Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 550 Taking El Salvador lightly
What Li Jing wants Sun Huacheng to deal with are the large and small armed forces in Taiwan.

Only by destroying all these armed forces can Taiwan be quickly put on the right track. Otherwise, these people will always make trouble in Taiwan, which will damage the prestige of the imperial court.However, the elimination of local armed forces before sending officials to Taiwan is completely different from the elimination after they are stationed.

The aborigines in Taiwan can only complain about their own lives if the violent policy is implemented before the local officials are stationed, and the violent policy after the local officials are stationed will arouse the dissatisfaction of the aborigines, which will not be conducive to Ming's rule of Taiwan.

The various armed forces in Taiwan are naturally vulnerable to Sun Huacheng's troops, but due to the terrain of Taiwan, Sun Huacheng's advance speed is not very fast.

According to the attack speed reported by Sun Huacheng a few days ago, it will take about ten days to advance to Taipei.

Sun Huacheng intends to sort out the entire Taiwan from south to north, so that even if these armed forces cannot be wiped out, at least the remaining armed forces can be forced to leave Taiwan.

This approach is undoubtedly the safest, but what Li Jing is looking at now is not Taiwan. Li Jing's goal is the whole of Southeast Asia.

Li Jing is very clear that negotiations and threats cannot make Western countries obediently withdraw their troops. In the end, it is necessary to rely on actual actions and force to expel the troops of these countries from Southeast Asia.

But taking back by force does not mean recklessness. Li Jing will eventually have to trade with these countries. If he goes to war with these countries, how can he still trade?Fighting such a battle is not in line with Daming's economic interests.

Therefore, he wanted to remove the Spaniards and Portuguese from Taiwan, Macau and Luzon in the name of Zheng Zhilong before the news of Zheng Zhilong's surrender to the imperial court was known to the Portuguese and Spaniards.

But there is no impenetrable wall in the world. The news of Zheng Zhilong's surrender will inevitably be leaked no matter how Li Jing keeps it secret. Jing can't do things under the banner of Zheng Zhilong.

Because Zheng Zhilong was already a courtier of Ming Dynasty at this time, to attack Portugal and Spain in this name would be tantamount to declaring war on these two countries, which would be reckless.

Therefore, Li Jing must seize the time to solve the Portuguese and Spanish garrisons in Southeast Asia before the news of Zheng Zhilong's surrender spreads, and let Zheng Zhilong bear this notoriety.

Li Jing's strategic intentions have been discussed with Sun Meng, Liu Erleng, and Sun Chuanting many times, and he has repeatedly emphasized that these problems must be resolved before next spring.

Because after the spring, the wind direction of the monsoon changes, and there will be fleets from western countries coming to Daming again, and things will be troublesome at this time.

At this time, the Ming court was in a very awkward position. If it continued to fight, it would be tantamount to tearing its face, and it was not ready to do business with other countries.But if you don't fight, what is it that makes such a fuss?
Politics is actually synonymous with shamelessness. No matter how nasty you do it behind your back, you have to put on a dignified appearance on the surface.

Zheng Zhilong is now undoubtedly Daming's fig leaf. With Zheng Zhilong in front as a cover, Daming can confidently tell other countries that what he does has nothing to do with us.

On the surface, it is even possible to agree to the use of troops by various countries against Zheng Zhilong, but secretly they are continuously sending troops and weapons to Zheng Zhilong.Anyway, as long as they can block the front line of Manchuria, these countries will not be able to make money.

Sun Meng and Liu Erleng didn't know much about politics, but Sun Chuanting understood what politics was.

To put it bluntly, I want to be a bitch and set up a memorial archway at the same time.

Although Sun Meng and Liu Er Leng didn't understand politics, they would resolutely carry out Li Jing's orders.

After the three of them discussed it, they immediately decided that Sun Huacheng would not have to consider the local forces in Taiwan, and led the troops to rush to Jilonggang, first to wipe out the Spaniards entrenched in Taipei, and then returned to the south to wipe out the local armed forces.

At the same time, Sun Chuanting will lead the fleet to cooperate closely with the army. Once the Spaniards go to sea, they will be surrounded and wiped out by the navy.

Due to poor communication, Sun Chuanting set a time limit for Sun Huacheng. He must arrive at the chicken coop within three days and attack the chicken coop on the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month.And Sun Chuanting will arrange the fleet to form a siege to Jilong Port within this time.

It was after receiving this order that Sun Huacheng led his troops to take Taipei directly.

At that time, the Spaniards built two castles in Taipei, one was the city of San Salvador in Jilong Bay, and the other was the city of Santo Domingo near the mouth of the Tamsui River.

The Spaniard's movements seem to be bigger than the Dutchman's, but in fact they are not.

The purpose of the Spaniards occupying Taiwan was to plunder silver from Japan nearby. However, in the sixth year of Chongzhen, Japan suddenly issued an order to lock down the country, prohibiting foreign trade except for China and the Netherlands, and the Spanish trade routes were cut off at once.

If it was before, the Spaniards would definitely not hesitate to launch a military strike against Japan.

However, since the Calais naval battle broke out between Spain and the United Kingdom in the 16th year of Wanli (1588), and the Spanish Armada was completely wiped out by the British, Spain's national strength has been declining, and it has been unable to organize a large-scale fleet to keep Luzon. This colony has done its best in Spain.

It was against this background that Spain began to shrink its forces, withdrawing most of the garrisons in Danshui and chicken coops to Luzon.Now there are only about [-] Spaniards in Tamsui, and the garrison in Chicken Coop is more, nearly [-].

Sun Huacheng attacked from south to north, and did not pass through the heartland of Taiwan, because most of the central part of Taiwan is forest, but attacked north along the western coastline, so the first attack was Santo Domingo in Tamsui Columbia.

Under Sun Huacheng's thunderous offensive, the Spanish garrison stationed in Domingo City abandoned the city and fled after a little resistance. Sun Huacheng led his troops to chase them all the way to the city of Salvador, where the chicken coop was, and immediately surrounded the city of Salvador. .

It was almost like withdrawing from the city of Zeelandia, which attacked the Dutch. Under the fierce artillery fire of the Ming army, the walls of the Spaniards fell one after another.

However, the city of Salvador was built in Jilong Bay, and the Spaniards parked warships in Jilong Bay. Seeing that the situation was not good, the Spanish defenders did not hesitate to abandon the city and board the boat, intending to escape by water.

It's a pity that Sun Chuanting had already set up an encirclement circle in the Jilong Bay, and the Spanish fleet had just emerged from Jilong Bay when it was attacked by the Ming fleet flying the flag of Zheng Zhilong.

What frustrates the Spaniards is that the bombardment density of this fleet is obviously not very strong, but it leaves them with no room for counterattack.

Without him, although the ships of the Ming army were not as fast as the Spanish warships, the artillery was installed at the bow and stern, so they could launch shelling without a horizontal ship.

However, if the Spaniards want to counterattack, they must cross the ship, and the speed of the horizontal ship will decrease.At this time, the warships of the Ming army only needed to adjust the angle of the sails to avoid the side of the Spanish warships.

The most terrible thing is that the target of the Ming army's attack was the sail on the Spanish ship. If the Spaniards wanted to go straight forward, the front of the sail happened to face the artillery of the Ming army.

The Spanish ships stationed in chicken coops are some medium-sized ships, and the area of ​​the main sail is only a few hundred square meters (note: the main sail of a large ship is thousands of square meters). It doesn't look big, and coupled with the bumpy sea, the artillery's hit rate is not very high.

However, if the Spaniards' ships directly face the artillery fire of the Ming army, when the distance is shortened, the target will naturally become bigger and bigger, and there is no need to rush to the front. When the distance is shortened to three miles, the artillery of the Ming army will The hit rate is greatly improved.

In fact, instead of Spain rushing forward desperately, the Ming army's fleet was already adjusting its sails, and then slowly approached the front of the Spanish ship.

After the sails of several Spanish ships were destroyed, the Spaniards gave up resistance and announced their surrender.

Surrender is impossible. Spain only has a dozen medium-sized warships, but there are nearly a hundred enemy troops on the opposite side. Jilong Bay is surrounded by groups for several miles. The chances of the Spaniards rushing out are too slim.

There is nothing to write about in the Jilong Bay naval battle. The Ming army ambushed with ten times its strength. It would be a joke if it still cannot win this battle.

But for Sun Chuanting, this battle is of great significance, because this battle tested the feasibility of his tactics.

In the future, when the Ming army fought the enemy at sea, they could give full play to the advantages of the Ming warship's flexible sail steering to meet the enemy head-on and destroy the sail of the enemy ship.

(Note: Most of the warships of the Ming army have hard sails. The advantage of hard sails is that they can rotate flexibly. The sails can rotate along the mast and can use the wind force of various wind directions. The disadvantage of hard sails is that they are too heavy and laborious to raise and lower them. Therefore The sail cannot be made too large. Due to the small area of ​​the sail, the wind is not as strong as the soft sail, so the speed is far behind the ships of Western countries.)
However, Sun Chuanting also realized that the artillery of the Ming army did not have any advantages in terms of range, and it was even inferior to the heavy artillery of Spain.Moreover, the Ming army's ships are not strong in fighting, and they still have to take certain risks when approaching enemy ships.

But compared to fighting boarding battles, such a risk is worth taking, after all, the casualties of soldiers in boarding battles are too great.

After disarming the Spaniards, Sun Chuanting ordered Li Guozhu to escort the Spaniards to a hidden island for custody.

Because the Ming army is now playing the role of Zheng Zhilong, if the Spaniards were directly escorted back to the mainland of Ming Dynasty, it would not be a loophole.

Sun Chuanting wanted to temporarily detain these people first, and then switch back to the role of the Ming army to rescue these people. In this way, the Spaniards are naturally grateful to the Ming army.

Sun Chuanting was not worried about whether Li Guozhu's subordinates pretended to be pirates. Li Guozhu's subordinates were originally pirates, so there was no need to pretend.

The only unlucky ones are the Spaniards, who fell into the hands of the pirates, and you can know what will happen with your toes.

Fortunately, this group of people used to work as pirates before, and they knew the rules of pirates, and knew that after surrendering, their lives would not be in danger.

Because pirates also have pirate rules, for those who surrender obediently and take the initiative to hand over their weapons and money, pirates will rarely kill them all.

(End of this chapter)