Chapter 963: We'll Just Hold Manila Bay and Wait! (Please Subscribe)

Zheng Jiangong's name really was given in reverse, because he always returned "without merit" — calling him Zheng Wugong would be far more fitting.

This time he led the Great Ming expeditionary fleet, full of high spirits, to Manila Bay to raid the lair of Spain's Eastern Invincible Armada, and once again he pounced on empty air with the most elegant of postures — still no merit at all.

In fact, the posture with which his fleet struck Manila Bay and the posture with which Garcia's fleet raided the Dinghai anchorage were almost exactly the same! Both used the cover of night to pass through the key waterways, then drove straight for the anchorage where the enemy fleet lay moored. The difference was that Garcia formed his 29 warships into a single great line-ahead column, while Zheng Jiangong divided his thirty-three warships into three formations, each formation consisting of one "Flying" class ship plus ten large bird ships.

The Flying class led the way, with the bird ships forming a line-ahead column behind the Flying class. The three formations broke into Manila Bay under cover of darkness, then drove straight for the Cavite anchorage — only to find, regrettably, that Cavite was empty!

The great Cavite anchorage was utterly empty, with nothing there at all!

But Zheng Jiangong refused to give up. He took his fleet cruising around the Cavite anchorage until the early morning of the sixth day of the eighth month (his fleet had broken into Manila Bay on the night of the fifth day of the eighth month). Not only did he fail to find any Spanish warships, he was spotted by the Spanish Cavite battery.

The Spanish battery opened fire and bombarded them, but after Zheng Jiangong discovered that the enemy's firepower was weak (the Cavite battery had been built decades ago, its guns were rather outdated, and it had no explosive shells), he simply formed the 30 bird ships under his command into a line abreast and bombarded the Cavite battery with a total of 60 twenty-four-pounder cannon mounted in the ships' bows. All told, he fired more than 600 explosive shells, and only stopped when the Spanish guns on the Cavite battery no longer dared to return fire.

But having come all that great distance and returning without even a single hair to show for it was truly galling, so after withdrawing from Manila Bay, Zheng Jiangong did not go far. He found a very fine-looking bay right on the edge of Manila Bay and slipped into it.

After assigning two bird ships to "stand guard and keep watch" at the entrance of this bay, Zheng Jiangong summoned the commanders of all the remaining ships to the flagship Flying for a meeting.

"Teacher, we only have 1,000 flintlock musketeers on hand. There's no way we can attack Fort Santiago! Taking the Cavite fortress would be a stretch too, wouldn't it? And now that the Spanish fleet isn't here, we can't just sit around waiting either — we still have to escort the expeditionary force to Siam!"

The speaker was Hao Feng, captain of the Jiangnan. He had previously been the first mate of the Flying, and after the Jiangnan was delivered ahead of schedule, he had been promoted to become the Jiangnan's first captain. He was a graduate of the Naval Academy and had been Zheng Jiangong's student, which was why he now addressed Zheng Jiangong as "Teacher."

"Yes, Teacher, we can't just keep waiting at the mouth of Manila Bay. Who knows where the Spanish Eastern Fleet will go?"

Nie Hanzhu, captain of the Fujian, also supported Hao Feng's opinion, though he too was unwilling to return empty-handed.

Having finally come all this way, they couldn't go back with both hands empty, could they?

He and Hao Feng were classmates at the Naval Academy, and of course also Zheng Jiangong's students.

He was a native of Huzhou in Zhejiang, a juren of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, and had also sat for the special examination of the eighteenth year. However, because he did not support the court's extortionate taxation, he had handed in a blank paper and thus missed the chance to become a jinshi. After he returned home, his xiucai father gave him a thorough dressing-down, then punished him by making him go to the ancestral hall to beg forgiveness from the ancestors, and also refused to feed him for three days — to have finally encountered a fine opportunity to pick up a jinshi for free, that was the ancestors' blessing!

With a jinshi there for the taking and you didn't take it — how can you face the ancestors of the Nie family of Huzhou? This is gross unfiliality! An unfilial son! Such a great unfilial son still wants to eat? Go hungry!

After three days of starvation, Nie Hanzhu finally saw the light — if he didn't come around soon, he really would starve to death!

But once he had come around, the jinshi of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen was not coming back. The great imperial examinations did not offer make-up tests!

With no other choice, he cast aside the brush for the sword and enrolled in the Shanghai Naval Academy. He had the foundation of a top-scoring juren, was still young, and had a nimble mind, so he had always ranked at the top of the Naval Academy, had even stayed on to teach there, and now had become captain of a capital ship — his prospects were dazzling!

Yet although his official prospects were bright, his record of merits was completely blank. That way he would never earn a noble title, and it would also be very hard to advance any further.

"Teacher, this student believes the bay we are in is excellent," Nie Hanzhu said. "The harbor is neither too large nor too small, it has a fine sheltered anchorage, and at the harbor entrance there is also a gate-guarding island. The entrance to this harbor was not very wide to begin with, and now this little island divides it into an eastern and a western channel. The eastern channel is no more than three li wide, and the western channel about five li. If we only set up a watchtower and battery on the island and hold the eastern and western channels, we can keep the Spanish out of the harbor!

This student suggests that we leave all 1,000 flintlock musketeers here, along with two bird ships and one 800-ton warship, and also take a dozen or more cannon off the Flying, the Jiangnan, and the Fujian, and place them all on that gate-guarding island."

The harbor that Nie Hanzhu had his eye on was Subic Bay!

Although this harbor was not as large as Manila Bay, it was extremely easy to defend and made an ideal fleet anchorage.

"That's a fine idea!" Hao Feng also approved of Nie Hanzhu's suggestion. "Teacher, why don't we leave some forces here to hold it, keep watch on the gate of Manila Bay, and wait for the Spanish to come back. That way we won't have made the trip for nothing!"

Zheng Jiangong weighed it over and thought it was good too. His gaze swept over Hao Feng and Nie Hanzhu. "Which of you two will stay?"

The Eastern Ocean Fleet now had four 800-ton ships in total. Of these, the Flying was the flagship, and its captain was the Dutchman Davy Jones, who of course could not be left at "Subic Bay." Chen Shangchuan of the Henan was still in North America. So the only choices for staying at Subic Bay to command a detachment were one of Hao Feng and Nie Hanzhu!

"Let this student stay!" Nie Hanzhu volunteered. Hao Feng did not contend with him over it — after all, the idea of stationing troops at the mouth of Manila Bay had been his to begin with.

"Good!" Zheng Jiangong nodded lightly. "Then We hereby appoint you to lead the Fujian, the Lianjiang, the Luoyuan, the Changle, and the Fuqing — five warships in all — plus two marine battalions, to remain and hold this bay. Does this bay have a name?"

It certainly had a name, but neither Nie Hanzhu nor Hao Feng knew it, so they asked Zheng Jiangong to bestow one.

"Then call it Success Bay!" Zheng Jiangong said. "With this name, may our navy's ships succeed upon arrival!"

While Zheng Jiangong was dividing his forces to hold Success Bay, the Spanish Eastern Invincible Armada had once again "succeeded upon arrival" — this time the Invincible Armada's place of success was the Kingdom of Ryukyu.

The Kingdom of Ryukyu was by no means an important strongpoint on the first island chain now; it was merely a small window for Ming-Japan trade. Because the Great Ming had already been restored and Japan's seclusion policy had been greatly relaxed, the Kingdom of Ryukyu was inevitably sliding into decline. For the Satsuma Domain of Japan, which occupied half of Ryukyu, their presence in Ryukyu was less an interest than a burden they could not shake off!

At least in the view of Nejime Kiyoo, the Satsuma Domain's resident magistrate in Ryukyu, the Shimazu clan's colonization of Ryukyu had been a losing venture. Not only had they made no money, they had also been dragged down by Toyotomi loyalists who had appeared from who knew where, and had become a thorn in the side and a needle in the flesh of the Tokugawa shogunate!

It had forced the domain lord Mitsuhisa and the heir Tsunahisa to go into seclusion together, and made Mitsuhisa's legitimate grandson Tsunatake the domain lord. Although real power in the domain still rested in the hands of Mitsuhisa and Tsunahisa, the simultaneous seclusion of both the domain lord and the heir had pushed the Shimazu clan onto the crest of the wave.

Now ronin from all over Japan and powerful domains with hidden schemes were all watching the Shimazu of Satsuma, waiting for the Shimazu clan to step forward, revere the emperor, and overthrow the shogunate!

And within the Satsuma Domain itself, many impoverished domain samurai and ronin were hoping the Shimazu clan would stake everything against the shogunate.

But the upper ranks of the Satsuma Domain, including Nejime Kiyoo with his 5,000-koku stipend (he was of the Shimazu lineage, a grandson of Iehisa), were all at their wits' end.

He was sitting in the Satsuma encampment below Shuri Castle, brooding, when the sound of thunder suddenly reached his ears. He looked up and out — it was plainly a clear, sunny day!

Just as he was puzzling over it, one of the samurai under his command, a retainer named Togo Jisshu, came scrambling and crawling in. At the sight of Nejime Kiyoo he shouted wildly, "Elder! Disaster! The Spanish fleet is attacking!"

(End of Chapter)