Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 1306
Gao Yihuan looked at the cavalryman, galloped away, and hurriedly opened the file to read. Several men, such as Gao Yizhen and Gao Laosan, surrounded him, with worried expressions on their faces, and asked one after another, "Second brother, what's the matter?" thing?"

The State of Luzon requires all companies to be registered with the government, and the number of ships and the style of the ships must be clearly written, and then the government will issue order flags to the companies.

Ships with order flags are regular merchant ships. Official ships can trade in Luzon and Daming without inspection. Those without order flags are smuggled.

Naturally, this is done for the purpose of tax collection, and it is also convenient for the government to grasp the information of the firm.

The taxation in Luzon is not high, even in order to attract companies to come here, the tax is lower than that of Ming Dynasty, so ordinary companies will go to the government to register, and Gao Yihuan's Sanhe company is no exception.

He unfolded the file and quickly read it. It was a government call-up order. The Luzon Kingdom was going to fight the Spaniards on Sulu Island and call up all the ships on the island to help in the battle.

Gao Yihuan sighed, and closed the file, "Your Majesty is about to fight the Spaniards. Our Sanhe Company is registered, and we are ordered to go to the war."

The forces on the sea are intricate and complex. After going to sea, there is no kingly law, and it is all up to oneself, so even merchant ships have guns and cannons, and together they are a navy.

Lu Song has a small population and cannot afford a navy, so only a part of the main warships are kept, and the rest of the ships are basically transferred to various companies. This is also a means of hiding soldiers from the people.

In fact, not only the navy division, but also the land division in Luzon only maintains about 3000 people, and the rest are for the defense and self-defense of each fort.

Although there are not many Lu Song Guolu divisions, when fighting against the native tribes, tens of thousands of them are trained and used. Although they are not well trained, they can still fight the natives.

When Gao Yizhen and the others heard that they were going to fight the Spaniards, they were startled and panicked: "Then why don't we go to Daming? Second brother, the goods are about to be loaded, can we not go?"

Compared with going to the Ming Dynasty, it is undoubtedly more dangerous to go south to fight the Spaniards, and several men immediately started talking.

Gao Yihuan was silent for a while, then shook his head and said: "It's absolutely impossible not to go. The ship didn't go to sea, and the government recorded it. If you don't go, you won't be able to enjoy tax benefits in the future, and the government will leave a foundation. There are some ways to deal with it. us."

Gao Yizhen hesitated: "But we only have two cannons!"

"Let's find Zheng Guogong to exchange the goods first!" Gao Yihuan said in a deep voice.

Gao Yijuan and the others stood still reluctantly, so Gao Yihuan had no choice but to say again: "The Spaniards are nesting in Sulu, eyeing Luzon. They not only threaten our route to the south, but are always ready to attack Luzon. We don't If you go, other companies will not go, then our country of Luzon will be in a state of disunity, and the king will have no way to fight Spain."

Gao Yihuan glanced at them, and said earnestly: "Look ahead, don't just focus on your own pots and pans, you have to consider the overall situation. If everyone is not united and the Spaniards kill Luzon, then you guard this thing What's the use, have you forgotten the more than 2 Han Chinese who died in Luzon before?"

This group of people are all from the countryside, and they still have a strong small-scale peasant mindset. They only think about their own one-acre three-point land, and don't think about the external environment. They lack a big picture, but this is also determined by China's social structure.

Hearing what Gao Yihuan said, everyone started to move, and I don't know if they understood.

After a while, the goods were finished. They were supposed to be transported to the Ming Dynasty to exchange for silver, but now they had to go to the Zheng family to exchange guns, and everyone was reluctant.

Gao Yihuan called more than 30 men to his side and said, "We are going to sea, we must have enough artillery on board, why not take this opportunity to equip all the artillery. Now the king is going to fight Spain, and it will be beneficial to us if we win. After defeating the Spaniards and making the route safe, we happened to be going to the land of the Black Domain."

"Whatever the second brother says, let's do it!" Someone among the men said.

Seeing this, Gao Yihuan immediately said: "Well, Gao Yi, I will leave you ten brothers, and twenty black feudal clans and muskets for you. You watch Gaojiabao for me. If something goes wrong , I can’t spare you when I come back. The other 28 brothers, plus twenty black feudal clans, all boarded the boat and came with me to help the king.”

Gao Yihuan founded the Sanhe Company, and still wanted to make it bigger. To make it bigger, he first had to follow the government, and second, he had to be able to go to India and the food trade, so he had to go.

After he gave the order, he waved his hand, "Go back and get ready, let's leave in the afternoon!" After hearing the words, everyone returned to the castle to pack up.

Since the beginning of last year, when the Spaniards occupied Sulu, the route from Luzon to Johor has basically stopped, and trade has been seriously affected.

The goods collected by the merchants in Luzon could not be transported to the Mughals in exchange for funds, resulting in a shortage of money in the hands of the merchants and unable to do other things, which in turn caused the tax revenue of Luzon to plummet.

By this year, the country of Luzon couldn't stand it anymore, and the major companies couldn't bear it either, but they couldn't sell back the goods bought at high prices from Daming, so the companies also eagerly hoped to defeat the Spaniards and resume the route unobstructed.

At the end of August, Luzon received news that the Spaniards could hardly hold back on Sulu Island.The Sulu people on the island rioted, which caused a lot of trouble for the Spaniards.This made Zhu Yihai and Zheng Chenggong feel that the time is ripe for a battle.

At this time, there were thirty large ships in Spain. The flagship San Philip was 70 meters long, with a mast height of 50 meters, a weight of 1200 tons, and 90 guns, including 24 30-pound guns, 18 36-pound guns, and 12-pound guns. A huge ship with 24 pound guns, the entire ship has a crew of up to 550 people.In addition, there are 4 warships of about 70 tons with 350 artillery pieces and a capacity of 1000 people.

Spain had long since declined, but the rise of the Ming Dynasty and the policy of opening up the sea, coupled with the fact that the Ming Dynasty united with Portugal and Spain against the Netherlands in the past few years, allowed Spain's silver mines in the Americas to continuously purchase goods from the Ming Dynasty. For this great empire that is about to decline, a booster was given, allowing Spain to build several large ships in succession.

These five ships are the main force of Spain in Sulu, and the remaining 25 ships are not enough. Most of them are armed merchant ships and baggage ships, but they are also equipped with artillery, with as many as 50 and as few as more than 20.

On the Luzon side, the flagship is Zheng Chenggong's three-masted gunboat, equipped with 70 guns, about 1000 tons, but the largest gun is only the 18-pound Hongyi cannon, and only the Donghai Navy, which is full of strength, has three 24-pound guns. The main warship of the Luzon Navy is still not as good as the flagship of Spain.

There are only 5 thousand-ton gunboats in the Luzon Navy, and most of the rest are armed merchant ships of Fuchuan and merchants.

Gaojiabao was not far from Luzon City. Gao Yihuan set sail in the afternoon and reached the bay outside the capital at dusk. Along the way, many armed merchant ships flying the Luzon flag came with them.

This made the men who were hesitant before suddenly a little excited for no reason, and their hearts were full of blood.

They didn't know that this was a collective sense of honor hidden in their bones. Gao Laosan who was on the side saw a ship and yelled, "Another ship, are they all going to fight Spain?"

Along the way, they have seen more than 20 large ships sailing in the direction of Luzon City, which made them feel that "the road is not alone".

The sun was gradually sinking, and the sea was shimmering. At this moment, they had entered the bay. The wide sea was full of ships, most of which were three-masted, but there were also many small boats, probably no less than [-]. .

Gao Laosan looked at the flags hanging on those ships, his face was flushed, he pointed and exclaimed, "That is the ship of Quanzhanghui, ah, the ship of Zhenhai Company is also here..."

Gao Yihuan glanced at him and said with a smile: "Don't brag, their big business has a backlog of goods, and they are more anxious than the king to defeat the Spaniards, how could they not come."

As he said that, he shook his head, "Okay, let's find a place to park the boat first, and then go to Zheng Guogong to change the gun..."

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(End of this chapter)