In the waters of the Philippines, only Zhenghe Island (note: the new name of Palawan) has a very different appearance from Luzon.

On the island of Luzon, whether you stand on the top of the tower of the Manila church or on the slopes of Sammere Reis, you will find a patchwork of forests, meadows, cottages, and fields, dotted with streams and lakes. From time to time, the spire of a church cross or the red tiled roof of a stone barracks emerge from the green sea, reminding the viewer of the traces of nearly half a century of European rule.

However, those who have been fortunate enough to listen to the lectures of Mei Xue or read the historical materials in the Feng Pavilion know very well that Palawan was one of the wildest lands in the Philippines until the 22nd century in the history of their journey through the former plane, and even tourism is not the best place to go. Naturally, the world of the early seventeenth century was even more wild, and apart from the occasional Portuguese merchant ship that came to buy bird's nest, and a few Dominican priests who were overly religious, it seemed that no European had set foot in the world at all.

Before the Fubo army arrived on this deserted island, there was no order in the area, and although the Moro pirates on the south side of the island did not dare to touch Manila, they still attacked the ports around Cebu in brisk caraku galleys, taking hundreds of Christian prisoners with them, and occasionally even going around the island of Mindoro on a whim. To the north, slave convicts from Luzon and the surrounding areas struggled to extract mercury for their masters in Manila under the supervision of Visayas archers, making it one of the few local specialties that could reach the other side of the ocean with Chinese silk, although Manila imported a large part of its annual imports from Macao, and the rebellion and plague made the mining costs on the long and narrow islands prohibitive Entenza had complained more than once that the Visayas soldiers sent to the island had not kept up with the number of dead soldiers, and what the governor did not know was that he would not have had the opportunity to make such a comment had it not been for the intelligence errors of the Fubo Army last year, who had traveled halfway around the world to take up his post in the Philippines.

Just before the typhoon, the warship towing the Spanish galleon returned to the naval base in Puerto Princesa (Princesa's new name), which was nothing more than a slight renovation of the pier on the basis of the previous one, and the construction of a fort in the harbor. Fort Victory is almost a replica of the Coconut City's Fort of Triumph, except that instead of being built at the mouth of the river in Ulugan Bay, the fort is located further south of the harbor near the island's narrow bee's waist, where it is a high ground and a new lighthouse has been built next to the fort, just like Port Silly.

A barn in the castle was brightly lit, surrounded by heavily armed Fubo soldiers, who were constantly watching their surroundings vigilantly, even though they were in the fort.

It took three days to count and reconcile the loot, and the results were certainly gratifying, with nearly 2,500,000 pesos of silver on the two ships, or 100 tons of silver. This wealth equivalent to more than two million taels of silver is enough to make a lot of work can be carried out smoothly, not to mention, the construction of hospitals and schools can be further accelerated, and the climbing of the science and technology tree can also be more efficient, and more importantly, with this reserve, the issuance of currency can be accelerated.

After all, only a tenth of this silver was enough for the Senate to replace Banten and Ho Lok as the largest buyers of the slave trade in the South Seas in the future.

In addition, more than 70 cannons and smaller deck guns and even muskets and cold weapons on the two galleons were more valuable resources, providing a considerable inventory of copper and iron for the Senate, and canvas and timber would be converted into more schooners after the split. They would help the merchants avoid pirates, provided of course by going to the Senate's ports to trade.

And whether it is a barren land or a rebellious infidel, Zheng He Island can become a natural training ground for the army, and the Senate naturally thinks so. Moreover, a veteran expedition team that had completed the survey around the island claimed in its report that it had discovered a nickel ore vein, and the Senate would naturally not let go of this auxiliary coin material, and the slaves who wanted to import slaves here also had the intention of mining nickel ore.

Four-fifths of the 2,500,000 silver pesos will be melted down and reminted into the Great Song Dang silver coins in the newly built mint, and future nickel coins of 1, 5 and 10 will also be trial-produced in Puerto Princesa, making it easy for the mint to be built in such a barren place.

The remaining part of the silver will be melted into standard silver ingots and sent to Sanya and Guangzhou respectively, although Ma Chen also needs slaves, but there is no conflict with Puerto Princessa, although the fleets of Jaco and Quark have converged in the nearby seas, as long as Manila is captured, the division of labor between the two of them will change. The Senate intended to assign the vicinity of Ambon to Quark so that he could harass the fleet of the Dutch East India Company there, while in the vicinity of Manraka he intended to put Jaco's Australian Company in charge, and of course their main job was to provide the Senate with sufficient slaves.

However, in view of the fact that with the expansion of the power of the Great Song Dynasty, the source of slaves will become less and less, so the Senate has also made some adjustments to the policy of the use of slaves, slaves are also paid according to work, as long as they complete three times the amount of work they are worth, they can obtain free status, and free people can still be naturalized if they meet the conditions, and they can even join the army in separate fields.

Of course, if you choose to return to your hometown, the customs will not stop you, but if you are caught and sold by the slave team, you will have to start all over again.

After hearing that this order was announced, the slaves in the mines of Machen worked harder, but the Spanish captives had to be treated differently, at least until the occupation of Luzon. According to the confessions of the two captains, in the next month or two, at least two merchant ships will arrive in the Philippine Islands from Acapulco, and the fastest one is estimated to arrive within 20 days.

The Senate's looting was aimed only at Spanish silver ships, and they were not interested in the goods traded to Manila, which were neither in need nor worth the effort.

Manila served as a de facto entrepot, where the Spaniards used silver from the Americas to purchase cheap handicrafts from the Chinese coast, a business that made the merchants involved in it very profitable, and allowed the natives of the distant Viceroyalty of New Spain to enjoy the goods from the Celestial Empire at lower prices, and Manila even received about 70,000 pesos a year in taxes, the only ones who were hurt were the workshop owners from the Iberian Peninsula.

Needless to say, without silver from across the ocean, Manila would be of no use to the Spanish rulers, except for the fanatical self-righteous Dominican friars.

Although this year's trading season has passed, the silk market is not closed with tooth shops and brokers, who are waiting for the arrival of the riches from New Spain. The Spaniards, Portuguese, Chinese, and natives of Visayas, who had eaten large quantities of silk fabrics from the coasts of Fujian and Zhejiang during the trading season before May, were now waiting to make a fortune from the galleon business, and if this hope was disappointed, it would not have been a few words of appeasement from the governor of Manila.

Chaos is what the Senate wants to see, and only when the situation gets worse and worse will more people vent their grievances, and the more people who lead the way, the easier it will be for Manila's strategy, just as the motherland did before the reunification of Taiwan, so it is more in the interest of the Senate to wait a little longer.

Two days later, he returned to Brunei.

Early that morning, on a small hill near the sea in the north of Brunei, a group of soldiers were standing solemnly on both sides of a cemetery, and all seven members of the Senate had arrived. The vast area of the cemetery enclosure covers almost the entire hill.

As the drizzle was drizzling in the air, and the sound of military trumpets was like a cry, the citizens from all directions were attracted by curiosity as the twenty tall horses marched towards this direction with five gun wagons, and spontaneously set up a large circle around the cemetery to see what the chiefs were doing.

Among these people were natives who worked for Brunei, new traders who had arrived in the area, and nobles who had lived in the city in the past.

There is no mourning, no prayers and incantations, and there is no blowing and paper men and paper horses that are most common in the funerals of the Chinese here, there is only a solemn atmosphere. The audience understood that this atmosphere came from the neat and standard gun-wielding steps of the soldiers before, from the Daystar flags covered by the five thin wooden coffins, and even more from the crisp tufts of new uniforms and the polished barrels of Migne's guns, and the rhythmic drum beat was not too loud after being filtered by the noisy human voices, but it was so strong that it was a little suffocating to listen to the heart.

Bai Sike, Paechipa, Zejiapa, Jiawa, and Li San, the owners of these five strange names may not have any indication that they would become a special existence in the history of the empire after death in the short life when they themselves did not know the exact age, but the inscription on the inscription wall of the Lingyange Cemetery of the Great Song Dynasty did begin with them.

The coffin was dragged by ropes and slowly fell into the granite-carved tomb, all of which the onlookers had never seen before, and even the sound of horses' hooves hitting the stone slabs was mixed with respect, admiration and emotion.

'Raise your gun!' - Put! ’

Three times in a row, the orderly shooting of seven soldiers into the sky made the gunfire echo on the hillside for a long time, and there was silence all around, and the twenty-four syllables of the lights out signal slowly played at this time, and the previous feeling spread through the crowd with an unprecedented reality, and even the reporters of the "Xinhua Daily" could not hold back the tears that flowed silently.

He personally recited the sacrificial text, and in a low and frustrated tone, he denounced the despicable story of the priest of a pig barbarian tribe in the mountains of central Borneo ten days ago, and the patriarch cured the priest's illness, but the priest became jealous of the patriarch's 'divine power'. At his instigation, the clan launched a raid on a team sent by Brunei, and five loyal warriors were brutally murdered to protect the senators.

The memorial does not give a detailed account of the incident, nor does it say that two other elders were also seriously injured and are still lying in the intensive care unit on Labuan Island and have not woken up.

Enraged armies flattened the village and hung the priest and the patriarch on the lighthouse of Port Slime along with the warrior of the day, reminding the world of who was the true owner of the place, and also reminding the elders of the 'Virgin's disease' that the situation was nowhere near the point where a squad of about ten people could run freely through the rainforests of Borneo's interior. And their people will be sent to Mazen or somewhere else, to pay for the sins they have committed against the Senate with hard labor.

"Are it really just a few soldiers who died?"

Standing in the middle of the crowd, Ulema lowered her voice to inquire about the natives around her, but his low-key clothing did not seem to attract the attention of others.

"You haven't heard that he died to protect the chief, but it's not in vain to be able to live like this when he dies." The man who replied had apparently understood Moon's words from elsewhere, and showed a strong superiority in front of Ulima.

"It's really going to buy people's hearts."

Ulema ignored the man's exclamations, for it was true that there was no carved wooden idol, no fierce bullfighting sacrifices, and no local funerals were not solemn, except for those who came to see the excitement.

However, the scriptures also did not allow idolatry at funerals, and logically speaking, this set of things of the Song people is more in line with the teachings of the saints.

He finally realized that he had been swayed by an emotion unconsciously, and he couldn't tell whether it was worry or envy, he knew that it was the shorthairs who were buying people's hearts, but he couldn't suppress the surge of emotions. When the old king Hasan died at the beginning of the year, he was still able to think about his family's business at the funeral, but this time he was really moved inexplicably.

This kind of power that hits people's hearts has not been seen since he has served the king of Bo Ni for many years, but now it makes him depressed and uncomfortable, as if he is suffocated.

He suddenly woke up, isn't this what the people here are now, following Shorthair as if they had been mad, and the same is true of the immigrants from overseas who are increasing every day, and the reverence for Shorthair from the heart seems to have been formed by the good news that came from that one by one.

On the contrary, it is caused by the accumulation of bits and pieces from somewhere else.

The short-haired ones who teach the farmers to farm in the fields are witnesses to every harvest of rice fields.

The shorthair who taught the people to work in the workshop and shipyard is a witness to every big ship that is launched.

Those short-haired soldiers who taught the soldiers to fight in the barracks playground, every neat phalanx is a witness.

It was something that people used to talk about in his ear, but now he felt that the nodding and smiling of the senators at the civilians in the street might be closer to the truth.

What will become of Borneo, what will become of the South Seas, Ulema did not dare to think about it anymore, he tried to collect the tears that were about to be left, and turned away silently.

Wen Desi, who had the same sour nose as Ulima, looked at the people around him with satisfaction, and his emotion was genuine, but the four words of buying people's hearts were also his true thoughts, and it seemed that the effect was good.

"Let's go, go to the barracks and see ......"

[References]

1、《Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450-1680》Anthony Reid

2, "Sea Language" Huang Zhen

3. "Nanyang Yearbook"

4. Maritime Trade between China and Manila in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries, by Li Jinming

5. "Macao-Manila Trade in the First Half of the 17th Century" by Zhao Wenhong and Wu Yingquan

6. "Zhucheng Weekly Consultation" is strict and simple

7、《The Rise of Ayudhya》Charnvit Kasetsiri

8, "History of Overseas Chinese in Nanyang" Chen Bisheng

9、《Chinaese in Southeast Asia》Victor Purcell

10. "A Brief Discussion on the Conflict between China and the European Powers on Southeast Asian Affairs in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" He Aiguo

11. The Influence of Chinese Immigrants on Southeast Asian Languages and Daily Life in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by Zheng Fuhong

12、《Statistics for Ship Arrivalsand Departures 1565-1815（by Year and by Decade）》

13、《Alphabetized List of Galleonsand Other Ships(with voyagedates)》

14、《Summary In form ation of Galleon Arrivalsand Departures 1565 through 1815》

15、《The Manila Galleon》Jason Schoonover