Chapter 1670
Chapter 1670
Chapter 1670
When the Haihan army conquered Manila, all the well-connected Spanish immigrants had already escaped from the city to escape the war, and almost all those who were forced to stay in the city were ordinary people with no background.However, this situation also has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that most of these ordinary people dare not cause trouble. They can only stay at home according to the requirements of the new owner and accept door-to-door inspections. The pressure on the security of the Haihan Army will not be so great. .The downside is that the amount of oil and water that can be searched from them will be very limited. Most of the wealth in the city has been taken away by the nobles and rich merchants who fled, and most of the property left in the city is real estate such as houses. Fang was very disappointed with the situation.
Of course, this is also directly related to the tactic of besieging the three ques and one used by the Haihan army during the siege. In order to break down the fighting spirit of the defenders and the people in the city, an escape route in the north was specially set aside.Although this successfully reduced the resistance encountered by the Haihan army during the siege of the city and avoided unnecessary combat casualties, it also caused a large amount of wealth in the city to be lost through this escape channel.It is not so easy to recover the money back.
The military had an estimate of the direct benefits after the war when formulating the battle plan, but if the windfall that Ran Tianlu got from Father Blanco and the income from reselling the captured defenders' weapons were not counted, then It is still far from the estimated figure before the war.The headquarters even held a special meeting for this purpose to discuss how to capture the rich people who fled to the north bank of the Bashi River as soon as possible—even if they cannot be captured, their money must be brought back.
"According to the preliminary investigation and statistics of the intelligence personnel of the Ministry of Security, we estimated that we could get at least 500 million yuan in property from Manila City, but the actual income now is less than 100 million. Even for this money, the people on the north bank of the Pasig River The Spanish colonial villages and towns must also be cleaned up." Yan Chujie looked at the generals present and asked, "Who among you volunteers to take on this task?"
Different from the active struggle before the siege, Qian Tiandun and others looked at me and I looked at you, but no one responded after the exchange of eyes.On the surface, this errand may seem fat, but in fact it is not that simple. At that time, the military police will accompany them to supervise the collection of funds, and their troops will face a very high risk if they want to get money from the middle.And this kind of pursuit action with a clear purpose, because it involves the actual income of the Ministry of National Defense, naturally will not be recorded as military merit and reported to the higher authorities, so as to avoid the executive committee thinking about the recovered money.
After working for a long time, with neither money nor credit, the crowd naturally refused to take the initiative to take on this thankless job.It's better to let the troops stay here in Manila City, guard the city gates and catch the stragglers in the city. If you catch one, you will get a real credit. Wouldn't it be a hundred times better than this job.
Yan Chujie didn't know the small calculations in these people's minds. Seeing that everyone was sitting silently without making a statement, he simply opened the skylight and said: "Since you are not willing to take the initiative to send troops, you can only follow the old rules of the past and start from every day. Some troops were drawn from each army. Considering the large area of the plain north of the Bashi River and the scattered settlements of the Spaniards, I think each army should draw a company."
Tom Wang was the first to object: "There are only four companies in my army, and a quarter of the manpower has to be allocated. Qian Tiandun's army organization is almost catching up with the reinforced regiment, and they only have one company. So Isn't it unfair to assign tasks?"
Yan Chujie ignored his complaints, and continued: "Whoever's army is the first to recover property worth 100 million yuan, the Ministry of National Defense will issue a separate reward, 20 yuan!"
This condition finally aroused the interest of the generals. The money meant little to them personally, but if it could be used as a reward for the troops under their command, it would be a way to buy people's hearts and boost morale.Moreover, each army will draw a company to participate, which is relatively fair, and you can also compete to see which army has the stronger mobility.
However, someone soon pointed out that Harukon's cavalry battalion would undoubtedly take the lead in this competition, how could the two-legged infantry outrun the four-legged cavalry.Therefore, for the sake of fairness, the target amount of the cavalry battalion was adjusted by half.At that moment, all the generals went back to dispatch their troops, preparing to cross the river the next day and go to the northern plains to hunt down the Spaniards.
However, this kind of action is not so much a battle, but more like a dessert served after a meal, a sideshow of this expedition.The generals seem to care about Yan Chujie's conditions, but in fact they are only half-joking. Everyone's real attention is actually on those who were on the arrest list before the war, but disappeared after the war. on the target.
The Governor of the Philippines, Aragones, is naturally one of them. He doesn't need anyone to remind him. He also knows that Haihan must have made many arrangements for arresting himself, so he has already sneaked out of the city before the city of Manila fell completely. , intending to go around to the north of Manila Bay and then take a boat to sea.But it is a pity that halfway through the journey, I received news that the prepared ship had not had time to sail out of Manila Port, and was intercepted by the Haihan army who entered the port.
This means that the original plan has run aground. If there is no way to find other ships that can go to sea, then Aragones probably will not be able to escape from Manila Bay by sea.But if you want to detour to Batangas from land, you have to travel hundreds of miles in the mountains, and the supplies carried by his party probably cannot support such a long journey that takes several days.
This situation is really unacceptable for Aragones, who is used to being pampered in Manila.For the present, they can only try to raise supplies in the nearby colonial villages and towns, formulate a new escape route, and strive to leave before the Haihan people draw their hands to sweep the area.
However, during the time of war, it was not easy to raise supplies such as food and horses from the people, and the position of Aragones could no longer bring him the respect and obedience of the people. The envoys sent to nearby villages and towns were almost without exception. They all came back empty-handed.In desperation, Aragones could only acquiesce in letting his private army take force measures to directly plunder the property of the local immigrants.During this period, several bloody conflicts inevitably occurred, and both sides of the conflict were Spaniards. The Haihan army had not yet crossed the Bashi River, but the internal strife on this side of the river had already begun to kill people.
Regarding the Spanish internal strife on the north bank of the Pasig River, Manila City has not received relevant news, but if the people in the city know that they may not be able to survive the massacre of their own families if they escape out of the city, they may also be grateful to themselves He was deprived of the opportunity to escape from the city before.
At present, there are only two places in Manila that are barely safe. One is the cathedral in the center of the city, which has been turned into a temporary hospital and shelter. The Haihan Army has designated an entire block for this place. To accommodate the eating, drinking, and sleeping of more than [-] people.Of course, there are also many Haihan's arrest targets hiding in it, but after repeated investigations, many people have been arrested one after another.Although Father Blanc was dissatisfied with the Haihan Army's way of filtering the place several times a day like a sieve, the situation was stronger than others after all. At least the Haihan Army did not kill innocent people here indiscriminately, so he could only hold his nose and admit it.
The other place is Chaosheng Commercial Store, which is located outside the city wall in the south of the city and is run by a Ming merchant.It is said that this place was completely preserved because it was requisitioned by the Haihan Army as a frontline headquarters during the war, and the shopkeeper Ran of the store also had a relationship with the Haihan people. It is currently the only place in the entire Port of Manila that can arrange ships to go to sea. merchant.
In this way, those businessmen from various countries who are stranded in Manila naturally regard Chaosheng Trading Post as a shortcut to leave Manila.There are also some people who heard that the goods stored in the Chaosheng Warehouse are more secure, so they try to transfer the goods originally stored in other places to the Chaosheng Warehouse, hoping to use this signboard to find a place for their goods. Safe storage place.Of course, if they learned that a batch of property entrusted to Chaosheng Trading Store by the Spanish Church before the war had been taken away by the Haihan army, they might give up this idea.
Ran Tianlu has been very busy in the past few days. On the one hand, he has to assist the Haihan army in arresting many targets inside and outside the city, and on the other hand, he has to maintain the operation of the store so that he can raise supplies for the army on the spot.After the Haihan army broke the city, he had another task, which was to receive businessmen from various countries who flocked to him every day, and respond to their various requests.
Undoubtedly, this is probably the busiest period since the opening of Chaosheng Commercial Store. Ran Tianlu has been spinning for several days, even if he has been drinking tea and drinking, he still has some mental exhaustion.But there were still several groups of merchants waiting for him to meet in the shop, and it was impossible to issue an eviction order to drive them all away.After he got up to see off the previous group of Daming merchants, he forced his subordinates to bring the next group of merchants in to meet them.
The person who came in took the initiative to greet Ran Tianlu: "Shopkeeper Ran, I'm bothering you! I came to the door today to ask for something. I hope that the shopkeeper Ran will see the friendship of the same clan, and I will help you!"
Ran Tianlu did recognize this person, his surname was Ran and his name was Hui, but this Ran was not that other, they had the same surname, but they were not related in any way, and this person was not from the Ming Dynasty, but a mixed race of Spaniards and local Han immigrants.But also because of this special background, Ran Hui did well in the circles of both the Spaniards and the Han people, and thus embarked on the road of doing business.
Ran Tianlu invited him to take a seat, ordered his servants to bring hot tea, and then asked him what was the matter.It turned out that Ran Hui bought a large amount of porcelain from the Daming maritime merchant before the war, and before he could sell it, the Haihan army entered Manila Bay, so naturally there were no buyers for his batch of porcelain.Now that the war is over, Ran Hui wants to get rid of this batch of porcelain as soon as possible, exchange it for gold and silver, try to leave here, and go to another place to avoid the limelight.But at this time, the entire Manila trade market had stagnated, so there would be no customers to buy his porcelain. After thinking about it, Ran Huisi finally found Chaosheng Commercial Store, hoping that Ran Tianlu could help him find a way out.
After hearing this, Ran Tianlu couldn't laugh or cry, and shook his head again and again: "Your Excellency may not know, this Haihan is also a place where porcelain is produced, although the workmanship is not as exquisite as that of the Ming Dynasty official kiln, but it has its own unique features. Your Excellency wants to resell these porcelains Sell it to the Haihan people, how can they get it? Even if you want to buy it, it’s better to buy it directly from Daming. Unless you can lose money and sell it to the Haihan people at a very low price, I don’t see why they need it Take this deal."
Ran Hui replied: "The shopkeeper misunderstood me. This batch of porcelain is not intended to be sold cheaply to the Haihan people, but to be transported to Sanya for sale through their channels. I heard that the Sanya market is open all year round, and merchants from dozens of countries I will buy things there, presumably these porcelains will be shipped to the local area, and at least they can be sold at a decent price. I am willing to pay [-]% of the final price, and the second is to pay tribute to the military men of Haihan. The first is to ask the shopkeeper to accept it. It’s hard-earned money for matchmaking.”
When Ran Tianlu heard that the conditions were not bad, he happened to know a little bit about the condition of the batch of porcelain in Ran Hui's hands, and the price was at least 30 yuan.If it is shipped to Sanya for sale, sales should not be a problem. It depends on whether the Haihan Army is willing to make this convenient.
Ran Tianlu thought about it, there was still a link to be resolved in the arrangement of this matter, so he asked Ran Hui: "Then do you have a boat to carry this batch of porcelain?"
Ran Hui shook his head and said: "The shopkeeper should also know the situation below. They all receive the goods from Ming merchants locally and then sell them slowly. If there is a ship, there is no need to be so troublesome. If the shopkeeper can arrange one for you The ship is the best, and the shipping cost is easy to negotiate."
Ran Tianlu thought to himself that there are dozens of logistics supply ships of the Haihan Army, which are docked at Manila Port and Cavite Port respectively. If the Haihan Army is willing to let go, it is not a big deal to rent a supply ship to send the goods back to Sanya. Difficult.It's just that the war has just ended, and there are few merchant ships left in the local area that can go to sea. The price of renting a ship from Haihan is definitely not cheap.
Ran Tianlu told Ran Hui directly that even if the matter could be agreed by the Haihan Army, the cost would probably be quite high.
Ran Hui said: "Even if it's expensive, it's better than throwing this batch of goods in your hands. To be honest, what I want to do is to leave Manila at this moment. The boat fare is more expensive, so let's treat it as money for the journey!"
Seeing that he was serious, Ran Tianlu nodded and said: "Then I will write this down first, and then I will go to the adults of Haihan to find out what's going on. You can come back tomorrow to hear the news."
Ran Hui took the initiative to get up, bowed deeply to Ran Tianlu and said, "Thank you in advance for the shopkeeper's righteous deed!"
(End of this chapter)
When the Haihan army conquered Manila, all the well-connected Spanish immigrants had already escaped from the city to escape the war, and almost all those who were forced to stay in the city were ordinary people with no background.However, this situation also has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that most of these ordinary people dare not cause trouble. They can only stay at home according to the requirements of the new owner and accept door-to-door inspections. The pressure on the security of the Haihan Army will not be so great. .The downside is that the amount of oil and water that can be searched from them will be very limited. Most of the wealth in the city has been taken away by the nobles and rich merchants who fled, and most of the property left in the city is real estate such as houses. Fang was very disappointed with the situation.
Of course, this is also directly related to the tactic of besieging the three ques and one used by the Haihan army during the siege. In order to break down the fighting spirit of the defenders and the people in the city, an escape route in the north was specially set aside.Although this successfully reduced the resistance encountered by the Haihan army during the siege of the city and avoided unnecessary combat casualties, it also caused a large amount of wealth in the city to be lost through this escape channel.It is not so easy to recover the money back.
The military had an estimate of the direct benefits after the war when formulating the battle plan, but if the windfall that Ran Tianlu got from Father Blanco and the income from reselling the captured defenders' weapons were not counted, then It is still far from the estimated figure before the war.The headquarters even held a special meeting for this purpose to discuss how to capture the rich people who fled to the north bank of the Bashi River as soon as possible—even if they cannot be captured, their money must be brought back.
"According to the preliminary investigation and statistics of the intelligence personnel of the Ministry of Security, we estimated that we could get at least 500 million yuan in property from Manila City, but the actual income now is less than 100 million. Even for this money, the people on the north bank of the Pasig River The Spanish colonial villages and towns must also be cleaned up." Yan Chujie looked at the generals present and asked, "Who among you volunteers to take on this task?"
Different from the active struggle before the siege, Qian Tiandun and others looked at me and I looked at you, but no one responded after the exchange of eyes.On the surface, this errand may seem fat, but in fact it is not that simple. At that time, the military police will accompany them to supervise the collection of funds, and their troops will face a very high risk if they want to get money from the middle.And this kind of pursuit action with a clear purpose, because it involves the actual income of the Ministry of National Defense, naturally will not be recorded as military merit and reported to the higher authorities, so as to avoid the executive committee thinking about the recovered money.
After working for a long time, with neither money nor credit, the crowd naturally refused to take the initiative to take on this thankless job.It's better to let the troops stay here in Manila City, guard the city gates and catch the stragglers in the city. If you catch one, you will get a real credit. Wouldn't it be a hundred times better than this job.
Yan Chujie didn't know the small calculations in these people's minds. Seeing that everyone was sitting silently without making a statement, he simply opened the skylight and said: "Since you are not willing to take the initiative to send troops, you can only follow the old rules of the past and start from every day. Some troops were drawn from each army. Considering the large area of the plain north of the Bashi River and the scattered settlements of the Spaniards, I think each army should draw a company."
Tom Wang was the first to object: "There are only four companies in my army, and a quarter of the manpower has to be allocated. Qian Tiandun's army organization is almost catching up with the reinforced regiment, and they only have one company. So Isn't it unfair to assign tasks?"
Yan Chujie ignored his complaints, and continued: "Whoever's army is the first to recover property worth 100 million yuan, the Ministry of National Defense will issue a separate reward, 20 yuan!"
This condition finally aroused the interest of the generals. The money meant little to them personally, but if it could be used as a reward for the troops under their command, it would be a way to buy people's hearts and boost morale.Moreover, each army will draw a company to participate, which is relatively fair, and you can also compete to see which army has the stronger mobility.
However, someone soon pointed out that Harukon's cavalry battalion would undoubtedly take the lead in this competition, how could the two-legged infantry outrun the four-legged cavalry.Therefore, for the sake of fairness, the target amount of the cavalry battalion was adjusted by half.At that moment, all the generals went back to dispatch their troops, preparing to cross the river the next day and go to the northern plains to hunt down the Spaniards.
However, this kind of action is not so much a battle, but more like a dessert served after a meal, a sideshow of this expedition.The generals seem to care about Yan Chujie's conditions, but in fact they are only half-joking. Everyone's real attention is actually on those who were on the arrest list before the war, but disappeared after the war. on the target.
The Governor of the Philippines, Aragones, is naturally one of them. He doesn't need anyone to remind him. He also knows that Haihan must have made many arrangements for arresting himself, so he has already sneaked out of the city before the city of Manila fell completely. , intending to go around to the north of Manila Bay and then take a boat to sea.But it is a pity that halfway through the journey, I received news that the prepared ship had not had time to sail out of Manila Port, and was intercepted by the Haihan army who entered the port.
This means that the original plan has run aground. If there is no way to find other ships that can go to sea, then Aragones probably will not be able to escape from Manila Bay by sea.But if you want to detour to Batangas from land, you have to travel hundreds of miles in the mountains, and the supplies carried by his party probably cannot support such a long journey that takes several days.
This situation is really unacceptable for Aragones, who is used to being pampered in Manila.For the present, they can only try to raise supplies in the nearby colonial villages and towns, formulate a new escape route, and strive to leave before the Haihan people draw their hands to sweep the area.
However, during the time of war, it was not easy to raise supplies such as food and horses from the people, and the position of Aragones could no longer bring him the respect and obedience of the people. The envoys sent to nearby villages and towns were almost without exception. They all came back empty-handed.In desperation, Aragones could only acquiesce in letting his private army take force measures to directly plunder the property of the local immigrants.During this period, several bloody conflicts inevitably occurred, and both sides of the conflict were Spaniards. The Haihan army had not yet crossed the Bashi River, but the internal strife on this side of the river had already begun to kill people.
Regarding the Spanish internal strife on the north bank of the Pasig River, Manila City has not received relevant news, but if the people in the city know that they may not be able to survive the massacre of their own families if they escape out of the city, they may also be grateful to themselves He was deprived of the opportunity to escape from the city before.
At present, there are only two places in Manila that are barely safe. One is the cathedral in the center of the city, which has been turned into a temporary hospital and shelter. The Haihan Army has designated an entire block for this place. To accommodate the eating, drinking, and sleeping of more than [-] people.Of course, there are also many Haihan's arrest targets hiding in it, but after repeated investigations, many people have been arrested one after another.Although Father Blanc was dissatisfied with the Haihan Army's way of filtering the place several times a day like a sieve, the situation was stronger than others after all. At least the Haihan Army did not kill innocent people here indiscriminately, so he could only hold his nose and admit it.
The other place is Chaosheng Commercial Store, which is located outside the city wall in the south of the city and is run by a Ming merchant.It is said that this place was completely preserved because it was requisitioned by the Haihan Army as a frontline headquarters during the war, and the shopkeeper Ran of the store also had a relationship with the Haihan people. It is currently the only place in the entire Port of Manila that can arrange ships to go to sea. merchant.
In this way, those businessmen from various countries who are stranded in Manila naturally regard Chaosheng Trading Post as a shortcut to leave Manila.There are also some people who heard that the goods stored in the Chaosheng Warehouse are more secure, so they try to transfer the goods originally stored in other places to the Chaosheng Warehouse, hoping to use this signboard to find a place for their goods. Safe storage place.Of course, if they learned that a batch of property entrusted to Chaosheng Trading Store by the Spanish Church before the war had been taken away by the Haihan army, they might give up this idea.
Ran Tianlu has been very busy in the past few days. On the one hand, he has to assist the Haihan army in arresting many targets inside and outside the city, and on the other hand, he has to maintain the operation of the store so that he can raise supplies for the army on the spot.After the Haihan army broke the city, he had another task, which was to receive businessmen from various countries who flocked to him every day, and respond to their various requests.
Undoubtedly, this is probably the busiest period since the opening of Chaosheng Commercial Store. Ran Tianlu has been spinning for several days, even if he has been drinking tea and drinking, he still has some mental exhaustion.But there were still several groups of merchants waiting for him to meet in the shop, and it was impossible to issue an eviction order to drive them all away.After he got up to see off the previous group of Daming merchants, he forced his subordinates to bring the next group of merchants in to meet them.
The person who came in took the initiative to greet Ran Tianlu: "Shopkeeper Ran, I'm bothering you! I came to the door today to ask for something. I hope that the shopkeeper Ran will see the friendship of the same clan, and I will help you!"
Ran Tianlu did recognize this person, his surname was Ran and his name was Hui, but this Ran was not that other, they had the same surname, but they were not related in any way, and this person was not from the Ming Dynasty, but a mixed race of Spaniards and local Han immigrants.But also because of this special background, Ran Hui did well in the circles of both the Spaniards and the Han people, and thus embarked on the road of doing business.
Ran Tianlu invited him to take a seat, ordered his servants to bring hot tea, and then asked him what was the matter.It turned out that Ran Hui bought a large amount of porcelain from the Daming maritime merchant before the war, and before he could sell it, the Haihan army entered Manila Bay, so naturally there were no buyers for his batch of porcelain.Now that the war is over, Ran Hui wants to get rid of this batch of porcelain as soon as possible, exchange it for gold and silver, try to leave here, and go to another place to avoid the limelight.But at this time, the entire Manila trade market had stagnated, so there would be no customers to buy his porcelain. After thinking about it, Ran Huisi finally found Chaosheng Commercial Store, hoping that Ran Tianlu could help him find a way out.
After hearing this, Ran Tianlu couldn't laugh or cry, and shook his head again and again: "Your Excellency may not know, this Haihan is also a place where porcelain is produced, although the workmanship is not as exquisite as that of the Ming Dynasty official kiln, but it has its own unique features. Your Excellency wants to resell these porcelains Sell it to the Haihan people, how can they get it? Even if you want to buy it, it’s better to buy it directly from Daming. Unless you can lose money and sell it to the Haihan people at a very low price, I don’t see why they need it Take this deal."
Ran Hui replied: "The shopkeeper misunderstood me. This batch of porcelain is not intended to be sold cheaply to the Haihan people, but to be transported to Sanya for sale through their channels. I heard that the Sanya market is open all year round, and merchants from dozens of countries I will buy things there, presumably these porcelains will be shipped to the local area, and at least they can be sold at a decent price. I am willing to pay [-]% of the final price, and the second is to pay tribute to the military men of Haihan. The first is to ask the shopkeeper to accept it. It’s hard-earned money for matchmaking.”
When Ran Tianlu heard that the conditions were not bad, he happened to know a little bit about the condition of the batch of porcelain in Ran Hui's hands, and the price was at least 30 yuan.If it is shipped to Sanya for sale, sales should not be a problem. It depends on whether the Haihan Army is willing to make this convenient.
Ran Tianlu thought about it, there was still a link to be resolved in the arrangement of this matter, so he asked Ran Hui: "Then do you have a boat to carry this batch of porcelain?"
Ran Hui shook his head and said: "The shopkeeper should also know the situation below. They all receive the goods from Ming merchants locally and then sell them slowly. If there is a ship, there is no need to be so troublesome. If the shopkeeper can arrange one for you The ship is the best, and the shipping cost is easy to negotiate."
Ran Tianlu thought to himself that there are dozens of logistics supply ships of the Haihan Army, which are docked at Manila Port and Cavite Port respectively. If the Haihan Army is willing to let go, it is not a big deal to rent a supply ship to send the goods back to Sanya. Difficult.It's just that the war has just ended, and there are few merchant ships left in the local area that can go to sea. The price of renting a ship from Haihan is definitely not cheap.
Ran Tianlu told Ran Hui directly that even if the matter could be agreed by the Haihan Army, the cost would probably be quite high.
Ran Hui said: "Even if it's expensive, it's better than throwing this batch of goods in your hands. To be honest, what I want to do is to leave Manila at this moment. The boat fare is more expensive, so let's treat it as money for the journey!"
Seeing that he was serious, Ran Tianlu nodded and said: "Then I will write this down first, and then I will go to the adults of Haihan to find out what's going on. You can come back tomorrow to hear the news."
Ran Hui took the initiative to get up, bowed deeply to Ran Tianlu and said, "Thank you in advance for the shopkeeper's righteous deed!"
(End of this chapter)