Chapter 955: Strike First to Gain the Upper Hand, Strike Late and Sink (Please Subscribe)

The Sultanate of Sulu was an Islamic sultanate centered on the Sulu Archipelago of the Philippine Islands, its territory including the Sulu Archipelago and Palawan, with its capital on Jolo Island in the Sulu Archipelago. Its geographical position was extremely important for the Great Ming, which had already entered the Age of Discovery!

Because sailing ships returning to the Great Ming from North America, following the North Equatorial Current westward to the vicinity of the Philippines, had two choices: one was to turn back north, find the Japan Current, and go directly to Japan or Shanghai; the other was to head west into the Celebes Sea and the Sulu Sea, enter Sulu territory, stop at Jolo Island, and then proceed to Guangzhou Harbor.

In addition, the Makassar Strait, which lay right next to the northeastern part of Borneo controlled by Sulu, was also an important waterway for the Great Ming's route to the Spice Islands!

If the Great Ming's fleet sortied from Sulu, passing through the Makassar Strait would bring it directly to the vicinity of the Dutch East India Company's most precious asset — the Spice Islands!

The Ming army would not need to occupy them; merely destroying the spice crops on the Spice Islands would deal a heavy blow to the East India Company!

Although the Great Ming court had always maintained friendly relations with the East India Company, that did not mean it did not need to possess the "ultimate weapon" for striking the East India Company.

And bringing Sulu into the Celestial Court system would give the Great Ming a sharp weapon for striking the East India Company.

Precisely because of the sensitivity of the Sulu question, the Great Ming had always held back on the matter of signing the Treaty of Suzerainty and Vassalage with Sulu, and had not signed immediately.

But holding back did not mean doing nothing. An advisory group of more than a dozen army and navy officers had arrived at Jolo, the capital of Sulu, in the winter of the eighth year of Hongxing, and had set up an advisory office on Jolo Island — in reality an intelligence-gathering station, whose main task was to keep watch on Manila Bay.

The royal family of Sulu were foreign Arab merchants, but the common people of the country were mostly native Filipinos; although the Spanish called them Moros, they were no different from the natives of Luzon, except that they followed Islam.

So Sulu's spies could easily be sent to the vicinity of Manila to gather information, especially since there were now few Chinese in the city of Manila, and the Spanish had no choice but to hire natives for labor, so they could not be too picky.

Zheng Jiangong, Director of the Naval Bureau, took up the topic: "Your Majesty, according to reports from the advisory office on Jolo Island, in the fifth, sixth, and seventh months of the ninth year of Hongxing, for three consecutive months Spanish warships and armed merchantmen entered Manila Bay. As of the tenth day of the seventh month, the number of Spanish warships and armed merchantmen gathered in Manila Bay had already exceeded twenty!"

"Twenty? That is quite a few!" Zhu Cilang frowned. "What kinds of ships are they? What is the state of their armament?"

"That we do not know." Zheng Jiangong said. "Manila forbids Chinese from entering, and the Moro agents know little — they can only count numbers, nothing more."

Zhu Cilang drew a breath: "What is the Naval Bureau's view? And what is the opinion of the Dongning Army?"

"There is no choice but to fight!" Zheng Jiangong said. "If we do not fight, the navy cannot safely transport troops to Siam."

Zhu Cilang asked: "Would they be intercepted by the Spanish?"

"That would not happen," Zheng Jiangong shook his head. "The South Seas shipping lanes are wide open and the weather is changeable; trying to intercept on the open lanes is very difficult — one simply cannot find them!"

This was not an age when aircraft and radar could be used for searching! For two sailing fleets to encounter each other on the South China Sea was extremely difficult. Generally speaking, naval battles at close quarters occurred at sea chokepoints, such as the English Channel or the Strait of Malacca.

Precisely for this reason, Japan's position in the Ming–Western Pacific naval war was extremely important!

Once the Great Ming gained Japan's support, it could send a continuous stream of immigrant fleets to the New World.

The Spanish navy simply could not find a Ming fleet smaller than a leaf on the boundless Pacific — that would be like searching for a needle in the ocean!

"They cannot intercept?" Zhu Cilang asked. "Then how would the Spanish fight?"

"Their fleet would lie concealed in the waters near the mouth of the Chao Phraya River in Siam," Zheng Jiangong frowned. "If we are to send a large force to Siam, we will inevitably dispatch one or two hundred troopships and several dozen escorting warships.

That many ships cannot complete loading and unloading all at once, and the mouth of the Chao Phraya has no well-defended anchorage. So large numbers of ships would be forced to anchor in waters that are difficult to defend, and an anchored fleet cannot maneuver, cannot deploy into bombardment formation or seize firing positions — it would be extremely dangerous!

This subject has studied the battle records of Western naval wars and found many examples of surprise attacks on anchorages that won great victories. And the Battle of the Downs, which caused the decline of the Spanish navy, was also a surprise attack on an anchorage. One hundred seventeen Dutch warships attacked seventy-seven Spanish warships at anchor, sank forty-three, heavily damaged twenty-seven, and only seven Spanish warships withdrew in time. The Dutch losses were merely ten fireships!"

The Battle of the Downs, fought in 1639, was a heroic deed that every Dutchman who took part could boast of for a lifetime!

And the foreign instructors at the Shanghai Naval Academy were almost all from the Netherlands, and nearly all had participated in the Battle of the Downs — so the current class of formally trained officers in the Ming navy all knew how the Spanish had been beaten bloody by the Dutch!

"How does the navy plan to deal with this?" the Zhu Emperor asked.

"Strike first to gain the upper hand!" Zheng Jiangong gritted his teeth. "Attack Manila Bay!"

"Attack Fort Santiago?" the Zhu Emperor asked.

"That will not be necessary!" Zheng Jiangong said. "We only need to wipe out the Spanish fleet anchored in Manila Bay; there is no need to besiege Fort Santiago."

Fort Santiago was also a bastion fort; although not fully completed, it would still be quite difficult to take. Even with parallel siege works and large-caliber explosive shells, it would probably take several months to capture.

And landing ten or twenty thousand army troops at Manila Bay and keeping them there for several months would not be easy; the navy would have to send out at least several dozen ten-thousand-bushel great bird ships to transport troops, equipment, and supplies, while at the same time the navy still had to ship troops and equipment to Siam — it would likely be too much to handle.

So in Zheng Jiangong's plan, the raid on Manila Bay would be carried out by warships alone, at most taking a small number of elite marines to seize the batteries.

"Can they be wiped out completely?" the Zhu Emperor was still somewhat doubtful. "The Spanish anchorage must be under the protection of shore batteries — can our gunboats get close?"

"They can!" Zheng Jiangong said with absolute certainty. "It is simply a matter of heavier losses. But as long as we can wipe out the Spanish fleet in the East, even if the entire Eastern Ocean Fleet is expended, it will be worth it!

Moreover, the navy holds a trump card, so it can certainly smash the Spanish!"

"Admiral! De Velasco reporting to you!" De Velasco, fleet commander of the Spanish Pacific Trade Company, strode quickly into the command cabin of the Nueva España and saluted Spanish Admiral García.

Admiral García and De Velasco were old acquaintances, because De Velasco had also participated in the Battle of the Downs — the Battle of the Downs anchorage had cost the Spanish navy six thousand men, nearly wiping out a generation of its elite, so those who survived were all familiar faces.

"I have finally been waiting for you!" García smiled and waved him over, gesturing for him to sit and talk. "Tell me quickly about the situation of the Flying."

The only thing García truly feared was the Flying!

"Admiral," De Velasco said, "when I led the fleet out of Busanpo, it was still operating in the vicinity of Japan, with no sign of leaving."

"The Chinese did not intercept you when you left?" García asked.

"No," De Velasco said. "This time we sailed under the Spanish flag. Spain and the Great Ming have not formally gone to war, so they would not intercept us — and we would not attack Ming convoys while flying the Spanish flag."

War between the Great Ming and Spain had not yet broken out; the two sides were merely attacking each other under other people's flags.

García paused, then said in a low voice: "His Majesty the King has already issued the order to open hostilities, so we may strike first!"

(End of Chapter)