The news that the Spanish fleet suddenly appeared behind them made Huang Zhiting and Gao Jing feel nervous.
Their nervousness can actually be blamed on Gao Jingshi, because according to the situation Gao Jingshi introduced to them before, if Portugal is the overlord of Southeast Asia, then Spain is the king of the world in this era.
In this moment of glory for Spain, if we want to face Spain on the battlefield, no matter who we are, we must carefully consider the consequences, especially in maritime operations.
According to Gao Pragmatic's authorized instructions on the possibility of a battle at sea: whether to fight or not depends on Huang Zhiting, and how to fight depends on Gao Jing. Therefore, as soon as he got the news, Gao Jing turned his eyes to Huang Zhiting's face.
Huang Zhiting did not speak immediately, but walked to Gao Jing's command table, opened the chart on the table, looked at it, turned around and asked: "Commander Gao, if I read correctly, the current situation is that we are in the center, southwest
The direction is Malacca, the northeast direction is the Spanish fleet, and we are approximately the same distance from these two parties?"
Gao Jing actually knew the location without looking at the chart, but he still walked to the chart, took out three paperweights with small flags and placed them in the corresponding positions, saying: "That's right, please take a look."
This was done in accordance with Gao's pragmatic custom. The paperweight with the red flag represents the fleet, and the paperweight with the blue flag represents the enemy or the target party. It is also in line with the Ming Dynasty's tradition of favoring red.
Gao Jing also explained: "The wind was strong in the past two days, and the speed of our fleet was very fast. Generally speaking, the speed of the Spanish fleet should also be very fast. But if we assume that the Portuguese fleet in Malacca will also come out to intercept it at this time
As for my fleet, it happens to be against the wind, so the speed cannot be fast - I mean, it is at least twice as slow as when it is with the wind."
Huang Zhiting said: "In other words, under the current circumstances, assuming that we stay on Wansheng Island, it is impossible for the Portuguese and Spanish to arrive at the same time and fight us?"
"Yes." Gao Jing replied simply.
Huang Zhiting paused and asked again: "What if we go back and fight Spain first? How much time will we have to fight?"
"Is this assuming that the Portuguese send troops to intercept it?"
"good."
"At least three or four days are enough for us to find the enemy and fight."
In an era without radar and satellites, although there were waterways on the vast ocean, those waterways were only used for safe navigation in peacetime. If it was wartime, both the enemy and our fleets might not take ordinary waterways. In this case, it would be difficult to find the enemy.
A very important thing, sometimes a lot of time is wasted.
However, Gao Jing was very confident in what he said. He believed that it would only take three or four days to complete the two major tasks of finding the enemy and fighting. The reason for this confidence was that the fleet was large enough to be divided into several
"Two-Two Formation" to investigate the enemy's situation.
Huang Zhiting asked again: "What is the strength of Spain's forty large Galenic ships? Has the Nanyang Fleet made an assessment before? If we only talk about paper strength, what is the strength comparison between us and them?"
Gao Jing replied: "The Great Galen is just a general term. In fact, according to the calculation method of our Nanyang Fleet, a Western Galen ship with more than 2,000 materials (displacement 1,000 tons) is called a Great Galen. And
As for Galen the Great in Spain, as far as I know, it is generally around 2,400 materials."
Huang Zhiting's brows suddenly frowned and asked: "Half the size of our armed transport ship?"
The Jinghua-style armed transport ship is not small, it is a large merchant ship with a cost of 1,600 yuan. Especially in the Nanyang region, even the Portuguese merchant ships are usually not that big, most of which cost 800 yuan to 1,200 yuan.
On the left and right, Jinghua's armed transport ships had a size advantage, so Huang Zhiting couldn't help but be surprised when she heard that the Spanish Galen was actually worth 2,400 tons.
But this is indeed a fact, because the Spanish are now the maritime hegemons and are very dependent on gold and silver from the Americas. Therefore, most of the Spanish treasure ship fleets use the Real Galen with a huge capacity, which can be regarded as the carrack sailing ship a hundred years ago.
Evolved version.
In fact, the ultimate giant ship version of the Galen ship has not yet come out. In the original history, that honor belongs to the Spanish flagship "Holy Trinity", also translated as "Santa Trinidad", which was built in 1767, with a displacement of nearly 5,000 tons.
(4950 tons), it was the only giant ship with four decks of guns in the world at that time, with a total of 140 guns on the ship.
However, even if we don't talk about these "future" things, let's just say that the current Spanish Gallen is amazing in terms of the number of ship-borne artillery pieces - at least they are two-layer deck guns, and the main force of the fleet on Jinghua's side is
A transport ship is just an open-air deck gun.
Among the four "professional warships" of the Jinghua Expeditionary Fleet, three second-class cruisers have one-deck guns, and only the flagship Lang Son has two-deck guns.
Gao Jing briefly introduced these situations to Huang Zhiting. After hearing this, Huang Zhiting was a little shocked and worried, and said to herself: No wonder Gao Lang told me before that there would be no fight with Spain. Such a powerful fleet is just a treasure ship.
One of the fleets, who knows how many such treasure ship fleets they have in total?
At present, the fleet in Gao Jing's hands is already 80% of the Nanyang Fleet and nearly half of the entire Beijing and China Fleet. In this case, whether it is worthwhile to go to a head-on fight with Spain and what the consequences will be, this is Huang Zhiting
It has to be considered with high pragmatism.
Facing Gao Jing's request for instructions, Huang Zhiting suddenly asked: "You said before that this fleet originally came from a place called Mexico to deliver money to the Spaniards in Luzon?"
Gao Jing was startled for a moment, then nodded: "Yes, this news should be correct, because the news from Luzon is that they started unloading money as soon as they arrived in Luzon, and they unloaded thousands of boxes of money in total.
, at least four to five hundred thousand taels."
"Oh, by the way." Gao Jing added: "At that time, the main force of the fleet stationed in Quanzhou Port was also in Luzon. They went to trade with the Spanish and brought a lot of silk, silk, and some porcelain. Now
Thinking about it, they should have made a deal with this Spanish fleet."
Huang Zhiting breathed a sigh of relief: "That is to say, these Spaniards should not be targeting us. They are probably just along the way - by the way, when they return to Europe, they usually go through Malacca?"
"No, it wasn't like this before." Gao Jing's words made Huang Zhiting a little nervous again: "At least before this time, after the Spanish treasure ship fleet sent silver to Luzon, they usually had to wait several months for the monsoon to change.
After that, you can’t go back to Mexico and go to Malacca.”
Huang Zhiting noticed Gao Jing's words and asked: "You can't leave?"
"Yes, because the Portuguese did not agree with their return from Malacca." Gao Jing explained: "Portugal and Spain were merged last year - it was not even called a merger, it was just that Philip II also served as the king of Portugal - here
Previously, it seemed that Portugal and Spain were not only friends and partners, but rivals, so the Portuguese did not allow the Spanish fleet to transit through their territory at all."
Huang Zhiting frowned and said: "Then what happens this time? Because now both families have the same king, so the Spaniards can go to Malacca?"
"This...maybe." Gao Jing didn't dare to speak too fully.
In fact, they didn't know that Spain's choice to go to Malacca this time was a test in itself, because at this time, Portugal itself had not completely surrendered to Philip II from top to bottom, from the mainland to the colonies.
Although Philip II has proclaimed himself King of Portugal in Lisbon, there are still many domestic opponents in Portugal, and there are still many Portuguese colonies across three continents that have not expressed their stance, or have not had time to express their stance.
The reason why the Spanish treasure fleet changed its location to Malacca was because of the huge scale of its fleet, and it was semi-forced to test the reaction of Malacca and even Goa. To a certain extent, it was also forcing Portugal to Asia.
The colonial side gave its attitude.
If Gao Pragmatic himself were here, he might be able to deduce the true meaning of the Spaniard's move based on his previous life knowledge, but he is not here, and Huang Zhiting can only make his own judgment.
Huang Zhiting took a deep breath and said in a deep voice: "Tell Zeng Yongcheng that we are not disembarking, and ask him to replenish us with fresh water, fruits, vegetables and other supplies as quickly as possible. The fleet will use the money to purchase them as appropriate. Then give the order to the fleet to complete the replenishment.
Then immediately set off to the northeast—let’s meet the Spaniards for a while!”
Gao Jing didn't know whether he was happy or worried. Huang Zhiting's decision changed his feelings about the word "female general". According to his original thoughts, Huang Zhiting's famous battle-the Battle of Lang Son, in the final analysis
Huang Zhiting is just the executor of her master's decision.
In other words, whether to fight the Lang Son battle and when to fight that battle are actually decided pragmatically, and Huang Zhiting's task is only to "fight" itself.
Therefore, in Gao Jing's view, Huang Zhiting's situation at that time was very similar to his now. Her powers and responsibilities were limited to execution, not decision-making. And given that she is a woman after all, usually in such an uncertain situation, she should
She first chose to wait and see cautiously, but who knew she chose to turn around and face him.
Forget about the wolf soldiers being unruly, who knew their female chieftain could be so tough?
For a moment, Gao Jing even suspected that if his master were here, he might not choose to face him head on so decisively.
Was it because I did not introduce the Spaniards’ strength well enough, so that Deputy Dutong Huang misjudged the strength of both sides?
Gao Jing asked himself.
But in any case, Gao Jing felt that although the Spanish's single-ship combat effectiveness might be stronger, the scale of their own fleet was still far greater than that of the other side. If this battle really had to be fought, it would not be impossible.
He took a deep breath and nodded vigorously: "Okay, since the governor has made a decision, let's try the Spaniards and see how good this king of the world is!"
Zeng Yongcheng was also confused when the actions of the Beijing fleet changed. He thought he had made a mistake in his response, which made the deputy commander angry. He was so frightened that while he ordered others to follow the instructions, he personally boarded the ship to apologize.
However, although Huang Zhiting and Gao Jing had serious expressions when they received him, it sounded from their words that they were not dissatisfied with him.
Zeng Yongcheng carefully discovered that the Lang Son not only had the intention to set sail immediately, but even seemed to be preparing for battle. He did not dare to ask more questions, but was worried about whether the "Ming Dynasty Fleet" was about to go to war with the Portuguese - this would have to be a good fight.
That's all. If we don't fight well, the islanders like them will be in big trouble in the future.
There are even more troubles. Even if the fight is good, Ming Dynasty's habit is there. If after the fight, it shrinks back and ignores it, if the Portuguese come to retaliate in the future, they islanders may be the first to be unlucky.
.
But Zeng Yongcheng could only keep these worries in his heart and did not dare to talk about them.
By the time he left, about two hours later, the fresh water had already been replenished, as well as some fruits and vegetables. Although it was not a full supply, it was certainly enough for the time being.
So following Huang Zhiting's order, Gao Jing commanded four warships to leave the port, and the main force of the fleet anchored outside the port had also begun to form. After a short period of time, the entire fleet turned collectively and headed northeast
Already.
At the same moment, the Spaniards, who had a relatively leisurely attitude along the way, finally got rid of the gloomy weather. Taking advantage of the light, they discovered two Jinghua ships that were monitoring their movements from a distance.
"Are they pirates?" Sir Diego looked at it for a while and asked Justo, the captain and fleet commander beside him.
Justo shook his head: "It doesn't look like it. Their tonnage is not small. Generally, pirate ships will not use ships of this tonnage as reconnaissance ships. Moreover, sir, please pay attention. Judging from their very unique sail layout,
Look, it seems very similar to the armed merchant ships of Jinghua Company we saw in Manila."
Sir Diego was a little surprised and curious: "Jinghua Company's ship? Why are they spying on us?" He frowned, then turned to Alfaro and asked: "Your Excellency, have you heard of Jinghua Company?"
Is there any piracy in Nanyang?"
"Sir, I can answer you with certainty: No." Alfaro shook his head and said: "Jinghua Company itself is the largest trading company in the Ming Empire. They have a need for maritime stability in this area, so they should devote themselves to eradicating it.
Pirates have been active in this region for nearly ten years. Just about two years ago, they annihilated a huge pirate alliance in the waters of Fujian, thereby gaining dominance over the northern part of Southeast Asia."
Sir Diego frowned and said: "Then what do you think of their behavior of spying on us? Or do I need to regard this behavior as their disrespect for Spain?"
Alfaro was silent for a moment, shook his head and said: "Our operation is the first time that the Spanish treasure ship fleet has appeared on the route to Malacca. Sir, I am more inclined to think that the fleet of Jinghua Company is doubting our purpose.
.”
"The Spanish Navy spans all over the world, and we are free no matter where we go." Sir Diego raised his chin proudly, then seemed to remember something, took out a gold coin from his pocket, handed it to Alfaro with a smile, and said: "Your Excellency, President
, take a look at this commemorative gold coin in my hand that has not yet been officially released - especially the inscription on the ribbon under the king's head."
Alfaro took the gold coin doubtfully and turned to the side of the gold coin with the king's head.
I saw a ribbon floating below the profile of Philip II, with an ambitious Latin motto engraved on the ribbon:
NON SUFFICIT ORBIS
The world is not enough for me. [Note 1]
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[Note 1]: "The world is not enough for me" first appeared on a Spanish medal in 1583, but unlike the "commemorative gold coin that has not yet been officially issued" in this chapter, it has the portrait and title of King Philip II on the front
: "Philip II - King of Spain and the New World". The reverse side is an earth, and the phrase "NON SUFFICIT ORBIS" - the world is not enough for me.
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