1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 803
On both sides of the lower reaches of the Tamsui River, there is only a slightly decent wharf outside the city of Santo Domingo. Other than that, there are almost all riverbanks in a natural state. It is extremely difficult to complete the loading and unloading of shipping materials from water to land.Although there are still a few village piers left by the indigenous tribes who originally lived here further upstream, those places are really far away from the city of Santo Domingo, and the time required for transshipment by land from the local area is not cost-effective.

The combat operations of the Special Operations Battalion have always focused on mobility, so they rarely carry heavy equipment and a large amount of materials into battle. Neither will the team.The wartime coordinated operations with the logistics department were not very smooth for the special operations battalion. Although Takahashi Minami had considered this in advance and conducted one or two special trainings, the difference in the specific landing environment was still at this time. Slowed down the pace of deploying troops to the battlefield.

At this time, Sun Zhen was standing in the river below his knees, carrying the supplies unloaded from the boat to the shore with others.Since the supply ships carrying combat materials could not get close to the river bank, they had to rely on manpower to transfer from the near shore. Therefore, there were about two companies of soldiers on the river bank in this section doing the same thing as him.Although he didn't know the specific battle plan, but looking at the anxious demeanor and constant urging of the officers, he could also think that this link must have consumed too much unplanned time.

Takahashi Minami ordered to stop unloading goods ashore. When everyone was about to enter the battle, the unloading of combat supplies was far from complete.However, Takahashi Minami believes that the materials currently unloaded are enough to support the troops for about two days of combat. Instead of spending time unloading here, it is better to control the periphery of Santo Domingo first, and then slowly dispose of the remaining materials. There is also time to transfer to shore.

Sun Zhen and his comrades got 15 minutes of precious rest time, and hurried back to the shore to sort out their personal belongings, eat a small piece of compressed biscuit to supplement the energy consumed by physical labor just now, and then listen to the superior's arrangement for the next marching route.

When the special warfare battalion finished repairing and started to move westward from the landing point, the sky was slowly getting brighter.Without the aid of binoculars, soldiers could see smoke rising from the distant city of Santo Domingo.Residents here probably would not have expected that on this unremarkable morning, they had already ushered in a hostile group of uninvited guests.

The landing point is only three miles away from the city of Santo Domingo, but in fact, it is only a little over one mile away from the farms and plantations reclaimed outside the city, which can be reached within a short time at the speed of the special warfare battalion.When the soldiers of the Special Operations Battalion in fancy military uniforms filed out of the jungle, the few local residents who witnessed this spectacle outdoors were stunned.Even those with quick reflexes took a long time to realize that what appeared in front of them was not the aboriginal armed forces from the nearby mountains, but a terrible army-the soldiers were not holding aboriginal weapons in their hands. The bamboo spears used are instead rifles that can fire bullets!

"Intruders!" After someone shouted out the identities of the uninvited guests, the others came to their senses, dropped the farm tools in their hands and started to flee in a panic towards the city of Santo Domingo.In the past few years, the number of local immigrants and soldiers killed by indigenous armed forces has added up to dozens of people. This is a big shadow for everyone. No matter what the identity of these invaders is, in short, first It is more important to escape to a safe place to save your life.

The soldiers of the Special Operations Battalion did not pursue these panicked people. They still marched forward in silence according to the established route, and sent out small groups of troops to search the farmhouses along the route.

Of course, there will be no valuables in the farmhouse. On the one hand, this is to ensure that no one will escape Haihan’s encirclement by this means, and on the other hand, it is also hoped that people can be captured alive so that they can learn the latest situation in the city through surprise interrogation. .

The hunt did not disappoint Gao Qiaonan, and soon the soldiers found two shivering farmers from one of the farmhouses.These two people are not Spaniards, but the mixed descendants of Han Chinese and Luzon natives, but probably because of their living environment, they do not speak Chinese, but only Spanish.Fortunately, the military had already prepared for this, and specially transferred a translator who knew Spanish from the Ministry of Commerce to accompany the army on the expedition, which came in handy at this time.Of course, there is no need for Takahashi Minami to deal with such a small role in person. He now needs to focus on the more important command work.

With the strength of the special warfare battalion, it is very difficult to completely blockade the area where the city of Santo Domingo is located, because the hills where this stronghold is located are not just the small area occupied by the city, and the east-west and north-south directions are all within one kilometer. Above, and the city of Santo Domingo is located on the hillside of this hill facing south near the river bank.In later generations, institutions such as the University of Truth, the Peace Park, and the Taiwan Golf Club were built on this hill, and the city of Santo Domingo occupied only a tenth of the area.

If you want to completely block such a large area, it is probably impossible to leave enough troops to attack the stronghold, so Takahashi South can only divide a small group of troops to guard those from Santo Domingo to the outside world. Small roads and mountain trails, try not to leave any chance for the defenders in the city to ask for help.

Louis Gusman woke up to the servant's panicked exclamation. He didn't even open his eyes, so he slapped someone in the direction of the sound, hitting someone's side precisely. Face.

"You idiot, didn't I tell you last night not to wake me up this morning?" Gesman, who hadn't woken up from the hangover, was very angry. Like a firecracker.If it weren't for the fact that this servant had been with him for many years, Gesman would even get out of bed in a heartbeat and pull out his saber to stab this uninterested guy to death.

"My lord, it's not good. Something happened outside. Get up quickly!" The servant who was slapped inexplicably did not exit the bedroom tactfully, and still begged Gesman to pay attention in a panicked tone.

"What the hell is going on!" Gesman sat up angrily, pointing at the servant and cursing, "If it's such a trivial matter again, I'll have the guards drag you out and give you twenty lashes!"

"My lord, there is... a foreign enemy invades!" The servant stammered out the main point.

Gesman's mind was shaken, and the drowsiness faded away immediately. He lifted the quilt and jumped out of bed, and asked while putting on his pants: "How many people are there? Where are they? Where is Captain Lopez? Tell him to gather troops quickly." !"

It is nothing new for Danshui stronghold to be attacked by foreign enemies. Since the Dutch first set foot here in 1628, the armed conflict with the local aboriginals has never stopped.Although the Dutch had already defeated all the indigenous tribes in the surrounding area in 1629 and forced the Guirou Society, the largest local tribe, to move out of this area and move to Yangmingshan, they still could not completely eliminate small-scale sporadic conflicts.

Gusman came here after the city of Santo Domingo was founded in 1630, but there have been at least double-digit conflicts during his tenure.The most serious two even attracted nearly a thousand indigenous fighters to besiege the city of Santo Domingo, killing farmers and patrolling soldiers outside the city, and destroying production facilities and farmland outside the city.These two conflicts have also left a great psychological shadow on the residents of the city. Farmers are unwilling to go out of the city to farm, and soldiers are unwilling to go out to patrol the city. As a result, the cultivated area of ​​farmland outside the city has dropped sharply. Up to now, there is no way to achieve food self-sufficiency. , still need to partly rely on the supplies shipped from Jilonggang every month.

With only two hundred soldiers in the city, it was barely enough to guard such a small stronghold, but Gesman would never take such a risk if he wanted to go out of the city and enter the mountains to wipe out the indigenous tribes.To be able to firmly guard the stronghold of Santo Domingo, and leave this unlucky place after the term of office without incident is Gesman's greatest wish at present.After being transferred back to Manila, the qualifications of the colonial governor may help him take another step forward in his official career.

Staying in this poor and remote place, even going outside the city for activities can't ensure absolute safety, the chief executive is actually quite aggrieved.In the three years since he took office, the population of Santo Domingo has only increased by less than 50 people from when the city was first built. This is a joke for Spain, which has always been proud of expanding its overseas colonies.But the Manila authorities have never mentioned replacing Gesman, which shows that the people above know that the situation of this place is not good, and whoever comes over will basically have the same effect.

Gesman could not get much profit from this position, and most of them were sent back to Manila to deal with various gods, hoping that the people above would be merciful and transfer him out of here as soon as possible.Two months ago, he finally got the news that the higher authorities intended to transfer him back to Luzon and send him to the newly developed southern port of Batangas (Batangas) as an officer, but the premise was that he had to stay in the Danshui stronghold until October 1633. to complete its three-year term.

Now that he has seen the dawn of export, Gesman naturally has no plans to make any achievements during his term of office. It is the most ideal result to be able to spend the last half of the year in peace and then leave this ghost place.So recently he has basically adopted a "govern by doing nothing" attitude to deal with local affairs-to put it bluntly, he doesn't care about anything.

But God obviously didn't intend for Gusman to pass the level so smoothly. Just when he thought he saw hope, a sudden intruder appeared at an inopportune time.Gusman's first reaction was that one of his subordinates probably took advantage of the other party in the transaction with the natives, and the natives, as always, adopted simple and rude methods to recover their losses.Although these natives have nothing to do with the strong city of Santo Domingo, they are first-class in wreaking havoc outside the city. Once they wreak havoc outside the city, the people in the city will have to spend dozens of times the time afterwards. It's no wonder that Gersman was furious immediately when he heard the news of someone invading.

But today's situation is obviously different, the servant replied: "Captain Lopez is waiting outside, he said...the enemy who came this time is not the natives."

"Aren't natives? Are they Dutch?" Gesman frowned and said, "These guys want to grab **** and eat the rice in their own bowls before they even cool it down?"

"It seems...not Dutch..." The servant said tremblingly: "The people who fled from outside the city said that these invaders have strange but uniform clothes, and they are all equipped with rifles!"

"What!?" Gesman responded incredulously: "You mean that a large number of musketeers have occupied the land outside our city, and these musketeers are not Dutch?"

This is even more surprising to Gesman than the fact that there is an enemy invasion itself. As the Spaniard's formula opponent, the Dutch have not had less hands-on dealings with the Spaniard in recent years.Spain has a slight advantage in the long-term tug-of-war. The main reason is that Manila, the center of Spain in the Far East, is not too far away from Taipei, much closer than Batavia, the headquarters of the Dutch.But since the Dutch lost to the combined fleet of Daming and Haihan in the Fujian Strait battle the previous summer, they have restrained a lot, and no more active provocations have occurred.After Batavia was attacked by the Matalan army last summer, the Dutch East India Company was seriously injured, and Dayuan Port also died down and quieted down.But if the perpetrator wasn't Dutch, who could it be?
"My lord, the army outside the city is Haihan people, and they have already displayed their military flags. If our judgment is correct, there should be a certain army belonging to the Haihan militia outside the city."

Later, Gesman got an answer that surprised him from the mouth of the local military commander, Captain Lopez.Gesman didn't quite understand why the Haihan militia, which had nothing to do with Spain, appeared outside Santo Domingo, and they came in full armor. It didn't look like they were going to have friendly exchanges with their own side.

Gesman didn't know much about the Haihan Militia, he only knew that this private armed force had a deep relationship with the Fujian Ming Army.The Haihan militia seems to have provided some technical support to the Fujian military in exchange for the right of the Haihan trading fleet to trade along the coast of Fujian.In fact, both Spain and the Netherlands have plans to do similar things, but the Netherlands picked the wrong partner before, and the situation is irreversible, while Spain did not end in time to join because of being on the sidelines for too long, and was snatched away by Haihan. Ming Jun is a potential partner.

"We've never dealt with Haihan before, and we don't have any feuds. Why do they come here to trouble us?" Gesman asked innocently.

(End of this chapter)