Chapter 956: A Navy That Cannot Be Sunk! (Please Subscribe)

Great minds really do think alike! Spanish Admiral García also intended to strike first and seize the initiative!

García had already scraped together twenty-one warships and armed sailing vessels of various types, and now de Velasco had brought eight more armed sailing vessels, making twenty-nine warships and armed merchantmen in all — this was the largest fleet he could possibly assemble!

If he wanted more ships, he would have to draw them from the Atlantic. But considering that Spain was currently at war with France and Portugal, Philip IV would probably not agree to send another fleet to East Asia.

So Admiral García prepared to strike while his strength was at its greatest!

"Admiral, are we launching an attack?" De Velasco looked a little nervous. "Where will we strike?"

Admiral García looked at de Velasco's expression and asked in return, "What's the matter? Are you afraid?"

"A little," de Velasco said. "Because our enemy is not weak, and they possess enormous shipbuilding and cannon-making capacity!"

Admiral García smiled. "But we possess the spirit of the Invincible Armada!"

The Invincible Armada was gone, but its spirit of never accepting defeat and never fearing death remained!

This Spanish Invincible Armada was not a single fleet, but one rebuilt again and again — there had been many Invincible Armadas over the years! Most of them met miserable ends, it is true. But no matter — Spain's naval spirit endured, and it would go on forming great fleets, all the way into the twenty-first century, when it still maintained strength sufficient to overwhelm the Dutch navy!

But the Ming navy's "regenerative capacity" was certainly stronger than Spain's! Because after more than ten years of effort, Ming shipbuilding capacity had risen, and the annual tonnage of ships delivered was probably matched only by Holland and England. Spain, with a population of just over five million and a domestic manufacturing sector in deep decline, was no match at all!

García paused, then said to de Velasco, "You have dealt with them for many years. You choose a target for the attack — it must be lethal enough!"

Lethal enough?

De Velasco thought to himself: Shanghai, Quanzhou, Guangzhou, and Nanjing all had enormous shipbuilding and arms industries, but with the strength of the Eastern Fleet, they could not even get near them! Even if the Invincible Armada destroyed at the Battle of the Downs were resurrected, it could not seize any one of those four great cities!

"Then it will be the Dinghai anchorage!" De Velasco thought for a long while and finally came up with a reasonably good target. "That is the home port of the Ming navy's Eastern Ocean Fleet. Half of the Eastern Ocean Fleet's warships are berthed there for long periods."

The Eastern Ocean Fleet's warships rotated on duty. Half of them went to sea to play "friendly matches" with the Pacific Trading Company's ships, while the other half rested at their home port of Dinghai.

"Do we have charts and hydrographic data for Dinghai?" García asked.

"We have charts, but no hydrographic data," de Velasco replied. "We once considered occupying Dinghai, so we drew charts and maps, but afterwards our Invincible Armada was defeated, so..."

"Is that so? Which defeat of the Invincible Armada are you referring to?"

The Invincible Armada was always being defeated, so García needed to confirm which time it was.

"The first one!" de Velasco answered.

"The first..." García thought for a moment. "Oh, you mean Ningbo?"

"Yes, yes!" De Velasco nodded. "That area belongs to the Ming prefecture of Ningbo. We once wanted to occupy Ningbo as a base for further attacks on the Ming, so we carried out fairly thorough reconnaissance."

"Then is it still possible to occupy Ningbo now?" García asked. "If we could concentrate five thousand army troops."

"Impossible!" De Velasco shook his head repeatedly. "Admiral, my report seems to have mentioned the Prince de Condé. He has been in the Ming for several years now, serving as military adviser to the Ming Emperor, and he was even ennobled as a Ming duke not long ago! I think we Spanish naval officers probably cannot defeat him..."

In truth, even without the Prince de Condé's help, Spain's military forces in the East could not have taken Ningbo. Ningbo and Dinghai were, after all, the home port of the Eastern Ocean Fleet — bastion forts and gun batteries in abundance!

"Damned Frenchman!" García cursed. "Then we shall strike at their fleet. Roughly how many warships would be berthed there?"

"Twenty to twenty-five," de Velasco said. "About that number."

"Good!" García thought for a moment. "Are there any other valuable targets near Dinghai that would be easy to strike?"

"There is one," de Velasco said after some thought. "The Ryukyu Kingdom would do. It is a tributary state of the Ming, very wealthy, but..."

"But what?"

"The Satsuma Domain of Japan also holds a half share," de Velasco said. "It is a territory jointly administered by two countries."

"What is the state of its defenses?"

"Not much to speak of," de Velasco said. "Neither the Ming nor the Satsuma Domain is willing to bear too much responsibility, and neither wants the other to increase its garrison strength."

García made his decision at once and nodded. "Very well! We will first launch a surprise attack on the Dinghai anchorage, and on the return voyage we will sack Ryukyu!"

The intelligence de Velasco possessed was somewhat outdated. The warship Feixiang had already left the coast of Japan.

After Davy Jones learned that the eight warships of the Spanish Pacific Trading Company had departed Busanpo, he immediately returned to Shanghai.

Then this first ship of the Ming navy welcomed an important passenger — the former Superintendent of the Ming Navy, and newly appointed Admiral of the Ming Expeditionary Fleet!

The Ming navy had three great fleets: the Eastern Ocean, Southern Ocean, and Northern Ocean Fleets. But for historical reasons, the three fleets belonged to two separate systems. The Eastern Ocean and Northern Ocean Fleets were both under the jurisdiction of the Navy Office, while the Southern Ocean Fleet was under the control of the Dongning Military Commissioner's Office.

And in order to unify command in wartime, the Ming Navy Office had petitioned Emperor Zhu to establish a shell fleet — the Ming Navy Expeditionary Fleet. When necessary, this shell fleet could be brought out and filled with the capital ships of the three ocean fleets.

After Zhu Cilang approved the strategy of striking first and launching a surprise attack on Manila Bay, Zheng Jiangong volunteered to serve as Admiral of the Expeditionary Fleet, and the Feixiang became the fleet's flagship, hoisting the banner of Supreme Command of the Three Services.

After boarding the Feixiang, Zheng Jiangong did not immediately proceed to Dinghai. Instead, he sailed south all the way to Xiamen, where the Dongning Military Commissioner's Office was located.

Xiamen was situated on Xiamen Island, which belonged to Quanzhou Prefecture. It had once been a key base developed by Zheng Zhilong, and later fell into disuse for a time. After Zheng Sen took charge of Dongning, he began expanding his naval power on a large scale, and the original Anping base became too cramped and crowded. So in the fifth year of Hongxing, Zheng Sen moved his seat of power from Anping to Xiamen, and on Xiamen Island he built castles, harbors, and gun batteries, and also established the Xiamen trading port.

And to the northwest of Xiamen Island, a large expanse of calm waters sheltered by the island became the main anchorage of the Southern Ocean Fleet that Zheng Sen had painstakingly built up.

To enter this anchorage, one had to pass through the channels on the east and west sides of Xiamen Island, and those two channels were under the strict control of coastal defense artillery!

So the Xiamen anchorage was an extremely safe home port for a fleet!

But when Zheng Jiangong arrived, there were not many warships in the Xiamen anchorage. There was not a single Western-style galleon among them — only twenty-odd ten-thousand-bushel great bird ships moored beside the docks of Xiamen Island.

"Where have all the ships gone?" Seeing the empty harbor, Zheng Jiangong felt a little alarmed and quickly asked his elder brother Zheng Sen, who had come to greet him.

"They've all gone to transport rice. They won't be back until the north wind rises in autumn." Zheng Sen looked at his brother. "What's the matter? You need ships?"

"Yes!" Zheng Jiangong nodded. "The Expeditionary Fleet has been formed. I am the Admiral!"

"Is that so?" Zheng Sen laughed. "Excellent. At last you have a chance to win merit. By the way, who are we fighting? Where?"

"We're fighting Spain — at Manila Bay!"

(End of Chapter)