Chapter 2991

In the deep mountains and forests of central Cebu Island, there are many temporary settlements like this, and the construction history of some of the buildings can even be traced back more than ten years ago.

At that time, the Haihan Army went south to attack Cebu for the first time. The Spaniards realized that they were outnumbered, so they thought of building more settlements on the island so that they could avoid the sharp edge when the Haihan Army attacked this place and reduce the number of people and

Damage to property.

However, there is no time pattern for the Haihan Army's offensives. They may come several times in a year, or they may go without any warning for many years.

This has also led to the intermittent construction of temporary settlements. When the situation is not good, we rush to work, hoping to complete the construction overnight. However, once the peaceful days have passed for a long time, these facilities will not be used for a long time, and they will have to be deployed at ordinary times.

If there are too many people to maintain them, it will be uneconomical to build too many, so related projects will inevitably come to a standstill.

Moreover, in order to prevent the Haihan Army from attacking the settlements in the mountains and forests, the building scale of a single settlement will not be very large, and can accommodate hundreds to thousands of people. There are no roads between the various settlements, only mountains.

There are small paths connecting each other to prevent the enemy from advancing quickly along the road.

However, inconvenient transportation has also caused problems for the operation of each settlement. In order to facilitate the acquisition of materials and information from Cebu City, the location of these settlements cannot be too far from the urban area. In addition, there are certain requirements for living environments such as water sources.

Therefore, most of the settlements are located in the area between the east and west coasts in the center of the island.

The purpose of the Spaniards in building these settlements was not to fight a decisive battle with the Haihan Army, but to avoid fighting and preserve their strength until the Haihan Army evacuated Cebu Island on its own. For this purpose

, these settlements almost did not build fortifications, and only set up some outposts on the periphery.

All these designs of the Spaniards are based on the concept that the Haihan Army will not occupy Cebu Island for a long time, let alone go deep into the mountains and forests to clear out the entire island. Once the actions of the Haihan Army break through this old concept, the Spaniards will have nothing to do

Further contingency plans are in place.

There is nowhere to flee if you want to continue. Without suitable living conditions and stable material supplies, even if you escape further into the mountains and forests, it will be difficult for most people to survive.

Moreover, the Haihan Navy has controlled all the ports in Cebu Island, even the fishing villages. Now there are no ships that can leave the island. If you want to escape from Cebu Island, the only way is to cut down trees and make rafts yourself.

You can go. But the survival rate of escaping at sea may not be much higher than going directly to the battlefield.

The almost desperate Spaniards launched a counterattack at the second settlement attacked by Haihan Army. They knew very well that they had only two options left, either to die in battle, or to surrender or be captured as hard labor. In essence, these two options

There is no difference between the two outcomes, they are just dying faster or slower.

The Spanish's desperate struggle failed to bring about a miracle. The Haihan Army had already anticipated such a situation and effortlessly defeated the Spanish charge.

The battle only lasted a short time. Under the intensive firepower, more than 150 Spaniards were killed on the spot, and almost everyone who survived was injured.

After the battle, the Haihan Army captured hundreds of old, weak, women and children who were not capable of fighting in this settlement. The adults among them were gathered together to clean up the battlefield in exchange for a chance to survive.

"Let them dig a hole three feet deep at the designated location. They must dig it before tomorrow morning, otherwise they will all die!"

Zheng Agui angrily gave instructions to the Spanish translator, asking him to tell the cowering prisoners in front of him.

The reason for arranging such a task is firstly to consume the physical strength of these prisoners and dispel their thoughts of resistance, and secondly to facilitate the disposal of a large number of corpses after the pit is dug.

However, even if they are threatened with death, there are still people who are not afraid of death. One old man took the initiative and told the translator that he would rather die than obey the orders of the Haihan people.

After listening to the translation, Zheng Agui was too lazy to talk nonsense. He had the old man dragged to the front of the prisoner queue, picked up a rifle and executed the stubborn old man himself.

"Tell them that they can either bury their dead relatives or be like this guy and wait to be buried by others!"

Zheng Agui would not have any sympathy for people in the hostile camp. Moreover, Zheng Agui could only interpret this refusal to cooperate as disguised resistance. For those who resisted, the headquarters had clear orders, including shooting.

Any approach including this is not an exaggeration.

Even if the old man was incapable of taking up arms and fighting, Zheng Agui would never sit idly by and watch him incite resistance in other prisoners in front of him, and he would decisively kill him as a warning to prevent the situation from getting out of hand.

This trick worked as expected. The prisoners who were still muttering suddenly became quiet, and the several crying children were immediately silenced by the adults.

After conquering this settlement, the Haihan Army's subsequent actions were even more overwhelming. Only five days had passed from the time the troops were dispatched to the time when the eastern and western armies completed their rendezvous at the predetermined area.

At this time, there were very few settlements controlled by Haihan. It seemed that it would not take even one month as requested by Xiao Liang to end the eradication of the remaining Spanish forces ahead of schedule.

The only disappointing thing is that the Governor of Cebu was probably not caught. To be precise, the Governor is currently missing. No one knows his whereabouts, so there is no way to arrest him. But the situation in Cebu Island has been determined.

Even if this person is not dead, there will be no chance of a comeback.

As these settlements in the mountains and forests have been cleared, the defense pressure on the periphery of Cebu City has also been greatly reduced. Some time ago, attacks occurred almost every day near the defense line, but in recent days, it has gradually calmed down, and many outposts have been

No alarms have been issued for several days.

On December 12, a team from the Subic Battalion killed the Spanish commander Cres who was hiding in a cave sixty miles away from Cebu City.

This person is the deputy to the Governor of Cebu, responsible for organizing and commanding the local armed forces. However, his whereabouts have not been found since the Haihan Army attacked the port of Cebu. Only from the confessions of some prisoners can we know this Clay

Si is still hiding somewhere on the island, commanding local resistance operations remotely.

When the Subic Battalion tracked the cave, they did not actually know the identity of the man in the cave. It was not until the end of the battle that they discovered that the enemy personnel killed in the crossfire turned out to be a senior military officer, and they quickly verified the identity.

Although it was a bit regretful not to be able to capture this man alive, it was also a great achievement, and the Subic Battalion, which had performed poorly in the previous battle, was able to save some face.
Chapter completed!