"Governor, our people are almost all retreating into the outer city of the big turret. Can we start shelling now?"

When the people below came to report on the retreat of the Portuguese, Rothony was frowning in a ball on the wall of the outer city of St. Paul's Fortress.

What worried him was that the outer city of St. Paul's Battery where he was now located was a bastion, and it also borrowed the terrain of a hill, which was extremely dangerous. If Rotoni had only one St. Paul's Battery to guard now, he would not be anxious.

But the problem is that this extremely dangerous St. Paul's Fortress occupied too small. Forty or fifty years ago, when the Macau colonies were not large, they could still allow all the residents of the colonies to enter and hide during wartime.

But as the colonies gradually became the largest seaport in East Asia and the missionary center of Catholicism in East Asia and Southeast Asia, Macau's population also grew sharply.

Nowadays, the permanent population and the migrant population are tens of thousands, how can it be squeezed into a small turret?

And there is also a St. Paul's Cathedral, and a St. Paul's Seminary that is constantly expanding!

The cathedral and seminary are far beyond the St. Paul's Fortress, so it is naturally impossible to build it in the fortress.

So the Macau colonial authorities built another city wall outside the St. Paul's Fortress, forming the outer city of the Fortress, and enclosed the cathedral and the seminary within the exterior wall.

This circle of exterior walls is not an indestructible bastion, but an ordinary stone city wall. Although there is a moat outside the exterior wall and some small and medium-caliber artillery are also installed on the top of the walls. However, the defense ability of this circle of city walls is simply incomparable to that of the bastion!

What's worse is that because of the construction of this circle of walls, the firing angle of the 12-pound cannons built on the bastion was blocked and they could not directly bombard the enemies near the walls.

And Rotoni cannot give up on this circle of walls that have surrounded him!

Because of St. Paul's Cathedral and St. Paul's Theological Seminary are now outside the St. Paul's Battery, under the protection of this circle of exterior walls!

If he abandoned the exterior wall, not only tens of thousands of colonial residents, but also the cathedral and seminary, the consequences were unbearable for him as the governor!

Just as Rothony thought of this, a song praising God suddenly rang in his ears.

This is the priests and believers gathered in St. Paul's Cathedral, led by Bishop Santos, singing loudly and praising Jesus.

When Rotoni heard this song, he knew that he could never give up the exterior wall of the fortress. St. Paul's Cathedral and the Seminary were the spiritual sustenance of the Portuguese Macau people. If the "World is the Lord" flag that symbolizes Confucianism fluttered on St. Paul's Cathedral, then people's hearts would be dispersed.

Thinking of Jesus and the hearts of the people, Rothony took a deep breath and shouted to the Portuguese soldiers around him: "Listen! This is a song that praises Jesus. Our omnipotent Lord must have heard this song and our request. He will bless us! God bless Portugal, God bless us."

As he spoke, he quickly drew a cross on his chest, "Now, fire! Target, the British East India Company Store!"

"Governor," De Figo, who had already resumed his post, came to remind him at this time, "You want to bombard the British shopping malls? Shouldn't we hit enemy warships on the water?"

Rotoni turned around and glanced at De Figo, lowered his voice and said, "The warships on the water are moving, and they are protected by black magic smoke, so they may not be hit. The mall is a fixed target. It has been sighting for countless times, and the artillery can hit even with closed eyes!"

After hearing Rotoni's words, De Figo was also stunned and said to himself: "Are we not allies with the English for hundreds of years? How can we aim at them every day with cannons?"

Rotoni continued, "And I plan to seize the nine Chinese sea ships and the Big East! I have sent nine galleys full of warriors to capture the ten large ships!"

Speaking of "those ten big ships", Governor Rotoni's eyes were red and that was money!

"Boom boom boom"

As soon as he said this, the nine 12-pound cannons set up on St. Paul's fortress could reach the British East India Company Store and roared!

At the same time as the cannon sounded, 12 black dots followed the fire and smoke came out of the muzzle, and then flew to the British East India Company Store in the distance at a speed that was almost visible to the naked eye!

When the cannons on St. Paul's turret began to roar, a fleet of ships was moving upstream on the mountains and rivers in front.

This fleet is composed of small and medium-sized Western-style galleys, which are not suitable for traveling to the ocean. The sails are too small to catch up with the sea boats that sail with wind. Moreover, there are too many sailors on the boat. Not only is it wasteful money on eating and drinking along the way, it will also occupy a very valuable load tonnage.

Therefore, this type of ship usually just wanders offshore, using its flexibility and ability to navigate against the wind and flow to do some smuggling, anti-smuggling, robbery, catching thieves and offshore defense.

In Qiu Hui's army, there are many similar ships, called fast crab boats or centipede boats.

However, this time, no fast crab boat or centipede boat was sent to Macau Qiu Hui.

The biggest advantage of this type of Chinese and Western mixed ship is that it has low operating costs. It does not require soft sails to save labor. Western-style high-side ships can load more cargo to travel to the ocean. The biggest disadvantage is that the speed is too slow, the area of ​​the hard sail is smaller than that of soft sails, and there are no long paddles to paddle. Therefore, this kind of ship usually runs smoothly and is a "slow boat".

In addition, since there are not many sailors on the old gate ships under normal operation, this kind of ship is afraid of encountering sailboats that specialize in smuggling, anti-smuggling, robbing or catching thieves.

These nine old gate ships belonging to Qiu Hui and an armed merchant ship belonging to the East India Company, but are now under the control of the Qiu family sailors, have become the prey of nine fully armed Portuguese gallops tonight!

On these nine Portuguese gallops, in addition to the black slave paddlers, they were the most warriors in the Portuguese army in Macau. Half of them were desperate adventurers who came from the West. These people were holding heavy Spanish muskets and had Western swords hanging on their belts. Obviously, they were all excellent musketeers, and their sword skills should be good.

If they were asked to board the Qiu family's old gate ship, it would be a big trouble!

The other half were Japanese mercenaries who had worked hard on the battlefield in Southeast Asia for many years. This Japanese mercenary was originally the favorite thugs of feudal lords and Chinese maritime pirates in Southeast Asia.

However, as the chaotic times of the Warring States Period of Japan ended, the Tokugawa Shogunate began to close the country, and the supply chain of the original Japanese pirate thugs in Japan was broken. However, some descendants of the original Japanese pirates followed their father's business and continued to do business of killing and setting fire.

Because of the reputation of their fathers, these people have become popular goods second only to Western mercenaries.

Because the Portuguese colonists in Macau controlled the Catholic Chrissia rights in China, Japan, North Korea and Southeast Asia, it was easier to hire Japanese mercenaries who converted to Catholicism to serve themselves.

There were more than 200 Japanese thugs on the nine galleys sent by Rotoni!

These Japanese thugs are all dead soldiers who fight for their lives, so they don’t wear armor. Everyone just wears tight clothes and Japanese swords on their waists. Some people also have white cloth strips tied to their heads, but they don’t say “The Martial God’s fortune will last”, but they say “Blessings by Heavenly Father”.

They were wearing light straw sandals on their feet, and several straw ropes were tied to the soles of the shoes to increase friction. If you observe their palms, you can find that there are thick calluses in the palms, which looks particularly strong and can hold the rope firmly and climb upwards.

These people all carried ropes with grapple hooks on their backs, which were used to hook each other's tall ship's side for climbing.
Chapter completed!