On April 9, 1631, there was still a short time left before the ultimatum.

A large group of Portuguese nobles, led by the leader of the Governor Geromino Svera, arrived at the later Gaukonin Street, formerly known as the Cannon Slope...... In the Ming Dynasty, the Bugarao Cannon Foundry belonging to the Zhuzai Village in Aoxi, Haojing was inspected.

This is the meaning of the question. In the face of the impending war, the leaders are bound to inspect the military industrial sector.

In other words, the Macao Bugarao Artillery Factory is also an excellent enterprise in the history of the province.

Because after the Portuguese occupied Macao, they often faced harassment from pirates and Anglo-Dutch hooligans, so as early as the 36th year of Jiajing, the Portuguese artillery expert Peter Bugarao opened a cannon factory here.

From the very beginning of its establishment, the Bugarao Cannon Factory has cast two products: copper cannons and iron cannons. Among them, the iron cannons were mainly produced by Chinese workers, while the expensive and more technical copper cannons were made by the Portuguese under the command of Bugarao himself.

Due to the excellent quality of the products and the long-range and durable cannons, the Bugarao Gun Factory quickly became the most famous weapons factory in the Far East.

In the years that followed, the Bugarao Gun Factory not only supplied all the guns for the forts in Macao, but also supplied its products to armed merchant ships of various countries that stopped in Macao. The colonies of East Asia, including the Philippines, also sent people to purchase artillery.

The fame of the Bugarao Artillery Factory was heard even by the Ming Emperor in the capital. As early as 7 years ago, during the Apocalypse, the Ming Court purchased 4 guns from Macao. And just 2 years ago, Emperor Chongzhen also bought 10 cannons with silver, and gave the Macao cannon placed on the tower of Beijing City the name "Shenwei General".

And in the plane of traversal, the Bugarao cannon factory is still busy.

Bugarao is a middle-aged Portuguese with wavy black hair and a wrinkled face. Although he wore a work uniform when greeting the bigwigs, his face was full of fireworks, and his hands were full of calluses and oil, because of the important position of the artillery factory in Macao, Bu Jialao was quite a member of the high-level people in Macao, or in other words, he was originally one of the high-level people.

"Ladies and gentlemen, what you see now is the bell casting workshop."

Historically, the Bugarao Cannon Factory was built to only cast cannons, but later when it was expanded, it added a bell casting business. After all, bells and cannons are large metal castings, and they are the same. Moreover, in this era, there was a huge demand for bronze bells in both the East and the West. There are monasteries in the west and monk temples in the east, which are all analogous to the wealthy and large state-owned enterprises.

However, with the fingers of the director of the factory, the current clock casting workshop is scattered. Except for the empty sheds and pits, there were only a few scattered wooden and iron workpieces, no workers, and no furnaces were fired.

Soon, the parliamentarians understood: "Has the bell-casting business stopped?"

Bugarao owes a little sadly: "In fact, as early as three months ago, all the bell-casting business was discontinued, gentlemen. ”

Things are constantly influencing and changing each other. On the plane of the Traverser, life at the Bugarao Gun Factory was not easy.

First of all, as early as two years ago, Macao, which had been importing copper from Japan in the past, was cut off from the material channel by crossing the public.

At that time, the company used the right to export raw silk to win over the Japanese merchants, and then cut off the purchase channels of the Dutch and Portuguese through the Japanese high-level in one fell swoop.

After that, as the crossing force became stronger and stronger, and the patrol ships were all over the east and west of the strait, the Japanese copper and silver ore bars became more and more unable to pass this pass, and they were all intercepted by the crossing people to the Taijiang wharf.

As a result, the source of copper ore on the Portuguese side of Macao became increasingly scarce, and it could only be supplemented by smuggling from the Ming Kingdom and the direction of India. This led to a contraction in the business of the Bugarao Gun Factory.

Then, in the last six months, as the relationship between the two parties deteriorated, the Bugarao Artillery Factory simply stopped the bronze bell business. The Portuguese are not stupid, since the military pressure on this plane has increased greatly, the limited metal resources must be deployed in preparation for war.

After walking through the empty shed, there is a hot cannon casting workshop not far ahead.

The workshop, where a large amount of charcoal, copper and iron is piled up, is full of gray colors, and suffocating dust floats in the choking air. After coming here, the old men covered their mouths and noses with their silk handkerchiefs.

A large number of shirtless workers with cloth towels over their faces were casting cannons with various tools. They drained the molten iron and copper from the molten iron furnace into a mold placed on the ground, and then produced a bronze and iron cannon according to the standard operating procedure using the ancient method of casting cannons in clay molds.

"Haven't the Ming workers left yet?"

Seeing that there were still many yellow-skinned Ming people with buns among the workers, Andrade, who was the clerk of the Macau City Council, couldn't help but ask curiously.

"It's a part of the Ming workers who left." Bugarao nodded: "But there are still many left, after all, the artillery factory has increased their salaries." You know, those who go back face unemployment...... Living in Ming was stressful. ”

"How is the artillery ready?"

Governor Schwila, who was in charge of actual combat readiness on the side, interjected a little impatiently at this time. As commander-in-chief on the side of the Portuguese in this war, he was recently Alexander. The commander didn't have the time to study the survival pressure of the workers in the Ming Kingdom, but directly asked about the aspects he was most concerned about.

"Your Excellency, in addition to the orders already delivered to the various batteries, in the last week the Gunhouse has rushed to work on 20 more guns of various pounds, including six 18-pounder bronze guns and two 24-pounder guns."

"Good, that's the only good news I've heard today."

The beard left on the governor's face curled up at an angle: "Can more bronze artillery be provided?" Dear Monsieur Bugarao, you know, our opponents also have excellent guns, which have been shown to us on gunboats in the open sea. ”

"My lord, what you see now is the last batch of artillery we made from copper, about fifteen of them."

Bugarao stretched out his arm and waved slowly: "The cannon factory has not been able to obtain enough copper material for a long time, so it can only increase the number of cast iron cannons. Still, our shells are plentiful...... The smugglers of the Ming Kingdom brought in a lot of pig iron. ”。

"Dear gentlemen, this is an obvious question."

Governor Schwila said loudly: "This war, if it is as we conceive, will be a protracted war. We need a lot of artillery to inflict casualties on the Ming government that the Ming government can't afford in order to get a decent post-war agreement. ”

"There will be assistance." Speaker Lalo reassured the Governor at this time: "The representatives of the Parliament have now met with the Governor General of the Philippines, according to the schedule." The Spaniards will certainly come to our aid, having lost here, they have suffered the same losses. ”

..........................

After inspecting the sweltering workshop of the Bugarao Artillery Factory, they probably wanted to change the air, so the gentlemen came to the beautiful Fortress again.

Located on the side of the Ruins of St. Paul's, the Fortress is located on a hill 52 meters above sea level in the middle of the Macao Peninsula and is one of the main places of interest in Macau.

The Fortress is also known as the St. Paul's Battery, the Central Battery, or the St. Paul's Battery. As early as 1616 A.D., during the reign of Myojin Sect, construction began here.

Although there are several forts in and around the small city of Macau, the St. Paul's Fort is the largest, the best in location, and the strongest garrison, and it is undoubtedly the core of the defense of the city.

The Macao Fortress in the 17th century has very practical military significance, and it is still different from the tourist scenic spots in later generations.

Although there is also a large open space above, it lacks greenery and towering trees. In addition, there are no monuments and historical buildings such as the Jesuit tower on the fort today. In fact, apart from a ring of low brick houses used for garrisons, there were no superfluous buildings inside the fort.

In terms of scale, the Fortress is actually a small town. The fort is about 100 meters long, and the four corners of the wall protrude into a fortress. The fort walls are built on a 3.7-metre-wide granite foundation and are made of rammed earth and cemented with oyster shell powder.

The walls of the fort are about 9 meters high and narrow to 2.7 meters wide. The female wall is about 2 meters high, in the shape of a pheasant, and can hold up to 32 cannons.

Historically, the fort had only bunkers at the two corners of the southeast wall. The northwest wall facing the Ming Kingdom, the female wall is low and there is no cannon muzzle. This was mainly a demonstration by the Portuguese of their focus on the defense of the open sea, as well as a friendly gesture towards the Ming officials of the time.

In this plane, however, everything is different.

As early as a year ago, the northwest female wall of St. Paul's Fort was intermittently strengthened and heightened, and gun emplacements were set up.

In recent times, the Portuguese have not only dug the foundations of the fort in the northwest and built a brick wall that is flush with the ground, but also prepared a large number of building materials...... There are also red bricks and cement that they bought at a high price.

Then counting from the day he received the ultimatum, 6 days later, on the side of the St. Paul's Fort facing the Ming Kingdom, a solid bunker has been added out of thin air. On the muzzle of the female wall at the top, there is also an extra muzzle with a blue light.

When the gentlemen came to the battery, the soldiers were busy, preparing for the war.

The soldiers stationed at the forts were not mercenaries of varying ranks, they were regular Portuguese soldiers.

The soldiers were uniformly dressed in brown blouses, jackets, and shirts. They wore a wide tie around their necks, shorts, leggings, and leather shoes. All soldiers wore Western-style wide-brimmed floppy hats with white or gold bands on their heads. In addition, the one with bright feathers on his hat is an officer.

The number of soldiers stationed on the entire St. Paul's Fort has expanded to 400 due to the war.

These included 200 garrison artillerymen and 200 guards consisting of musketeers and spearmen.

In addition, in the city of Macau, not far behind the fort, there is also a reinforcement channel, which can increase troops in the direction of the fort at any time.

This large baston with its irregular lines is where the Portuguese feel their confidence.