My life skills in Daming Liver

In the historical timeline before Suze's time travel, the Spanish invaded Manila around 1600 and established a colony here.

A year ago, the Spanish settlement in Manila was nothing more than a small village, mainly a church and a few gun factories, as well as some small warehouses and docks.

But during this year, Manila's trade developed at a rapid rate.

This is of course because of the southeast.

The vast amount of goods in the southeast made the Spanish colonist in Manila see business opportunities. He decisively wrote a letter to the King of Spain, requesting the King of Spain to send troops to occupy Manila.

The goods shipped back to Spain from Manila also caused a sensation in Spain.

First up is black tea.

Originally, the Central Plains exported green tea. After being stored at sea, green tea was often very bitter and the aroma had almost disappeared.

Only the highest quality green tea could become a luxury product in European courts, but the price was high and the loss rate was extremely high.

After Su Ze invented black tea, European businessmen quickly fell in love with it.

Black tea is resistant to storage and can still retain its aroma even after being transported to Europe on the sea.

Moreover, black tea does not have the bitterness of green tea, making it even more popular among Europeans.

This is just one of many Southeast products.

High-grade silk, finely printed and dyed cotton, and various scented soaps.

Especially soap, which is an irresistible temptation for Westerners who are crazy about spices.

It is said that the Queen of France and the Queen of England would use oriental soaps when bathing. This variety of scented bath products quickly became popular among the ladies of the upper class and fetched extremely high prices.

Not only the Europeans, but also the Ottoman barbarians have fallen in love with soap. There are also Venetian merchants who buy soap from Europe and sell it to the Ottomans.

The crazy thirst for silver in the Central Plains also caused this trade to expand day by day. Spanish merchants also occupied a larger share of the trade, and at the same time, it also increased Liguez's ambitions.

In fact, this was not the first time that Riguez proposed to the King of Spain to conquer Manila.

Riguez was originally a Spanish missionary. He originally came to the East to preach.

However, the missionary work was not going smoothly, but Liguez's trade was going very smoothly.

However, Liguez was a fanatical missionary, and his goal was to spread religion in the East.

After achieving great success in business, Liguez returned to his profession and preached crazily in Manila.

But his missionary career did not go well.

Manila is a city-state. Such city-states do not have clear ownership. They often surrender to a slightly more powerful suzerain and pay tribute of some gold and silver in exchange for asylum.

Moreover, they often did not pay tribute to one suzerain, and there were only a few slaves with three surnames. Some city-states even surrendered to five or six suzerains.

The main object of Manila's tribute is Java, but Java itself also has three parties, and Manila pays tribute to all three parties.

In terms of actual governance, the Han people who went to Southeast Asia and the local Malays were half and half. Manila also had a city-state meeting similar to the Presbyterian Church, which mainly discussed defense and diplomacy matters. On weekdays, several big families ran their own affairs.

When Riguez entered Manila, he purchased land from Malay families and built a gun factory and dock.

Rigas' missionary work among the Malays was relatively smooth. The local Malays actually mainly believed in Islam and Brahmanism, and they were all Rigas's "old friends." He knew how to deal with these religions.

But it was only the Chinese in Manila that Liguez's missionary career encountered obstacles.

The Chinese in Manila take family as a unit and clan as a link. They basically come from Fujian and Guangzhou to Nanyang, and they are inextricably linked to the local clan.

These Chinese families also quickly realized the business opportunities. After the Southeast opened the sea, they quickly invested in trade with the Southeast and made a large pot of gold.

Even Liguez's Spanish caravan was far inferior to these Chinese merchants in competition.

There is no way, these Chinese businessmen are from the same clan as Zhongyuan, so it is naturally more convenient to do business.

As the wealth of Chinese families in Manila increased, the original delicate balance between Manila's natives and Chinese was broken.

Ligas quickly realized this.

Chinese families in Manila are generally engaged in trade. Manila is a famous spice-producing area near Manila, and half of the people who grow spices are Malays.

The Malays occupy the land and the Chinese engage in trade. This is a delicate balance and a tacit understanding between the Chinese and the local indigenous people.

As the wealth of the Chinese grew, some Chinese families were naturally no longer satisfied with purchasing spices from the Malays.

Some enterprising Chinese began to call on their fellow countrymen to open plantations near Manila to grow spices and sugar cane, and then transport them back to the southeast for trade.

Naturally, this was a conflict between the Malays who originally occupied the land.

In fact, the Malays' land utilization rate is very low, and there is a lot of free land outside Manila. However, the pioneering behavior of the Chinese still caused a lot of conflicts.

Another thing is the dumping of southeastern goods.

Cotton cloth, matches, whale oil lamps, and ironware from the southeast were durable and much cheaper than local products. They quickly crushed the local handicraft industry and became necessities.

These necessities were sold by Chinese merchants. After they obtained the local monopoly, they also began to increase prices and use these necessities to purchase materials from the indigenous people.

Even if there is no price increase, these Malay chiefs still feel that the treasures in their hands are getting less and less, and they have all been replaced by Southeast Asian products.

Wealth is disappearing, and in order to maintain this kind of life, some Malay chiefs are also forced to sell their land, which has created a negative impression of the Chinese in Manila locally.

All this was seen by Li Gesi.

Li Gesi quickly realized that this was an opportunity.

And soon, the reply from the King of Spain arrived.

King Philip II of Spain, who is currently in power, has just received a mess from his father.

Although Spain has rich American colonies, it just experienced financial bankruptcy in 1557 and is now on the verge of financial bankruptcy.

The reason was naturally Spanish military expansion.

In the third year of the New Calendar in the Southeast (AD 1565), Suleiman the Magnificent, a great leader of the Ottoman Empire, launched his last expedition.

Suleiman the Magnificent wanted to conquer the Malta, an important strategic buffer between the Ottomans and Spain.

Philip II strongly supported the Malta, almost depleting the royal treasury.

If it hadn't been for Liguez's Eastern Route, which had given the Spanish royal family another life, Philip II would have declared the Spanish royal family bankrupt for the second time.

After receiving the report from Liguez, Philip II immediately ordered the American fleet stationed in Mexico to go to Manila immediately.

When Ligues received the letter, he was ecstatic.

Mexico's American fleet is not large in size, with a total of only six Galese warships and a dozen armed merchant ships.

However, this is also a powerful fleet in Nanyang. After the fleet set off, Ligas also started his actions.

He first provoked conflicts between the natives and Chinese in Manila, and then began to sell guns to the local natives.

Following several armed fights over land, the Manila people took out Spanish guns and the local Chinese also reacted.

They purchased guns and guns from the Southeast to protect themselves, and sent requests to the Southeast to protect the interests of the Chinese in Manila.

After Su Ze received the local information about Manila, he immediately snorted and smelled the conspiracy of the European colonists.

Old colonialism.

It's just that the Spaniards ended up doing it themselves. They were not yet proficient in this game and were far less skillful than the British later on.

Immediately afterwards, after receiving the news that the Spanish fleet appeared in the South China Sea, Su Ze immediately concluded the Spanish's intention to seize Manila.

Therefore, the Southeast Metropolitan Governorate immediately dispatched the first brigade to Manila to face the Spanish fleet.

After years of development, the fleet size of the First Brigade has also expanded.

The main fleet is still Galenic ships, but the number has been expanded to ten.

In addition, Lin Mojun also built a number of galleys along the coast for offshore defense operations.

The effectiveness of galleys in offshore combat is actually good. In the calm Mediterranean, galleys are often the main force in combat.

But this time when going to Nanyang, there is no need to bring the galleys. These galleys are all left in the mainland for maritime defense.

In addition to taking away ten Galen ships, Lin Mojun also took away ten armed merchant ships converted from large Fu ships.

The structure of these armed merchant ships has also been transformed.

Before the age of artillery, there were no particular advantages or disadvantages between Eastern and Western shipbuilding technologies.

But Western-style sailing ships did have many advantages in the firearms era.

The first is sail performance. A square sail is more troublesome to maneuver, but a ship using a square sail can sail faster in deep sea and maneuver faster.

Another one is the deck performance. The entire Western-style deck can withstand the recoil of the artillery. More artillery can be placed, which means it has more firepower.

Even in the later years of the sailing age, there were multi-deck battleships with hundreds of cannons on each ship.

The last issue that is often overlooked is the structure of the cabin.

The box-type structure of the Western-style cabin allows that if only part of the hull is damaged during artillery fire, a certain cabin can be closed to keep it afloat.

In other words, as long as it is not unlucky to hit the gunpowder magazine, the cabin with box-type partitions can still continue to fight when the hull is partially damaged, and can even float at sea for a period of time.

As for a Chinese-style ship with a single cabin, it is possible for the entire ship to sink after being shot.

Therefore, the Southeast Navy currently uses Western-style sailboats as its main ships. This is also the need for the development of the times after the staff summary. It is not that Su Ze blindly praises the experience of Western navies.

Lin Mojun put down the telescope and could already see the big island of Java not far away, and Manila was almost there.