The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"Boom boom boom"

The sound of intensive shelling came from afar, awakening all the residents of Tortoiseshell City from their sweet dreams.

With sensitive nerves tempered by a long-term pirate career, Lin Feng had already sat up from the bed as soon as the sound of cannons was heard. He reached into a hidden compartment beside the bed and took out a short and delicate gun. With his gun in his hand, he nervously gestured around the room for a while.

As it was confirmed that the sound of gunfire came from afar, from the bay to the west, the emotions that had just calmed down became tense again.

After getting out of bed and putting on her shoes, and taking off the saber hanging on the wall, Lin Feng shouted outside: "What's going on outside? Where's the gunfire?"

Although he had roughly concluded that something happened on the other side of the bay, he still suppressed his nervousness and asked.

"Boss, there seems to be something wrong with the ship over the bay. I don't know who detonated the gunpowder or what."

The guards outside were also patrolling around with blunderbuss or swords and guns.

After hearing the questions in the room, he hurriedly answered.

"Creak".

As the wooden door was opened from the inside, Lin Feng walked out of the house holding a knife in one hand and a gun in the other.

"Send two people outside to see what happened in the bay."

Lin Feng, who was pretending to be calm, actually had a bad premonition in his heart.

Previously, he had received intelligence from his subordinates that the Spanish in Manila had recruited more than 2,000 locals to form an army.

Whether these men were recruited to defend the city of Manila or to deal with him is unknown, only some Spaniards know.

The people sent by Lin Feng all had stupid faces, so naturally they wouldn't trust them and wouldn't tell them the truth.

At first, Lin Feng was still smiling contemptuously.

Yes, he thought he hurt the Spaniards, so they recruited these soldiers to help defend the city of Manila.

But after some people worried that the Spaniards wanted to deal with them, the smile naturally disappeared.

"Impossible. Those locals have only been trained for a few months. How dare they do it?"

Lin Feng shouted in his heart that he did not believe that the Spaniards dared to bring a group of bumpkins to his Tortoiseshell City to run wild.

Yes, according to his opinion, these indigenous people on Luzon Island are very stupid and cannot possibly have any fighting power.

And who are his men? They have all been pirates at sea for many years, and they all have lives piled on their hands.

In such an encounter between armies, it is clear who is superior and who is inferior. Are the Spaniards so stupid that they would choose eggs against stones?

Although I don't want to believe it, the sound of gunfire coming from the bay in the distance is so real.

Even if the gunpowder magazine exploded, it would not be like this.

You know, Lin Feng didn't have much gunpowder to begin with, and it was scattered in several places in the city. There is not much gunpowder left on the ship now.

Yes, although Lin Feng had some firearms in his hands, their gunpowder had been consumed a lot when they resisted the Ming army's encirclement and suppression, and had not been replenished since.

Some were also consumed in the battle to attack Manila, and there was not much left.

In the past six months, with the construction of Tortoiseshell City, he ordered many bronze cannons from the ships to be moved to land and placed on the walls of Tortoiseshell City. This was actually to prevent Spanish sneak attacks.

However, he was still a little frightened by the call coming so quickly.

He sent many traitors to Manila City, but no news came out at all.

Pirates, or Japanese pirates, caused trouble and invaded coastal counties. In addition to coming and going like the wind, using spies to sneak into the city in advance was also one of the ways to open the city gates.

Therefore, after the failure of the first attack on Manila City, Lin Feng did not completely give up on capturing Manila City, but began to make preparations.

He plans to ambush the next group of people in Manila City, and when the opportunity comes to attack Manila City again, he can use them to find an opportunity to open the city gate, so that he can easily break through the city wall of Manila City.

In normal times, these people can also become Lin Feng's spies in Manila, monitoring the Spanish's movements.

After waiting nervously for a long time, someone finally came running in from outside.

"What's going on outside?"

Before the visitor could speak, Lin Feng had already asked.

"Boss, it's not good. There are many Spanish warships on the other side of the bay. They rushed into the bay and opened fire on our ships anchored on the shore. Now many ships have been hit by their cannonballs. Some of them have been hit by their shells. Already sunk."

The guard who came in reported the news with a slight panic, "I just left the city gate not far away when I met someone who came from the dock to report the news, so I brought him back. He is outside."

"What did you say?"

Lin Feng still said with a look of disbelief. Although he had been mentally prepared for all this, he still couldn't believe it when he heard the news.

"What about those of us on board the ship? Did they just let the Spaniards fire on them and not prevent a counterattack?"

Lin Feng asked again.

“There is no way to fight back, our ships are docked and it is difficult to turn the bow of the ship.

Most of the boats patrolling outside were sunk when they rushed into the bay. They only fired one or two shots. "

The guard said.

"Bring the messenger here, and I'll ask him personally."

Lin Feng said, and then ordered the guard next to him: "Go and call the other leaders and ask them to come over. Let's discuss what to do next."

"yes."

The two guards beside him hurriedly agreed and turned around and ran out.

He was going to find someone, and the boss was going to discuss countermeasures.

As for whether he should go to the dock immediately and personally command the encounter with the Spanish warship, is Lin Feng so stupid?

His fleet was docked on the shore, and there was no way to maneuver flexibly. He was attacked by the enemy. He knew that the situation was worrying.

At this time, he was not going to command the battle, but to die.

At this time, Lin Feng, who knew that it was impossible to do anything, had already planned to abandon the Bay Wharf and withdraw the remaining troops to defend the Tortoise City.

At this time, he was still feeling fortunate that he had seen the Tortoise City wall built before. Although it was not as tall as the walls of the prefectures and counties in the Ming Dynasty, and the walls built by the Spaniards in Manila City, it was also a great achievement in his eyes.

Can you imagine that they, as pirates, can also build a city out of thin air?

Therefore, in order to make his future capital city look more majestic, he moved some of the cannons on the ship to the city wall to make the city look more majestic.

With the city wall and the firearms on it, Lin Feng felt that he could still fight the Spaniards.

As long as it takes a month or two, the Spaniards should retreat.

As long as they retreat, although Lin Feng will not immediately retaliate against the Spaniards, he must immediately build ships and go out to sea to rob again to strengthen his own strength.

Yes, perhaps because of the years of being a pirate, when the construction of the Tortoise City was gradually taking shape, he actually relaxed and let his pirate ship, which he relied on for a living, stay in the bay.

It really shouldn't be.

As a pirate, the ship cannot stop, and it should be active on the sea all the time, robbing ships, and then using the wealth robbed to arm themselves and buy more firearms.

Previously, in the battle of Manila City, the Spanish firearms made a deep impression on him.

He only thought that firearms were very important and powerful in naval battles, but he didn't expect that they were so powerful in land battles.

Lin Feng had already thought about it. After the war, he would first collect some money and send people to Haojing to trade with the Portuguese there.

As long as he told them that the purpose of buying firearms was to fight the Spaniards, they would not refuse the deal.

The Ming court might not know that the so-called Yi people had actually fought many times a long time ago to seize territory, and it seemed that the Portuguese in Haojing had suffered losses.

In fact, readers familiar with modern history know that the first countries to open the Age of Exploration were Spain and Portugal.

As a small country, Portugal started its history of navigation earlier than the Spaniards.

It can be said that in the early days of the Age of Exploration, the Portuguese actually had a little advantage.

However, due to the influence of comprehensive national strength such as population, the Spaniards soon came from behind and surpassed them.

When Portugal and Spain were fighting for overseas interests, in order to obtain legal support, they chose to arbitrate with the Pope.

Yes, during the Age of Discovery, the reason why European countries could occupy the new continents they discovered with peace of mind was actually because of the papal decrees issued by the Pope living in the Vatican, which gave them the so-called legal basis.

European countries had the so-called legal awareness very early, and they were also looking for a basis for the ownership of those newly issued and rich lands.

The only thing that could provide them with a legal basis and be recognized by other European countries was the Pope's will.

During the Age of Discovery, the geographical discoveries of Columbus and Da Gama gave rise to the issue of sovereignty over the newly discovered areas.

There were two views in Europe at that time. One was that Christian countries had the right to occupy the land of pagans, and the other was that the Pope had the power to decide the sovereignty of the land that had not yet been occupied by Christian rulers.

So, in 1454, Pope Nicholas V issued a decree to give the Portuguese the territory discovered by the Portuguese on the coast of Africa.

When Columbus returned to Spain after discovering America during his first expedition, he believed that the place he had arrived was India. The Spanish court was afraid that Portugal would compete with it for the newly discovered "India", so it asked Pope Alexander VI to recognize Spain's sovereignty over this land.

Spain and Portugal fought for colonies, markets and plundered wealth, and the newly discovered lands were at war for a long time.

In order to ease the increasingly sharp contradictions between the two countries, Pope Alexander VI came forward to mediate

Thus, a very important ruling at the time was made, that is, the Pope divided the world and "fairly" distributed the newly discovered continent to Spain and Portugal.

On May 4, 1493, after full consultation with the kings of Spain and Portugal, the Pope finally made an arbitration: 100 leagues, or 300 nautical miles, west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a dividing line was drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole, known as the Papal Meridian.

All newly discovered lands west of the Papal Meridian belonged to the Kingdom of Portugal, while the lands moved to the Kingdom of Spain.

According to this demarcation line, America and the islands in the Pacific Ocean belong to the western half, which belongs to Spain, while Asia and Africa belong to the eastern half, which belongs to Portugal.

After the arbitration order came out, King John II of Portugal expressed dissatisfaction with it and demanded a redrawing.

So on June 7, 1494, Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which moved the demarcation line 270 leagues further west. Brazil was included in the Portuguese sphere of influence according to this treaty.

The straight line border on the west side of Brazil was thus born.

This demarcation line agreed by Spain and Portugal, guaranteed by the Pope, set a precedent for the modern colonial powers to divide the world and divide spheres of influence.

Although the Pope has an unparalleled status in Europe, he is influenced by the times after all, so the division seems clear and accurate, but it has many disadvantages.

More than 30 years after the "Pope's Meridian" was determined, it was challenged twice.

First, Portugal broke through the 46th meridian in 1500 and occupied Brazil in South America.

Then in 1522, Magellan and his companions broke into the Philippines, which belonged to the Portuguese colonization area, and occupied it when they completed their circumnavigation of the world. The disadvantage of the "Pope's Meridian" not determining its border in the Eastern Hemisphere was revealed.

It must be said that the Spanish occupation of the Philippines at this time actually lacked the recognition of the Christian Pope they believed in.

In other words, their current occupation of Luzon actually lacks the legal basis they rely on.

However, the Ming Dynasty certainly did not know these.

Even if they knew, they could not do anything.

There is no so-called international court in this era, and the effectiveness of the international court is actually limited.

In countries that are willing to abide by the law, the rulings of the international court are effective and can be enforced, or there are powerful countries willing to take action to enforce their rulings.

And more often, the rulings are just rulings, and no one cares.

After all, how can things involving national politics be modified because of international law?

Everything is based on "truth".

However, in the face of such situations, Spain and Portugal had to make adjustments to the "Pope's Meridian" in 1529. The adjusted "Pope's Meridian" gave Spain the right to monopolize the Americas, and Portugal's occupation of Brazil was also recognized.

The scope of Latin America is largely determined by this "Pope's Meridian", and thus the Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking areas of Latin America were formed.

At this time in the bay, more than a dozen Spanish armed merchant ships and two Ming cannon ships were cruising on the sea, shooting at pirate ships docked on the shore.

Due to the limitation of production technology in this era, the cost of gunpowder was not low. Every time the cannons on the ship fired a volley, they fired not shells but silver.

The gunners of the Ming army naturally had few opportunities to fire so recklessly, which was also a good opportunity to practice.

Yes, the warships that rushed into Pengaslan Bay were the two gunboats of the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the Spanish armed merchant ships. The other Fu ships were naturally not qualified to participate in such a war.

Wang Wanggao did not command the Ming warships to fight at this moment. His eyes were always fixed on the Spanish warships not far away, analyzing the firepower of the two.

Yes, this was the task Deng Zilong gave him, to observe the actual combat power of the gunboats of the two countries.

As the first generation captain of the Ming gunboat, he naturally had a deep understanding of the gunboat.

Soon, he found that the firepower of the Ming gunboat was a fatal flaw in the face of the Yi people's gunboats with two or even three gun decks.