Chapter 1002 1093 Southwest

Chapter 1002 1093 Southwest

Southwest of the Philippine Islands, at the seaside pier outside Manila, more than 60 ships have been docked.

Among them, there are 11 Western-style ships, and the others are local ships full of Luzon style.

On the pier, 300 Spanish soldiers have been waiting there in neat rows, and next to them are five queues, and 2,500 Filipinos are divided into five groups and gathered there, without any discipline.

Unlike the Spanish soldiers who are equipped with muskets and artillery, these Filipinos only use cold weapons such as axes and spears. Apart from filling the numbers, they seem to have no useful value.

Outside the remaining queue, a dozen Spanish officers, who were obviously lieutenants, gathered together. The leader looked up at the scorching sun in the sky and said to the others, "I guess the time is almost up."

While he was talking, someone next to him took out a pocket watch from his jacket pocket and looked at it, and smiled, "They should not have left the city yet, at least ten minutes."

"Let's start to line up. It will take some time for those monkeys to stand in order. Don't let them be in chaos when the governor and the commander arrive."

The leading officer said.

Soon, the dozen officers dispersed, and several of them walked up to the group of Spanish soldiers and shouted a few commands, and the soldiers responded in unison.

"Everyone, get alert, the commander will be here soon."

The man shouted loudly to the group of soldiers, and then walked to the shade of a tree to lead them.

The three officers with him also walked to the shade of the tree.

The other ten or so people walked to the front of the five groups of Filipinos and began to shout orders.

"Stand at attention."

Following the officer's shouting, the previously lazy soldiers began to move and slowly formed a square formation.

Although in the queue, soldiers occasionally exchanged positions because of Zane's mistakes, which looked like they were doing the job, their movements were slow and sluggish.

If it were in a real army, such performance would obviously be unqualified.

So, the two officers next to them took off the wooden sticks hanging on their belts and began to swing them, hitting the slow-moving soldiers in the queue with sticks. For a while, the screams of the Filipino soldiers in the queue were endless.

Although it looked a bit miserable, under the threat of the sticks, the previously lazy soldiers finally cheered up and moved quickly.

The five queues performed almost the same, and they had to wave sticks to be honest.

Just as the queue was gradually forming, several carriages appeared in the direction of Manila City. They were obviously the people who were coming today and the people with the most weight in Manila City.

Sure enough, after the carriage stopped not far away, the people who got off the carriage were the Governor of the Philippines, Ravisalli, the city defense commander, Savella, and other important officials. The officers who had been hiding in the shade before had already trotted over to greet them.

Ravisalli was dressed in formal clothes, while Savella was only wearing a neat military uniform. This time he was the commander of the expeditionary force.

Savella saw the people coming and just asked, "Have the supplies been loaded on the ship?"

"Everything has been loaded last night. We can get on the ship and set off after the commander's speech."

The officer answered immediately.

After hearing this, Governor Ravisalli next to him just nodded when Savella looked over to show his approval.

"Well, start reviewing the soldiers now, and then set off immediately. We can't delay any longer."

Savila immediately said to the officer, and when he turned back to reorganize, he whispered to Ravi Sari: "It is expected that the Ming army will receive the news and rush here for at least a month. It seems like a lot of time, but who can say for sure about war."

"Just follow your plan, try to attract the pirate Lin's army out, and destroy them with cannons and muskets outside the city."

Ravi Sari also whispered.

During this period, they also repeatedly studied the plan to attack the Daimao City, and found that if Lin Feng hid his army in the city and did not come out, it would be difficult for them to capture the Daimao City in a short time.

Although the walls of the current Daimao City are not high and strong enough, Lin Feng ordered people to build a lot of fortresses outside the city.

The role of these fortresses, in their view, is mainly defensive, so that the attacking army cannot quickly advance to the foot of the Daimao City, delaying their actions.

In the future, if these fortresses are connected by city walls, they can also become the towers on the city walls, as the main fire output point.

Don't think that the Spanish can easily conquer the city with walls by using cannons.

There are indeed large-caliber cannons on the Spanish warships, but the cannons of this era are not large in caliber overall, and the cannonballs hitting the city walls are actually limited in power.

In fact, the power of cannons is not as destructive as the large catapults on the city walls.

It's just that because the penetration is stronger, if it is not hitting the city wall, but bombarding the city gate, the effect will be greater.

But don't forget that although Lin Feng is a pirate, they also have firearms in their hands.

Some firearms come from their seizures from the Ming army guards, and more are obtained by robbing ships at sea.

Of course, a small part comes from those daring merchants in Europe, who sell some firearms at high prices for profit.

However, these cannons are generally small-caliber cannons with limited power.

But Lin Feng has artillery, which is also a huge threat to the Spaniards.

The cannons on their bows were heavy and difficult to unload from the ship, so they thought of attracting the pirates out of the city, preferably on the beach, so that they could use the cannons on the eleven armed merchant ships to teach Lin Feng a good lesson.

Because the sun was scorching, Lavisari didn't want to say much to the soldiers who were going to the expedition. It was too uncomfortable to stay under the sun.

So, after a few simple words of encouragement and promises of many benefits, he ended his morale-boosting speech.

Then, Savella ordered to board the ship.

Two thousand eight hundred soldiers, plus hundreds of sailors on the ship, were the full force of this expedition to encircle Lin Feng.

As Li Jin thought, more than two hundred soldiers were left in Manila, and there were two merchant ships responsible for transporting supplies to the front line.

Although the Spanish hoped to end the war as soon as possible, they also made the worst plan. The siege turned into a siege, and they needed continuous supplies to supply the front-line troops.

As the ropes were untied on the dock, the warships left the shore and headed for the bay.

Lavisari and several leading figures in Manila stood on the dock for a while, and could not stand the scorching sun and boarded their carriages first and headed for the city.

Not far from the dock, several Chinese watched everything from afar until almost everyone on the dock had left, and then they turned around and returned to the house behind them.

This is a tavern opened by the Chinese for many years. It is a place for sailors on merchant ships to drink, and the business has always been good.

Especially after the Spaniards came here, Manila has become the base of the Spaniards in the East Asian waters, and there are more Spanish merchant ships coming and going.

It was only half a year ago that the owner of the tavern was replaced, but because everything in the tavern remained the same, and even the shopkeeper was still the original owner of the tavern, not many people knew about it.

"Sir, do you want to send someone to contact the north?"

After entering the house, a short and strong man said to the middle-aged man in front.

"Even if we leak the information we have found out to them, will it help them?"

The middle-aged Chinese man just sat in the main seat and said casually, "These barbarians are determined to wipe out Lin Feng's gang of thieves as soon as possible. In theory, for the benefit of the court, the Ming army should find a way to mess this up.

But, is this a good idea?

Lin Feng is a wanted person by the court. If we let him escape again, and the higher-ups investigate, I'm afraid you and I can't afford it."

"This"

The thin man hesitated when asked this question.

"Speaking of which, the barbarians are still doing what they agreed with the Ming army, but you and I both know that it would be safest if we could wait until the army arrives.

Unfortunately, the sea is vast. Even if the navy receives the news, they have to ask for permission before they can go south. According to this calculation, it will take at least two months for the army to arrive.

And by this time, the barbarians may have already captured Daimao City."

The middle-aged man continued, then shook his head with some regret and smiled bitterly.

These two people were intelligence officers sent by Jinyiwei to Luzon Island. They established the Luzon Station and were responsible for collecting all kinds of intelligence here.

In order to collect information, they used the silver they brought to buy this tavern.

What could be easier than getting information in such a place? Sailors traveling between merchant ships would utter all kinds of words from time to time after drinking, some of which were quite shocking.

However, they would look at the records of these news, but it would take a lot of time to identify and verify them. They would only quietly take the news out through merchant ships every few months.

And this time, because of Lin Feng's arrival, they immediately became nervous. Not only did they have to collect information about Lin Feng, but they also had to find out the Spaniards' response plan.

"You should work harder during this period and continue to hide in the Governor's Mansion to get information.

The others also told them not to act rashly, just as usual.

There is no order from above, so we should not act rashly. We just need to follow the original order and listen and watch more."

Then, the middle-aged man ordered, "You should be more careful when hiding in the Governor's Mansion.

With the appearance of the imperial army here, I am worried that the barbarians will pay attention to the Han people here.

You and I are new here, and it is easy to be targeted."

"Yes, sir, I understand."

The short and thin man bowed immediately.

They didn't know that the Ming Navy was on the way at this time, and they thought that the Ming army would follow the convention and report to the capital first before sending troops after getting the reply of the capital's consent.

However, at this time, the Ministry of War in the capital had just received the news delivered by the Fujian and Guangdong Post.

The document was submitted by Xu Qiaoan, the navy commander of Denglai. He had received the imperial edict and documents sent by express horses from the capital, and immediately sent two ships to Luzon to catch up with Yu Dayou and his party.

However, he still followed the rules and reported all his arrangements to the Ministry of War in the capital.

"Zhi Fu has already sent troops, tut tut."

Tan Lun took the document from his subordinate doctor and read it, and just tutted twice.

He actually guessed that Wei Guangde must have hinted something to Yu Dayou before, so he took action immediately after receiving the news.

If the court investigated the matter of leading the navy southward, the responsibility would not be small.

After all, there was no imperial edict and court documents for mobilizing troops. Although Yu Dayou had the right to act at his own convenience to suppress the Japanese, he had to fight to Luzon Island after all, which was a foreign vassal state, and it was still inappropriate.

"Make a copy of the official document and send it to the cabinet to give it to Wei Gelao. Keep the things here with me first.

Remember, tell your men to shut up and not to spread the news."

Tan Lun gave an order and put away the documents.

When the doctor was about to leave, he was stopped at the door and asked, "By the way, there is still no report from the southwest in the past two days?"

The doctor turned around and bowed, saying, "Minister, I haven't received any news from there. Do you want me to ask?"

"No, no news is good news. If there is really urgent news, then it's a big deal."

Tan Lun shook his head and said only one sentence, then waved his hand to let him go.

After everyone left, Tan Lun was the only one left in the hall, and he frowned and thought.

There are three places in the Ming Dynasty where war may break out, one of which is Liaodong.

But the Ministry of War has already issued a letter to inform the Liaodong governor. According to Qi Jiguang's intention, let Wang Gao's two sons continue to jump around and see how many people in Liaodong are still against the court.

Wait until all are exposed, and then take action to solve them once and for all.

The second one is naturally Luzon. Now it seems that the first thing to do is to encircle and suppress pirates. As for whether there will be a war with the barbarians, it should not be discussed for the time being.

The last place is naturally the southwest.

There has been news from Yunnan before that the three Xuans and six Wei outside the region did not follow the order. No one went to Kunming to introduce the Burmese affairs. This is already a blatant disobedience.

Therefore, the southwestern provinces are now reorganizing their troops and preparing to respond.

However, when such news was released, the Toungoo Dynasty of Myanmar did not react, which was very wrong.

Either their response was very covert and avoided the eyes and ears of the court there.

Or, they were really confident that they could fight against the court, so they turned a deaf ear to the court's documents and did not care.

Tan Lun was thinking wildly, but he guessed roughly what Mang Yinglong would do.

This time, Mang Yinglong took a countermeasure, which was to summon a large army to prepare for possible interference by the Ming court.

However, unlike before, he did not concentrate his troops in Toungoo City, but secretly moved them to the northwest and hid them near Mubang and Mengyang.

Now, Mang Yinglong did not have a clear order of attack.

According to his original intention, he would attack Mubang next year, and after completely annexing Mubang, he would send troops to Mengyang.

By then, his control area would be directly adjacent to the Ming Dynasty.

Regardless of whether the Ming court sent troops or not, he could attack or defend, and control the war in Mengyang.

In this way, it would not cause any damage to his rule in Myanmar.

It was just that after discovering that the Ming court was paying attention, he was a little hesitant, and felt that it seemed that he should send troops to Mengyang in advance.

The current chieftains of Mubang and Mengyang were also smart. If he went to Kunming according to the requirements of the Ming court, Mang Yinglong would send troops immediately.

But now they are all shrinking, and it is not easy to take action.