Chapter 234: The Bastion and the Trenches

While negotiations were underway at the Governor-General's residence.

The Cavite shipyard had already been surrounded layer upon layer by the Nan'ao army.

After half a day of probing, the firing points on its bastion had essentially been mapped out.

In the main command tent of the Nan'ao army, the squad leader in charge of reconnaissance reported:

"Reporting to the General, this fortress, which the locals call Fort San Felipe, has a circumference of over a thousand paces, two levels, stands one zhang high, has more than a dozen protruding bastion points, mounts some thirty-odd cannons, and has about a hundred musketeers. The shipyard lies to the east of the bastion."

"The shipyard isn't inside the bastion?" the Army Company Commander confirmed.

"No, it isn't. The shipyard sits at the easternmost tip of the peninsula, within range of the bastion's cannon fire, but not within the bastion's walls."

The Army Company Commander said: "Haha, in that case, General, please assign the centipede boats to me. I'll lead the men around under cover of darkness and take the shipyard in one stroke!"

Wang Ruzhong, seated at the head, shook his head: "It's not that easy. The waters to the north and south of the shipyard are sure to be full of reefs, hidden currents, and wooden stakes, and there will be small gunboats patrolling. Attacking the shipyard also means braving the bastion's cannon fire.

Even if we take the shipyard, unless the army captures the bastion, ships still can't dock — it would be useless.

The Spanish calculated carefully when they placed the shipyard outside the fortress. This bastion is something we cannot go around."

Wang Ruzhong was originally called Wang Liu, one of the first members of Lin Qian's personal guard, and had risen through merit to Commander of the Marines, with the provisional rank of Roaming General. "Hiss—" the Army Company Commander drew in a cold breath and said in surprise, "These Franks have some tricks after all. Attacking Guangzhou wasn't even this much trouble."

As the Company Commander said, this Fort San Felipe was built in a circular shape, its entire body covered in diamond-shaped spikes, just like a hedgehog. The cannons were placed on those spikes, with no battlements blocking them, so their firing angles were almost completely unrestricted.

Trying to use the method of firing into dead angles was pure wishful thinking.

The bastion was made entirely of granite, with brick and stone fitted extremely tightly — hoping to destroy its structure with one or two broadsides from the fleet was also nonsense. Before departing, Lin Qian had already told Bailangzai and Wang Ruzhong everything about how to deal with a bastion.

At the time, Wang Ruzhong had privately dismissed the clumsy method of digging trenches.

But only after seeing the bastion in person did he realize that slow advance by digging trenches really was the best method.

Per Lin Qian's requirements, among those on this expedition, two hundred were civil engineers from Nan'ao Island. These men had built the Lin mansion according to Lin Qian's designs, so surely they could dig zigzag trenches without any problem.

Following the design drawings, the craftsmen first dug a first trench six hundred paces from the bastion, meant to guard against a sneak attack from behind. Then, at five hundred paces from the bastion, they dug a second trench — this was the starting point of the zigzag trenches.

After that, aiming toward the bastion's foremost point, they dug zigzag trenches, crawling toward the enemy's walls like a winding venomous snake. At dawn the next day, the army formally began digging trenches.

Along a semicircle over five hundred paces long, several hundred soldiers dug and hauled earth together, shovels and hoes flying up and down, everyone covered in dust and grime — it looked less like war and more like a construction site.

The Army Company Commander scratched his head: "General, why waste the effort digging trenches? Why not just push the cannons up and start blasting!"

Wang Ruzhong said: "The helmsman said that if you can hit them, the bastion, being higher up, can hit you even better. There's no need for us to take that detour. Besides, though digging trenches looks like a huge amount of work, with this many people working together, it won't take long."

The navy had only two hundred civil engineers, but digging trenches wasn't exactly a highly skilled task. Under the engineers' direction, the whole army could pitch in. When it came time to dig the zigzag trenches later, they could send in the craftsmen for the fine work.

Watching the busy scene before him, Wang Ruzhong took a sheet of paper from his bosom and handed it to a messenger: "Set up a signboard and paste this on it." "Yes!"

The signboard was quickly erected, and soldiers from every unit crowded over to look during their midday break.

On the signboard was written a reward system, stipulating that units of ten would be paid silver bonuses according to work progress and danger level. The squad of ten that dug the fastest would, besides silver, also receive a "Mobile Red Banner" as a mark of commendation.

Once this order was issued, the pace of work at the site picked up considerably that afternoon.

Four days later, the outer trench was finished, and the workload for the inner trench was greatly reduced compared to the outer one.

Wang Ruzhong also promulgated a three-shift rotation system, along with a responsibility system that delegated work quotas down to the bureau, banner, and squad levels, setting up competitions among the various banner units.

Two days later, the inner trench was also completed.

Under the engineers' guidance, each unit began digging the most dangerous zigzag trenches.

Based on manpower and cannon numbers, it was initially decided to dig three zigzag trenches simultaneously.

Late at night, one hundred fifty soldiers from the army's Third Battalion, Third Division, Second Bureau, First Banner stood in the siege camp, receiving a lecture from their squad leader.

Ten paces in front of them lay the inner trench, and beyond that the shallow zigzag guide ditch.

This shallow ditch had been secretly dug before dawn yesterday by suicide squad members and craftsmen at the risk of their lives, for the purpose of setting the direction for the zigzag trenches.

Beside the squad leader stood a craftsman, around thirty years old, his bronze-colored muscles taut, extremely sturdy.

This man was named Ge Hong, in charge of the two hundred-odd craftsmen. That shallow ditch was dug by him and his men.

Ge Hong said: "Brother soldiers, before we start digging, there are a few technical details I need to explain to everyone."

The squad leader bellowed: "This is an order — listen carefully. Whoever dares defy it will face military law!"

Ge Hong said: "First, no zigzag trench may face any firing point of the bastion head-on. The shallow ditch I dug must lie exactly in the center of the tunnel line!

Second, all excavated earth must be piled on the side facing the bastion, and packed firm to form a breastwork!

Third, digging must begin only after the sun has fully set and end before dawn. During digging, no fires are allowed, and no noise! Fourth, when three hundred paces from the bastion, dig the first parallel trench.

Fifth, on the trench wall closest to the bastion, every ten paces, dig shell-proof niches.

Ge Hong rattled off more than a dozen precautions in a row.

Then the squad leader shouted: "Everyone got that?"

"Got it!"

"Squads one through three dig the northern trench, squads four through six dig the southern one, and the rest come with me to dig the middle. Move out!"

The squad leader shouted, grabbed an entrenching shovel, jumped down into the inner trench, and personally dug the first shovelful of earth.

Ge Hong took a pickaxe and jumped into the trench.

The squad leader was taken aback for a moment, then said: "Master Ge, just leave this work to us."

Ge Hong said: "You haven't seen the drawings, so you don't know what shape it needs to be. With me here, I can help keep things on track."

Seeing this, the squad leader said no more and dug in silence.

The surface soil of the Cavite peninsula was mainly humus and sandy clay, making digging quite easy, with the drawback being a tendency to collapse and seep water. The Nan'ao army had experience building dry docks and temporary beach docks, so dealing with collapses and seepage was right in their wheelhouse.

Moreover, the pickaxes and shovels the two men used were specially made by the Fo forge, forged from fine steel with edges as sharp as steel blades.

This kind of fine steel in the Great Ming was used only for generals' and marshals' swords — even junior officers couldn't get it — and this was the first time it had been used to make shovels and pick heads. The steel entrenching tools had excellent strength, hardness, and wear resistance, far more convenient than ordinary farm tools made with cast iron.

Soon, the tunnel had advanced five or six paces.

Ge Hong instructed in a low voice: "The tunnel must be seven chi deep and two men wide, with the earth wall one chi high."

"Switch." The squad leader gave the low command, and the soldiers behind took the tools and replaced the two men.

The space at the trench face was limited, allowing only two men to dig at a time, so to maintain progress, the moment one's strength gave out, they had to switch immediately. Ge Hong and the other man went back to rest in the inner trench. Their hands were rubbed red and hot; they exchanged a smile, and before they could even sit down—

From the east came several booming sounds.

The Platoon Officer hurriedly shouted, "Artillery fire, take cover!"

Before the words faded, a thunderous roar erupted nearby, like a heavy hammer striking a drumhead, rattling everyone's hearts.

Then came the splashing sound of water all around, as if a sudden downpour had struck—that was soil thrown up by cannonballs, splashing onto the water in the trench. Ge Hong and the Platoon Officer hugged their heads, crouching against the side of the trench facing the bastion, feeling the earth beside them tremble without cease.

The bastion kept firing, but judging from the sounds, most of the cannonballs landed far from the trench.

Not a single scream could be heard.

After all, there was no torchlight in the trench, and no one was making noise—to the enemy on the bastion, they were simply firing blindly into the darkness.

After a dozen or so cannon blasts, the bastion finally fell silent.

The Platoon Officer slowly rose, shook the dirt from his hair, gently patted his shoulders, then peered out from behind a munitions crate, cautiously scanning beyond the trench.

Firelight flickered on the bastion, and the positions of the lights basically coincided with the firing points previously scouted.

The Platoon Officer pulled his head back, and at that moment people came from all three trench lines to report.

"Platoon Officer, no casualties among the three squads on the north side."

"The three squads on the south side are fine too."

"Platoon Officer, we're fine here too—it's just that Zhou Hu got startled by the cannon fire and dropped his hoe on his foot."

The Platoon Officer cursed: "Damn it! Once that kid's foot heals, he's going to stand guard at the artillery banner company—I'll make him scared!"

"Yes sir!" the Fifth Squad Leader acknowledged.

The Platoon Officer smacked his head: "Keep your damn voice down!"

"Yes." The Fifth Squad Leader lowered his volume.

"Keep digging."

"Yes." The three squad leaders who had reported answered together in hushed tones.

An hour later, the digging crew changed again, and soldiers also installed pre-made wooden breastwork panels along both walls of the trench. Many soldiers also extended their shovels, continuously tamping the parapet firm.

Not long after, the bastion's cannon fire sounded again.

All officers and men of the banner company halted work and took cover as Ge Hong had instructed.

This time the bastion fired over thirty shots, shaking the ground around the trench so violently that falling soil nearly buried the soldiers' feet.

Yet when the bombardment ended and casualties were tallied, still no one was injured.

The Platoon Officer said happily, "Well done! Keep digging like this, and sooner or later we'll exhaust their gunpowder!"

At this moment, inside Fort San Felipe.

The army captain responsible for defending the fort was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan.

He stood at the most protruding angle on the western side of the bastion, gazing westward. His field of vision was a stretch of gray-black, with only the faint campfire light of the siege camp. By the pale moonlight, he could barely make out a deep black trench winding forward across the dark gray plain.

From time to time, the sounds of shovels and hoes digging drifted over.

The enemy was digging trenches to approach the walls—this tactic was all too familiar to the captain.

In Europe these days, this kind of siege-by-trench warfare was playing out almost every moment.

But what drove the captain mad was this: two rounds of bombardment, forty-three cannonballs fired—why hadn't he heard a single scream?

Forty-three cannonballs—even firing with eyes closed, one ought to have landed in the trench, right?

If even one got in, the cannonball ricocheting through the narrow trench would be enough to inflict terrible casualties on the densely packed digging soldiers. But forget terrible—there wasn't even a single scream, which instead made his bombardment look like a joke.

Could his luck really be that bad?

In Fort San Felipe, counting himself, there were only eighty-three soldiers, sixty-nine of whom were of Mexican descent.

With this few men, even operating all the bastion's cannons was a struggle.

If the enemy reached the foot of the walls and blew them open with gunpowder, then only death awaited them.

He must, at all costs, hold out until reinforcements arrived from Manila.

Thinking of this, the captain said with reddened eyes, "Load! Fire!"

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The cannons roared in unison, and the smell of sulfur and charcoal was reassuring—yet after the smoke dispersed, still no sound came from afar. The cannonballs seemed to have been fired into a void.

The captain had the cannons fire two more rounds, with the same result.

When the fifth round was about to be fired, his subordinate stopped him: "Captain, there's no way the enemy can dig their trench over here in a single day, but if we keep firing like this, our gunpowder won't hold out."

The captain could only reluctantly accept reality, returning into the bastion to fall asleep enduring that faint, intermittent sound of digging.

Manila was too far from the Spanish homeland, and its forces were stretched thin.

Originally, dispatching five warships had been a major expansion, but the expeditionary force had been completely wiped out, returning the Governor-General's office to its former predicament. With this little force, they could barely hold Manila itself, let alone spare extra soldiers to defend Fort San Felipe.

Although this bastion was close to the shipyard, the captain dared not conscript the shipyard workers into the city's defense unless absolutely forced to.

Because over seventy percent of the shipyard workers were Chinese, another twenty percent were Luzon natives, and the remaining ten percent were of Mexican descent.

Among them, there were only a little over twenty Spaniards, all of whom were shipyard technicians and management.

Support from the land side wouldn't be coming anytime soon.

Contact with Manila by sea had also been almost completely severed.

The Cavite shipyard was twenty-six li from Manila by sea, and the coastal defense cannons of the two locations could cover at most four li.

The remaining twenty-two li had fallen entirely under the control of the Nan'ao fleet.

The Tianyuan and Zheng He, two ships, cruised and patrolled ceaselessly within those twenty-two li.

The proud Spanish navy, like frightened chicks, stayed under the wing of Manila's coastal defense cannons, not daring to come out.

The captain's heart was filled with despair, and in his sleep he continuously prayed to God to save them, his faithful believers.

The next morning, the captain was woken by his subordinate.

With an anxious expression, the subordinate pulled him up to the city wall.

A sea breeze blew, and the captain snapped awake. There, on the plain outside the city walls, three twisted, ugly trenches were creeping toward the bastion.

Overnight, the trenches had advanced more than twenty paces in a straight line.

At this rate, the trenches would reach the foot of the walls in less than a month.

And the besiegers wouldn't even need half a month before their cannons could fire at the parapet.

Sweat seeped from the captain's palms, his heart pounded wildly, and he had no idea what to do.

None of the three zigzag trenches before him ran straight at the bastion—hoping to fire a cannonball down a trench and skewer men like candied hawthorns on a stick was pure fantasy. If it came down to attrition, the enemy outnumbered them in soldiers, cannonballs, and gunpowder alike, far exceeding what San Felipe Fort possessed.

"Captain, look."

His subordinate suddenly pointed at the sky.

A kite floated in the sky southwest of the bastion. A stack of leaflets scattered from it, drifting down with the southwest wind like snowflakes—most landing on the sea and the open fields.

A few fell into the bastion itself.

The captain ordered his men to gather the leaflets and bring them to him. One glance, and he froze.

The leaflets were written in Spanish, and the opening line read: "My dear Spanish compatriots, may God bless you all!

I am Vice Admiral Juan of the Manila Governor-General's naval forces."

In the era of the previous Governor-General, Alonso, Juan had been fleet commander of the Governor-General's residence—a man of immense importance on the island of Luzon.

In 1620, after the galleon-seizure incident, Juan had led a delegation to Guangzhou to negotiate with the Great Ming—and had vanished without a trace. The Governor-General's office assumed he had died in a storm. Who would have thought he was still alive?

In the surrender letter, Juan recounted his seven years as a captive on Nan'ao Island—though, of course, not a word about the "unpleasant" experiences. Everything written was good news.

Such as being entrusted with important duties by the helmsman, or the comfort of his food and lodging, and being able to hold worship services every week.

At the letter's end, Juan wrote: "My dear Spanish compatriots, I am not here to persuade you to surrender.

I only wish to tell you that if you find yourselves in desperate straits, there is always a bright path before you.

Every life is precious. You have a duty to protect your own life, and this is just as noble as protecting the lives of others." The captain finished reading, took a deep breath, and asked: "Who has seen this leaflet?"

His subordinate replied: "The leaflets were collected immediately after they landed. Not many people saw them."

"Mm." The captain relaxed slightly.

Just then, paper snow fell from the sky again. He looked up—another kite was aloft, and handfuls of leaflets were scattering down.

The captain stood dumbfounded. Recovering himself, he roared: "Pass the order—no one is permitted to read the leaflets' contents. Any found must be gathered and burned." "Yes, sir!"

By day the Nan'ao army scattered leaflets; by night they dug trenches—keeping the defenders of San Felipe Fort in constant agitation.

The captain devised a plan: test-fire during the day, adjust the cannon's elevation, then fire at night using the adjusted angles.

This method finally inflicted casualties on the Nan'ao forces—though the numbers were very small.

As the trenches drew closer to the walls, the kites flew lower, and the surrender letters were dropped with ever-greater precision.

Often, before the garrison had finished collecting one round of surrender letters, a second round would already be drifting down.

As one side waned and the other waxed, nearly every soldier in the bastion had read the surrender letter by now—whether they destroyed them or not hardly mattered anymore. Within a few days, the entire wilderness, the bastion, and the sea surface were all covered in white leaflets, like a layer of accumulated snow.

What the captain would never know was that on the lower deck of the Candle Dragon, there was a dedicated printing compartment, filled entirely with woodblocks for the surrender letters. White paper was stacked from the deck to the ceiling, lining an entire wall.

Assigned personnel worked there every day printing them—print a batch, scatter a batch.

And when they estimated the bastion had already seen the old version of the leaflet, there were even new woodblocks ready.

In the printing compartment alone, there were six different versions of the surrender letter.

During this period, every few days, a Governor-General's vessel would approach under a white flag to negotiate with Bailangzai.

Following Lin Qian's instructions, Bailangzai gradually raised the terms.

At the same time, he ordered both the land and naval forces to maintain strict vigilance.

Any discerning eye could see that the Governor-General's office had no real intention of negotiating—these were all delaying tactics.

The third day of the eleventh month.

The besieging army dug the first parallel trench.

On the side of the parallel trench facing the bastion, they excavated a ramp and pushed the cannons forward, so the muzzles could clear the parapet and fire at the enemy's walls, suppressing the defenders' firepower.

Another three days passed—the sixth day of the eleventh month.

Two more parallel trenches were added, and more cannons were pushed along the trenches into position.

At the same time, ten bronze mortars were unloaded from the whale ship.

These were the new products of the Bucalao cannon foundry, which—after the last mortar burst its barrel—had reflected deeply and devoted years to research and development.

The improvement, put plainly, came down to two words: "make it thicker."

The new mortars had extremely thick bronze barrel walls, with additional reinforcement at the chamber and trunnions, making them look like large wine casks.

These ten cannons had passed test-firing at the Fenshui Pass training ground, and firing tables had been compiled. Today marked their first deployment in actual combat.

The mortars were disassembled at the trench entrance. The barrels and carriages were loaded separately onto wooden sledges, dragged by manpower—an extremely cumbersome, slow transport. The mud and standing water in the trenches, usually a constant source of complaint for the soldiers, now proved to be an excellent lubricant for the sledges.

Two days later, hauling with their hands and carrying on their shoulders, crawling and scrambling, the soldiers finally dragged the mortars to their designated positions. With the aid of small pulley blocks, they mounted the barrels onto the carriages.

Following their training procedures, the artillerymen first cleaned the bore, then loaded the propellant charge.

Next, they inserted a cork spacer atop the charge, and finally loaded the shell, with the fuse hole facing outward.

The artilleryman then used an iron needle to pierce the charge through the vent, inserted the fuse, picked up the nearly two-meter-long linstock, and shouted: "Ready!" The rest of the crew withdrew to more than two meters away.

The match cord dropped.

The fuse burned at a furious speed—then came a thunderous boom, and the entire parallel trench seemed to shake.

A red flash burst from the mortar's mouth, followed by swirling smoke.

The high temperature of the exploding gunpowder in the barrel ignited the slow-burning powder within the wooden fuse.

As the shell descended, the fuse ignited it with precision.

A violent explosion—even from a great distance, one felt a shock to the chest.

The shell instantly transformed into a searing ball of fire. The blaze flashed and died in an instant, leaving behind a dense cloud of black smoke hanging in the air.

The cannonball exploded against the wall of the bastion's first tier, and the lead shot packed inside burst outward with the shockwave.

A Spanish soldier ten paces away took a lead ball through the shoulder, stared in disbelief at the blood spraying from the wound, then collapsed to the ground with a piercing scream. In the parallel trench, meanwhile, the artillerymen let out a cheer.

The other nine mortars fired in turn, and gilded fireballs blossomed all around the bastion as invisible lead shot tore through the black smoke and flame.

Seizing the moment while the defenders on the wall were pinned down, the cannons were pushed forward and opened fire on the ramparts with ricochet shots.

For a time, gunfire thundered on every side of Fort San Felipe, the whole castle began to shake, and granite shattered and split under explosions and solid shot, revealing crack lines like spiderwebs.

On the wall, a handful of brave Spanish gunners were hauling sandbags to provide cover for their cannon.

Occasionally a few scattered shots came down from the ramparts.

Most of the remaining soldiers were sheltering on the reverse slope of the wall, dust and rubble pelting down onto their heads without cease.

Many pulled out crucifixes and knelt to pray.

And twelve li across the sea to the east of Fort San Felipe, an army of two thousand men was on the march.

This force was made up chiefly of mercenaries—half local hirelings, half recruited ronin—plus some two hundred soldiers of Mexican descent. The army's commander, Leon, garrison commander of Manila, sat on horseback, watching the battered Fort San Felipe through a telescope. After a moment he lowered the telescope and shouted to the troops: "One head of a Shengli man for two silver coins! Double time!" The army burst into cheers, morale soaring.

At the same time, in Manila harbor, six warships led by the Nuestra Señora del Rosario put out to sea.

Around the Baluarte de San Gabriel market, a squad of Spanish soldiers came running to declare the area under martial law—no one in or out.

The Chinese civilians' expressions shifted from shock to growing terror.

Fenyuan

Pen