Dragon Sea Empire

On August 46, the 31th year of Wanli, when the imperial court was mobilizing food and salaries and recruiting soldiers to conquer the Jurchen in Jianzhou, Liaodong, news came out from the palace that "the disease is gradually increasing". , Li Ruhua, Shangshu of the Ministry of Households, Huang Jiashan, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, Zhang Wenda, acting Shangshu of the Ministry of Punishment, Huang Keji, acting Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, Sun Ruyou, the right servant of the Ministry of Rites, and others hurried to Hongde Hall to meet Emperor Wanli.

Everyone was flustered. The Ming Dynasty was preparing for a war against Liaodong. Although the emperor didn't care much, if something happened to the emperor at this time, the conquest of the Jianzhou Jurchens would definitely stop. Nurhachi took the opportunity to seize the big opportunity, and a Chinese company did not solve it in time, and now it is too big, and it can even shake the foundation of the country; plus a Jianzhou Jurchen, the fate of the Ming Dynasty is worrying.

Wanli lay sickly on the dragon couch, and first asked how much more money could be collected from the sea rate and the Liao rate.

Li Ruhua, Minister of the Ministry of Households, hesitated for a moment, and said: "Liao Zuo used troops, and Liao's salary was increased by 720% per mu. Divided into two cents, a total of [-] million taels was added. In the past two years, the tax land in the south of the Yangtze River has not been included in the treasury. Yingtian, Suzhou, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Songjiang, Huizhou, Taiping, Ningguo, Anqing, and Chizhou are under the jurisdiction of the governor of Yingtian. The ten prefectures, Su, Chang, Zhenjiang, Songjiang and other places are still in the hands of Taiwanese pirates, and the food and taxes cannot be collected. All these increased taxes are collected by Shanshan, Sichuan, Huguang and other places for the time being."

Huang Jiashan, Minister of the Ministry of War, said: "Nine frontier troops are short of pay, and most of them have accumulated to 10,000+ over the years. Please send more internal funds to help pay."

Emperor Wanli covered his head, as if he had a splitting headache, he murmured: "The Eastern Division is short of pay, and more internal funds are paid to help the military supplies. Please Mr. Fang preside over this matter... I have a headache, and the rest, gentlemen, please consider it." ,” After finishing speaking, a group of eunuchs and imperial physicians surrounded him.

All the ministers looked at each other, but they had no choice but to withdraw from the Hongde Hall. In any case, His Majesty finally agreed to use the internal funds as military pay, which was an unexpected gain.

However, the next day, the eunuch sent a decree, and Emperor Wanli declared that "more than half of the internal funds were removed for the country of Fu Wang and the war of pirates in Taiwan, and now there is not much left." In short, Emperor Wanli overturned yesterday's promise, Don't want to embezzle internal funds for the Liaodong War.

Fang Congzhe looked up to the sky and sighed, and looked at each other again with all the ministers, helpless.

A month later, Zhang Heming, governor of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces in Hangzhou, received a personal letter from the university scholar Fang Congzhe, in which he apologized to him: the military expenditures for the new army that were originally scheduled to be trained had not been paid, and the Liaodong army was about to be deployed, and the military supplies, food and salaries were short, so he was asked to postpone the compilation. Xu Guangqi, the Nanjing manager who actually handled the training of the new army, was greatly disappointed, and the plan to go to Macau to hire Franc robots to buy Western firearms could not be carried out.

……

After being stimulated by the rebellion of the Chinese army, the huge body of the Ming court only trembled a little, and then, according to inertia, it still walked towards the end of its destiny on the old road.

On the island of Taiwan, all kinds of industries are flourishing, the population immigrated from Jiangnan and Jingqu, and the wealth of Jiangnan are taking effect. Zeng Qi, Zeng Ke, Han Ping and his son... the members of the board of directors of Zhonghua Company are fully committed to the economic development of this year and next. In the expansion plan, at this time, Yin Feng initially completed the reorganization of the troops.

The main field force of the Chinese Army Infantry now has five divisions:

Zhao Tie, the commander of the first division, and the old battalion of the headquarters are stationed at the old battalion base of the Chinese Army north of Taiwan Hong Kong.

Yang Dacheng, the commander of the second division, and the old battalion of the headquarters were stationed in Ryukyu.

Li Xing, the commander of the Third Division, and the old battalion of the headquarters are stationed in Manila, Luzon.

Mai De, the commander of the Fourth Division, is stationed in Jilonggang, Taipei, Taiwan Island.

Yan Siqi, the commander of the Fifth Division, is temporarily stationed in Nanya State, West Borneo.

At the beginning of November, Yin Feng left the port of Taiwan aboard the warship Dingyuan, and led the reorganized First Division to Luzon.

In addition to Dingyuan, the main battleship of the Second Fleet of the Navy, there were two Feizi ships including the Feilong. Under the escort of forty three-masted gunboats from the three squadrons, the troops of the First Division were already in Manila ten days later. The port landed.

……

In the mountainous area of ​​central Luzon, in the middle reaches of the Pampanga River, Arayat, the important town of the Pampanga people.

Li Xing, the commander of the third division, and Andre, the commander of the foreign mercenary army, were on an artillery position, enduring the deafening shelling, holding up binoculars to observe the situation in Arayat.

The divisional artillery regiment is bombarding the city of Arayat by the Pampanga River with [-] field cannons. Market towns, at best, were large villages with a low civil wall in mainland China. Under the continuous bombardment of twenty field cannons, sections of civil walls collapsed, and the watchtower built of bamboo and wood was smashed to pieces by shells.

The Pampanga people believed in Catholicism during the Spanish rule. They are the most skilled natives in Luzon and the most loyal fighters of the Spaniards. Although the Spaniards have given up the colony by default, a few Spanish missionaries are still lurking In the territory of Pampanga, the Pampanga people have been repeatedly attacked by Chinese armed forces in these years, and have lost a lot of land.

A year ago, a group of Japanese Catholic exiles landed in Luzon under the leadership of several Spanish missionaries, and soon joined the Pampanga people. Gall became more courageous. Soon, under the instigation of the lurking Spanish missionaries, Luzon indigenous Catholics and Japanese Catholic exiles jointly launched a rebellion. The largest tribal village alliances of the Pampanga people quickly joined the rebellion. The scope swept across the central part of Luzon Island, and those Tagalog natives who were dissatisfied with the policies of merging villages and plundering indigenous lands implemented by the Chinese regime also joined the rebellion one after another.

The Chinese Army units originally stationed in Manila were transferred to the southern front to fight at this time. Only the Zhuang Ding team and the second division were guarding Luzon. A total of 3 indigenous and Japanese rebel troops surrounded Manila.

Fortunately, the foreign mercenary regiment was in Manila at this time. Most of the more than 300 old German mercenaries captured in the Spanish counterattack to Manila joined the Chinese army foreign mercenary regiment. The foreign mercenary regiment stationed in Cebu promptly He rushed back to Manila, defeated the rebel army with 2000 troops, and relieved the siege of Manila. In the following half a year, the Chinese army, supported by the Yioro-Hua mountain people in northern Luzon, recovered the area around Manila and took the state Pang Nga and Japanese rebels besieged within the former Pang Pang Nga province.

Zeng Jingshan asked Zhao Xuanming Nanyang Brigade for help, but at this moment Nanyang also began to be in chaos, and the forces of all parties fought together again, so the Nanyang rate could not mobilize troops to support Luzon.

It was not until the Ming court made peace with the Chinese company that the Chinese army mobilized troops to support Manila.

The Pampanga people and Japanese Catholics resisted desperately, turning the mountains and forests of the Pampanga River Valley into a battlefield for guerrilla warfare. In July, Li Xing's third division landed in Luzon while reorganizing, and began to completely encircle and suppress the indigenous rebels.

Arayat is now the last stronghold of the Pampanga and Japanese.

Li Xing said to Andrew with a smile: "Now, let's set another fire, and then we will wait for those Japanese pirates and natives to rush out and die."

The four regiments of the [-]rd Division surrounded Arayat from four directions, and the foreign mercenaries and the northern Luzon mountain tribal alliance army were preparing to attack.

On the west bank of the Pampanga River, another five howitzers and Thunderbolt rockets from the artillery regiment directly under the division began to bombard Arayat.

Soon, thick smoke billowed and flames shot into the sky over Arayat, which was dotted with bamboo and wooden stilt houses.

The last strength of Pampanga warriors and Japanese warriors finally couldn't hold back. They rushed out of Arayat with clamor and brandished swords, and rushed towards the Chinese army positions that were waiting for them. , field artillery, and grenade massacres, and then chopped into pieces with an ax by a German tycoon among the foreign mercenaries. After killing nearly half of the people in the north, the indigenous and Japanese coalition forces finally had to retreat to the raging Arayat.

The foreign mercenaries immediately launched an attack and invaded the eastern part of Arayat that had not yet been burned. After burning and killing, the entire Arayat was completely covered in flames, and there were scenes of massacres everywhere.

At dawn the next day, the fire in Arayat was not extinguished. More than 3000 natives of Pampanga were killed, and all [-] Japanese Catholics were massacred. Downstream, Tagalog villages along the coast sent envoys to express their surrender to the Chinese army.

The massacre spread throughout Pampanga. In the end, only less than [-] Pampanga indigenous women, children, and children survived. Basically, all Pampanga men were massacred. The Pangya people have long lost their patience, so they are merciless in their actions. They intend to do their best to solve the problem of the Pampanga people, especially since the Japanese participated in the rebellion. Turning a blind eye to this massacre, almost all Japanese Catholic exiles who landed in Luzon were killed by the Chinese.

When Yin Feng landed in the Port of Manila, the fire in Arayat had just been extinguished. At this moment, Manila has restored its prosperity. The arrival of a large number of new immigrants has made the population here denser, surrounding the original Spanish city of Manila. , There have been patches of residential areas, and they have expanded to the surrounding areas like spreading bread.

Tea, silk, porcelain, grain, hardware, jewelry and other shops are densely distributed on both sides of the city streets, copper smelting factories, steel smelting factories, sugar mills, cotton spinning factories, silk weaving factories, tea processing, iron workshops, sugar cane wine The workshops and the weapon workshops and gunpowder workshops directly under the Chinese Army are scattered all over the city of Manila. The square in front of the Manila Cathedral is now a place for immigrants to recruit workers and find jobs.

Although Yin Feng was pleased with the economic prosperity of Luzon Island, he didn't have time to learn more about it. As soon as he arrived in Manila, he called Zeng Jingshan, Li Xing, Mai Xiaoliu, Li Moge and others.

The Chinese army of the two divisions gathered in Luzon Island, not just to suppress the local native rebellion, their goal was Nanyang,