Human beings in the fourteenth year of Wanli experienced various things depending on the region they were in. For people near the equator, the hot climate does not allow them to work hard, and there are so many gifts from nature. They can make ends meet without working too hard, so they have inherited a lazy character from generation to generation. In a time of great strife, it is inevitable to be mermaided.
In the cold northern polar regions, there live a group of "raw meat lovers" who live in igloos and tents and feed on seals and polar bears. Their ability to survive puts every so-called "survival expert" to shame. But at the same time, extremely harsh natural conditions prevented them from expanding their size and power.
Only people in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere have a climate suitable for farming or grazing, and have the ability to domesticate large herbivores such as horses and cattle. All of these have become the most beneficial support for people in the process of expanding their living space. Suitable conditions required them to work hard to survive, but were not so bad that they restricted reproduction.
Therefore, since the history of civilization - joys and sorrows have mostly occurred between the Tropic of Cancer and the Polar Circle. Driven by the climate and biosphere, people here built countries, gave birth to monarchs, produced weapons and poisons, and finally decorated it all with intrigues.
In this year, the cannon designed and built by Andrei Chokhov of Russia was completed. The cannon weighed 40 tons, the muzzle diameter was 0.92 meters, and each cannonball weighed one ton - this luxurious cannon was engraved with the image of Fyodor III. "The King of Guns" not only showed the insecurity of Tsarist Russia, but also revealed its ambition.
In this year, Mary Stuart, the former Queen of Scotland and the widow Queen of France, who had been imprisoned by Elizabeth I for eighteen years, was beheaded and executed. Felipe II's conspiracy to use Mary to disrupt Britain was completely shattered. In anger, he He vows to avenge the former Queen of Scotland - and war between the two countries is imminent. Drake and other naval generals who accepted the "battle line" idea were desperately refitting their pirate ships, and the nascent steel casting industry of the British Empire was also put to the test.
In this year, the Spanish colonial governor of the Philippines, Santiago de Bella, received an order from the Spanish mainland. Felipe II informed him that negotiations with Xu Guangqi had broken down and asked him to be careful of attacks from the Ming Dynasty.
The Governor of Santiago is related to Miguel Lopez, the first Governor who conquered Luzon 20 years ago. Miguel once formulated a plan to attack the Ming Dynasty with a total of eleven chapters and seventy-nine sections and thousands of diagrams. He believed that the Ming Dynasty could be conquered with twelve Fragada-class warships and 25,000 men. A memorandum signed by himself, the bishop, and senior military officers was reported to the King of Spain. The reason for attacking the Ming Dynasty was very naked-"With the will of God, this is the sufficient reason for us to enter this country." This memorandum was in the original time and space because The destruction of the Armada was not carried out.
Although history does not allow assumptions, if there had been no destruction of the Armada in the original time and space, it would be an interesting question where China's history would have headed - how the Ming Dynasty managed to save the nation in the face of powerful ships and cannons can only exist in the imagination. . This memorandum at least shows that Zhu Yijun's rhetoric of insulting the ministers during the reform is tenable.
After Zhu Yijun ascended the throne in this time and space, the Ming Dynasty reorganized its military and prepared its weapons, and its strength quickly recovered. In the Battle of Burma, all forces from North Korea to Goa were shocked by the Ming Dynasty's clean victory. Immediately afterwards, the Ming Dynasty defeated Japan in the first battle and captured Annan with overwhelming force. His illustrious martial arts skills made De. Bella's eyes red with jealousy but he did not dare to make any mistakes.
After the successful visit of Luo Mingjian's mission, the colonists in Luzon, Goa and Manchuria completely gave up the idea of attacking the Ming Dynasty. The information obtained by the mission is that although the Ming Dynasty was a closed country before, its mobilization capabilities and sophistication of firearms are now on par with, or even greater than, those of Spain. If it weren't for the fact that the navy was still weak, the colonies would only have to worry about the Ming Dynasty coming over.
Afterwards, I heard that the Ming Dynasty was expanding its territory in the north. His Majesty the Emperor seemed to have turned all his energy to the northwest, and all business dealings with the colonies were normal. In the view of Governor Santiago, these Chinese people are particularly obsessed with history, as if not restoring the old territories would be a disservice to their ancestors in the "Han and Tang" periods.
It is certainly a good thing for Governor Santiago that the Ming Dynasty shift the direction of expansion. In fact, even if there is no order from Spain to remind him, the colonial governor has no intention of being hostile to the Ming Dynasty at this time.
The Chinese settlement in Manila has expanded rapidly in recent years. The princes of the Ming Dynasty have set up offices here. The "maintains" of these families have gathered together, and their military strength and firepower are several times more than the armed forces of the colonial authorities.
These so-called servants are the "mercenaries" used by the imperial court to implement the spirit of the clan meeting. Most of them are composed of retired officers and soldiers from Burma and Annan. They are under the unified command and dispatch of the Military Intelligence Bureau and receive a basic salary. At the same time, they also accepted "commissions" from princes who were interested in making colonial profits. This commission was rich enough for them to leave their families and careers to do this bloody business.
In the past two years, their footprints have spread all over Little Luzon (note: Luzon Island) and between Sayao and Nabiji (note: Mindanao Island), constantly discovering new islands that have not been marked by colonizers, and exploring where the Spanish colonial authorities still exist. Mineral deposits that have not been found - of course, in the eyes of the princes and princes, the occupation and naming of the Spanish colonists does not mean that this place has been owned. According to the rule of "the whole world is not the king's land", these beautiful islands This is the "new expansion land" promised by His Majesty the Emperor in the seventh year of Wanli.
What's more, the Spaniards had only been here for a few days. Manila was occupied by the Spanish in the fifth year of Longqing - and the Chinese pirate Lin Feng almost captured Manila once in the second year of Wanli. This shows that Manila's "status is undetermined."
Of course, Lin Feng was a rebel, and Ming Dynasty did not support him. At that time, the local officials in Fujian colluded with the Spanish colonists and wiped out this group of pirates - this was also what Zhu Yijun pointed out when he scolded the officials during the Great Reform.
In recent years, the princes of the Ming Dynasty have begun to unabashedly covet Greater Luzon (note: generally refers to the Philippine Islands, referred to as Luzon). Governor Santiago has also heard of the disturbing public opinions, but what he can do is extremely limited: he can Just maintaining the current situation was exhausting him.
The Chinese who had already taken root here gradually changed their image of being timid and fearful due to the strong martial arts of the Ming Dynasty, and no longer groveled when negotiating with the colonial authorities. These Zhangquan survivors have been struggling to survive on these islands two hundred years ago. Now they have basically monopolized various industries in Luzon through hard work, and their number has exceeded 30,000.
In addition to service industries such as hairdressing, tailoring, repair services, hotels and pubs, etc., most of Luzon's food and animal husbandry industries are also in the hands of the Chinese - the local natives have no experience in farming and animal husbandry, and are too lazy to learn.
Although some land had been allocated to the Spanish, these so-called "colonial plantation owners" also needed to hire Chinese to manage it. These landowners were not good at instructing the native serfs to farm and herd animals - and these skills were precisely the innate skills of the Chinese.
Therefore, in addition to the profits earned by the Spanish colonial authorities from trade with the Ming Dynasty, 80% of the colonial local tax revenue came from the contributions of the Zhangquan survivors. After these people straightened their backs and the Spanish colonial authorities could not get what they wanted, the conflicts between the two sides gradually deepened.
In September of the 14th year of Wanli, an expedition hired by King Zhou discovered large open-pit gold and copper mines on Masbate Island, a large V-shaped island between Little Luzon and Panay Island. The news came back very quickly and secretly - King Zhou and King Lu immediately secretly reported to Zhu Yijun, asking the court to allow them to occupy the island for mining and smelting.
In the sixty years since the first Philippine Governor Miguel occupied Cebu, the Spanish colonists expanded southward and northward and occupied major islands such as Luzon, Mindanao, and Palawan. Although there is no Spanish garrison on the large V-shaped island discovered by King Zhou's expedition, the colonial authorities have mapped it and marked it on the map as the viceroyalty of "New Spain" - if the Ming Dynasty dispatched the navy to occupy this island , which means that Ming Dynasty took the initiative to start a war with the Spanish colonies.
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