Chapter 1041 1132 Clouds Moving in the Southwest

Chapter 1041 1132 Clouds Moving in the Southwest

"Huahuahuahua."

In the office of the Governor's Office in Manila City, Governor Vesalius had received a letter from Savella from the returning armed merchant ship and knew what happened in the city of Tortoiseshell.

Spain was about to occupy the Philippine Islands alone, but he didn't expect that the Ming Dynasty would intervene at the last moment.

In a rage, he threw the letter from Savella out and swept all the other documents on the table to the ground, still not satisfied.

However, there was nothing else on the desk at this time.

At this time, the office was full of paper scraps flying around, and the floor was in a mess.

The secretary heard the noise and opened the door to see, and immediately stayed there.

Governor Vesalius was a nobleman, and such a misbehavior had never happened before.

Seeing the secretary at the door stunned, Governor Vesalius finally regained a bit of reason and suppressed his anger.

He walked to the sofa and sat down, saying to the secretary, "Hurry up and clean up."

He bent down and picked up a box from the coffee table, took out a plantain leaf cigar from it, and then picked up a smaller box next to it, took out a small piece of firewood from one of the small pieces of firewood and hit it hard twice on the flint at one end of the box, and a small flame rose up.

Governor Vesalius gently roasted one end of the cigar with a match, and when he saw sparks on it, he put it in his mouth and took a deep puff.

The origin of cigars can be traced back to the ancient Mayan era more than a thousand years before Christ, and was invented and used by the ancient Mayans.

These early cigars were smoked by the Mayans who rolled tobacco into tubes and regarded tobacco as a sacred plant.

From the personal experience of modern people, it may be the pursuit of the feeling of dizziness from smoke, so people's perception will be problematic at this time, and they will feel dizzy.

Perhaps at that time, everyone thought they were in a very sacred state and could communicate with the gods.

Over time, this habit spread to other parts of Central and South America.

In the 15th century, Columbus's crew first saw Indians using palm leaves or plantain leaves to roll tobacco in Cuba, which was considered to be the original form of cigars.

With the arrival of the Portuguese and Spanish, the production technology of tobacco and cigars gradually spread to Europe and other regions.

Matches appeared in Europe in the mid-16th century, but matches were not made in this period, so only nobles and wealthy people could enjoy them.

Of course, matches in this period mainly used sulfur as a flammable substance, and flammable sulfur was dipped into a wooden stick or directly stuck to a wooden stick, and ignited by the sparks generated by the impact of a flint.

After yellow phosphorus was discovered, it was quickly used to make matches, but yellow phosphorus is highly toxic, so the use of this kind of match is not safe.

In 1828, S. Jones in London, England, made prumitin matches, which used a flammable substance called prumitin, which needed to be in contact with oxygen in the air to burn when ignited.

Plumicine matches are actually the kind that can be burned by waving a match in the air in some movie clips.

Although this way of ignition looks very cool, it is indeed more unsafe and has a higher risk of spontaneous combustion.

In 1833, the world's first match factory was established in Berga, Sweden, producing friction matches invented by Pleicher.

The ignition principle of this match is to use friction to generate heat to burn the flammable material on the match head. However, there are still problems with the safety of this match.

After generations of development, in 1855, the Swede Rentastrum first invented the safety match.

This match uses a flammable substance called phosphorus sulfide, which can only be ignited when it comes into contact with a special friction paper. At this time, the safety of the match is greatly improved.

It can be said that the cigar and matches in the hands of Governor Vesalius are the most fashionable things in the European aristocratic circle now.

He was transferred from Mexico to the Philippines, so he naturally brought cigars and locally made matches from America, as well as treasure ships from America, which brought a lot of supplies, so that he could still live a luxurious life in Europe in the far east.

Governor Vesalius was smoking a cigar and thinking at this time.

He agreed with Commander Savella's analysis. The current Spanish military strength in the Philippines could not be compared with that of the Ming Dynasty.

In particular, the news that the Ming Dynasty had recruited a large number of troops from the tribes in the northern Philippines had surprised him greatly.

To be realistic, dividing the Philippine Islands with the Ming Dynasty seems to be the best result now.

We can only wait for Spain to completely occupy the Americas, stabilize its control there, and then free up our hands to attack the Ming Dynasty.

For this, it will cost a lot of gold coins to recruit and transport troops, and Governor Vesalius feels a headache just thinking about it.

It's just that this extra gold coin will make the kingdom's top leaders hesitate whether to go to war with the Ming Dynasty for the Philippines.

Unless, the Philippine Islands have resources that they have to take action.

But in the eyes of Governor Vesalius, such a possibility is actually very small.

The Philippines produces the most spices. They are not short of food, and there is also wood, but it is not convenient to transport it over long distances. It would be better to build a shipyard here.

Without sufficient benefits, it is difficult for the kingdom to support the use of troops in the Philippines.

Thinking of this, Governor Vesalius could only make a decision, the same as Savella's, that is, to take as much advantage as possible in the process of demarcating the Philippine Islands with the Ming Kingdom.

After the secretary tidied up the desk, Governor Vesalius put down the cigar in his hand and returned to his desk.

He also had to write a letter to the Governor of Mexico in America, reporting in detail what happened in the Philippines, and informing him of the decision they made, waiting for the other party's reply.

However, this matter will definitely not wait for a response from America.

It is not the southwest monsoon season in June, and no sea ship in the Philippines can return to America smoothly.

In fact, the route from America to the Philippines was historically called the "Manila Galleon Trade", also known as the Galleon Trade. It was a monopoly trade between the Spanish colony of Mexico and the Philippines. One end of the route was Manila City, and the other side was the port of Acapulco in Mexico, also known as the Manila-Acapulco trade.

In the 16th century and for a long time afterwards, navigation relied on sails. At this time, the Industrial Revolution had not yet begun, and there was no machine power such as steam engines.

There is no doubt that navigation at this time still relied more on nature, relying on trade winds and ocean currents to complete navigation activities.

15 De Urdana discovered the return route from Mexico to the Philippines, using the northeast trade winds and the equatorial countercurrent to allow the Spaniards to travel back and forth between the two places regularly.

For the entire route, the galleons set sail from Manila in June every year with the southwest monsoon, heading north to the waters of 45°~42° north latitude, following the "Kuroshio" in the North Pacific Ocean to the east, arriving at the Port of Acapulco, with a journey of more than 10,000 nautical miles and a duration of about 6 months.

The return trip was a direct voyage along the ocean current, which only took 3 months.

It took nine months to go back and forth, plus the time required for maintenance of the ship, which meant that a ship could trade back and forth once a year.

It was only the beginning of 1575, and it was not yet time for the galleon to leave Mexico, so naturally he could not send this letter.

This was a headache for the colonists in this era, pointing to the fact that communication between high-level officials became extremely long due to various reasons, and it often took several months from the time a letter was sent to the time it was received.

By the time the reply was received, generally nothing could be caught up.

Therefore, Spain gave the colonial governors sent to various places a high degree of authority, so that they could act at their convenience.

After writing the letter to the Governor of Mexico, Governor Vesalius wrote to Savella again, approving his decision and formally authorizing him to negotiate with the Ming people to determine a series of rights for both sides to draw the boundary.

Naturally, the further north the border is, the better, so that more land can be obtained.

The Spanish had completed the map survey of the Philippine Islands and determined the longitude and latitude lines as early as the year before, which was very important information for the Age of Exploration.

After the ship deviated, the position of the ship could be calculated by the theodolite on the ship, so that the nearest port could be found for docking.

Moreover, in America, the Spaniards have tacitly agreed to use longitude and latitude to divide the border. The border line is a beautiful straight line, which is very easy to determine the boundary.

And this time, they also planned to do so in the Philippines.

The Ming people, it seems that they don’t understand the meaning of latitude.

When Vesalius wrote the letter, he laughed in his heart, maybe through the latitude line, he could make the Ming people suffer a loss.

The Philippines is located between 4 degrees 35 minutes north latitude and 21 degrees 08 minutes north latitude, and between 116 degrees 55 minutes east longitude and 126 degrees 37 minutes east longitude.

Vesalius easily saw the location of the city of Tortoiseshell from the map, which was about 16 degrees north latitude.

Although the latitude of the whole island ranges from 4 degrees to 21 degrees, with a difference of 17 degrees, 16 degrees north latitude seems to be very far north, but you have to know that the whole island is wide in the north and narrow in the south, and most of them are small islands. If you really count, the Spaniards didn't get much advantage.

However, the Pengasilan Bay is in the hands of the Ming people, and it is difficult to move the latitude further north.

Fortunately, the north is mainly mountainous, and the plains are concentrated near Manila, which makes Governor Vesalius feel much better.

So, in the following days, Yu Dayou, the admiral of the Ming South China Sea Navy, and Savella, the Spanish commander of the Manila City Defense, were caught in a tug-of-war.

Both sides knew the importance of demarcation. If they were to relax a little, they might lose the ownership of a large area of ​​land.

Savella proposed to divide the border between the two countries based on the existing camp of the Spanish army.

Yu Dayou believed that the Spanish camp was too close to the city of Daimao and the port of Daimao, so he naturally disagreed and asked the Spanish army to withdraw 20 miles south to the vicinity of the Manila Plain.

The advantage of this is that the Ming army can completely occupy the mountains on both sides of the Cagayan River, and there are towering trees here that the Ming army navy needs.

Using the Daimao Port built by Lin Feng, the Ming army can build a shipyard nearby to build and maintain warships nearby.

At the same time, it also requires the Spanish army not to change the course of the Dagupan River. You must know that most of the water sources before Lin Feng came from here.

However, the Dagupan River is a river from south to north, just turning slightly at the mouth of the Pengasilan Bay.

If this point is not raised, the Ming army stationed in Daimao City may be at risk of being cut off from water by the Spaniards.

It was more than ten days later when the two sides finally decided on the demarcation method.

Yu Dayou wrote a detailed memorial about the process of the Luzon Campaign and the subsequent negotiations with the barbarians, and sent a centipede ship to report to the country at the fastest speed.

At the same time, a fleet of more than ten Fu ships was prepared to transport the spoils and the bandit leader Lin Feng and others back to the Ming Dynasty.

Also accompanying him was King Bakker of Sulu, who would go to the capital of the Ming Dynasty to meet Emperor Wanli.

Of course, everything had to wait for the order from the Ming Dynasty.

The emperor of the Ming Dynasty was not something that the vassal kings could see whenever they wanted, and they had to wait for the consent of the capital before they could go.

While Yu Dayou and Bakker were anxiously waiting for news from the Ming Dynasty, the general commander of Yunnan, Duke of Qian, Mu Changzuo, who had been preparing for a long time, was also anxiously waiting for news from Mengmi.

It had been reported from Mengmi that Mang Yinglong led his troops to attack Mubang, but Mubang did not send a messenger to ask for help from the Ming Dynasty.

There were only two possible reasons for this situation. One was that the messenger was killed halfway, and the other was that Mubang had no hope for the Ming Dynasty and naturally would not send anyone for help.

Mu Changzuo did not care about Hanlie's life or death, but this attitude made him very dissatisfied.

It's not that Mu Changzuo didn't give him a chance. In fact, Mu Changzuo wrote him two letters last year, but there was no reply.

However, Mu Changzuo didn't know whether the Mengmi envoy went to the governor of Yunnan after returning, but he seemed to have lost contact with Mengmi since then.

Yes, no one from Mengmi was found on the border.

Even if he ordered the chieftains in Ruili, Yingjiang and other places to pay attention to the news of Mengmi, he still didn't get any useful information.

"Come here."

Mu Changzuo was finally worried that the southwest border would be out of control. Without the news of Mengmi, he couldn't accurately grasp the dynamics of the Burmese army, which really made him upset.

He called the housekeeper and whispered: "Contact those merchants immediately. They are familiar with the place and know how to deal with them.

I don't care about anything else. I just want to know the current movements of the Burmese army and the situation of Mengmi."

Recruiting merchants traveling on the China-Myanmar border and sending them deep into the Burmese-controlled areas to gather intelligence. Now Mu Changzuo can only think of this.

Although these merchants have no political status, they are all well-connected.

Their money offensive is still very effective and can help them break through all obstacles.

The southwest region is similar to the north of the Ming Dynasty. It is a place where strength speaks. If you don't have some tricks, you can't do business here.

Insects have their own ways, and rats have their own ways. In such a place where power is divided, people who can do business can see how strong they are.

Now Mu Changzuo can only think of these people without causing trouble.

"Master, do you want to send someone to take a look quietly?"

The housekeeper asked in a low voice.

"Not for the time being, if something unexpected happens, it will be troublesome, especially at this critical moment."

Mu Changzuo has gradually felt the uneasy atmosphere on the border. The most important thing is that he doesn't know what the Burmese army outside the region is doing, especially Mengmi, what happened.

At this time, the Mengmi Pacification Division, Si Ge was also ordering a group of strong men: "Even if you die, you have to crawl to the Ming Dynasty to report the news"