Chapter 1635
Chapter 1635
Chapter 1635
The Executive Committee and the military are naturally full of confidence in whether they can defeat Spain. After all, most of the elite troops in the Haihan Army have been mobilized for this battle, and they have been preparing for nearly a year beforehand. It can be said that they can do it. Almost all the preparations have been made to the extreme, and the commanders of both the army and the navy will go out to command in person. There is no reason for this war to have other results.
But after this battle, whether the short-term gains from Manila will be enough to cover the military expenditure of this operation is hard to say.It is impossible for the Haihan army to let the soldiers wantonly plunder the local people after the city was broken. At most, they just confiscated the property of the Spaniards and their lackeys. Make this operation a little bit of a surplus.In particular, the property of Governor Aragones is said to have shrunk extremely.
From a long-term strategic point of view, defeating the Spaniards in Manila has cleared a major obstacle to future expansion in the South China Sea. The value that Haihan can create by using Luzon Island will of course far exceed the military expenditures spent this time, but for the For Haihan, who has always been good at calculation, it is undoubtedly a great pity that short-term gains may not be able to make up for the amount of military expenditure.
Although Haihan's wealth ranks among the top few in the entire Far East, its military expenditure is also staggeringly large.According to the national financial statistics over the years, military expenditure has maintained the first place in the expenditure list almost every year.Because Haihanhua has always insisted on the line of elite soldiers, the expenditure on training and equipment is very huge, and overseas wars have continued year after year, so the military expenditure even exceeds that of a big country like Ming Dynasty.To put it bluntly, the Haihan Army's invincibility was indeed achieved with a lot of money.
And this attack on Manila, although the battlefield is not as far away as Liaodong or the Straits of Malacca, the scale of the participating troops is the largest since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The supplies and guarantees provided were all carried out in accordance with the highest standards. The military expenditure invested in this operation was actually far greater than fighting on the border of the Haihan territory.If you consider it purely from an economic point of view, this action is indeed a bit like losing money and making money.
"Schneider specially greeted me before departure, and asked me to scrape the ground three feet after breaking through the city of Manila and collect all the valuables back to Sanya." Yan Chujie shrugged and said, "I said I was going to fight, but It’s not for scratching the ground, it’s for you to do it yourself, I can’t control that much!”
All the officers surrounding him immediately smiled knowingly, but the other party was also the head of the executive committee, so no one dared to laugh out loud.With Yan Chujie's status, he can naturally joke around, but these subordinates still have to maintain enough respect.
The troops departing from Sanya this time were personally commanded by Minister of National Defense Yan Chujie, who was also the former commander-in-chief of the operation.On the way to Manila, it is also necessary to gather the senior officers under his command on the flagship, and seize the time to conduct the final deduction of the existing combat plan, so as to achieve foolproof results.When it was time for a break, Yan Chujie casually told some interesting stories about the senior officials of the Executive Committee preparing for this operation, and all the generals laughed, thinking it was a pastime between meetings.
Compared with the various elites mobilized by the North and South Route Army, the composition of this mixed force starting from Sanya is not so eye-catching.Almost all of these troops were drawn from the various units stationed on Hainan Island, rather than special operations battalions, cavalry battalions and other special forces with a strong commander's personal color.In other words, this unit is the representative of the true average combat effectiveness of the Haihan Army.
Yan Chujie is of course the clearest about this point. The elite troops of Haihan almost all carry out combat missions overseas all the year round, and the troops stationed on Hainan Island generally have regular rotations with overseas garrisons. Although there are not as many opportunities for actual combat as the elite troops, But basically all have experience in overseas combat.In terms of combat effectiveness, there is naturally a gap with elites like special warfare battalions. After all, training, treatment, combat experience, and weapons and equipment are all a bit behind.But if it is compared with the armed forces of the Ming army or the Western colonists, it is still much stronger than the opponent.
The Executive Committee and the Ministry of National Defense do not want the limelight to be taken away by the generals stationed abroad, so in the follow-up combat arrangements, these relatively "ordinary" troops will also shoulder some key tasks, striving to be able to Obtain military merit commendation after the battle to balance the forces in the army.Otherwise, in every foreign war, a few elite troops will be rewarded for their meritorious service, and military expenditure will have to be greatly tilted towards them, and the best weapons and equipment will be given priority to them. Such a long-term development may not be a good thing.
Of course, the Ministry of National Defense needs to find a balance, and it is impossible to deliberately restrict the development of these special forces, which will only attract dissatisfaction and complaints from the generals.All the Ministry of National Defense can do is to find opportunities for ordinary troops to fight more.As the Minister of National Defense, Yan Chujie is not easy to take sides, but in the previous preparation meetings before the war, he has roughly revealed the high-level intentions to the military officers who participated in the war. After realizing the painstaking efforts of this arrangement, all that remains is to see whether their performance on the battlefield is up to the mark.
Although the three armies went their own way, fortunately, Haihan also mastered the communication method of the telegraph, so the information could be synchronized during the march.The daily voyages of the three fleets and the difference from the original voyage plan can basically maintain real-time communication.And Yan Chujie and Wang Tom can also use this method to calculate the itinerary of each fleet, so that the three fleets can reach the destination Manila Bay simultaneously as much as possible.
According to the plan formulated by the navy, the two fleets departing from Sanya and Cam Ranh Bay will have similar voyages to Manila Bay, and it will take about six days on the way. The fleet takes about a day less.In order to realize the plan of the three fleets arriving at the same time, the navy specially set aside ample time when formulating the voyage, so as to prevent the fleet from encountering adverse weather at sea and delaying the voyage.
While Haihan's army marched towards Manila, the people in Manila were still unaware of the upcoming war.Although the Manila authorities have vaguely sensed that the situation is not good, they did not give an early warning to the public in order to ensure that the local law and order will not be disrupted.Regarding the sharp drop in the number of ships arriving at the port recently, the Governor's Office explained that the southeast coast of Daming was hit by a typhoon and a tsunami some time ago, and many ports and ships were severely damaged. trade.
This explanation seems to make sense to the local people who have no information. After all, natural disasters cannot be avoided, and perhaps it will slowly return to normal after a while.On the contrary, some Spanish businessmen secretly regretted that if they had known that there would be problems with the supply of goods from Daming recently, they should have increased the price of the last batch of goods they arranged to be shipped back to China.
Of course, not everyone is ignorant of the news from the outside world. For example, the intelligence personnel sent by the Haihan Security Department to Manila are very clear that the current depression in the port is not caused by climate disasters, but that Haihan is in Daming. The result of the pressure exerted by coastal ports on sea merchants.Except for a very small number of businessmen who run errands for the Manila authorities, no one is willing to take the risk of offending Haihan and continue to come to Manila to trade with the Spaniards at this juncture.
Ran Tianlu is the person in charge of a commercial warehouse outside Manila. According to the official registration information, this commercial warehouse named "Chaosheng" is the property of a certain maritime merchant in Chaozhou, Guangdong, and Ran Tianlu was assigned to Here is the post of big shopkeeper.Every two months, cargo ships brought products from Chaozhou to Daming, and the "Chaosheng" store sold them to the local Spaniards in batches.And Ran Tianlu will also buy tobacco leaves and edible spices from the local area from time to time depending on the market situation, and let the cargo ship bring them back to Guangdong for sale.
"Chaosheng" business store has been operating locally for more than two years. During this period, it has always kept its own law and order. The taxes collected by the Manila authorities have been paid in full and on time. Ran Tianlu even donated money to the Spanish church in the city regularly. This point is highly respected by the respected local Father Blanco, and he even persuaded Governor Aragones more than once to ask him to approve the local Han people who believe in God to apply for Spanish citizenship.
Of course, this is just the wishful thinking of Father Blanc, who is ignorant of politics. He doesn't even think about it. If Han Chinese can become Spanish citizens because they believe in religion, will they be able to enjoy the same treatment as Spanish nationals in the future?If this is the case, then the annual tax that the Manila authorities can collect from the Han people will be reduced by more than half, and the main bearer of this loss is Governor Aragones himself. How could he agree with Father Blanco's suggestion.
Besides, of course, Ran Tianlu himself has no intention of becoming a Spanish citizen. Apart from his identity as the shopkeeper of Chaosheng Commercial Store, he also has another secret identity, which is the officer of the Special Operations Section of the South China Sea Affairs Department of the Haihan Security Department. member.Everything he did in Manila, including donating to Spanish churches, establishing a personal relationship with priests, etc., was aimed at covering up his apparent identity.
And these measures have indeed achieved very good results. Although the Spaniards don't like Han immigrants very much, but Han people like Ran Tianlu, who can be favored by priests, naturally have a different attitude.Ran Tianlu is rich and has a protective umbrella, so no one will deliberately make things difficult for him in Manila.
Before being sent to Manila as a lurker, Ran Tianlu had received more than two years of language training. The Ministry of Security specially found a Portuguese teacher who had lived in Spain for many years from Macau to tutor him, so that he could work as an intelligence officer in Manila. There will be no barriers due to language issues.
Even so, when Ran Tianlu first arrived in Manila, he still pretended not to understand Spanish at all. It was not until he came into contact with Father Blanco that he slowly pretended to be the result of self-study, and began to reveal his mastery little by little. session.But Father Blanco didn't know the mystery, he only thought it was a miracle after Ran Tianlu believed in God, otherwise he couldn't imagine that a Han Chinese could learn his mother tongue so quickly.
After receiving permission from Father Blanco, Ran Tianlu was free to participate in various religious activities held in the church, and in this environment, he heard a lot of valuable intelligence information from the local Spanish population effortlessly. .Even the news that Governor Aragones managed to raise funds for activities in the country after the war with Haihan last year, he heard from the chats of several wealthy Spanish businessmen in the church.
However, Ran Tianlu also understands that no matter how much this kind of information is collected, it will actually be extremely helpful to his career. Unless the two countries are at war again, the information he sent back to Sanya will only be sent to the reference room after being reviewed by his superiors. archived copies.However, with his ability, he certainly cannot provoke a war between the two countries, and he can only slowly wait for the opportunity.Fortunately, the waiting time was not too long. A few months ago, he finally received an order from his superiors asking him to step up the collection of local military and political intelligence and wait for an opportunity to disrupt the social order in Manila at the right time at the end of the year.
At that time, the order he received did not have a clear timetable, but his intuition told him that the war was approaching, and the long-awaited performance opportunity was coming.If some key information can be provided to the military during this battle, he believes that he should be able to get a promotion after the war.
Haihan sent troops to attack the city of Manila, and the most needed information was probably the deployment of the local city defense.But Ran Tianlu's main social relationship is Father Blanco, this man is not closely related to those officers with eyes on the top of his head, it is impossible to get key information from the priest.
However, Ran Tianlu had his own plan. During the Batavia War in 1632, one of his colleagues, Cheng Dapeng, was also lurking in the city of Batavia as a businessman. Batavia's city defense information.Although the opponent of the Dutch at that time was not Haihan, but the Matalan army, the intelligence collected by Cheng Dapeng still provided detailed reference materials for Haihan to find out the armed strength of the East India Company.
Lao Jun can do things like this as long as he has money, and Ran Tianlu is usually close to the Spaniards, so no one will doubt his purpose when he comes out.As for the corresponding expenses, Ran Tianlu believes that even if He Xi, the Minister of Security, comes here, he will also think that spending a sum of money to buy city defense intelligence is worth thousands of dollars.
(End of this chapter)
The Executive Committee and the military are naturally full of confidence in whether they can defeat Spain. After all, most of the elite troops in the Haihan Army have been mobilized for this battle, and they have been preparing for nearly a year beforehand. It can be said that they can do it. Almost all the preparations have been made to the extreme, and the commanders of both the army and the navy will go out to command in person. There is no reason for this war to have other results.
But after this battle, whether the short-term gains from Manila will be enough to cover the military expenditure of this operation is hard to say.It is impossible for the Haihan army to let the soldiers wantonly plunder the local people after the city was broken. At most, they just confiscated the property of the Spaniards and their lackeys. Make this operation a little bit of a surplus.In particular, the property of Governor Aragones is said to have shrunk extremely.
From a long-term strategic point of view, defeating the Spaniards in Manila has cleared a major obstacle to future expansion in the South China Sea. The value that Haihan can create by using Luzon Island will of course far exceed the military expenditures spent this time, but for the For Haihan, who has always been good at calculation, it is undoubtedly a great pity that short-term gains may not be able to make up for the amount of military expenditure.
Although Haihan's wealth ranks among the top few in the entire Far East, its military expenditure is also staggeringly large.According to the national financial statistics over the years, military expenditure has maintained the first place in the expenditure list almost every year.Because Haihanhua has always insisted on the line of elite soldiers, the expenditure on training and equipment is very huge, and overseas wars have continued year after year, so the military expenditure even exceeds that of a big country like Ming Dynasty.To put it bluntly, the Haihan Army's invincibility was indeed achieved with a lot of money.
And this attack on Manila, although the battlefield is not as far away as Liaodong or the Straits of Malacca, the scale of the participating troops is the largest since the founding of the People's Republic of China. The supplies and guarantees provided were all carried out in accordance with the highest standards. The military expenditure invested in this operation was actually far greater than fighting on the border of the Haihan territory.If you consider it purely from an economic point of view, this action is indeed a bit like losing money and making money.
"Schneider specially greeted me before departure, and asked me to scrape the ground three feet after breaking through the city of Manila and collect all the valuables back to Sanya." Yan Chujie shrugged and said, "I said I was going to fight, but It’s not for scratching the ground, it’s for you to do it yourself, I can’t control that much!”
All the officers surrounding him immediately smiled knowingly, but the other party was also the head of the executive committee, so no one dared to laugh out loud.With Yan Chujie's status, he can naturally joke around, but these subordinates still have to maintain enough respect.
The troops departing from Sanya this time were personally commanded by Minister of National Defense Yan Chujie, who was also the former commander-in-chief of the operation.On the way to Manila, it is also necessary to gather the senior officers under his command on the flagship, and seize the time to conduct the final deduction of the existing combat plan, so as to achieve foolproof results.When it was time for a break, Yan Chujie casually told some interesting stories about the senior officials of the Executive Committee preparing for this operation, and all the generals laughed, thinking it was a pastime between meetings.
Compared with the various elites mobilized by the North and South Route Army, the composition of this mixed force starting from Sanya is not so eye-catching.Almost all of these troops were drawn from the various units stationed on Hainan Island, rather than special operations battalions, cavalry battalions and other special forces with a strong commander's personal color.In other words, this unit is the representative of the true average combat effectiveness of the Haihan Army.
Yan Chujie is of course the clearest about this point. The elite troops of Haihan almost all carry out combat missions overseas all the year round, and the troops stationed on Hainan Island generally have regular rotations with overseas garrisons. Although there are not as many opportunities for actual combat as the elite troops, But basically all have experience in overseas combat.In terms of combat effectiveness, there is naturally a gap with elites like special warfare battalions. After all, training, treatment, combat experience, and weapons and equipment are all a bit behind.But if it is compared with the armed forces of the Ming army or the Western colonists, it is still much stronger than the opponent.
The Executive Committee and the Ministry of National Defense do not want the limelight to be taken away by the generals stationed abroad, so in the follow-up combat arrangements, these relatively "ordinary" troops will also shoulder some key tasks, striving to be able to Obtain military merit commendation after the battle to balance the forces in the army.Otherwise, in every foreign war, a few elite troops will be rewarded for their meritorious service, and military expenditure will have to be greatly tilted towards them, and the best weapons and equipment will be given priority to them. Such a long-term development may not be a good thing.
Of course, the Ministry of National Defense needs to find a balance, and it is impossible to deliberately restrict the development of these special forces, which will only attract dissatisfaction and complaints from the generals.All the Ministry of National Defense can do is to find opportunities for ordinary troops to fight more.As the Minister of National Defense, Yan Chujie is not easy to take sides, but in the previous preparation meetings before the war, he has roughly revealed the high-level intentions to the military officers who participated in the war. After realizing the painstaking efforts of this arrangement, all that remains is to see whether their performance on the battlefield is up to the mark.
Although the three armies went their own way, fortunately, Haihan also mastered the communication method of the telegraph, so the information could be synchronized during the march.The daily voyages of the three fleets and the difference from the original voyage plan can basically maintain real-time communication.And Yan Chujie and Wang Tom can also use this method to calculate the itinerary of each fleet, so that the three fleets can reach the destination Manila Bay simultaneously as much as possible.
According to the plan formulated by the navy, the two fleets departing from Sanya and Cam Ranh Bay will have similar voyages to Manila Bay, and it will take about six days on the way. The fleet takes about a day less.In order to realize the plan of the three fleets arriving at the same time, the navy specially set aside ample time when formulating the voyage, so as to prevent the fleet from encountering adverse weather at sea and delaying the voyage.
While Haihan's army marched towards Manila, the people in Manila were still unaware of the upcoming war.Although the Manila authorities have vaguely sensed that the situation is not good, they did not give an early warning to the public in order to ensure that the local law and order will not be disrupted.Regarding the sharp drop in the number of ships arriving at the port recently, the Governor's Office explained that the southeast coast of Daming was hit by a typhoon and a tsunami some time ago, and many ports and ships were severely damaged. trade.
This explanation seems to make sense to the local people who have no information. After all, natural disasters cannot be avoided, and perhaps it will slowly return to normal after a while.On the contrary, some Spanish businessmen secretly regretted that if they had known that there would be problems with the supply of goods from Daming recently, they should have increased the price of the last batch of goods they arranged to be shipped back to China.
Of course, not everyone is ignorant of the news from the outside world. For example, the intelligence personnel sent by the Haihan Security Department to Manila are very clear that the current depression in the port is not caused by climate disasters, but that Haihan is in Daming. The result of the pressure exerted by coastal ports on sea merchants.Except for a very small number of businessmen who run errands for the Manila authorities, no one is willing to take the risk of offending Haihan and continue to come to Manila to trade with the Spaniards at this juncture.
Ran Tianlu is the person in charge of a commercial warehouse outside Manila. According to the official registration information, this commercial warehouse named "Chaosheng" is the property of a certain maritime merchant in Chaozhou, Guangdong, and Ran Tianlu was assigned to Here is the post of big shopkeeper.Every two months, cargo ships brought products from Chaozhou to Daming, and the "Chaosheng" store sold them to the local Spaniards in batches.And Ran Tianlu will also buy tobacco leaves and edible spices from the local area from time to time depending on the market situation, and let the cargo ship bring them back to Guangdong for sale.
"Chaosheng" business store has been operating locally for more than two years. During this period, it has always kept its own law and order. The taxes collected by the Manila authorities have been paid in full and on time. Ran Tianlu even donated money to the Spanish church in the city regularly. This point is highly respected by the respected local Father Blanco, and he even persuaded Governor Aragones more than once to ask him to approve the local Han people who believe in God to apply for Spanish citizenship.
Of course, this is just the wishful thinking of Father Blanc, who is ignorant of politics. He doesn't even think about it. If Han Chinese can become Spanish citizens because they believe in religion, will they be able to enjoy the same treatment as Spanish nationals in the future?If this is the case, then the annual tax that the Manila authorities can collect from the Han people will be reduced by more than half, and the main bearer of this loss is Governor Aragones himself. How could he agree with Father Blanco's suggestion.
Besides, of course, Ran Tianlu himself has no intention of becoming a Spanish citizen. Apart from his identity as the shopkeeper of Chaosheng Commercial Store, he also has another secret identity, which is the officer of the Special Operations Section of the South China Sea Affairs Department of the Haihan Security Department. member.Everything he did in Manila, including donating to Spanish churches, establishing a personal relationship with priests, etc., was aimed at covering up his apparent identity.
And these measures have indeed achieved very good results. Although the Spaniards don't like Han immigrants very much, but Han people like Ran Tianlu, who can be favored by priests, naturally have a different attitude.Ran Tianlu is rich and has a protective umbrella, so no one will deliberately make things difficult for him in Manila.
Before being sent to Manila as a lurker, Ran Tianlu had received more than two years of language training. The Ministry of Security specially found a Portuguese teacher who had lived in Spain for many years from Macau to tutor him, so that he could work as an intelligence officer in Manila. There will be no barriers due to language issues.
Even so, when Ran Tianlu first arrived in Manila, he still pretended not to understand Spanish at all. It was not until he came into contact with Father Blanco that he slowly pretended to be the result of self-study, and began to reveal his mastery little by little. session.But Father Blanco didn't know the mystery, he only thought it was a miracle after Ran Tianlu believed in God, otherwise he couldn't imagine that a Han Chinese could learn his mother tongue so quickly.
After receiving permission from Father Blanco, Ran Tianlu was free to participate in various religious activities held in the church, and in this environment, he heard a lot of valuable intelligence information from the local Spanish population effortlessly. .Even the news that Governor Aragones managed to raise funds for activities in the country after the war with Haihan last year, he heard from the chats of several wealthy Spanish businessmen in the church.
However, Ran Tianlu also understands that no matter how much this kind of information is collected, it will actually be extremely helpful to his career. Unless the two countries are at war again, the information he sent back to Sanya will only be sent to the reference room after being reviewed by his superiors. archived copies.However, with his ability, he certainly cannot provoke a war between the two countries, and he can only slowly wait for the opportunity.Fortunately, the waiting time was not too long. A few months ago, he finally received an order from his superiors asking him to step up the collection of local military and political intelligence and wait for an opportunity to disrupt the social order in Manila at the right time at the end of the year.
At that time, the order he received did not have a clear timetable, but his intuition told him that the war was approaching, and the long-awaited performance opportunity was coming.If some key information can be provided to the military during this battle, he believes that he should be able to get a promotion after the war.
Haihan sent troops to attack the city of Manila, and the most needed information was probably the deployment of the local city defense.But Ran Tianlu's main social relationship is Father Blanco, this man is not closely related to those officers with eyes on the top of his head, it is impossible to get key information from the priest.
However, Ran Tianlu had his own plan. During the Batavia War in 1632, one of his colleagues, Cheng Dapeng, was also lurking in the city of Batavia as a businessman. Batavia's city defense information.Although the opponent of the Dutch at that time was not Haihan, but the Matalan army, the intelligence collected by Cheng Dapeng still provided detailed reference materials for Haihan to find out the armed strength of the East India Company.
Lao Jun can do things like this as long as he has money, and Ran Tianlu is usually close to the Spaniards, so no one will doubt his purpose when he comes out.As for the corresponding expenses, Ran Tianlu believes that even if He Xi, the Minister of Security, comes here, he will also think that spending a sum of money to buy city defense intelligence is worth thousands of dollars.
(End of this chapter)