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Chapter 1228 Progress is going well
The story told by Nicholas should also belong to this category, except that it is arranged more logically, but it still has a fatal flaw: human witnesses.

Governor Gonzalez and the adjutant who participated in the interrogation returned to their homeland, the confessor died in prison, and the only three witnesses in the story could not be found. This was a typical and effective way of spreading rumors, and the audience had basically no way to verify the truth.

As for how strong the Ming Dynasty Navy was, there is no need to listen to stories. When Manila fell, the garrison was not killed. Some of them returned to their homeland, and after many years, some came to live in the New World.

According to their description, the fighting power of the Ming Empire Army was indeed very strong, and the scale and technology of its use of muskets and artillery should have surpassed those of European countries.

The navy was much inferior, mainly in terms of shipbuilding technology. The warships of the Ming navy were generally small, equipped with a limited number of artillery, and liked to use roaming tactics to wait for opportunities to damage the hull of the enemy ship.

This method of using the speed advantage of small and medium-sized gunboats for close-range combat is a bit like what the English did in previous years. It is indeed effective, but not fatal.

In fact, the English were also gradually increasing the size of their warships and gun decks, because only with enough artillery and soldiers could they completely defeat the Spanish galleons.

On the morning of four days later, the lookout finally saw the shadow of the Galapagos Islands in the telescope, and the fleet was immediately divided into three groups.

One was led by the captain of the Viceroy of Peru, and sailed around the south of the archipelago; the other was led by Colonel Mendoza himself, and sailed around the north of the archipelago. Meanwhile, four brigs were waiting in place, and would enter the archipelago from the east channel four hours later.

Their mission was to make the pirates discover them and cause panic, which is to startle the snakes in Chinese. Suddenly, they found that the Spanish navy ships had penetrated deep into the archipelago. The pirates certainly did not dare to confront them head-on, and could only choose to hide. There were two routes: bypassing the main island to the north or south.

But no matter which route they took, they would run into the main force of the Spanish Navy head-on. Due to the disparity in numbers and the obstruction of the archipelago, they could neither defeat them nor escape. The only thing they could do was to surrender, but they could not escape their fate in the end.

If it is so easy to eliminate pirates, why do pirates exist in waters all over the world and have never truly disappeared in thousands of years?
First of all, there is a problem with this question. The difficulty in eliminating pirates is not in fighting, but in forcing the pirates to fight head-on.

As long as they enter this stage, any pirate fleet in the world will be destroyed. Compared with the regular army, pirates are crushed in all aspects, without exception.

The reason why pirates can never be completely wiped out is not combat effectiveness, but cost. The input-output ratio is too low to mobilize dozens of warships, gather nearly 10,000 troops, and prepare for several months just to destroy two or three pirate ships.

The manpower, material resources and financial resources consumed in such an operation would be enough for pirates to rob for several years. No one with a normal mind would do that. The best solution is to strictly guard the valuable ports and fleets, and leave the rest to God.

But sometimes, for some needs, such as political achievements, one has to do something even if one knows it is wasteful. This group of pirates was unlucky. They had already chosen the Galapagos Islands, far away from the mainland, as their base, but they still could not escape bad luck. They just happened to catch up with the two major governorates preparing for an expedition, and ended up being used as training targets.

The encirclement plan was not complicated and went smoothly. Four hours later, Colonel Mendoza received a report from the lookout that three pirate ships were found just south of the fleet.

Apparently, the pirates were frightened and fled from their lair, planning to slip away along the waterway on the north side of the archipelago. Unfortunately, no matter how familiar they were with the route here, it was too late, and they ran headlong into a net formed by more than 20 warships and privateers. "Left rudder, let the first squad approach the pirate ship, and the second squad and the flagship squadron block the route!"

Seeing that the pirate group was indeed small in scale, Colonel Mendoza had no interest in taking part in the battle himself, and gave the credit to his colleagues in the New Spain garrison fleet as a reward to Governor de Almanza.

"Colonel, the pirates have turned around!" But soon the lookout reported the latest changes.

"Keep up, stay in sight!"

So far, Colonel Mendoza was still thinking about who should be given the credit. If the pirates really wanted to flee south, they would run into the arms of the Peruvian garrison fleet. This result was acceptable, after all, it was God's will.

"Nicholas, did you hear that?" But just after giving the order, Colonel Mendoza suddenly looked nervous, kept looking around, and even called the captain to ask questions.

"It sounds a bit like cannon fire, but I can't hear it clearly. Maybe there's a thunderstorm on the island." Nicholas listened carefully and there was indeed a faint, intermittent sound. But the sound was too weak to be identified at all, and he couldn't even feel the direction.

"On the island..." Colonel Mendoza hesitated as he looked at the sky in the direction of the main island. The sky to the west was clear, without even a single cloud. But the climate on the island changes rapidly, and it cannot be said that it is not raining on the island just because there are no clouds.

"Bang, bang, bang... Bang, bang, bang..." After chasing the pirate ship for more than an hour, they were about to enter the archipelago when suddenly a rapid bell rang from behind the fleet, getting closer and closer.

"Nicholas, what are your captains doing?" The sudden alarm bell made Colonel Mendoza a little annoyed, but he didn't know why the bell was ringing, so he could only ask the operating captain to ask the lookout.

The flagship lookout's telescope also has a distance limit, and is powerless to do anything about situations beyond its observation range. He can only wait for the last ship in the fleet to hoist a colorful flag to report, and then one ship after another will take over.

Didn't the Spanish Navy have flag language? Yes, but it was limited to using a string of colored flags to express simple meanings, such as attack, retreat, etc., and was unable to express more complex information.

It was not that the Spanish Navy was stubborn and conservative and refused to accept new things. At that time, ships around the world did not use systematic flag language. Only the Ming Empire Navy took flag language to the extreme, and the content became more and more complicated. If they were not afraid of being punished, two lookouts could use telescopes to chat with each other several kilometers apart.

In addition to the navy, the General Staff also slightly modified this set of flag signals and applied it to the army command system as a whole. Since the ground is not as flat and vast as the sea, the effect is somewhat discounted, but it is still one of the irreplaceable main means of communication.

(End of this chapter)