1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 390 Attacking Luzon ([-])
February 1641, 2, Luzon, Batangas Bay.

Ge Pingping stood expressionlessly on the top of the city, looking at the many small boats on the sea in the distance, rushing to the pier one by one, and then countless natives, holding short knives and wooden spears, swarmed ashore.

Like Ge Ping, the rioter stationed at the top of the city did not show any nervousness in the face of the hundreds of natives who rushed ashore.Because the target of these natives' attacks is not them, but the native tribes on Luzon Island who once attached to the Spaniards.

Moreover, this is not the first wave of natives to arrive. Previously, there were two waves of natives who landed at the port of Batangas, each with a population of around five or six hundred.The sudden arrival of the natives surprised nearly a thousand Ming people stationed here, thinking that the servants of the natives belonging to the Spaniards were attacking aggressively. In addition to guarding the whole city, they also sent people back to Calamba City immediately. Request support,

As a result, the natives who landed saw that the city was guarded by Ming people, and sent a representative to inquire.After a lot of communication, the two sides immediately resolved the confrontation.The first natives to land were soldiers from the Sultanate of Brunei who came from the nearby island of Palawan.Brunei heard that a large-scale Ming uprising broke out on Luzon Island, and that there were troops sent by Ming to besiege Manila, so they thought they could take advantage of it.Therefore, hundreds of soldiers were sent to Luzon to launch a tentative attack on the Spaniards and their native servant tribes.

Since there is a common enemy, the Ming people stationed in the Batangas stronghold immediately released their goodwill towards the Brunei army that landed.They provided the natives with some food and drinking water, and informed them of the nearby Spanish native servant tribes.For safety reasons, they rejected the natives' request to enter the city for repairs, but provided them with the dock area as a follow-up landing base.

In order to weaken the strength of the Spanish servant tribes as much as possible, and at the same time, in order to obtain some supplies, the Batangas stronghold also sent more than 200 armed forces to attack and kill the tribes attached to the Spanish along with the army of the Sultanate of Brunei.

It was originally thought that in the joint battle with the natives, the Ming people would get part of the capture, and the natives would get a large number of people, each taking what he needed.But no one thought that the Brunei army that landed in Luzon had no population at all. Whenever they broke through the native tribes attached to the Spanish, they would start a frenzied massacre. Except for some women who survived, other young and old were killed.

As for the plundering of property, the army of the Sultanate of Brunei is like locusts. Gold and silver property, iron pots, and even rags will be collected and packed and brought back to the camp.In order to compete for some food and cloth, the armed forces of the Ming Dynasty in Luzon clashed with the natives several times, and dozens of people were killed or injured.

In view of this, the Ming people who were stationed in the Batangas stronghold immediately severed their relationship with the landed natives, and took a stand-by attitude towards their attack on the native tribes dependent on the Spanish.

Subsequently, the army of the Sultanate of Brunei and the native army of the Sultanate of Majindanao landed from the port of Batangas, passed through the stronghold of Batangas, and rushed towards the inland of Luzon.

The Ming people stationed at the port stronghold watched coldly as the natives continued to land, rush into the inland, and then return to the shore camp with looted property or human heads.They knew that in the depths of Luzon's interior, countless natives were attacking and killing each other.For decades, they were killed by the Spanish, then conquered, and then turned to accompany the Spaniards to kill other natives of Luzon and nearby islands.Today, the Spaniards are weak and unable to protect themselves.The native servants who lost their asylum would naturally meet with merciless revenge from their enemies.

"Kill it, kill it hard. It's best to kill all the natives on Luzon Island!" Ge Ping said viciously: "Everyone is dead, just to make room for us Ming people."

"Third leader, do we want to sneak attack those natives in the middle of the night?" A small leader of the Ming Dynasty who rebelled said, "Those natives have robbed so many things, and they are really greedy."

"Don't have a large-scale conflict with them for the time being." Ge Ping shook his head and said: "The big boss is leading people to attack the southeast of Luzon to expand our space. And Zheng Zhilong's army that landed near Manila seems to want to annex us. At that time, we really didn't have any extra strength to fight with the natives. Those tribes that were attacked always had something that they couldn't take away. Big animals such as cattle and sheep would definitely not be easy to load on their small boats. In a few days , we will bring enough men and horses, carry muskets, and go out to pick up those discarded animals."

-----------

Under the city of Kalamba, Xu Guangda, a general of the Zheng army, looked up at the city full of defenders, and there were several artillery pieces, feeling a little bitter in his heart.

Zheng Jun set up two camps in Manila, trying to besiege the Spaniards for a long time, preferably forcing them to surrender.As for the siege, after repeatedly observing the defense of Manila City, they completely gave up the idea of ​​​​breaking the city quickly.

They don't know what's going on in the inner city of Manila.But even this outer city, with its tall masonry buildings, several protruding bastions, dense artillery, and at least seven or eight hundred musketeers stationed there, could not be easily breached by Zheng's 5000 men.What's more, the Spaniards unloaded the artillery from many warships and dragged them to the city wall to increase the firepower density at the top of the city.

The only thing that can make Zheng Jun feel a little bit confident is that the city of Manila lacks basic self-sufficiency capabilities, and the Spaniards' own food needs and other materials must be imported from the outside world.As long as Zheng Jun's navy can firmly block the Manila port, coupled with the siege of two camps on land, they believe that the Spaniards in Manila will be trapped to death within a year at the longest.

Seeing that the military operation to attack Luzon had turned into a long-term siege, Yang Geng, the commander of the Zheng army, set his sights on the rebels in Luzon in order to reduce the pressure on logistics supplies.He sent general Xu Guangda to lead two thousand soldiers, turned around to the south, and drove directly to the city of Kalamba, trying to intimidate by force, forcing the Ming people who rebelled to submit to Zheng Jun, accept their reorganization, and obtain their supplies.

Xu Guangda led his troops through several former Spanish strongholds, including San Pedro, Santa Rosa, and Cabuyao, but they were not stopped by the rioters.The Ming people must have known that they could not fight against Zheng Jun, so they gave up the towns they had occupied one by one, which boosted the morale of Zheng Jun.

However, driving straight from the camp outside Manila to Calamba City, which is seventy or eighty miles away, also increased the marching route of Zheng Jun and made it more difficult to supply. Their lair is ready to meet them.

Sure enough, when Xu Guangda led his troops to the city of Calamba, he was met by a well-informed rioter.He also wanted to line up the army and show off his military power, but the opponent directly fired a few cannons at the top of the city. Although the cannons missed them, Zheng Jun who came over was shocked.Damn, isn't it a group of ass people who can't survive and rise up against the Spaniards?Why do they still have cannons, and they can fire them!

Vaguely, it seems that there are a lot of Ming people stationed at the top of the city, and they seem to have muskets, how can this be fought.Xu Guangda's more than two thousand Zheng troops came almost in light clothes, not to mention artillery, and he didn't even bring ordinary siege equipment such as ladders.

However, the Ming people who attacked here were the ones he tried his best to win over. Thinking about these Ming people who rebelled in Luzon, they attacked many Spanish towns and probably robbed a lot of floating wealth.Bring troops over by yourself, defeat and incorporate them, and share some property with yourself.Now it seems that he is going to be kicked on the iron board.

"Send someone into the city to talk to those Ming people who rebelled." Xu Guangda ordered: "My imperial army will continue to arrive in Luzon, vowing to quell all resistance here, and let them not use force to provoke me. And return to the imperial court as soon as possible to stabilize the place and resume production."

"General, if the other party ignores it, how should our army respond?" Shi Lang, who has been promoted to a thousand households, asked in a low voice.

"How to deal with it?" Xu Guangda smiled wryly, and said, "Naturally, we should withdraw to the Manila camp first, report to the commander, and then make a decision."

"The Ming people who started the incident in Luzon are not weak. In the future, we will manage Luzon, which will definitely be a serious problem for us!" Shi Lang said.

At the head of Calamba City, Cheng Guangyin looked at the two thousand Zheng troops outside the city, turned his head to a rough man and said, "Unexpectedly, Zheng Zhilong's army really let the Spaniards not fight, and came to us to find oil and water."

"Daming is nearly a thousand miles away from Luzon by sea, and it's inconvenient to go back and forth for supplies. They will naturally think of collecting supplies on the spot to supplement the military supplies." Shi Yuchun said: "However, Commander Qi made an explanation before I came, and you'd better not have any trouble with Zheng Jun. Large-scale conflict, otherwise, the Spaniards will benefit in the end."

"Is he going to beat us up?" Cheng Guangyin was a little annoyed when he heard this.

"They won't come to beat you." The man said: "If this is the case, wouldn't it put them in a situation where they are being attacked? They should come here to intimidate you and ask you to provide some food and supplies to Zheng Jun."

"We have nearly 2 people here, how can we have any extra food for them!" Cheng Guangyin said: "I am short of food, won't I rob those natives?"

"Didn't you reclaim tens of thousands of acres of arable land in the Calamba area?" Shi Yuchun looked at Cheng Guangyin strangely, "And now you don't have to pay any taxes and rents to the Spaniards, so why don't you even have any extra food?"

"Last year we fought against the Spaniards and mobilized all our forces, and naturally there were fewer farmers." Cheng Guangyin said: "Before Spain massacred our Ming people last year, nearly [-] Ming people fled to Calamba near Manila. If we hadn't captured many Spanish strongholds and native tribes, I'm afraid we wouldn't be able to survive now."

"Then you are still continuing to expand your territory to the southeast, isn't it more costly?"

"This is also a helpless move!" Cheng Guangyin said: "We are short of food, so we can only go southeast to attack the native tribes to get some supplies. By the way, when will the next aid from Hanzhou come to us again? The swords and spears in the army have been damaged a lot, which has already affected our military operations against the natives."

"Large-scale military assistance is estimated to be available in July and August. At that time, it will come with the immigrant ship." Shi Yuchun thought for a while, and said: "We are on Ping An Island (now Catanduanes Island, Philippines) The inventory is not much, you hold on to it for a while longer."

"But I worry that in July and August, there will be new changes in the situation in Luzon."

"Huh? What will happen?"

"The Spaniards must have sent a messenger for help to their Mexican stronghold. At that time, they may attract their support fleet. If Zheng Zhilong's navy loses, then we will be in danger."

"The Zheng family's navy has more than 100 ships, large and small, how could it be easily repelled by the Xiyi?" Shi Yuchun said, "As long as you don't attack the Zheng family's Lu division's rear, everything will be safe."

"If Zheng Jun doesn't come to attack us, we naturally won't attack their rear." Cheng Guangyin looked up at the sky and said, "I don't know where so many dust particles are flying all over the sky, covering the sight. We are afraid that Zheng Jun's navy will be careless. Was attacked by Xiyi."

"That's right, this Luzon is really strange. Over the past month or so, so much dust and smoke has been floating in the sky, and there is still a faint smell of saltpeter gunpowder. Could it be that somewhere is breathing fire?"

(End of this chapter)