prosperous age

Chapter 1004 1095 Shocked Miguel

Just when Yu Dayou was at sea worrying about how to ease the tension and anxiety of his soldiers, after several days of sailing, the expedition sent by the Spanish had approached the Pengaslan Bay. They found a bay fifty miles away and began to unload the troops on the ship.

The Spaniards would not be so foolish as to drive all their ships directly into Pengasilan Bay and then be sniped by the Lin Feng pirate group when they forced a landing.

More than two thousand people disembarked and quickly set up camp on the shore, preparing to build this place into a forward base.

However, not all of the dozens of warships docked here. One of the small armed merchant ships, led by Lieutenant Miguel, continued to sail north, naturally to contact the Ming army.

At least, up to now, the Spaniards and the Ming Dynasty still maintained a superficial alliance and cooperated to encircle and suppress Lin Feng.

In this way, the vassal troops here carried various supplies off the ship under the command of Spanish officers, while the armed merchant ships operated by Spanish sailors continued to cruise on the coast. Their mission was not on land, but to blockade the bay.

In this encirclement and suppression campaign, Commander Savella assigned the task to the vassal army and the Spanish Army to launch an attack from land and surround the city of Tortoise.

The hastily assembled naval force raided the bay and tried to destroy all the ships of Lin Feng's army to prevent them from escaping again, while also blockading them from the sea.

They only knew that the Ming army had three warships in the Philippines, two of which were gunboats, which could also take on the task of raiding Lin Fenghai's ships in the bay.

Well, this is the mission they think the Ming army can perform, so Commander Savela did not take the Ming navy seriously at all.

They were too weak, and they only needed to send two large armed merchant ships to defeat the Ming navy.

That was his understanding, except that he would soon pay the price for his contempt.

The small armed merchant ship led by Lieutenant Miguel deliberately took a long detour through Pengasilan Bay in order to avoid the patrol of Lin Feng's pirate ships and not give them a chance to notice.

It took them more than a day to reach the bay where the Ming army was stationed.

However, as soon as they arrived at the bay, Lieutenant Miguel, who was standing on the bow observing, was stunned.

In his eyes, the bay, which should have only three lonely ships, now had six or seven ships docked, and he knew at a glance that they were Ming Dynasty ships.

The Dafu ship is so obvious that it is full of the style of Chinese ships from front to back and from left to right. It is very different from the European ships of the time and is very easy to identify.

"Why are there so many ships?"

While Lieutenant Miguel was still in a daze and talking to himself, a Fu ship was already rushing towards them from the side in the distance.

With the return of the two small fleets, Deng Zilong now has control over seven ships, so several ships take turns patrolling out to sea. It is no longer the gunboats that Miguel saw when he first arrived.

Obviously, he was frightened by the sudden appearance of the Ming warships here. Who would have thought that the Ming people would assemble a fleet in Luzon so quickly.

Well, in the era when the Ming Dynasty still called the navy the "water force", the East and the West called it differently, but the meaning was similar.

Although all the additional ships were Fujian ships, Miguel knew from his understanding of Chinese warships that the increased combat power was not much, but after all, the military strength had doubled.

If another Ming navy fleet arrives later, I really don’t know what will happen.

After coming into contact with the Ming warships, they were soon allowed to enter the bay.

Led by the blessed ships, the Spanish merchant ships sailed towards the shore. The closer they got to the coast, the heavier Lieutenant Miguel's heart became, because he actually saw more than a dozen large ships built by the Filipino natives on the shore.

Even a fool can figure out what this means.

It was obvious that the Ming people had established contact with the indigenous people on the island.

At this time Miguel suddenly remembered that he seemed to have heard the former commander say that before they came here, the Philippines seemed to be called Luzon and was a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, but there had been no contact for two hundred years.

Thinking of this, Miguel became even more worried.

According to what he heard at the time, it seemed that it was not that the Filipino natives were unwilling to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty, but that they did not have sturdy sea ships to take them to the Ming Dynasty.

Before this, the Ming Kingdom would send warships here to pick up their king to meet the Ming Kingdom's emperor.

No, the situation here must be reported to Commander Savela and Governor Ravisalli as soon as possible. We must find a way to cut off the connection between the Ming people and the natives on the island.

Lieutenant Miguel made his own judgment in a very short time. It was difficult to cut off the connection between the Ming Kingdom and the indigenous people. The only way was to end the war as soon as possible and send them away with courtesy.

Soon, the merchant ship approached the shore and lowered the boat. Lieutenant Miguel landed with only Lin Bixiu and two soldiers.

At this time, Deng Zilong had already received the message and went to the shore to greet them.

After all, both sides are still on good terms and it's not time for a falling out.

"Oh, dear Deng, it's good to see you again."

Seeing Deng Zilong coming, Lieutenant Miguel stepped forward with pretended enthusiasm and spoke loudly.

"Nice to meet you too, Lieutenant Miguel."

Deng Zilong could still understand Miguel's broken Chinese, so he responded enthusiastically.

However, when Westerners meet, regardless of whether they are men or women, they call each other "dear", which is something Deng Zilong could never say.

After chatting for a while on the shore, Deng Zilong led Miguel into his military tent and had someone bring him tea.

Both of them were soldiers, so naturally they were not used to the way of civilians, so the topic quickly got on track.

"Has your country's army arrived?"

Miguel asked before revealing that their army had arrived.

"You mean those warships? No, I brought them here. I sent them out to look for Lin Feng and recalled them recently."

Deng Zilong laughed.

"I see."

Miguel pretended to be surprised and said, "This will make us much stronger.

By the way, I see there are many more natives in the camp this time, are you recruiting them?"

"No, no, no, my friend, they are here to help us."

Deng Zilong smiled and said, “The people I sent out didn’t find any trace of Lin Feng, so when they saw people moving on the shore, they went ashore to ask them.

You know, this is a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, so they knew we were soldiers from the Celestial Empire, and came to hunt down bandits, so they took the initiative to help. "

"I saw quite a few of their boats on the beach. There must be quite a lot of people coming."

Lieutenant Miguel continued to probe. "There are already 1,600 people, sent by several tribes, but I was worried about their food when you arrived."

Deng Zilong smiled and said, "Tell me, how much food did you deliver to me this time?"

Miguel heard that the Ming army had limited supplies, so they could not provide food for more than a thousand local people. Even their own supplies were insufficient.

In fact, the purpose of his coming this time was to fulfill the agreement between Deng Zilong and Governor Ravisalli to provide some food to the Ming army.

Fortunately, Deng Zilong didn't know whether he could recruit soldiers from Luzon at that time, and was worried about alerting the enemy, so he only reported the number of soldiers on three ships and reduced the remaining supplies on their ship to 10%. In this way, he was able to order more food from the Spaniards.

Now, facing Miguel's question, Deng Zilong certainly would not say that the locals brought a lot of food with them, enough for them to eat for half a month, so he complained first and then asked how much food was brought on the ship.

"According to the agreement between you and the Governor, the food is all on the ship. You can ask them to move it down later."

Miguel is now even more worried. The Ming people have actually recruited 1,600 people on Luzon Island in such a short time, which is already half of the number of their vassal troops.

Although these people are obviously lacking in training, they are still human beings, not pigs.

If they stand together and go to the battlefield, they can be quite intimidating.

Yes, the Spaniards now look down on the natives, who are lazy and greedy. If they are not needed to contribute, it would be a waste of resources if they stayed.

"Thank you very much for your generosity, Governor. By the way, have your troops arrived yet?"

Deng Zilong first thanked him with a smile, then put away his smile and asked.

"We've arrived. Just over a hundred miles to the south, there's a secluded harbor. The troops have already landed and are resting.

As long as we complete the task assignment with you, we can take action."

Although Miguel didn't want to reveal their actions, he knew that he couldn't hide it from the Ming people.

As long as they send ships to search south, their tracks will be discovered.

No matter what the relationship with the Ming Dynasty would be in the end, Miguel felt that there was no need for him to create grudges with the Ming generals.

The struggle for national interests is a political matter. I was just delivering food to the Ming army in accordance with orders and communicating cooperation between the two sides.

“We were short of manpower before, so we initially said that we would blockade the bay together with your fleet.

But now we have more than a thousand people, and we can transfer another 200 people from each ship to the shore, so we have 1,800 people, and we should be able to blockade the north of Daimao City."

Deng Zilong waved his hand and asked his personal soldiers to take out a scroll and unfold it, which marked the terrain around their camp and Daimao City.

"This is the nearby map that I had people draw earlier. With our current military strength, we can take charge of the north, while your country will take care of the east and south."

Deng Zilong proposed to modify the original plan, and Miguel did not think there was anything wrong with it.

In this way, they will be more confident in besieging Daimao City because they have more troops.

However, looking at the map, it took Miguel a long time to recognize it.

There is no way. The map drawing in China and Europe is completely different. No matter what the Ming Dynasty draws, it seems to be more "abstract" and has been artistically processed.

The maps in Europe are more realistic, at least they feel more intuitive.

This kind of map seems to have been used hundreds of years ago.

Miguel looked at the map shown by Deng Zilong and complained in his heart.

"I will go back and report this matter immediately and then make a decision. Or Deng, will you come with me to meet Commander Savera?"

Miguel tentatively put forward his suggestion, that Deng Zilong, or Daming, should be treated equally with them.

The Spanish certainly would not play tricks like imprisoning the enemy's generals, which would be seen as a lack of chivalry in the eyes of Europeans.

Moreover, unlike the locals in the Philippines or other colonies, the Spaniards knew that the Ming people had their own history and were very powerful, so they did not regard the Ming people as barbarians or blacks. They recognized that the Ming people were white people like them.

They even knew that nearly two hundred years ago, the Ming navy had reached the Indian Ocean and the east coast of Africa.

With such sailing skills, he can't be a black person at all.

Although, in their opinion, the Ming Dynasty's technology had flaws, such as navigation technology and firearms, their handicrafts were indeed exquisite and could be sold at a good price in Europe.

In fact, dividing human beings into so-called white, black, and yellow people based on their skin color is racial discrimination on a moral level.

In the 16th century in history, there was no concept of the yellow race. Europeans at this time only divided humans into two types: white and black.

In fact, these two types are not completely distinguished by skin color, but by their subjective recognition.

The white people defined during this period actually covered a very broad range. It can be considered that most of the Eurasian continent was white, that is, except for Europeans, Middle Eastern Arabs and Ming people. In their eyes, they were all white people, had their own national history, their own culture, and were not barbarians.

In other places, not only most of Africa, but also the population of the colonies they conquered, were black, without culture or religious beliefs, and were good for nothing.

In fact, the concept of the yellow race only appeared in modern times. Before this word appeared, Western countries called the Chinese the Mongoloid race.

This stems from the deep impression left on them by the historical memory of the Huns and Mongols' westward invasion of Europe, and the fear and panic caused by the "Yellow Peril".

In modern times, the Boxer Rebellion in the late Qing Dynasty and the subsequent Russo-Japanese War once again aroused European concerns, and the term "yellow race" began to appear.

In fact, classifying races by skin color is discriminatory. They use this term to name the yellow race, which means discrimination against the yellow race.

Both China and Japan were classified as the yellow race. The two concepts of "yellow race" and "Mongoloid race" were quickly combined and widely recognized and cited in Europe.

In fact, this all happened in the early twentieth century.

However, after the word "yellow race" appeared, the Japanese did not recognize the classification of the yellow race and disdained to be classified as the same race as the Chinese.

But later, Japan began to invade Korea and China. In order to meet the needs of invasion, Japan played the "yellow race" card, vigorously promoting that China, Japan, Mongolia and Korea were all yellow races and should cooperate and prosper together.

Deng Zilong thought about Miguel's suggestion for a moment and said with a smile: "I won't go. Just convey my meaning to Savilla."

"also."

Miguel had no choice but to agree, and then the two of them began to arrange people to unload the cargo on the ship and transport the food they brought.

Deng Zilong was reluctant to go to the Spanish camp, mainly because there had been no news from the fleet that had been sent out previously, and he was considering whether to send out two ships to look for them.