Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 1314
The Spanish Duke of Alba only led the flagship San Philip and another battleship San Carlos to break out of the obstruction, and the remaining [-] warships were all surrounded by Luzon ships.

Under the siege of hundreds of Fuchuan, the remaining ships were hopeless, and several smaller ships fell quickly, and then the thousand-ton ship Santa Ana took the lead in surrendering.

The other ships saw the flagship fleeing, Santa Ana surrendered, and the will to resist quickly disintegrated. They turned white and hung up on the ship, ending the unnecessary resistance.

The cheers started from the Santa Ana and spread to all the ships. The sailors on the deck waved the weapons in their hands and shouted to vent their joy.

After defeating the Spaniards, Luzon's trade routes will resume unobstructed, and this place will once again become their paradise.

Spain and the Netherlands, the two most powerful western barbarians in Southeast Asia, were defeated. At this time, the Eastern world regained the Eastern maritime hegemony from the Western colonists.

It can be said that the old master was really beaten to death. Spain, which has been on the sea for more than [-] years, suffered another disastrous defeat in the East.

Western European tyrants rose together, and Spain was defeated by the British. It finally regained some vitality and pieced together such a fleet. In the current battle, it can be said that all the hard work in recent years has been in vain, completely cutting off the resurgence of Spain. possible.

Losing Luzon, a trading base, and Spain experiencing another disastrous defeat, the forces will completely withdraw from the Far East, and the economy of the entire Spanish Empire will lose a key link and suffer huge losses.

Spain will lose the opportunity to trade with the East, and the silver in the Americas will only cause the inflation of the Spanish Empire and the devaluation of the Spanish currency, the peso, which will accelerate the decline of this great empire.

Not long after the two large ships rushed out of the obstruction, the Duke of Alva had already decided that as long as he fled back to Sulu Island, he would immediately take the remaining ships across the Pacific Ocean and return to the Governor's District in Central America to avoid the destruction of the Far East Fleet. , A heavy blow to Spain.

However, at this moment, fifteen giant ships of the Ming Dynasty suddenly appeared in front of them.

"Look, Commander!" The Spaniard beside him shouted anxiously.

Before Duke Alva took a breath, he saw a black shadow in the distance. From a distance, it seemed to be a Western-style warship, but he knew that it could not be a Spanish warship, because Sulu Island did not have so many warships.

He picked up the binoculars with trembling hands and looked at them. The ship was in the western style, like a Dutch battleship, with big white sails instead of bamboo-ribbed hard sails, but the flag on it was the sun and the moon on a blue background. flag.

"It's a ship from the Ming Dynasty!" Duke Alva's voice trembled, a little unwilling to believe it.

The faces of the surrounding Spaniards suddenly turned ashen. Not only did they lose their will to escape, but also from the direction of the open ship, the Spaniards' base in Sulu might not exist anymore.

"Your Excellency, what should we do now?" The Spanish officers on the rudder panicked, losing their minds and could only rely on the commander.

What can the Duke of Alva do? What is coming is not a blessing boat, but the strongest three-masted gunboat in the Ming Dynasty, and there are as many as fifteen ships, and they have no strength to fight against.

For a moment, he couldn't help taking a few steps back, leaning on the guardrail to support his body, and fell silent for a while.

The Far East Fleet is the elite that Spain has drawn from the mainland and the American Viceroyalty, accounting for [-]% of the Spanish Navy's strength. If it is completely destroyed, then the Spanish colonies in the Americas may be unstable.

Britain and France have landed in the Americas, and Spain's colonization in the Americas will inevitably be challenged by emerging countries such as France, Britain, and the Netherlands, but what else can he do now?
He looked at the white sail leaking from the sea in the distance, then looked back at Zheng Chenggong who had caught up and returned not far away, and made a difficult decision that made him feel ashamed, "Hang the white flag and surrender!"

The Spaniards on the ship were silent for a while, their faces full of loss and uneasiness. After a while, someone asked: "Your Excellency, who are you surrendering to? Shall we lower the sails and stop the ship now?"

There was a blockade by the Daming Navy in the front, and a pursuit by the Luzon Navy in the back. It is also a question of which side to surrender to.

They were defeated by Luzon this time, but the Duke of Alva said: "Hang up the white flag and continue sailing. After approaching the Ming Dynasty navy, lower your sails and surrender to them!"

Now that he decided to surrender and accepted the fact of defeat, the Duke of Alva calmed down and began to think about how to reduce Spain's losses.

The people around were a little puzzled. After this battle, a large number of Spaniards would inevitably fall into the hands of Luzon. Why did they surrender to the newly arrived Ming Dynasty navy instead?
The Duke of Alva seemed to know what they meant, and explained dejectedly: "Luzon is a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty and has no right to negotiate with us, and they cannot bring benefits to Spain. We need to negotiate peace with the Ming Dynasty to ensure that Spain does not were expelled from the Ming trading system."

In the words of later generations, the current Ming Dynasty is the largest manufacturing country, the world's factory, and it is the only one, almost in a monopoly position, without even a decent competitor.

This status determined the active position of the Ming Dynasty in the trade process. All countries came to ask the Ming Dynasty to allow them to trade, because only the Ming Dynasty had tea, porcelain and other items, and there were no other places to buy them.

This status has been maintained for thousands of years. Later, the British planted their own tea and Western countries began to imitate Chinese porcelain, which reversed this status.

The country of Spain expanded in a very rough way, relying on American silver to get rich, but it was precisely because there was silver to dig that Spain did not pay much attention to domestic development.

Digging for money is easy, but it is difficult to start a business. The Spaniards are holding gold and silver, so they naturally choose to do it simply. Therefore, all walks of life in the country cannot be developed.

What they lack is direct purchase and consumption, just like the old rich in the Middle East in later generations, which caused the superficial prosperity of Spain, but did not give birth to the capital of the country, and once the money was dug out, it immediately declined.

At this time, it can be said that there is no industry worth mentioning in Spain, so they especially need to import goods from the outside world to meet the consumption of the country, otherwise the silver is just a stone, and it will cause inflation in the country.

Spain's development model is destined to be a flash in the pan, and it is destined to be caught up by Britain, which adopts a new colonization method.

Luzon is only a vassal state of Ming Dynasty, and has a small population and does not produce any goods. Spain has nothing to talk about with Luzon, so the Duke of Alva decided to surrender to the Ming Dynasty to gain the opportunity to contact the high-level Ming Dynasty.

On Zheng Chenggong's ship in the distance, the watchman in charge suddenly shouted: "My lord, the Spaniards are flying the white flag!"

Zheng Chenggong always paid attention to the two fleeing warships in front of him. From the binoculars, he saw two Spanish warships hoisting white flags one after another, but they did not lower their sails, but continued to sail westward, and their expressions changed.

These two Spanish warships were clearly going to surrender to the oncoming Ming Dynasty. Zheng Chenggong put down the binoculars, and immediately punched the fence in frustration, "Damn Xiyi!"

Luzon is a small country with insufficient manpower, and its shipbuilding is far behind the Ming Dynasty. During the nearly two years of seeing at sea, Zheng Chenggong has realized the gap between them and the Spaniards in seagoing ships, so Luzon urgently needs to fight Ships are being replaced, and faster and more powerful warships are needed.

It's just that Luzon's national strength is weak and it doesn't have the ability to manufacture Western-style warships on a large scale. These Spanish thousand-ton warships are extremely important to Luzon.

On the sea, two Spanish warships continued to sail westward, followed by five Luzon warships, but their speed was about the same as that of the Spanish ships, so we could only watch them surrender to the Ming Dynasty navy.

In this battle, Luzon and Ming were on one side, and Luzon was a vassal state of Ming, but they were not considered a real family after all, and it was inevitable to compete for spoils. Two Spanish warships fell into the hands of the Ming navy, and the navy did not return The reason for Luzon, and the navy of the Ming Dynasty also needed these Spanish warships.

The Westernization of the Daming Navy started a long time ago.

Although I don't want to admit it, the warships of the West have indeed surpassed the warships of the Ming Dynasty.

Fuchuan is characterized by its stability and large cargo capacity. However, when fighting at sea, it needs the advantages of speed and artillery. Therefore, in terms of the same tonnage, Fuchuan has no advantage over Western sailing ships. The slender hull and Multi-deck guns are the direction of warship development.

Before the Ming Dynasty went to war, there were already fifteen Western-style warships imitating the Netherlands. After defeating the Dutch, the Ming Dynasty captured more than ten Dutch ships. The number of Western-style warships exceeded thirty. A fleet that is invincible in the Southeast Asia and even the Indian Ocean.

However, the Dutch warships actually had many shortcomings. During the imitation, the Ming Dynasty found that the structure of the Dutch ships was not stable. Although the speed was fast, there were defects in the firepower configuration, keel, and thickness of the ship planks. No solution was found.

The defect of the Dutch ships is to maintain the advantages of the Netherlands in ocean transportation. In order to have a faster speed and transport more things, they have tampered with the structure of the ship and sacrificed a lot of things, but the Ming Dynasty The navy does not need to transport anything, their mission is to protect the route and fight, so imitating the Dutch ship is not a good choice.

The Spanish warships, especially the [-]-ton St. Philip, were also of great interest to the Ming Dynasty.

Not long ago, two three-masted gunboats of the Navy of the Ming Dynasty were patrolling the west coast of Borneo and encountered a Spanish thousand-ton warship. Heavy damage, so the navy of the Ming Dynasty was very interested in the Spanish warships. After the Ming army captured the Spaniards on Sulu Island, they rushed to join the battle, just wanting to get a piece of the pie from the Luzon Navy... ··
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(End of this chapter)