"Governor, our people have almost withdrawn into the outer city of the fort... Can we start the bombardment now?"
When the people below came to report the retreat of the Portuguese, Rodoni was on the wall outside the St. Paul's Fort, his brows furrowed.
What worries him is the outer city of St. Paul's Fort where he is now - St. Paul's Fort is a bastion, and it also borrows the terrain of a hill, which is extremely dangerous. If Rodoni now only has one St. Paul's Fort to defend, then he is in no hurry.
But the problem is that the extremely dangerous St. Paul's Fort occupies a small area. When the Macau colony had a small population 40 or 50 years ago, it could be used by all the residents of the colony to hide during wartime.
However, as the colony gradually turned into the largest seaport in East Asia and the Catholic missionary center in East and Southeast Asia, Macau's population also grew rapidly.
Now the permanent population plus the floating population is tens of thousands. How can they squeeze into a small fort?
There is also a St. Paul's Cathedral and a constantly expanding St. Paul's Theological Seminary!
The area of the cathedral and the seminary already far exceeds that of St. Paul's Fortress, so it is naturally impossible to build them inside the fort.
So the Macau colonial authorities built another wall around the St. Paul's Fortress, forming the outer city of the fort, enclosing the cathedral and the seminary within the outer wall.
And this outer wall is not an indestructible bastion, but an ordinary stone wall. Although there is a moat outside the outer wall, there are also some small and medium-caliber artillery mounted on the wall. But the defensive capabilities of this ring of city walls are simply incomparable to that of a bastion!
To make matters worse, due to the construction of this ring of city walls, the firing angle of the 12-pound cannon mounted on the bastion was blocked and unable to directly bombard enemies close to the city wall.
And Rodoni can't give up the wall that surrounds him!
Because St. Paul's Cathedral and St. Paul's Seminary are now outside the St. Paul's Fortress, under the protection of this outer wall!
If the outer wall was abandoned... not only would tens of thousands of colonial residents be abandoned, but also cathedrals and seminaries would have to be abandoned. This would be a consequence that he, the governor, could not bear!
Just as Rodoni thought of this, a song praising God suddenly sounded in his ears.
This is the priests and believers gathered in St. Paul's Cathedral, led by Bishop Santos, singing loudly and praising Jesus.
When Rodoni heard this song, he knew that he could never give up the outer wall of the fortress... because St. Paul's Cathedral and the seminary are the spiritual sustenance of the Portuguese people in Macau. Flying on St. Paul's Cathedral, that person's heart will disperse.
Thinking of Jesus and the human heart, Rodoni took a deep breath and shouted loudly to the Portuguese soldiers beside him: "Listen! This is a song praising Jesus. Our Almighty Lord must have heard this song and our request. He must have heard it." He will protect us! God bless Portugal, God bless us..."
As he spoke, he quickly crossed himself and said, "Now, fire! The target is the British East India Company's Commercial Building!"
"Governor," De Figo, who had been reinstated, reminded him at this time, "You want to bombard the British merchant house? Shouldn't we attack the enemy warships on the water?"
Rodoni turned around and glanced at De Figo, then lowered his voice and said: "The warships on the water are moving and protected by black magic smoke, so they may not be able to hit them. The business building is a fixed target and has been targeted for a long time. I don’t know how many times the artillerymen can hit me with their eyes closed!”
After hearing Rodoni's words, De Figo was also stunned, and said to himself: "Aren't we and the English allies for hundreds of years? How can we use cannons to target them every day?"
Rodoni then said: "And... I also plan to seize the nine Chinese large ships and the Great Eastern! I have sent nine galleys full of warriors to seize those ten large ships. !”
Speaking of "those ten big ships", Governor Rodoni's eyes turned red... That's money!
"Boom boom boom..."
As soon as he said this, the nine 12-pound cannons set up on St. Paul's Fort, within reach of the British East India Company's commercial building, roared!
At the same time as the sound of the cannon sounded, 12 black dots came out of the muzzle along with the fire and smoke, and then flew towards the British East India Company's commercial building in the distance at a speed almost visible to the naked eye!
...
When the cannons on the St. Paul's Fort began to roar, a fleet of boats was sailing upstream on the Qianshan River.
This fleet is composed of small and medium-sized Western-style galleys. Such small boats cannot travel across the ocean. The area of the sail is too small to keep up with a large ship sailing in the wind. Moreover, there are too many sailors on board. Not only is it a waste of money on eating and drinking along the way, but it also takes up very precious deadweight tonnage.
Therefore, this type of ship usually just wanders around the offshore, using its flexibility and ability to sail against winds and currents to do smuggling, anti-smuggling, robbery, catching thieves and offshore defense.
Qiu Hui's army also had many similar boats, called fast crab boats or centipede boats.
However, no fast crab boats or centipede boats were sent to Macau this time - all Qiu Hui sent were old lock boats suitable for ocean voyages.
The biggest advantage of this kind of mixed Chinese and Western ship type is that the operating cost is low. Instead of using soft sails and using hard sails, it can save labor. The Western-style high-rail ship type can also carry more cargo and travel across the ocean. Its biggest disadvantage is that it is too slow, the area of the hard sail is smaller than that of the soft sail, and there is no long oar to paddle the water. Therefore, this kind of ship generally runs with the wind and is a "downwind ship".
In addition, since there are not many sailors on the old lock ships under normal operation, such ships are very afraid of encountering galleys specialized in smuggling, anti-smuggling, robbery or catching thieves.
And these nine old lock ships belonging to Qiu Hui and one armed merchant ship belonging to the East India Company, but now under the control of the Qiu family sailors, became the prey of nine fully armed Portuguese galleys tonight!
On these nine Portuguese galleys, in addition to the black slave rowers, there are the most skilled warriors in the Portuguese army in Macau. Half of them are desperate adventurers who have just come from the West. These people are holding Spanish heavy muskets and hanging on their belts. Holding a Western sword. Obviously they are all excellent musketeers, and their swordsmanship should also be good.
If they were allowed to board the Qiu family's old lock ship, they would be in big trouble!
The other half are Japanese mercenaries who have worked hard on the battlefields of Southeast Asia for many years - this Japanese mercenary was originally the favorite thugs of feudal lords in Southeast Asia and Chinese merchant pirates.
However, with the end of Japan's Warring States period and the Tokugawa shogunate's seclusion, the supply chain for Japan's original Japanese pirate thugs was cut off. However, there are still some descendants of the original Japanese pirates who continue their father's business and continue the business of murder and arson.
Because of the reputation created by their fathers, these people have become second only to Western mercenaries in popularity.
Because the Portuguese colonists in Macau controlled the Catholic missionary rights in China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia, it was easier for them to hire Japanese mercenaries who had converted to Catholicism to serve them.
There were a total of more than 200 Japanese thugs on the nine galleys sent by Rodoni!
These Japanese thugs are all dead soldiers who join gangs and fight for their lives, so they don't wear armor, they just wear short clothes and carry Japanese swords at their waists. Some people even had white cloth strips tied on their heads, but it didn't say anything like "Long-lasting martial arts luck" but words like "Heavenly Father bless you" were written on it.
They all wore light straw sandals on their feet, with several straw ropes tied to the soles to increase friction. If you look at their palms, you will find that there are thick calluses between the palms. They look particularly strong and can firmly grasp the rope and climb up.
These people all carried ropes with grappling hooks on their backs, which were used to hook onto the side of the other party's tall ship for climbing.
When they encounter the Qiu family's old lock ship or the hijacked Great Eastern later, these Japanese mercenaries will be the first to choose the front!
