Chapter 1152: Shimazu's False Surrender

San Francisco, the Presidio fortress.

This fortress, situated on the high ground on the south shore of the Golden Gate Strait at the San Francisco of later times, was now the center of the Kingdom of New Spain's rule in California. After settling the Shimazu people in the northern part of the Satsuma River Valley (the northern part of the Central Valley), the California Commissioner-in-Chief, de Velasco, had begun deploying defenses along California's long coastline.

California's coastline is very long, stretching for several hundred Spanish leagues (more than 2,500 kilometers), so trying to defend every inch of it was impossible. Even deploying all of New Spain's troops in California would not be enough!

Therefore de Velasco could only choose to fortify key points, and the areas he chose to fortify were three. The first was the Golden Gate Strait at San Francisco, where he had the Presidio fortress built and cannons mounted to seal off the entrance to the strait.

The second was the area around the City of Angels, that is, the so-called Los Angeles region. Los Angeles is a transliteration meaning "City of Angels," the name given by the first Spaniards who arrived there in 1542.

However, until before 1661 there had been no true "city" here. It was de Velasco who ordered the construction of the City of Angels fortress near a very beautiful beach, making it another major stronghold of the California colony.

The third was San Diego Bay, which had always been a major Spanish stronghold in California. Before de Velasco took office as California Commissioner-in-Chief, San Diego was also the only important Spanish stronghold in the California region.

After de Velasco took office, he decided to push Spain's defensive line in California forward, advancing the outposts to the Satsuma River Valley, and then using San Francisco, the City of Angels, and San Diego as the three main supporting points.

At the same time, he also moved the seat of the California Commissioner-in-Chief from San Diego to the Presidio fortress at San Francisco.

However, no matter how hard he tried, he had no way to pose a substantial threat to the Great Ming's colonial activities in the America Bay region. There were even some counterproductive effects — the Celestial Empire, which originally seemed not to care much about America Bay, had clearly accelerated the pace of colony-building in these years!

Not only had it raised enormous funds by issuing stocks domestically, but it also kept sending immigrants and troops to America Bay.

By comparison, the strength that the Kingdom of New Spain could commit to California was very limited. Even though the bankers of Amsterdam, for God's sake, had lent a large sum of money to the Kingdom of New Spain, it changed nothing.

Because even if the Dutch had a sudden attack of conscience and were willing to lend money to New Spain, they could not help Spain conjure up enough people to fill the empty expanse of California!

Spain proper had only 5.6 million people, while the Great Ming homeland plus its vassal states had perhaps two hundred million or more! How could the Spaniards compete with them?

Yet it was precisely the Celestial Empire's enormous advantage in seizing American territory that made both de Velasco and Don Juan José dare not treat the matter lightly — if they did not fight a decisive battle while New Spain's population was still several times larger than that of the America Prefecture (not counting the Indians), then once the America Prefecture's population gained the upper hand in the future, the question for New Spain would no longer be whether it could hold California, but whether its old base in Mexico would be snatched away by the Chinese.

And today, a Dutch merchant ship visiting San Francisco brought bad news that made both California Commissioner-in-Chief de Velasco and the commander of the California squadron, Basabo, somewhat alarmed.

The United King of the Celestial Empire had arrived at the America Prefecture!

"Are you certain it is the United King?" Basabo pressed.

"I cannot be completely certain," the Dutch captain said, "but it is definitely a Prince of the Ming dynasty, because I saw the yellow dragon flag — that is a banner reserved for Ming emperors! Moreover, the America Prefecture held a grand welcoming ceremony for this Prince's arrival."

De Velasco nodded. "Then there is no mistake!" He nodded to the Dutch captain. "Thank you for the news you have brought!"

The Dutch captain smiled. "Commissioner, it was my duty. I too am a believer in God!"

De Velasco said approvingly, "God will bless you!"

The Dutch captain said, "I believe so as well. And I have also brought several dozen persecuted Catholics from Japan, all of whom wish to join Mr. Shimazu."

This Dutch merchant, of course, would not tell de Velasco that his merchant ship had also carried more than one hundred Ming "stock refugees" to settle in the America Prefecture.

"Very good, thank you very much!" De Velasco smiled. "Arrange for them to disembark, and you will receive a reward!"

The Dutchman bowed to de Velasco, then left together with one of de Velasco's adjutants.

"Commissioner." Seeing that the Dutchman had left, Basabo said in a low voice to de Velasco, "Do you not feel that the Japanese population in California is growing a bit too quickly?"

Shimazu Mitsuhisa and his people had arrived in the New World two years earlier, in 1660, with a total of more than 7,000 people. And now, the number of Japanese in the Satsuma River Valley area had already exceeded 12,000!

The reason for such growth, apart from natural reproduction, was that Japanese kept "smuggling" over from Nagasaki to join Shimazu Mitsuhisa.

Although these people all claimed to believe in God and therefore came to join Shimazu, de Velasco did not recall that Shimazu Mitsuhisa was a Catholic!

"We still need Shimazu!" de Velasco said. "And we also need those fellows smuggling over from Japan. Without them, we cannot defeat the Chinese in America Bay!

Major General, do you still remember the false-surrender plan that Shimazu Mitsuhisa mentioned to us a month ago?"

Basabo asked, "You mean using a fake surrender to lure the Ming army into the Satsuma River Valley?"

"Exactly! That is the plan!" de Velasco said. "Clearly, we do not have the strength to mount an overland expedition against America Bay, at least not at present.

And going north by sea is also very risky — not only would we face the powerful Ming navy, but the navy's transport capacity is also limited. Carrying ten thousand expeditionary troops at a time would already be quite good, and that number of men is far from enough to secure victory. So the best approach is to draw the Chinese over here."

"Will they fall for it?"

"Of course!" De Velasco smiled. "Because those Japanese have really worked hard. In two years they have built a castle in the northern Satsuma River Valley, opened up large tracts of farmland, and stockpiled a great deal of grain.

If the Ming army gains Shimazu Mitsuhisa's support, they could use Satsuma Castle as a base to seize the entire valley, and might even capture the Presidio fortress at San Francisco!"

Shimazu Mitsuhisa and his men had, over the past two years, truly displayed the spirit of Japanese workaholics, laboring desperately to open up 100,000 mu of farmland in the Satsuma River Valley, of which 50,000 mu were paddy fields capable of growing rice.

Although the northern part of the Satsuma River Valley often flooded, the Japanese had nonetheless minimized losses by carefully selecting areas for cultivation and building water-control works. Thus these 100,000 mu of farmland could yield more than 200,000 shi of harvest every year.

With this grain, the Ming army could station over ten thousand elite troops in the Satsuma River Valley!

These ten thousand elite troops would not even need to fight a decisive battle with the Spaniards. As long as they could hold the strategic terrain and grind down the Spaniards' military supplies, that would be enough to force the Spaniards out of central and northern California.

It was precisely because he recognized the importance of the area around Satsuma Castle that Shimazu Mitsuhisa had conceived the stratagem of using a false surrender to lure the Ming army into the Satsuma River Valley and then annihilate them in one stroke.

"Commissioner, do you truly trust Shimazu Mitsuhisa?" Basabo said. "In my view, he is no different from those Chinese."

"I do not trust him!" De Velasco's expression had darkened. "So I will make them hand over hostages — hand over all the women and children! If they dare to betray us, then they will lose their own loved ones!"

(End of Chapter)