"Boom boom boom..."
The Shang Fang Kingdom is indeed not a barbarian, and is quite civilized and progressive!
Because they not only have flintlocks, a symbol of intermediate civilization, but also front-loading smoothbore cannons, a symbol of high-level civilization... They can also shoot fast and accurately. At a glance, you can tell that this Shang country is quite civilized and progressive. nation!
The object of this civilized artillery bombardment was a ferry boarded by Raul Torres, the envoy of the Vice-King of the Kingdom of New Spain. He had not yet entered the City of God area, but was blocked by merchants in the Sonora Desert. On the Red River in the north. The so-called Red River is also known as the Colorado River. Colorado is Spanish, which means red.
When Raul Torres went treasure hunting in the City of God last time, the Colorado River was still undefended. But more than a month later, when he crossed the Sonora Desert with a small envoy as the deputy king of New Spain, he found that the merchants had already reached an important point on the lower reaches of the Colorado River leading to the City of God. The ferry was fortified, and a wooden fortress was built. A large white flag was hung on the fortress, with the eight Chinese characters "seclusion, no ghosts allowed" tattooed on it!
"Bishop," this time Raul Torres brought a businessman with a better Chinese proficiency as the general manager. The businessman took a look with a telescope and said to Raul with a smile, "This Shang Fang country needs to close itself off and not allow People from Guifang Kingdom can go in... We are Spaniards, so we should be able to go in."
"That's bullshit!" Raul Torres glared at the man, "We are from Guifang... Guifang means the place where foreign devils live!"
"Oh, that's it." He said, still knowledgeable, "Bishop, let's go back... They don't welcome us, and they're still having sex!"
"boom……"
As if to prove that what the businessman said was right, before he finished speaking, there was another cannon shot over there!
The shells fired this time flew over Raul Torres' head, much more accurately than before!
This frightened the Spaniard. The Shang people's artillery fire was too civilized and progressive. I couldn't accept it!
So he hurriedly asked people to stop the boat, but he still refused to give up. It took a long time to come here, how could he go back without asking anything clearly?
So he asked someone to fly a pure white flag, and then shouted loudly in blunt Chinese: "My envoy from New Spain, on the order of the deputy king, is on a mission to the merchants, please report... .”
As soon as his words came out, the cannons on the opposite side stopped firing.
Then I saw a middle-aged man wearing a white robe and looking quite elegant appearing outside the Tumu Fort.
The white-robed man spoke loudly with a Shanxi accent: "I am the prefect of Honghe Pass of Shang Fang Kingdom. I have been ordered to guard here by the king. You and other people from Guifang are not allowed to enter the pass. Please leave quickly!"
This is a Shang Dynasty person from Shanxi!
As soon as Raul Torres heard this, he immediately replied: "Your Excellency, our New Spain has no ill intentions towards the merchant country. We are here to seek free trade... We hope to be able to clear the country and enter the country. See your Majesty!"
Whether there is any malice or not can be decided only by going to the capital of Shang Fang and meeting the king of Shang Fang.
If the merchants had more people and stronger troops, then the Kingdom of New Spain would certainly not dare to do anything to them.
But if they have a lot of money but weak soldiers, then I'm sorry...
The Shanxi-born official from the Shang Dynasty opposite was not stupid. He immediately shouted: "Your Majesty, the Spanish Guifang Kingdom has heard this. It is a great merchant in Tianyi and a huge country. It has thousands of miles of land, tens of millions of people, rich products and everything." , there is no need to trade with you and other ghosts. Now the king has ordered us to lock the country into seclusion. People from your ghost side are not allowed to set foot north of the Hongshui River. You should leave as soon as possible, otherwise guns and cannons will have no eyes!"
What? Thousands of miles of land? Tens of millions of people? is it possible?
Bishop Raul Torres didn't quite believe it. Although a large area of land in the northwest corner of North America has not been carefully explored by white people.
But it should be said that such a large area of land is almost occupied by Shang Fang Kingdom. It is still unbelievable that the New Spanish authorities have been with them for more than a hundred years and yet know nothing about it.
However, Raul Torres is not sure that these merchants are people from the Ming Nanyang Trading Company who are causing trouble... After all, there are many legends about lost civilizations in the Kingdom of New Spain, and there are also some abandoned ancient cities.
If it were just a legend, Raul Torres might not believe it. But in the Sonora Desert, there is a lost city that I don’t know who built it, and I don’t know why it was abandoned!
And such a city is obviously not capable of being built by the Indian tribes near Sonora Sand!
Maybe it was a border city of Shang Fang that was abandoned for some unknown reason...
Just when Raul Torres was thinking about continuing to negotiate with the other party and trying to find something to say. The cannon on the opposite side roared again, which seemed to mean that there was nothing to discuss.
Although the cannonball just flew over Raul Torres' head, it was obvious that he raised the muzzle and had no intention of killing him. But Raul Torres still dared not float on the Colorado River. He quickly ordered the rowing men to row the boat to the south of the river bank... The first attempt to find out the reality of the Shang side failed.
However, Raul and his party did not gain nothing. They at least understood that this Shang country claims to be a "huge country" with "tens of thousands of miles of land" and "tens of millions of people", and it is also "rich in products" and "has everything"!
And Torres also knew that this Shang country not only had very powerful flintlock guns, but also very accurate front-loading smoothbore cannons... This military technology is not the same as that of American Indians!
Even if they don't have a population of 10 million, if you discount it to only one million, they can easily mobilize tens of thousands of troops equipped with artillery and flintlocks. This is not something that the Kingdom of New Spain can quickly obtain. The next opponent!
Therefore, whether the relationship between the Kingdom of New Spain and the Merchant Kingdom is friendly or not can only be determined after further investigation.
And when Bishop Raul Torres returned to Mexico City with this news. The Vice-King of New Spain, the Marquis of Mendoza, was no longer in the mood to take care of Shang Fang, because the news of the complete fall of the Philippine colony had just been sent to Mexico City by the escaped Spaniards!
"Marquis...are the Philippine colonies really gone? That's a huge colony!" Raul Torres looked at the livid Marquis of Mendoza with a look of surprise on his face.
Marquis Mendoza shook his head and sighed: "No more, all gone... More than a hundred years of colonization and development, once the largest fortress of Christianity in the East, the land under the flag of God, countless The home of one hundred thousand Christians is now gone...lost in my hands. Now my position as Vice-King of New Spain is about to end." He looked at Raul Torres and said, " You’d better go talk to the new deputy king about Shang Fang Kingdom’s affairs.”
The Philippine colony in these days was not limited to the island of Luzon, but included most of the territory that would later belong to the Republic of the Philippines. The area is not 200,000 square kilometers, but at least 100,000 square kilometers. And it is divided into countless islands... Quite a few of the islands have manors run by Spanish or wealthy people of mixed Fioran descent, as well as cities and ports controlled by the Spanish.
Moreover, Fort Santiago in Manila City, where the Philippine Governor's Palace is located, is a solid fortress that has not been repaired for more than a hundred years. How can it be defended for a year and a half?
How do you say just throw it away?
After listening to Raul Torres's question, Marquis Mendoza also looked helpless and anxious. Although the Philippines and Mexico are separated by the Pacific Ocean, the governor of the Philippines is a subordinate of the deputy king of New Spain. The Philippines, across the Pacific Ocean, is actually the fault of his deputy king in Mexico... Is there anything more ridiculous in the world?
And because Japan fell into the hands of the Ming Dynasty a few years ago, the Ming Dynasty immediately deployed a huge Japanese fleet there. The sea near Japan is the only way to return to North America from the Philippines... Therefore, the traffic between the Philippines and North America is very easy to be cut off by the Dongyang Fleet of the Ming Navy.
In this case, the Marquis of Mendoza simply did not dare to use the few large sailing ships in the Pacific direction to transport reinforcements to the Philippines. Because the small amount of reinforcements sent thousands of miles away may not have any effect. If those precious sailing ships are lost, the Marquis of Mendoza will have a greater responsibility.
However, when the Viceroyalty of the Philippines was attacked by the Ming Dynasty, the Marquis of Mendoza also did his best to help - he prayed to God seriously every day, asking Almighty God to help guard the Fort Santiago in Manila and other People in the forts located on the Philippine islands! So that they can hold on as long as possible in the face of an overwhelming enemy.
The longer they hold out, the more measures the Kingdom of Spain and its allies can take!
It's a pity that the prayers of the Marquis of Mendoza were of no use to the Philippine defenders... In fact, when the 60,000 Ming army soldiers commanded by Ming Army General Su Zhanshan, mainly from Japan and Korea, carried Armed with flintlocks, artillery, rocket launchers and various sugar bombs to explode mines, they rushed into Manila Bay on hundreds of large and small sea ships. Their defeat is irreversible, and they are destined not to last long.
Because the difference in strength between the two sides is too great! In the face of absolute strength, God is powerless!
The total number of Spaniards and mixed-race Spaniards in the Philippine colonies is less than 6,000. Even counting the indigenous people or Japanese and Chinese mercenaries who have converted to Tianfang religion, the total number of troops available to the Philippine governor is less than 5,000. Only one-twelfth of the opponent's.
Although the army of the Philippine Governor-General also has many sugar and medicine weapons-New Spain has brown sugar, and the Philippines can also easily obtain white sugar produced in Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang. However, due to the huge numerical disadvantage and the fact that the army of the Philippine Governor-General had not experienced the fierce Ming and Qing wars, the war was one-sided from the beginning.
From the moment they landed at Manila Bay, the troops at the Philippine Governor's Office were so overwhelmed that they couldn't even breathe!
The Fortress of Santiago, which the Spaniards used their "craftsman spirit" and worked slowly and painstakingly for more than a hundred years to complete, was detonated by sugar rockets, sugar bombs and sugar bombs in just a few days. Declare the fall!
The main force of the Spanish in the Philippine Islands is the Santiago Fort. Once the fortress is lost, all that is left is to wipe out and suppress the indigenous people. After all, the Spanish have been the masters of the Philippines for more than a hundred years, and they also have a very good person. Brainwashing Catholicism cooperates with colonization. Not only colonize the people economically, but also colonize the people ideologically!
Therefore, after the Ming army captured Fort Santiago, occupied the Cavite Military Port, and basically defeated the main force of Spanish colonists, there were still many mixed-race natives and indigenous people who believed in God and continued to resist with the support of the Catholic Church...
However, Zhu Heji, who launched this war, had already anticipated this situation... so he recruited tens of thousands of samurai who had no chance to obtain territory and salary in Japan to join the Luzon Army.
These warriors are meant to be cruel!
They are not equal-field soldiers who have houses and land at home. Basically, these equal-field soldiers have no idea of going abroad to take root. They just want to make some money and go home to live a peaceful life.
So it's okay to let them fight for a short period of time. But they cannot fight a long-term security war.
The military soldiers Zhu Heji recruited from Japan never thought of returning to Japan when they went on the expedition.
Because there is no chance of getting the land of knowledge and practice back home. If you go back, you will be a worthless ronin!
And if you want to become a samurai master with a territory, you can only receive land here in the Philippines!
Therefore, before the Ming army attacked Luzon, a land distribution plan had been formulated.
Including Manila and the surrounding land, about one-third of Luzon's land will be granted to Zhu Heji and Aoi's son, Ming Dynasty Lu Wang Zhu Yilu.
Most of the remaining two-thirds will be given to meritorious Japanese soldiers - these people will become King Lu's retainers after receiving the land. Responsible for suppressing local resistance in Luzon, and assisting Prince Lu in governing Luzon and managing Wangzhuang (the territory directly under the King of Luzon).
There is also a part of the land that will be distributed to the local Luzon leader party who surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, and they will also become King Lu's retainers.
At the same time, the Confucian Luzon General Hall was also established in Manila - all the retainers of King Lu who were allocated land in Luzon must become Confucian disciples.
From now on, they will not only be responsible for suppressing local resistance, but also shoulder the responsibility of educating the people in the area.
Once these thousands of feudal manors are established all over the Luzon Islands, the entire Luzon will be firmly controlled by the Palace of Prince Lu of the Ming Dynasty (Prince Lu has not yet become a vassal)!
Just when the Marquis of Mendoza, the deputy king of New Spain, was troubled by the fall of the Philippines, Zhu Heji was standing on the Guide Gate tower in the inner city of Guangzhou, watching his old brother Su Zhanshan leading the victorious army. Carrying a large number of captured white skins and natives, they came in a mighty force!
