On April 11, 1631, on the morning of the eighth day of the ultimatum issued by the Ming side, the Ming and Portuguese sides officially went to war.

Standing in front of the border gate and seeing the scene of fierce fighting, the clerk of the Macau City Council, Andrade, couldn't help but sigh.

As the last envoy, he came to the front of the two armies to receive the documents for the start of the war.

At this moment, in front of the gate of the once prosperous lotus stem, it has become heavily guarded, and there are Ming soldiers with guns on their backs and wearing shorts and shorts everywhere. Around the gate, a circular stronghold of barbed wire, antlers, and sandbags was erected.

The nearby lush vegetation was also cleared, revealing a level of land that was blue-black, as if to indicate that ominous things were coming.

As the last emissary, Andrade had never met any Ming officials at all—whether they were traditional bureaucrats in robes or officials with short hair under a certain count.

And the one who handed over the paperwork to Andrade was just a low-ranking officer with a cold face and a large-brimmed hat.

After bowing his head slightly and maintaining the proper etiquette of a nobleman, Andrade, who had taken the paperwork, walked in the direction of the carriage from which the people turned to pass.

Getting into the car, reaching out and pulling the carved door with the beautiful glass window, Andrade said to the two servants: "Gentlemen, a long and arduous war is inevitable, if you want me to say it. Take back what you see, the Governor is waiting for you. ”

Andrade came here, in addition to fulfilling the formalities of starting a war, spying on the military situation is also the proper meaning of the question.

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In this era, as well as in the millennia before and centuries afterward, the strategic superiority of the side with a strong fortress was difficult to shake.

In ancient siege warfare, for thousands of years, the attacking side spent ten times as many resources and twenty times as many soldiers, and then had the time to attack fortified cities. People may think that wars are all about "conquering cities", but in the long history, there are more examples of various turtle streams letting the enemy return with feathers.

The lords of medieval Europe, relying on their family castles, were able to control their lords from the Roman Empire to the Industrial Revolution.

Even in later generations, when hot weapons had begun to be popularized, the Sevastopol fortress in the Crimean War and the Brest fortress in World War II still tell the indispensable influence of fortified cities on warfare: the so-called siege, as long as it lasts for a long time, the attacker's army will inevitably produce all kinds of cholera, dysentery, syphilis and plague, which is a big killer for all defenders.

In the 17th century, in the colonial era, strong strongholds or fortresses were the core of colonial activities.

All you need to do is build a fort anywhere, set up an arquebus, and a few cannons, and you can do business with the natives with confidence...... The fort was a center of trade and a refuge against the coveted attacks of the natives and fellow colonizers.

Forts built by colonists around the world were almost common in the face of large numbers of natives, who were embarrassed to leave their homes if they were less than ten times larger. Far away, close at hand, the Dutch were besieged by the indigenous empire in Batavia. Historically, the governor of Cohen died of dysentery during the siege, but the natives eventually returned from the fortified city.

The most important reason why Comrade Zheng Damu was able to go down in history and become a national hero was that he laid down the city of Geranza, which was built by the Dutch in Taiwan. However, what most people in later generations didn't know was that Zheng Damu led the army at that time, and besieged the city of Geranza for a year with a huge advantage in military strength (30,000+), until the Dutch (1000+) in the city ran out of ammunition and food, and then went out of the city and signed a surrender treaty peacefully.

In other words, if the Dutch had sufficient supplies, they could continue to consume more than twenty times the Zheng army—this was the meaning of the fortress's existence.

You must know that outside the Ming Kingdom, colonists from various countries are fighting each other all the time, and there are very few battles that can really defeat each other's strongholds. In contrast, the colonizers had to voluntarily abandon a stronghold because of various infectious diseases and indigenous blockades, which were much more likely than frontal wars.

In fact, it was the countless experiences of defending forts on the coast of Africa, North and South America, as well as in India, and so on, that really contributed to the final decision of the Portuguese in Macau.

In the eyes of the Portuguese high-level in Macao, it was entirely possible to hold off the enemy for a long time with the several forts around the city and the city itself for a long time. This can be a long time, long enough to cause an epidemic to render an adversary's army incapacitated...... This situation will definitely occur in the humid and hot south of the Ming Kingdom.

At that point, everyone can sit down and sign a decent "trade" agreement.

In line with this strategic thinking, the two retinues who accompanied Andrade to receive the war letters today were in fact Portuguese regular officers specially sent by the Governor-General. Both officers had previously served in different Portuguese colonies and had extensive experience in warfare.

Their main objective today was the combat readiness of the Ming army, but the outcome was obviously not pleasing to the Portuguese.

In addition to the expected large number of soldiers, another symptom also showed the signs of a long war that the Portuguese feared most: the construction site.

Just on the side of the road when they came, a large number of migrant workers started their work early in the morning. Although it was not clear what the project was by the time Andrade and the others left, no matter what the project was, it meant that the Ming government had mobilized more resources than expected.

In Andrade's view, the migrant workers were laying the foundations for a military camp or a military warehouse. In this way, the possibility of the Portuguese facing a long war was greatly increased.

"Gentlemen, long and arduous battles are inevitable, if I follow my observations. Now, take back what you see, the Governor is waiting for you. ”

After hearing Andrade's judgment, the other two attendants nodded, and the next moment the carriage started, and half an hour later, Andrade returned to the St. Paul's Battery, commonly known as the Fortress.

At this critical moment of the war, as the commander-in-chief of the campaign, Sir Svera, the governor from Lisbon, must have been dressed in military uniform at the battery to receive first-hand information.

So in the face of the artillery in the direction of the Ming Kingdom, at the head of the border city of Taipei, Schvila got the war documents for the first time. Although there was no rumbling cannon, at the moment when the governor took over the paperwork, the war between the Ming and Portuguese officially began.

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"Pick it up, the thief chief takes the paperwork!"

What the Portuguese did not expect was that at the moment when the governor took over the paperwork, at the lotus stem gate five miles away, an excited voice shouted loudly, which represented the action of starting a war.

At this moment, on the gate, the big flag is fluttering, the crowd is crowded, the armor is numerous, the bigwigs are gathered, and the military officials of the Guangdong side of the Ming Kingdom are all present.

The side that is inserted in the middle of the gate tower is naturally ...... It's not like dragging the cool Cao General Soldier. There is a big "He" character written on this big page, which is naturally ...... It is the general flag of He Rubin and He Zhentai, the commander-in-chief of Guangdong in the Ming Kingdom.

Inserted next to the flag of Lord He's general, it is Cao Zhongchen's Zhangchao general flag.

Stretching down the left and right of the two bigwigs, there is a row of flags of local generals in Guangdong. Among them, there are not only the garrison generals of Chaozhou, Lei Lian, Nanxiong and other places, but even the generals of the East and West Mountains who have never been lightly guarded, and even the generals of Lianshan and Luoding who hold heavy troops, all occupy a place on the city tower at this moment.

As mentioned above, this war against Portugal was an excellent publicity opportunity.

In the seventeenth century, when information exchange was underdeveloped, the biggest headache for the traveler was that the opponent became "ignorant" due to poor information.

This war propaganda is a good opportunity for the traversers to solve this problem based on a long-term vision: to show the muscles of the high-level officers and men in Guangdong and to deter the other side, so that in a certain state of "confrontation" that is bound to occur in the future, the opponent's determination to resist will be lowered, the will of the other side will be shaken, and conditions can be created for peace talks.

Therefore, in the name of the deputy commander of the Guangdong Military Region, General Cao invited military generals with real power from all over the province to come as guests as guests and observe the battlefield...... Food, housing, multi-person sports, reimbursement of expenses, and exquisite gifts after the meeting.

This is the scene where someone is yelling on the castle tower.

The one who shouted excitedly was a tall, dark-skinned, big-faced, bearded Ming officer - Ma Lianzuo, the former mountain general.

During the Wanli period, the Ming court set up the Guangzhou coastal defense Tongzhi Yamen in Yongmo, which was only a day's journey from Macao, and transferred thousands of troops to defend and set up generals. In the first year of the Apocalypse (1621), the staff and general's official office was moved to the former cottage a few miles west of the lotus stem, and the number of officers and soldiers guarding the army increased greatly.

Yes, the so-called Qianshan General is the military chief of the Ming State who is specifically responsible for the defense of Macao. In other words, theoretically, the defense of the lotus stem and even the surrounding Macao area was originally attributed to the bearded horse ginseng in the future. It's just that Commander Ma has now met Commander Cao, who has mobilized heavy troops to do things, and his defense responsibilities have been taken over.

However, these did not affect the excitement of Ma Shenjiang today. At this moment, Ma Shenjun, who was pouting his ass and holding his horse step down, stopped one of his eyes on a Zeiss 150 mm 66x digital auto-zoom monocular erected at the head of the city and sitting on a cast iron tripod, staring greedily at every move in the lens.

General Ma Shen not only watched it himself, but also kept broadcasting the Portuguese governor's every move live: "The enemy chief received the paperwork, and the enemy chief interrogated the three envoys...... Ha, the enemy chief threw the paperwork, this is watching our army formation from afar! ”