Chapter 980 1069 Lin Feng’s News
In the blink of an eye, time came to October of the second year of Longqing, and more than a month had passed since the Wanli Emperor’s Longevity Festival.
Military preparations for Myanmar have been put into operation in an orderly manner under the personal responsibility of Li Chengliang. He has personally brought a hundred thousand taels of silver treasure to Huguang and will arrive in Sichuan soon.
In the north of Luzon Island, thousands of miles away from the Ming Dynasty, at the mouth of the Ange River in Fenggayan Bay, a Han ethnic group of nearly 5,000 people lived here and built a small town called Tortoiseshell Port.
Their leader is naturally the Lin Feng pirate group who was driven out from Dongfan Island by Yu Dayou and went south to prepare to attack Manila.
However, perhaps due to bad luck, the Lin Feng Pirate Group was not able to capture the weak Manila, but instead lost hundreds of people. Finally, after seeing the Spanish reinforcements swarming around and rushing back to Manila, they chose to withdraw from the battlefield and along the coastline Returned to the north of Luzon Island and chose a harbor to settle down.
At the beginning, Lin Feng led more than 60 warships, nearly 6,000 people, and carried a large number of agricultural tools, seeds, etc., and marched toward the Philippines in a mighty manner.
Lin Feng almost went out for this expedition, and all the soldiers brought their families with them. He planned to capture Manila, move his maritime base here, and may even establish his own maritime kingdom in Manila in the future.
This may be the first organized and large-scale maritime territorial expansion military operation in Chinese history, but it is impossible for Lin Feng to get the support of the Ming court.
For Mingting, the complete elimination of Lin Feng's pirate group is their biggest task, and it is absolutely impossible to support Lin Feng's attack on the Philippines.
When the fleet led by Lin Feng sailed into Manila Bay in the early morning, they immediately dispatched a vanguard assault force of 300 people to land and attack the city of Manila.
On the way to attack Manila, when this commando passed by Bagong Layang Village, they learned that the Spanish garrison commander Goyante lived here, so they changed their plan and attacked Bagong Layang Village. Killed Goyant.
After several guards were killed by pirates, other people in the house immediately took advantage of the terrain to defend, stalling for time, hoping to get support from the guards in Manila.
In fact, by this time, the Spaniards did not know the arrival of the Lin Feng pirate group.
The residences of Spanish nobles are generally built like a small castle, not the villas seen in later generations, so the defenses are strong. The pirate advance team has no way to deal with them for a while, and finally chooses to attack them with fire. People are driven from the house and eventually killed.
Although Goyante was killed, Lin Feng's army was also exposed, allowing the defenders of Manila to learn the news in advance.
Spanish Governor Lavezares immediately ordered the urgent construction of fortifications and set up an ambush on the path that Lin Feng's commando must pass, and finally repelled the commando's attack.
But the situation is still favorable to Lin Feng. After all, Lin Feng's pirate group has an obvious military advantage. If Lin Feng increases his troops at this time, it will be logical to take Manila in one go.
At this time, there were only more than fifty defenders in Manila, and the Spanish governor, including many senior officials, were in the city. As long as Manila was captured, Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines would collapse.
Unfortunately, Lin Feng took the initiative to make mistakes at the critical moment. Perhaps he was overconfident in his own strength. After all, many prisoners said that there were not many people in Manila, or he underestimated the strength of the Spanish defenders. , Lin Feng chose to rest for a day outside Manila.
Perhaps, in Lin Feng's view, Manila can no longer stop him from entering the city, and his men, who have traveled across the ocean to come here, also need a rest.
But it was this crucial day that completely changed the outcome of the war.
After gunshots rang out in Manila, Salcido, the Spanish garrison commander on Ilugu Island near Manila Bay, led fifty-four soldiers to emergency rescue of Manila.
The Spanish troops scattered in other parts of the Philippines rushed back to Manila after receiving the news, which immediately boosted the morale of the defenders in Manila.
Although Manila still had only more than a hundred soldiers after receiving assistance, the Spanish colonial army at that time was well-equipped and well-trained, and had completed the construction of city walls, forts and other defense facilities, which were extremely strong. , the strength cannot be underestimated.
You know, they were originally grabbing territory, so they naturally had to build their own castle after landing to avoid being attacked and driven out by the locals.
As for the combat power of the Spanish soldiers that Lin Feng ignored, well, as early as forty years ago, the Spanish colonist Pizarro only led less than 200 soldiers, and actually had tens of thousands of troops. The Inca Empire in South America was destroyed and a huge amount of wealth was taken away.
But Lin Feng didn't seem to think so. He still believed in his numerical advantage.
After all, he had captured many Spaniards and thought he was familiar with their combat capabilities through fighting.
After a day's rest, Lin Feng once again organized more than 600 soldiers to attack Manila in three directions. Although Lin Feng's pirate army fought very hard, braving muskets and artillery to launch a fierce attack on the city of Manila, in terms of weapons, There is a huge gap with the Spanish army.
The fortifications built by Spain were extremely strong and difficult to defeat. After a day of fierce fighting, Lin Feng's army suffered heavy losses, with more than 200 casualties, and had no choice but to stop the attack.
This attack made Lin Feng truly aware of the strength of the Spanish soldiers and the Manila Castle. Without the advantage of a surprise attack, he believed that it would be difficult to capture this place with his own men alone.
Although, they do have many more people than the Spanish.
The next day, when the Spanish Governor Lavezares was extremely nervous waiting for Lin Feng's army to attack again, he found that Lin Feng's army retreated silently overnight. destination.
After that, the Spaniards carefully sent people to conduct reconnaissance around the area, looking for traces of the incoming enemy.
However, they searched hundreds of miles around and found no whereabouts of the enemy.
However, having already suffered a loss once, they naturally will not rest easy, thinking that they can sit back and relax here.
On the one hand, they realized that they were short of manpower, so they recruited obedient people from the natives and organized them into a servant army to assist them in fighting.
On the other side, people were sent everywhere to find the whereabouts of the enemy.
From the corpses of the enemies left behind, the Spaniards had already made a preliminary judgment that there were Ming people and Japanese people coming.
Yes, there are many Japanese in Lin Feng's pirate group, otherwise they wouldn't be called Japanese pirates.
After more than a month of continuous searching, the small town Lin Feng built more than 200 miles away from Manila was also discovered by the Spaniards.
Since no trace of the enemy was found for such a long time, the Spaniards thought that Lin Feng had left the Philippines.
But in the end they were waiting for such shocking news. Lin Feng did not leave the Philippines at all, but settled in Tortoiseshell, more than 200 kilometers north of Manila.
It turns out that after the second attack on Manila failed, Lin Feng once again made his choice.
He believed that he was no longer sure to capture Manila, so he simply led the fleet north and then came to a place called Hawksbill Port.
After arriving here, Lin Feng led his men to establish settlements. These Chinese built houses, cultivated land, and recruited refugees. Even local Filipinos who did not want to be enslaved by the Spanish began to defect to Lin Feng. phoenix.
Seeing this, Lin Feng immediately proclaimed himself king and began to rule this land.
Originally, this was also the reason why he chose to come here.
Compared with the colonial policy of burning, killing and looting by the Spanish in the Philippines, Lin Feng was relatively tolerant towards the locals in the Philippines and did not engage in ethnic discrimination. He even taught them the farming techniques of the Ming Dynasty, winning over the locals. Due to the respect of people, the area around Tortoiseshell Harbor began to flourish.
Naturally, the Spaniards could not tolerate Lin Feng openly proclaiming himself king under their noses, so the Spaniards decided to kill Lin Feng. You know, from the 15th to the 17th century, explorers from various European countries began to sail ships to explore the oceans of various continents, and the Age of Discovery officially began.
With the beginning of the Age of Discovery, European countries began to colonize other newly discovered continents and frantically plundered local resources and materials.
Spain, with advanced shipbuilding technology, was one of the first countries in Europe to engage in navigation. Shortly after Columbus discovered the New World, Spain began to colonize Mexico.
After Magellan traveled around the world, the Spanish colonists began to turn their attention to Asia, and the Philippines became the new target of the Spanish colonists.
Magellan came to the Philippines in 1521, and the Spaniards came here again twenty years later.
A very important feature of the colonial period was that the Western colonists did not regard the local indigenous people as a group with which they could have equal dialogue.
After they set their sights on a piece of land, they just need to put up a sign here and give it a random name. If there are no competitors from the West, they will legally consider this place to be their colony.
In fact, when Magellan came here, he tried to turn the Philippines into a Spanish colony. However, he was killed here because of the resistance of the local people and did not personally complete the circumnavigation he led.
However, the Spaniards did not give up. After establishing a foothold in the Americas, the Spaniards always had the desire to cross the Pacific and come to the Philippines again to turn this place into their own colony.
In 1543, the Spanish navigator Lopez de Villalobos finally crossed the Pacific and came here, and named these islands after the Spanish Crown Prince Philip. This is the origin of the name of the Philippine Islands.
Initially, they hoped to use an excellent seaport in the Philippine Islands as a base to carry out maritime trade with China. To their great joy, they did find Chinese merchant ships near the Philippine Islands.
The Spaniards chose Cebu Island as a trading place, but the local location advantage was not obvious. This island is located in the southern half of the Philippine Islands. There are many reefs and dangerous shoals around it, and the transportation is very inconvenient.
After inspection, the Spanish decided to occupy Manila Bay, located on the east coast of Luzon Island. It is a natural and excellent seaport. Facing the northwest is the East Asian continent, which is very conducive to commercial activities.
After occupying Manila, the Spanish went out on a large scale. On the one hand, they continued to go to sea for trade and collect surrounding geographical information. On the other hand, they enslaved the indigenous people on the island on a large scale to build a city for them.
Therefore, the Spaniards were very hostile to the locals.
Of course, Lin Feng's raid on Manila did scare the Spaniards.
However, they did not have enough troops at this time, so they did not launch an attack on Tortoiseshell for the time being. Instead, they quietly accumulated strength and trained and recruited more than two thousand servants at the same time, preparing to occupy this place in one go and kill Lin Feng.
The news of the Lin Feng pirate group's attack on Manila finally reached Yuegang in October through a Ming Dynasty merchant ship trading here.
Yuegang, because it was the only port for foreign trade in the Ming Dynasty at this time, although the three municipal shipping companies could also conduct tribute trade, the merchants had to hold a survey to do so.
The first thing the Shipping Department does for arriving foreigners is to verify the authenticity of the contract, and then receive them and do business.
Well, they are nominally envoys from various vassal states, not businessmen.
Because of the advantage of Yuegang, both Yu Dayou and Jin Yiwei arranged people here to collect overseas intelligence, using these merchant ships to bring back information.
In fact, most of the spies they want to send out are arranged to go to sea on these merchant ships.
A few days later, the news reached Yu Dayou's ears. He could hardly believe that Lin Feng would actually lead people to Luzon to seize territory, and failed even though he had an absolute advantage.
As a military general, Yu Dayou couldn't believe that Lin Fengzai was in Manila because he thought about the problem from the perspective of a general.
As the admiral of the navy, he certainly knew the current situation in Manila. He could not imagine how Lin Feng was able to fight with so many people to block the attack of thousands of people.
But now that he knew Lin Feng’s whereabouts, he had to respond.
Because he did not receive follow-up news at this time, he naturally did not know that Lin Feng was still lingering in Luzon.
After learning about Lin Feng's failed expedition, he immediately sent an alert to the coastal state capitals of Ming Dynasty, asking them to be on guard against Lin Feng's pirate group returning home.
At the end of the road, they were worried that they would take risks and attack coastal counties again.
On the other side, it was natural to quickly report to the capital.
Pursuing the Lin Feng Pirate Group has always been his mission.
However, before his urgent report reached the capital, Jin Yiwei had already passed the news to Wei Guangde.
“Luzon? You said the Japanese pirates went to Luzon to attack Manila?”
In the cabinet duty room, Wei Guangde received an urgent report from Liu Shouyou, with an expression of complete disbelief.
"Is the news reliable?"
Although he saw Liu Shou nodding, Wei Guangde couldn't help but ask.
“According to the news brought back by the businessman, Lin Feng and his group stayed in Manila for four or five days. Afterwards, they chose to leave due to the failure of the siege. Their current whereabouts are unknown.”
Liu Shouyou stood up and replied.
Wei Guangde stretched out his hand and pressed down, indicating for him to sit down. Then he lowered his head and looked carefully at the emergency report in his hand.
Just now, I heard Liu Shouyou speak, but I haven’t looked at it yet.
But soon, Wei Guangde frowned and said displeased: "This Lin Feng is really shameful. Thousands of people attacked a city held by hundreds of people, and he actually ran away in the end."
"Listen. He said that the cities built by the Yi people are different from those of the Ming Dynasty. They are mainly castles, and the city walls are also different from those built by the Ming Dynasty. "
Liu Shouyou said immediately.
"Siyun, do you think that after Lin Feng failed to attack Manila, did he return to the Ming Dynasty or find another place to stay overseas, just like Zhang Lian?"
"Mr. Wei Ge, I really can't say for sure. They will be ordered to trace Lin Feng's whereabouts."
"Lin Feng's whereabouts naturally need to be investigated, but since Japanese pirates have appeared in Luzon"
(End of this chapter)