golden scales

"It's a native." Shan Liantian looked over and saw a black human head emerging from the grass not far away, and also saw the soldiers of Ming Dynasty driving the natives on his side back to the chariot formation.

"Sir, let's go back to the car formation first." Shan Liantian said.

Yin Rusong had already experienced several times of attacks by the natives, so he returned to the car formation when he came in a calm manner.

The formation of chariots was invented by Qi Jiguang during his military training in Jizhou.However, Qi's army's chariot formation is not only a defensive formation formed by connected carts and carts, but also has artillery and firecrackers, which can attack continuously day and night, making the Mongolian cavalry helpless.

The current car array basically retains its defensive effect, but the firepower is only five or six tiger squatting cannons besides a hundred firecrackers.

Considering the combat effectiveness of the natives on the opposite side, the Ming army still has dozens of black servants who can throw spears.

"Report the total, the number of enemies is about fifty." Tan Ma quickly sent back the news.

Who can imagine that a place as big as Australia doesn't even have horses, cows, or sheep.Now the limited number of pack horses in the army are allocated to Tan Ma as mounts. Every time he sees them running like they are dying, Shan Liantian feels a little twitching in his crotch.

"Our army lined up outside the chariot formation, platooning guns to disperse them." Shan Liantian thought for a while and said, "Catch the prisoners if they can be captured, and forget it if they can't be captured."

The messenger quickly passed the major's order to the flag team, and the Ming army quickly arranged a battle formation.

The natives let out a cry of "ho ho", as if hunting a huge beast, stepping on a dance-like rhythm, holding a wooden spear and approaching Shanlian Tianbu.

Before they reached the distance of their flying spears, the firecrackers of the Ming army had already rang.

A cloud of smoke rose from the battlefield, and the original line array of the natives stagnated at first, and then crumbled.

The second row of firecrackers sounded immediately.

The natives who intended to hunt collapsed quickly, left their companions and turned to run away.

"Ho ho ho!" The natives on the side of the Ming army shouted in victory, waved their wooden spears and sticks, and chased them out.

Chasing down the natives was never what the Ming army needed to do.

Shan Liantian sniffed the smell of gunpowder in the air, and pressed his sword.He spat aside: "Is this also called war?"

This was probably an attack on the outsiders by a blocked tribe who didn't know the prestige of the Ming army, but they didn't expect the outsiders to far exceed their war thinking.There are many such encounters and operations, and each encounter is an exposure.After the Ming army found out the location and population of these tribes, the army would come and surround them for screening and trial.

Kill the chiefs, elders, wizards and other ruling classes in the tribe, raise the young children alone, and try to teach them Chinese.Become a new generation of good natives who are loyal to Ming Dynasty and contribute to Ming Dynasty.As for adult men and women, they were driven to the mines to undertake heavy physical labor.They are not even eligible to participate in the construction of the city wall of Nanzhan Mansion, which is a job for friendly tribes.

Xiao Tugeng used this method to occupy the farming areas in eastern and southeastern Australia to ensure that no hostile tribes were active here.At the same time, the scope of control will be extended to the livestock area.Waiting for the breeding stock shipped from Daming.

What he needs most now is horses, whether they are war horses or pack horses, they are all urgently needed.However, the adaptability of horses is very weak. Before the discovery of faster and closer routes, large-scale horse transportation is not realistic.

And there is also a group of Spaniards entrenched in Luzon.

The Spaniards had a blood feud with Daming during the Wanli era.

To summarize this period of history, the local Chinese businessmen told the court that there were gold mines in Luzon, and Emperor Wanli, who was eager to pay for the three major military levies, naturally sent mine supervisors.The Spaniards thought this was Ming's meddling in Luzon.So the local natives were instigated to massacre Chinese businessmen together.

Some tricks were also used in the process, defrauding the trust of Chinese businessmen, confiscating the weapons of Chinese businessmen, and finally leading to the massacre of 4 unarmed Chinese businessmen.

In terms of strength comparison, if Ming wants to conquer Luzon and completely expel the Spaniards, it will not be more difficult than regaining Taiwan.Because even after the Wanli massacre, there are still about [-] Chinese businessmen and Chinese on Luzon today.

These Chinese merchants control the economic lifeline of Luzon.Not only helped the Spaniards to buy raw silk, but more importantly, it controlled the supply of daily commodities.Just like Mo Ya, the governor of Manila during the Wanli period, sighed after Tu Hua: Even boots can’t be bought.

If you want to use combat effectiveness to compare, then Lin Feng captured Hawksbill Harbor (now Pangasinan) in the third year of Longqing and forced the Spanish to pay tribute, which is enough to prove the weakness of this Spanish colonial army.

As a pirate merchant, Lin Feng had less than 5000 warships at that time, and his troops were no more than [-] people. Hawksbill Harbor was only [-] miles away from Manila, the center of Spanish rule.

If only pirates could do it.How could Daming not be able to do it?Why keep Spain between Daming and Australia, increasing the risk?

Because attacking Spain right now is never a good idea.

Zhu Cihong's world history is not good. I don't know how much prestige Spain still has at this time.

Listening to the descriptions of the Portuguese and the Jesuit priests, Spain is already a declining second-rate country in Europe.It’s not even true unification, but similar to the “co-ownership” of the Shang and Zhou dynasties in China, so that the Spanish king and queen would not use any of their titles before their signatures, often just saying: “ I am the king (yoelrey)" or "I am the queen (yolareina)" only.

However, even if Spain really fell into such a situation, Zhu Cihong did not have the urge to take revenge immediately.When a big country launches a war, it is definitely not for a moment of anger, let alone taking into account both current and future interests.

If it is said that the development of Australia is based on 300 years later, it is allowed to pay a certain price.But it is not yet time to occupy Manila.

When the army swept Mengta in Monan, and when the soldiers gradually advanced towards Mobei and Moxi, the navy's eyes were naturally keen.Although the loyalty of the navy has been criticized, the sense of honor is also rooted in their hearts, and they are also eager to be recognized and praised by the world.The only way for soldiers to show their sense of existence is through war—or emergency rescue and disaster relief. Recently, there has been no major disaster in Ming Dynasty.

"Those bastards are yelling to fight Japan and Luzon all day long, and it's getting harder and harder to suppress." Zheng Zhilong complained to Shen Tingyang who occasionally came back to school for "visiting".

As the nominal head of the Huangming Navy and the actual controller of the Zhejiang Navy, Shen Tingyang certainly understood what Zheng Zhilong meant.It has not been a day or two since there have been such rumors in the navy. It is the Zhejiang navy that is clamoring to attack Japan, while the officers and soldiers from Fujian and Guangdong are mainly those who want to take down Luzon.

"The transformation plan of the four major fleets has been stranded, and they are making wedding dresses for the army wherever they go." Shen Tingyang is very familiar with Japan.Knowing that it is a country with a thousand-year-old grammar, it is definitely not Pingdao or Australia, where you can just throw a stone tablet to show your sovereignty.

"With the strength of our navy, it will be no problem to take down Manila." Zheng Zhilong tentatively said: "Nanyang Company also needs a more advanced headquarters."

Now Nanyang Company's headquarters is in Tainan. If it moves to Manila, it will really be closer to the China-Europe trading center area.

"The overall situation." Shen Tingyang sighed, and said, "Brother Feihuang. Is there any benefit in capturing Manila?"

——The advantage is that Nanyang Company can further expand and become more popular.

Zheng Zhilong knew that this benefit was not enough to start a local war, so he remained silent.

"Brother Feihuang has read the information from the Military Intelligence Department." Shen Tingyang said leisurely: "Now that the low-level business in Luzon has been controlled by Chinese businessmen, even if we occupy Luzon, it will be nothing more than adding a market of tens of thousands of people. Tax sources. Not to mention that the emperor will not agree, even the National Taxation Administration may not be interested."

When it comes to Nanyang Luzon.The first reaction of later generations is often rubber, fruit, sugar cane, abaca and coconut.

Regrettably, in today's world, there are still more than two hundred years before the first rubber tree took root in Southeast Asia.As a perishable agricultural product, fruit cannot be transported from Luzon back to Daming for thousands of miles.To the great disappointment of many later generations, sugar cane was not promoted and planted by the Spaniards as a cash crop.

On all Spanish-controlled plantations, food crops were mainly grown for the needs of the local garrisons.

So what are the Spaniards doing in Luzon?

They bought raw silk, satin, porcelain, ironware, and handicrafts of Ming Dynasty from Luzon.Then it was loaded on a galleon and shipped to the American colonies.What Daming obtained from this trade was silver, gold, and a small amount of spices.

If the Spaniards are driven out of Luzon, this declining empire will withdraw from the Indian Ocean all at once.This is great news for the Netherlands, Portugal, and even the United Kingdom and France. They will carve up the Spanish raw silk market and replace it with [-]% profits, or even higher.

For Daming.But lost a trade channel, a direct line of communication for the silver entrance.In view of Ming's relationship with the Netherlands, it is likely to add more costs to world trade.

Although it looks good to take down Luzon, the only benefit is the abaca used to make the hemp rope, but the loss is a silver import channel and commodity sales channel.

How could Zhu Cihong do such a thing?

Even if you want to fight, you have to wait for the further shrinkage of silver imports, and the war will not start until Spain has no use value.

And at that time.It is not a war with Spain alone.It is bound to bring the Netherlands and drive them out of the east of the Strait of Malacca.

Ming Dynasty will face the Indian Ocean and formulate a new Asian order.

Only in this way can the trade interests of Ming Dynasty be guaranteed to the greatest extent, and at the same time, other countries will not be allowed to pick peaches.

"The top priority now is to promote the formation of the four major fleets." Shen Tingyang gently stroked his beard, "Also, we should also have a naval governor's mansion. The current major governor's mansion still sticks to the idea of ​​fighting for the hegemony of the mainland 300 years ago."

Zheng Zhilong nodded again and again in agreement, but he was thinking about the chips in his hand.

ps: There are too many things to do during the National Day, and the holidays are really more tiring than usual.I have to go out early this morning, and I got up at five o'clock to code, I hope everyone will forgive me.There is indeed a problem with the latest update. In the past few days, it was updated every day, so it was maintained for two days on weekends. It can be regarded as making up for the previous gap until it is completed.

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