Chapter 86 Manila

In the governor's mansion in Manila, a group of Spaniards are holding a large round table to discuss an important thing, which has a lot to do with the sea wolf.

Schwar, the governor of the Philippines at that time, was a man in his forties. He was very strong and looked in good spirits. His skin was slightly red, with a beautiful beard on his lips, and he was trimmed and trimmed properly.

But on this day, he was not in a good mood as usual, because a plan was placed in front of him at this time. Members of the Manila City Council in the Philippines submitted a plan to him, asking him to send troops immediately to occupy Taiwan Island.

Shierva is not unfamiliar with Taiwan Island. In fact, after the Spaniards came to the East, occupied the Philippines, and built Manila City, they quickly noticed Taiwan Island.

Taiwan Island is located on the coast of China, not far from Fujian, and it is also a necessary road to Japan, which is a good foothold.

A long time ago, the Governor of the Philippines had a plan to occupy Taiwan Island as a colony of their Spanish king.

However, this plan has not been implemented for many reasons, both because the Spaniards have too few troops in Asia and because they are not familiar with the situation on Taiwan Island.

But the most important reason is that after their inertia, they feel that they have occupied Manila. Although they have not been able to occupy a place along the coast of China like the Portuguese, as a trade port with the Chinese, Manila is also quite good.

Moreover, many Chinese merchants in Luzon have come here to do business since ancient times, and many Chinese people in Manila have come here to settle and do business. Every year, a large number of Chinese merchant ships come here to trade with them, from which they can already get rich benefits.

As for the vast country of China, they don't care about Taiwan Island. They even had such a big appetite that they wanted to send troops to capture China and occupy the whole of China as their colony. For this reason, decades ago, they made a detailed plan to send troops to attack the Ming Dynasty.

At that time, they planned to send more than 10,000 Spanish soldiers, bring some galleys and a small number of craftsmen, and then recruit 5,000 Japanese warriors from Japan as their mercenaries to attack mainland China, defeat the entire Chinese army, occupy the Ming Dynasty, and make it their colony.

Before that, they even sent people to the Ming Dynasty to do a careful investigation and evaluation, and learned in detail about the operation of the Ming Dynasty government and the training and equipment of the Ming Dynasty army, believing that this was a hope of defeating the Ming Dynasty army and occupying China.

Even if they can't occupy the whole territory of the Ming Dynasty, in their opinion, they can at least occupy Zhejiang, Fujian, Liangguang and other places in the Ming Dynasty. This area is the richest place in the Ming Dynasty and the origin of their favorite goods, such as tea, ceramics, raw silk, satin, lacquerware, etc., which are basically concentrated in these As long as they occupy these places, they can make a fortune.

In the future, they don't have to sell many useful things to the Chinese like now, but they have to transport the silver they collected from all over the world to the Ming Dynasty and exchange them for the exquisite goods they need from the merchants of the Ming Dynasty.

, while Taiwan Island is a barren land haunted by pirates. In the view of the Spaniards, occupying it or not has little impact on them.

Unfortunately, the plan was not implemented at that time. The reason was not that they were afraid of not winning the war, but that the British in Europe began to rise and compete with the Spaniards on the sea. How could the Spanish king tolerate such a rising star around him to share their interests, so he sent him. Our invincible fleet is ready to go on an expedition to Britain and clean up this little man fiercely.

But the result was very unsatisfactory. In the end, the Spanish invincible fleet was unexpectedly defeated by the British navy and immediately destroyed more than half of the Spanish's strong maritime strength, and there was no power to launch a war against China.

Over the years, they have met a stronger opponent in the East, that is, the rising Dutch, the infidels, sent more warships than them, and followed them to the East. These Dutch have a stronger military force than them, first taking important things from them. The Strait of Malacca, then robbed Batavia and drove them out of Malacca.

These Dutch also robbed their business in Japan and stretched out their hands to the coast of China. Over the years, they have been tossed around along the coast of China. First, they wanted to grab it from the Portuguese * Macao, but they bumped their heads in front of the Portuguese who were waiting for their accomplices. Britain The human gunboat was also sunk, and it could only withdraw from the battle with its tail between its tail.

Two years ago, the Dutch occupied the Penghu Islands and wanted to use Penghu as a port for their trade with China, but it was obvious that the Ming court was very dissatisfied with them. They sent a large number of troops and warships to the Penghu Islands, fought fiercely with the Dutch for several months, and finally forced the Dutch away. Penghu.

But unexpectedly, the Dutchman went to Taiwan Island, occupied a place on Taiwan Island, built a castle, and obtained the acquiescence of the Ming court. They began to take root there and do business with merchants in the Ming Dynasty.

And these Dutch are very unruly. Since they occupied Penghu, they have colluded with Chinese pirates, repeatedly intercepted the ships of Chinese merchants preparing to come to Manila, rob their goods, and forced them to trade with the Dutch in the places occupied by the Dutch after changing their route.

This time, the Dutch posed a very big threat to Manila. The Dutch stole a large amount of trade from them. You should know that as long as these Chinese specialties are shipped to Europe, they can make huge profits. In the past, the trade between here and the Ming Dynasty was mainly between Portuguese and Spaniards. Both of them have made extremely rich profits in this kind of trade with Daming.

Nowadays, Portugal and Spain are under a king's flag. Although they are still ghosts, at least they are buddies, but the Dutch clearly understand that they are an upstart. Suddenly, they put a stick in this kind of trade, which suddenly makes the Spaniards feel very uneasy.

In the past, when the Dutch robbed Batavia, because Batavia was still a long distance away from China, and Manila was not as close as mainland China. In addition, most sea merchants were used to running Manila routes and were not willing to take greater risks to go to Batavia to trade with the Dutch.

So the Spaniards did not have a strong sense of crisis at that time, but now the Dutch have established a castle in southern Taiwan as a trading port for them to trade with Daming. As a way, the distance between Chinese seafarers trade with the Dutch ports on Taiwan Island has been shortened. More, the risk will be reduced a lot.

In addition, the Dutch also colluded with Chinese pirates to block Chinese merchant ships to trade in Manila on the route to Manila, so that the number of Chinese merchant ships going to Manila for trade has plummeted over the past year. This month, only a few Chinese merchant ships entered the port of Manila, bringing For some goods, most Chinese merchant ships are no longer afraid to come to Manila for trade.

So this situation caused extreme panic and tension among the Spanish in Manila, and repeatedly asked the current Governor-General of the Philippines, Schwar, to find a solution immediately.

It was not until last year that Schwa realized the importance of Taiwan Island. He regretted and regretted that his predecessors did not take the lead and occupied Taiwan Island.

So last year, he sent two ships to Taiwan Island for reconnaissance, circled around Taiwan Island, and checked the situation there.

The news brought back by the captains of these two ships is not very optimistic. Now the Dutch have built a strong castle and built docks in the area of the major members of Taiwan Island. Many merchant ships and pirate ships have gone to them to trade, and the Dutchman Chen has stationed a large number of troops in Taiwan. It is estimated that The army has more than 1,000 troops, and in the navy, the number of warships and armed merchant ships is also between 15 and 20, with strong force.

Therefore, if you want to take back Taiwan Island from the Dutch, you can't complete such a task with the current strength of the Spanish army in Manila.

The two reconnaissance ships also brought back a piece of news to Shierwa, that is, when they were sailing around Taiwan Island, they found that there was a very good deep-water port at the northern end of Taiwan Island, which is said to be called Chicken Cage Bay. In addition, there are several harbors in northern Taiwan, which are more suitable for use as ports. In the northeast of Taiwan, there is also a slender plain, which is more suitable for reclamation.

When they bypassed northern Taiwan, there was a considerable freshwater estuary in the northwest of Taiwan Island, which was also more suitable for docking ships and building cities.

The two reconnaissance ships also brought back a topographic sketch drawn by the painters on their ship, marking the coastline they passed along the way.

After their investigation, the Dutch have now focused all their energy on operating castles, docks and ports around southern Taiwan, and have not occupied northern Taiwan.

If the Spaniards want to land in Taiwan, the southern part of Taiwan has obviously been regarded as a ban by the Dutch and will never easily promise to let the Spaniards intervene again.