The fleet set off in a few days.

In addition to the eleven warships of the Iron Armor Fleet that had been in service for five years, there are also ten Tengis cargo ships from Garcia, carrying the Malja Brigade.

Zhuang Jiyun, who performed well in the Far East in recent years, has been appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Expeditionary Force. In addition, Zhou Jixun, who is familiar with the situation in the Philippines, is also in the team.

When the fleet passed by the northern waters of Borneo Island, Zhuang Jiyun suddenly felt something strange.

"It's going to be a storm"

It's May now, and according to common sense, the first hurricane should be coming.

Zhuang Jiyun was actually a little nervous. According to Zhou Jixun's information, the walls of Manila City were ten meters thick, and were made of neatly cut stones. Various artillery were densely covered with Fort Santiago, which could completely block various ships on the Bashi River opposite.

Also, unlike other European countries, the Spaniards took closed measures in their colonies. Generally, ships from other countries are allowed to trade, unless they are ships with significantly weaker strength than them.

Chinese, only Chinese ships can sail to Manila freely.

The Chinese schooners were single and weak, and their defenses were weak, which allowed the Spanish to draw a place on the tidal flats near the Bashi River north of Manila for the Chinese to trade and live there.

There is a famous Chinese gathering area - Balian.

Later, more and more Chinese came, and the Eighth Company expanded to the entire outer periphery of Manila. However, the Spanish have always been highly wary of the Chinese. The shock brought to them by the pirate Lin Feng a hundred years ago was too strong.

It was because of the Lin Feng incident that they expanded Fort Santiago into a tall, thick and sturdy military land.

And a massacre of Chinese people every once in a while is obviously a cause for the occasional factor.

Chinese are obviously different from local natives.

The local natives are very lazy. Apart from simple farming and fishing, they almost won’t do anything else. Of course, the natives in the mountains of the Philippines and the Islamic people in the south are still somewhat combat-effective, so the Spanish organized them in large quantities to make up for the lack of local white military strength.

And Chinese people will have almost any job in this world.

If the Spaniards want to gain a foothold in the Philippines, it is not enough to rely on thin whites alone. They also need a lot of high-quality supplies. It would be too expensive if they were shipped from Europe.

The Chinese just made up for this vacancy. They could not only transport it from the Qing Dynasty, but also make it on-site in the Eighth Company.

So, like the Dutch, it is normal to use lazy but organized and trained native security teams to control the Chinese, and use Chinese to provide them with taxes and daily necessities.

Of course, since the naval battle in South Australia five years ago, the Spaniards have intentionally or unintentionally linked to the British and Dutch people.

The Dutch are still their competitors in the Far East, and the chances of contact are obviously smaller, but the British are different.

Although they used to be mortal, but time has changed, and some people have seen British ships docking everywhere in the Philippines every now and then.

Also, secret organizations like Masonic can naturally drive ships to any port.

The storm and waves on the sea are getting heavier.

Thirty-year-old Zhuang Jiyun's brows were also frowning tighter.

He held a meeting in Captain Bogda's office.

Based on his five years of experience in the Far East and the Truechin Navy's excellent habit of recording wind directions, storms, and various abnormal climate scenes at any time, he knew that the storm would not arrive at at least three days.

Within three days, the fleet had already arrived in Manila.

However, it is impossible for the fleet to launch an offensive in Manila City, the storm will last at least two or three days, which means that after they arrive, they need to find a safe haven and wait for a few days before they can start the operation again.

In addition, Manila City, including its satellite city, Fort Santiago, is a huge military land. Not only is the city wall tall and thick, but it is also surrounded by moats. The castle is also a distance from the river bank. It is impossible to easily take it down like Vung Tung Port, Jiading City, and Japanese coastal cities.

As a great colonial power that started at sea, the Spaniards obviously knew how to capture a coastal city and how to defend a coastal city on their own.

Also, most of the buildings in the Spanish castles are made of stone, so it is unlikely to be indirectly captured by fire attack.

But since Timur appointed him as the commander-in-chief of the Expeditionary Force, he obviously had a plan.

He held a meeting again to re-determine the plan.

The old rules are that in the captain's room, an iron bed that originally belonged to Zhuang Jiyun was already closed and approached the ship gang, and there was an extra square table in its original place.

The square table is fixed on the deck, covered with a map of the Philippines provided by the Masonic, which was verified by the Far East Branch over five years.

Of course, five years is not enough for them to carefully inspect every part of the huge Philippine archipelago. It is nothing more than a key inspection of places with large populations, special resources, and Spanish garrisons.

And Manila City is obviously the top priority.

"This is Krabi"

Zhou Jixun is pointing at the map and talking.

"It is a narrow peninsula, about fourteen miles long from north to south, with an average width of about three miles, and the narrowest part in the south is less than three hundred meters"

"The Spaniards have a squadron here, a third-class battleship, which has always maintained four or five armed merchant ships in the port, and docked in the bay at the northern end"

"The northern end of the peninsula is Krabidi Castle, which is similar in area to Fort Santiago. It is also tall and sturdy, but not as exaggerated as Fort Santiago. However, the thickness of the stone castle wall is about five meters, and the height is more than Fort Santiago, with an average height of about ten meters"

"There is no natural port on the north side of the peninsula, and the mountains along the coast are steep, so it is impossible to attack from that side. The best ports are all in the bay to the east"

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"The Spaniards have a white camp in the castle, and three native camps in the bay. This is also the largest commercial port second only to Manila. Merchant ships in the Southeast Asian country that do not obtain the Philippine Governor's license can dock here"

"But there are a lot of tariffs that need to be paid, and all the tariffs here are used to support the fleet and the army"

"By the way, the three native battalions at the dock were soldiers during the war, and they were usually security personnel from the entire Krabi area. They were all Islamists from Mindanao in the southern part of our country. We all know that the Bugis people are very powerful in the Malay Peninsula and Batavia."

"But why they stayed away from Makassar and went to the Malay Peninsula and Batavia because they had been fighting with the Islamists in the southern Philippines for a long time and only thought of going to other places after losing to the enemy"

"It can be imagined that the combat effectiveness of these native Islamists is quite considerable. The Islamists in Mindanao also fought against the Spaniards, but they were not united. Almost one island is a sultanate, and the sultanate countries naturally fought for a long time."

"The Spaniards adopted the strategy of pulling one faction and fighting one faction, and accommodated the Islamists who were driven away by the strong faction, let them live near Manila, and built Islamic temples for them, which made them very homely."

"The population near Krabidi Castle, including the bay, is about 20,000 to 30,000, most of them are Chinese. On the one hand, they are farmers on the island, on the other hand, they are local handicraftsmen, and they are also providers of essential daily necessities such as rice, cloth, salt, meat, iron and other essential daily necessities"

"Some of them are produced locally, and some are transported from the Qing Dynasty. Most of the merchants have industries in Krabi and Guangdong, and Fujian, each with wives and concubines. In addition, since the locals do not engage in business, half of the internal trade in the entire Philippine archipelago is also completed by Chinese people."

"The transportation of goods uses a three-masted schooner with a wide head and a wide tail, which can easily shuttle between the Philippine Islands. However, if you want to travel to the Nanyang Islands, the Qing Dynasty needs a lucky ship and a wide ship"

"Now in the eighth company of Manila, almost all the leaders of ocean-going merchant ships in Krabi have monopolized the Philippines' domestic trade. Their profits are very high and they can organize more ships and manpower. In a few seconds, they defeated the local merchants that the Spaniards worked hard to cultivate."

"The reason why half of the shares are in the hands of local natives is that the Spanish Governor's Office clearly stipulates that the trade share of Chinese people in various parts of the Philippine Islands must not account for more than half. Chinese are very smart. In fact, about half of the native merchants are their second-level wholesalers, and they are still controlled by them."

"Where is the Spaniard?"

"Haha, their people only conduct two major trades. The first is to transport silver ingots, copper ingots, saltpeter, sulfur and locally produced cloth from the Governor of Peru here, and then sell them to Guangzhou to purchase silk, porcelain, tea and other items."

"Then some silk, porcelain, daily necessities are transported to Manila and other places and wholesale to local distributors"

"Then it is to charge commercial taxes for Chinese merchants"

"What they are most passionate about is to occupy the vast farmland in the local area and then hire Chinese people to farm for them. Chinese people are their foreman, and local people are serfs"

"Of course, later, the Spanish saw that the grain yield grown by the locals was too small, so they simply rented a large amount of land to the Chinese to cultivate. The tax was obviously much better than that of the Qing Dynasty, and the Chinese were also willing. In any case, they were very willing to be a landlord with a vast farm."

"In addition, just like in various parts of Nanyang, there are also many Japanese Catholics who were expelled from the shogunate here. They were also included in their management system by the Governor's Office because of their force. A considerable number of them exist as grassroots commanders of the native camps"

"It is also the only race who can enter Manila City to serve as a formal sheriff"

"There are few Japanese people, less than a thousand households, followed by Chinese people, about ten or twelve thousand households, and the most natives. The Spanish used one layer of checks and balances and one layer to control the entire Philippines"

"Ten or 20,000 households?"
Chapter completed!