1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2023
From the standpoint of a Spanish official, Lopez is of course unwilling to advocate a compromise attitude towards Haihan, but if he wants to support Aragones' strategy, then he would rather choose to negotiate a peace with Haihan temporarily.He believes that the changes in the situation in the South China Sea in the past few years have proved that Aragones' approach is unfeasible. If he continues to fight with Haihan on the frontal battlefield, he will only humiliate himself, and it will not change the current passivity of the colonial authorities. The situation, on the contrary, may sink deeper and deeper, eventually leading to the complete collapse of the colony.

When Manila's intelligence agencies formulated this plan, they did not take into account these contradictions within the Spanish colonial authorities, and did not make targeted arrangements in advance.But in this way, Lopez, who stood on the opposite side of Aragones out of political interests, naturally would not agree with the symbolic meaning of Jose and others. He believed that it was just used by Aragones to stir up emotions. Props, not to mention whether the experience of these people is true is still doubtful, so it is too hasty to determine the effectiveness of armed resistance.

Of course, Lopez is not sure whether the experience of Jose and others is true or false. If he raises doubts and is slapped in the face, he will fall into a passive position, so the primary target of his doubts is not Jose and others, but It is Aragones' strategy that has not changed significantly compared with the past, so that people can't see the hope of winning victory through armed resistance.

And this is exactly the view held by most of the officials in the colonial authorities who oppose Aragones. If they still fight Haihan according to the old routine, then why should they win the war when they have never won the war? Do you expect the other party to take the initiative to make mistakes?
And these young people that Aragones touts are just poor boys who escaped from Manila. They were lucky enough to rob a cargo ship of the Haihan people. Can they be expected to defeat the mighty Haihan on the battlefield? military?The so-called courage, honor, and sacrifice for the country, these things are mentioned every year, but it is difficult to change the disadvantages of one's own troops on the battlefield. Now I don't know where to get a few people to set an example. Is it possible to rely on this? Morale, defeating the Haihan people?
Aragones' complexion was not very good at this time, the other party deliberately jumped out at this time to make things difficult for him, clearly trying to make himself unable to step down.Of course, he also knew what the other party was up to, but today he was not going to swallow his anger anymore. Since Lopez mentioned this section, he had to take this opportunity to talk about it.

"Courage and determination alone are not enough to defeat the Haihan people, but if you only play tricks in the conference room, you really have no chance!" Aragones said unceremoniously to Lopez To fight back against his behavior, mocking the other party is only a matter of lip service, never actual action.

Lopez is not such a person who is easily irritated. Hearing this, he just snorted coldly, but did not answer the other party's words.He knew very well that as long as the other party could not come up with a new plan, then he would not get a positive response to his doubts, and the people present would definitely not ignore this key point.

But Aragones didn't intend to stop there, and continued: "Do you think these brave young men just killed a few Haihan people and hijacked a ship? Of course it's not that simple. They brought us Very important information has come, which proves that the strategy I have formulated before is effective!"

"You probably still remember that after we moved to Cebu from Manila this year, someone came to us for cooperation, hoping that we could follow Haihan's military export model and provide military training and weapons to other forces and countries other than Spain. Equipment. I remember that many people were not optimistic about this cooperation mode at the time, but it turned out that my insistence was correct! Our cooperation with the outside world has already caused a lot of trouble to the enemy. The evidence is Jose and them Take it to this ship in Cebu."

When Aragones said this, he showed his trump card: "This is a secret letter sent from Manila to the Xingdao stronghold in the Strait of Malacca. The writer and the recipient are the administrators of these two places respectively. Sir, the information they conveyed through this secret letter shows that our military export in the north has received excellent results, and the Haihan people are currently in a state of desperation, and may even change their overseas military deployment for this reason .”

Not only Lopez, even Jose and the others immediately pricked up their ears when they heard this.They did not know the exact content of the letter beforehand, but they were sure that all the information mentioned in the letter was for the purpose of deceiving the Spaniards.And after this letter arrived in Cebu, it seemed to have begun to play a role. Even high-ranking officials like Aragones believed in the news mentioned in it.

However, Jose and others did not understand the official struggles of the colonial authorities. What they were interested in was the cooperation partner mentioned by Aragones, which was the main goal of their venture into Cebu. As long as their identity could be confirmed, they would Even if the task of this trip is more than half completed.

However, Aragones did not mention the identity of the partner at this time, but repeatedly emphasized the objective results of this military export method, because he needed to convince other people present that the current progress was due to He made the right decision and built up enough confidence in this particular measure.In this way, he can increase the intensity of military output in the future, so as to indirectly restrain Haihan's development momentum.

"Governor, how authentic is this letter? Can you confirm that the information is reliable?" Lopez didn't immediately accept it. He always felt that Aragones' purpose of calling everyone to the Governor's Palace today was too purposeful. Strong, which made the whole thing less credible in his eyes.

"Yes, we have managed to confirm this letter. Gentlemen, I have reason to believe that the description of the current situation in Haihan in this letter is true." Aragones responded very positively Lopez questioned: "Haihan is facing a situation where fires are everywhere. At this time, we can't stop and wait and see. Instead, we should add a few more dry sticks to the burning flames to make the fire burn more vigorously."

"But I have to remind you, Governor, the weapons and equipment we provided to our partners before have only recovered one-third of the sales price so far. If we want to continue to supply them, maybe we will first sell the previous transaction It would be more reasonable if the settlement is clear." Navas, the official in charge of finance, was speaking, an old Spanish man who seemed to be dying but still maintained a shrewd mind.

Spain's several battles with Haihan over the past few years have cost a lot of money, and the result of the defeat means that these costs are pure investment with no return, unlike Haihan's way of expanding a circle in one battle, and in the end it simply The city of Manila has been captured, and a big victory has recovered the investment in previous wars.

The Philippine colony is not short of silver. Every year, the sailing fleet across the Pacific Ocean will transport a large amount of silver from the American colonies, which will be used as funds for the colonies to purchase oriental local products.However, the military output of the colonial authorities did not plan to be settled through gold and silver, but asked the other party to provide high-quality Ming specialties to pay at a discount.For the colonial authorities, the actual value of these oriental commodities was much higher than that of silver. After all, when the silver was shipped back to the country, a silver coin was still just a silver coin, but the economic value of those silk, porcelain, tea and other exquisite handicrafts was much higher than that of silver. It will double several times after it is shipped back to China.

However, before that, the Spaniards did not receive the full amount of goods from the partners, and only settled part of them at the time of delivery.Aragones may not care too much about such details, because Spain is not the leading party in this cooperative relationship, and even has to rely on the partner to open up channels for him overseas, and to attract more forces to join this partnership for the purpose of fighting against Haihan. circle, so certain concessions had to be made in the details of the transaction to achieve this transnational cooperation.

Aragones can make concessions, and may even forget these details after a long time, but Navas, the official in charge of finance, has been paying attention to this matter, and at this time he mentioned this transaction link again.Since it is a transaction, he will not tolerate his own loss-making business. The interests of the Kingdom of Spain must be safeguarded.

Regarding this question, Aragones also immediately responded positively: "I will discuss this matter with the other party soon...Mr. Navas, in fact, we will be able to sit down and discuss this matter at a later date. "

When Aragones said this, he did not shy away from Jose and the others present. Perhaps in his eyes, these were just three foreigners who had just arrived. Even if they heard the discussion among the officials, they would definitely not understand. What are they arguing about.But at this time, the benefits of the Haihan intelligence department's selection of Hispanic personnel became apparent. Jose and the others could not only reduce the vigilance of the Spaniards by virtue of their identities, but also had no language barriers, and could easily collect intelligence from various occasions.

The immediate response Aragones made to Navas has already attracted Jose's heart-since Aragones claims that he can discuss the details of the transaction with his partner today, it means that the other party must have someone resident in Cebu. This is also consistent with previous predictions made by intelligence agencies.Reminiscent of the so-called celebration banquet arranged by the colonial authorities at night, Jose felt that he might be lucky enough to see the target person appear today.

Aragones remembered something, and added: "Given that Haihan's transmission of military information is much faster than ours, I don't think our partner has confirmed the news at this time, and we can discuss it in the next negotiation." Be active and strive for better conditions for cooperation."

The Spaniards also have little understanding of the telegraph black technology mastered by Haihan. Many people, including Aragones, prefer to regard this skill that they cannot explain as a kind of witchcraft, but they also understand that this skill is very important in the military. The advantages brought by the application of the domain are almost unsolvable.Fortunately, the Haihan army does not seem to have the conditions to use this skill on the battlefield anytime and anywhere, so the colonial authorities still have the power to fight.

According to the secret letter, Qiu Yuan, the chief executive of Manila, directly received the news from the north, and the way this news was transmitted was most likely the mysterious telegraph technique.By accident, the colonial authorities got the news probably a few days earlier than the local envoys of the cooperation partner, which was enough to give the colonial authorities a great information advantage in the negotiation.

Three young Hispanics who fled from Haihan brought rare good news to the colonial authorities. In the eyes of Aragones and others, this was an accidental event that could change the situation of the colonial authorities. It was after a long period of bad luck. This reversal of fortune is the beginning of a comeback opportunity in the competition with Haihan. It is an opportunity to integrate local resources to resolve internal conflicts. If we make good use of this incident, perhaps the international situation will gradually change in favor of Spain. up.

Even Lopez, a political opponent who has always questioned Aragones' foreign strategy, dare not say that the authorities' cooperation projects in the north are worthless.As a high-ranking official, Lopez knew about the content of the cooperation project. To put it bluntly, if the expected effect can be achieved, it will probably make the Haihan people exhausted and fight fires everywhere for a period of time.Even if it is not enough to shake its foundation, at worst it can buy more time for the colonial authorities to restore their strength, and it is even possible to catch Haihan's loopholes and launch a counterattack.

If it is true that Haihan’s senior officials claimed in the secret letter that Haihan dispatched combat troops from the overseas colonies in the south in order to quell the chaos in the north, then it would be an excellent time to counterattack Manila while its defenses are empty.

But Lopez is actually a little worried that after Aragones succeeds smoothly, it will bring new variables to the ownership of the post of Governor of the Philippines.If Aragones succeeds, the colonial authorities will inevitably tend to support his strategy and form a larger armed force for his command. At that time, the country will send an order to adjust his position. He has military power in his hands. Documents from thousands of miles away may not be firmly implemented.

Thinking of this, Lopez couldn't help but stare fiercely at Fernando. This man had partnered with him for several years. He thought he was a partner who could trust each other, but he didn't expect that after the colonial authorities moved south to Cebu this year, This guy saw that almost all the senior generals stationed in Manila failed to escape, and thought that his chance to rise had come, so he decisively defected to Aragones, and then quickly took over the land and sea troops that fled from Manila.

When Fernando took refuge in Aragones, it meant that Lopez lost the military's strong support, which directly caused him to lose a lot of confidence when fighting against Aragones.

(End of this chapter)