their families with them.
With several groups of people together, the road leading to the fort was packed with people and it was impossible to walk fast.
So when Charlie Gough and Ji Dabao saw Zhu Heji in the courtyard of the East India Company's trading house, it was already evening and the sky was already quite dark.
At this time, the area around the East India Commercial Building was almost ridiculously busy. The commercial building looked a bit like a large construction site. Hundreds of shirtless strong workers were sweating profusely. Under the command of the young Jin Yiwei, they stacked bags of white rice or straw bags filled with soil against the low courtyard wall of the business building.
The dock is even busier. The Great Eastern and the other two old lock boats that were the first to dock have been moved away. The three old lock boats that have been replaced have a total of ten springboards lowered from the side deck. The soldiers of the Dahao Qiu family were working like crazy. They kept transporting bags and barrels of goods from the boat to the boat.
There were also about a dozen small sampans that kept going between the other three old lock boats that were "queuing up" and the dock, and one boat after another brought in fully armed soldiers.
Master Guo, whom Qiu Rong and Zhu Heji had brought to be in charge of logistics, was on the pier, personally in command and dispatch.
The Qiu Jiajun of the brigade have begun to assemble and march south to occupy positions to the north of St. Paul's Fort.
The combined forces of Zhu and Qiu that came by sea totaled more than 4,200 people, including about a thousand sailors, and the rest were land divisions, but there was no cavalry. Therefore, they had to be equipped with a large number of long guns to resist the Portuguese cavalry.
The Qiu family troops who are now marching out to occupy the position are a combination of pikemen and turtle-dove-foot muskets. As the team advanced, the spear points undulated under the dusk sunlight, glowing with a cold light, which was very scary.
However, Charlie Gaofu and Ji Dabao, who have had long-standing dealings with the Yanping Prince's army, both know that neither the Zheng family nor the Qiu family's Lu division can be considered top-notch. Although they can imitate Western tactics, they do not get the essence. Pikemen and musketeers had difficulty coordinating with each other, and there was no artillery that could move quickly on the battlefield. Cavalry is an extremely rare unit...
In a sense, they only learned the superficial aspects of Western military science, with a slight appearance, but did not grasp its essence.
Although such an army could compete with the Portuguese soldiers in Macau in field battles, it would never be able to quickly capture the St. Paul's Fort.
Unless...they really have some dark magic!
When the two of them were thinking about black magic, they were brought to Zhu Heji and Zhuge Military Advisor who had changed into "Confucius clothes" by several young guards.
Zhuge's military advisor rested on land for a while and felt energetic. He was shaking his fan and counting his fingers, looking like he was a master at pinching and counting. Seeing Charlie Gough and Ji Dabao walking in, the great military advisor immediately pinched his fingers and said to Zhu Heji in a pretentious manner: "Your Majesty, I have already settled the matter! The Portuguese Governor Rodoni is stubborn and has vain plans. Resist the heavenly soldiers... The Bishop of Macau, Santos, is crazy and crazy, trying to ask the Western Lord Jesus for help to destroy the magic passed down by the ancestors of the Chen family!"
After hearing what Zhuge Sanhe said, Charlie Goff was shocked and said everything! What a black magic!
Ji Dabao, who was standing next to him, had a look of disdain - he knew that the methods of these fortune tellers were fake if they could pinch them, but they were real if they could read people's words.
"Military advisor," Zhu Hejie spoke up at this time, "The Gu family heard that the Western Catholic Jesus has quite a lot of magical power and is very efficacious... How should we break it?"
Ji Dabao, a devout believer, sneered in his heart: "Isn't it wishful thinking to break Jesus' spell?"
"What's so difficult about this?" Zhuge Sanhe said, shaking his goose-feather fan, "Westerners have the Lord Jesus, and we, the Chinese, have the saint Confucius. If you want to defeat the way of Jesus, you should use the way of the saint!"
Ji Dabao sighed in his heart: "Zhuge's military advisor is not good at this... How can you use Confucius to challenge Jesus? You should invite the Jade Emperor and Taishang Laojun to come out to fight Jesus! Even if it doesn't work, you should invite Taibai Jinxing. , Monkey King, etc., how can you invite Confucius? Can Confucius, a scholar, beat Jesus?"
"Military advisor, Confucius also used this method?" Zhu Heji asked, "Do you want to invite the sage Confucius to take over?"
"No, no need," Zhuge Military Advisor waved his hand, "Even Santos doesn't have the ability to invite Jesus to come down to earth."
There should be no such thing...Zhu Heji thought to himself: "The only person who can invite Jesus to come down to earth is Xiao Chaogui, the 8,000-year-old Western King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!"
Zhu Heji seemed a little worried, and asked Charlie Gough and Ji Dabao with a smile: "Mr. Gaofu, Mr. Ji, are Zhuge's military advisors correct in their calculations?"
"Yes, yes..." Charlie Gough nodded and said after careful consideration, "Governor Rodoni is unwilling to surrender, and Bishop Santos also thinks that your spells are probably black magic!"
Ji Dabao said: "It is true that Bishop Santos would not invite Jesus to his body... He is just a diocesan bishop with average power. There are also a purple-robed bishop, a cardinal-robed bishop and a white-robed pope. As far as I know, probably Only the pope in white has the ability to invite Jesus to come to earth!”
What? Can the Pope invite Jesus to come to earth? Zhu Heji was almost amused by the words of Ji Dabao, a Chinese Catholic... Did he really understand? Aren't those people from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom his disciples and grandsons?
Military Advisor Zhuge nodded and said with a smile: "As long as the Pope in White doesn't come to China, the poor Taoist has nothing to worry about."
These words are so arrogant that they directly target the Pope of Rome!
"Then how can the Gu family break Santos' spell?" Zhu Heji asked seriously.
"As long as the prince wears a Confucian robe and reads the Analects of Confucius, it will be fine!"
"Okay!" Zhu Heji said with a smile, "The Gu family has already put on Confucian robes, and the Gu family is the best at reading "The Analects of Confucius"..." He raised his head and looked at the sky, "It's getting late. , it’s time to send troops! Military advisor, I’ll teach you here at the dock. Dao Scarrong and I will lead the troops to attack the St. Paul Fortress. If the Portuguese navy comes to attack, you will have people burn it with ‘Samadhi True Fire’ them!"
When talking about "Samadhi True Fire", Zhu Heji deliberately raised his voice, just to tell Charlie Goff and Ji Dabao who were present.
In the seventeenth century, it was not a bad thing to have "black magic"!
Then he said to Charlie Gough: "Mr. Gough, please go to the fort again and tell Rodoni... Since he wants to fight, starting from tonight, the Gu family will be on the 24th Capture the fort within an hour!"
Zhu Heji's words announced that the brief ceasefire between him and the Portuguese in Macau had ended.
In fact, this short ceasefire is needed by both sides. Zhu Heji needs time to get more people ashore. And Rodoni also needed to collect all the scattered Portuguese and mixed-race Portuguese on Macau Island into the outer city of St. Paul's Fortress.
