Daming pirates

In the Governor's Palace in Manila, a group of Spaniards were sitting around a large round table, discussing an important matter, and this matter had a lot to do with Sea Wolf.

The then Governor of the Philippines, Shirwa, was a man in his forties. He was very strong and seemed to be in good spirits. His skin was reddish and he had a beautiful beard on his lips, which was trimmed and trimmed properly.

But on this day, his mood was not as good 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 the city.

Taiwan Island.

Shirwa was no stranger to the island of Taiwan. In fact, after the Spanish came to the East, occupied the Philippines, and built the city of Manila, they quickly noticed the island of Taiwan.

Taiwan Island is located on the coast of China, not far from Fujian, and is the only way to Japan, so it is a good starting point.

A long time ago, the governor of the Philippines had a plan to occupy Taiwan Island and make it a colony of their Spanish king.

However, this plan has never been implemented. There are many reasons, including the fact that the Spanish have too few troops in Asia and the fact that they are not familiar with the situation on the island of Taiwan.

But the most important reason is because of their laziness. They feel that after occupying Manila, although they failed to occupy a place on the coast of China as a trading port with the Chinese like the Portuguese, Manila is also

It's already quite good.

Moreover, many Chinese businessmen have come here to do business in Luzon since ancient times, and many Chinese have come here to settle and do business in Manila. Every year, a large number of Chinese merchant ships come here to trade with them, and they have been able to obtain huge profits from it.

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As for the vast country of China, what they care about is not Taiwan Island. Their appetite was so great that they even thought of sending troops to capture China and occupy the entire China as their colony. For this purpose, they had formulated a plan decades ago.

A detailed plan to send troops to attack the Ming Dynasty.

At that time, they planned to dispatch more than 10,000 Spanish soldiers, bring some large sailing ships, and a small number of craftsmen, and then recruit 5,000 Japanese warriors from Japan to use as their mercenaries, attack mainland China, and

The entire Chinese [***] team was defeated and occupied the Ming Dynasty, making it their colony.

Before that, they even sent people to the Ming Dynasty to conduct a careful investigation and evaluation. They learned in detail about the operation of the Ming Dynasty's government and the training and equipment of the Ming Dynasty's army. They believed that doing so would hopefully defeat the Ming Dynasty.

North Korean army and occupied China.

Even if they could not occupy the entire Ming Dynasty, in their opinion, they could at least occupy Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi and other places in the Ming Dynasty. This area was the most prosperous place in the Ming Dynasty and the place where their favorite goods were produced.

Tea, ceramics, raw silk, satin, lacquerware, etc. are basically concentrated in these places. As long as they occupy these places, they can make a fortune.

In the future, they will not have to sell many useful things to the Chinese like they do now, but they will have to continuously transport the silver they collected from all over the world to the Ming Dynasty and exchange it for the silver they need from Ming Dynasty merchants.

of exquisite merchandise.

The island of Taiwan was a barren land infested by pirates. In the eyes of the Spaniards, whether they occupied it or not had little impact on them.

It is a pity that 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 competed with the Spanish on the sea. How could the Spanish king tolerate such a person around him?

The rising star came to share their interests, so they sent out their invincible fleet to prepare for an expedition to Britain to deal with this junior.

But the result was very unsatisfactory. In the end, the Spanish Armada was unexpectedly defeated at the hands of the British Navy, which immediately wiped out more than half of the Spanish's powerful maritime strength, and no longer had the power to launch a war against China.

Over the years, they have encountered a stronger opponent in the east, that is, the rising Dutch. The Dutch, pagans, sent more warships than them, and followed them to the east. These Dutch

Having a stronger military force than them, they first seized the important Strait of Malacca from them, and then seized Batavia and drove them out of the Malacca area.

These Dutch also stole their business in Japan and extended their hands to the coastal areas of China. They have been tossing along the coastal areas of China many times over the years. They first wanted to snatch Macau from the Portuguese, but they ended up with their accomplices, the British.

In front of the waiting Portuguese, they suffered a head-on collision and suffered a bloody blow. One of the British gunboats was sunk, and they could only withdraw from the battle with their tail between their legs in despair.

Two years ago, the Dutch occupied the Penghu Islands and wanted to use Penghu as a port for trade with China. However, it was obvious that the Ming court was not satisfied with their actions and sent a large number of troops and warships to the Penghu Islands.

After months of fierce fighting with the Dutch, the Dutch were finally forced to leave Penghu.

But unexpectedly, the Dutch went to Taiwan Island, occupied a place on Taiwan Island, built a castle, and obtained the tacit approval of the Ming Dynasty court, began to take root there, and started doing business with the merchants of the Ming Dynasty.

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Moreover, these Dutch are very unreasonable. Since they occupied Penghu, they have colluded with Chinese pirates, repeatedly intercepted the ships of Chinese merchants who were going to Manila, robbed their goods, and forced them to change their routes and follow them to the places occupied by the Dutch.

The Dutch make deals.

Now the Dutch have posed a very big threat to Manila. The Dutch have snatched a large amount of trade quota from them. You must know that these Chinese specialties can make huge profits as long as they are shipped to Europe. In the past, here

The trade with the Ming Dynasty was mainly monopolized by the Portuguese and Spanish families. Both families made extremely huge profits from this trade with the Ming Dynasty.

Nowadays, Portugal and Spain are both under the same king's flag. Although they still have their own agendas, they are still friends. However, the Dutch are clearly an upstart. Suddenly they have a hand in this kind of trade, which immediately makes them

The Spaniards felt greatly uneasy.

When the Dutch took Batavia away in the past, it was because Batavia was still a long way from China and not as close as Manila to mainland China. In addition, most maritime merchants were accustomed to taking the Manila route and were not willing to take the risk.

A greater risk would be to go to Batavia to trade with the Dutch.

Therefore, the Spanish did not have a strong sense of crisis at that time, but now the Dutch have built a castle in southern Taiwan as a trading port for them to trade with the Ming Dynasty. In this way, Chinese maritime merchants went to the Dutch port on Taiwan Island to conduct business.

In trade, the distance is shortened a lot, and the risks are also reduced a lot.

In addition, the Dutch colluded with Chinese pirates and intercepted Chinese merchant ships going to Manila for trade on the route to Manila. As a result, the number of Chinese merchant ships going to Manila for trade has plummeted over the past year. This month, there are only a few

A Chinese merchant ship entered the port of Manila and brought some goods. Most of the Chinese merchant ships no longer dare to come to Manila for trade.

Therefore, this situation caused extreme panic and tension among the Spanish in Manila, and they repeatedly asked the current Philippine Governor-General Silva to find a way to solve this problem immediately.

It was not until last year that Shirwa realized the importance of Taiwan Island. He felt regretful and regretful that his predecessors did not take the initiative and occupied Taiwan Island.

So last year, he sent two ships to Taiwan Island to conduct some reconnaissance, and circled around the island to check the situation there.

The news brought back by the captains of these two ships was not optimistic. Now the Dutch have built a strong castle and docks in the Da Yuan area of ​​Taiwan Island. Many merchant ships and pirate ships are going to them for transactions.

, and the Dutch have stationed a large number of troops in Taiwan. It is estimated that the number of army troops is more than a thousand, and in terms of navy, the number of warships and armed merchant ships is also between fifteen and twenty.

The force is very strong.

Therefore, if we want to take Taiwan Island back from the Dutch, with the current strength of the Spanish army in Manila, it is simply impossible to complete such a task.

These two reconnaissance ships also brought back a piece of news to Shi Erwa, that is, when they were sailing around Taiwan Island for reconnaissance, they discovered that there is a very good deep-water harbor at the northern end of Taiwan Island, which is said to be called Jilong Bay.

In addition, there are several bays in northern Taiwan, which are more suitable for use as ports. There is also a slender plain in the northeastern part of Taiwan, which is more suitable for reclamation.

When they rounded the northern part of Taiwan, there was a fairly large freshwater estuary in the northwest of Taiwan Island, which was also suitable for docking ships and building forts.

The two reconnaissance ships also brought back a topographic sketch of Taiwan Island drawn by the painter on their ship, and marked the coastline they passed along the way.

After their investigation, the Dutch now focused all their energy on operating the castles, wharves and ports in the Dajuan area in southern Taiwan, and did not occupy northern Taiwan.

If the Spaniards want to land in Taiwan, southern Taiwan is obviously considered a forbidden area by the Dutch, and they will never easily allow the Spaniards to intervene.