【Asking for Tickets】

The sun had risen as usual, but it had been many days since it had last appeared over Manila, and even though everyone had hoped to see the sky clear soon on a rainy day, it was less than a night before the gentlemen and ladies of the city began to miss the cool weather again when the heat came back after the rain.

Today is the Sabbath of Our Lady.

Bishop Miguel, dressed in a red coat and red hat, walks with Fr. Hernando Guerrero, O.S.A. on the stone paved road from the University of Santo Tomas to the site of the Seminary of San Juan, where he will go to the Cathedral of Manila to preside over the prayer of the Feast of the Assumption. Although it was still early, it was obvious that such a formal dress also caused him a lot of burden, especially with a golden cross pendant hanging on his chest, absorbing the energy of the sun at any time, shining in the morning light, and the temperature rose too quickly.

But Miguel was able to endure it, and during this time his entire energy was clearly focused on the construction of Manila, and even the appearance of an enemy attack did not affect this persistence.

The Spaniards did not know the destiny of heaven, but Miguel, who had just turned fifty, apparently of a similar character, at this age he did not know once that if he had not been fortunate enough to become a priest of the Order of San Austin at the age of twenty-three, he might have lived a prosperous life in the small town of Chinchón on the outskirts of Madrid, drinking and singing at festivals with the gentlemen of the royal capital who had gone on holiday in the suburban towns. Most of the rest of the time is spent doing what you like by interest, and perhaps after reading one or two of Monsieur Cervantes's novels, you will have some unrealistic ideas like the protagonists in them, but you will never experience all kinds of adventures in a foreign land far away in the East.

The Church changed his life, and since then he has sailed thousands of miles, leaving countless footprints in New Spain, and then becoming bishop of New Serbia, the northern frontier of the Philippines. It should be said that most of the time he devoted himself to spreading the Gospel of God, but his greatest love was learning and engineering. Manila is a beautiful city like his home town, and this goal is even equated with the manifestation of God's presence on earth, at least while building the San Juan Theological Seminary, he has already seen the further future, and he hopes to build a ten-span stone bridge over the Bashi River after the completion of the college to connect the royal city with the Chinese market, which was a plan that was planned at the beginning of the construction of the royal city of Manila, but has not been implemented for various reasons.

He did not experience the fierce conflict of sixteen years ago, and in the eyes of the bishop, the Chinese were farmers who came into the city every day to sell grain and vegetables, industrious shavers and masons, and except for a few Japanese, there were few qualified workers in this place other than the Chinese, and even the manure in Manila depended on them to clean up and transport, and such industrious people did not believe in God.

During his years in Luzon, the strangest thing about him was this, the indigenous conversion was very easy, and the number of believers could often increase by orders of magnitude after some initial resistance, and the same was true for the Japanese, only the Chinese had an almost paranoid stubbornness in their beliefs, and I heard that the Australians outside the city are also Chinese, and the Chinese are still elusive.

The bishop was sympathetic to the Chinese, motivated by his approval of their work attitude and his disgust with the excesses of some of his countrymen, and he even intended to write to the king in order to get Manila to change for the better, but the Australian attack brought this to an abrupt end.

'I wish the war was over soon......

According to the city's estimates, the supply limit of the Australians is about half a month, and as he was thinking about it, he heard a burst of exclamations around him.

'My God...... Look what that is! ’

'Oh my God! ’

'What the hell is that in the sky?' It's too big. ’

The bishop followed the prestige and suddenly chuckled in his heart, and saw a strange ball slowly rising on the south side of the city, and the face of the fierce god drawn on the ball under the morning sun was extremely clear, the twisted grimace flowing with blood, and the gloomy side of the back made people palpitate, and all who saw it had an image in their hearts - the devil.

The 'devil' seemed to be moving slowly, ignoring the exclamations of the crowd below, but he came closer and closer.

Liu Zhendong put his hands on the guardrail of the pod, his eyes looked at the ground below him, Manila City was in front of him, and the city looked like a seashell embedded in the sea at a height of more than 800 meters, and the buildings and roads in the city were as lovely as the delicate lines on the shell.

But he came precisely for destruction.

The "Wallace" is a relatively small prototype airship, and it is said that it is just a comparison with the airships of two or three hundred meters in length in later generations, but what can float in the air about 40 meters long is enough to frighten the world, but the hull in the shape of an olive core is round from the front. The airship itself is just like its name, and it doesn't know how high it can be compared to anything else in the world, and it is not impossible to climb hundreds of meters if it is not carrying heavy things.

The four-meter-square pod is not big, and it can only accommodate the weight of four or five people, plus the things to be carried, and now there are actually only two people on the airship, in addition to Liu Zhendong, there is also Lin Baoyi, the theoretical designer of the Wallace.

To be honest, with Liu Zhendong's new Air Force, the supreme commander of the Japanese army, this debut with only two people dispatched together seems quite petty, but with this means of restoration, it is only reluctant to achieve mass production of airships. If the manufacturing capacity on Labuan Island is used, a large airship with a length of 300 meters can be made, but then the original purpose of this operation will be lost, and such resources cannot be wasted on this experiment for industrial production. And then it will be necessary to use a larger tonnage of modern ships to transport, originally this operation fully took into account the unknown hydrological situation at the mouth of Manila Bay and abandoned the general cargo ship to accompany it, naturally there will be a more cautious demonstration of the feasibility of the plan, if not so, Lin Baoyi himself brought over a collection of medieval Zeppelin NT airships from the 21st century when he crossed, in terms of performance is much stronger than this one, not for the sake of the assembly line of the factory, it is more appropriate to use that one.

The rigid skeleton of the semi-rigid structure combined with the design of the separation airbag ensures the safety of the Wallace, and a steam engine is struggling to control the propulsion of the power, and has to allocate a small part of the power to the fan that regulates the air of the auxiliary airbag. Of course, there is more than one advantage, such as a relatively higher load capacity and more conspicuous styling, after all, the purpose of this operation is not to conceal, but to create a sensation.

At the rear of the pod is a lever-controlled bomb slot, and next to the hatch are two 'aerial bombs', which, like the helium in the main airbag, are the only expensive industrial products on the boat that have not yet been fully integrated with the current industrial system.

The purpose of this operation was deterrence, so from the beginning in the choice of bomb type, the Senate was inclined to blast bombs, and the military industry never thought that anti-personnel and incendiary bombs could cause much striking damage to the stone shells in Manila, and the base weight and flight altitude requirements of armor-piercing shells were too harsh. Therefore, in the final finalization, the Senate chose the MK80 series of low-drag aerial bombs developed by the US military in the 50s of the 20 th century for high-speed fighters to drop bombs, and the MK 81, which was the lightest weight, was selected for the second type. The weight of a single bomb of 250 pounds (114 kg) gave the Wallace room for two of its crew members, and the 45.4 kg H6 charge in each bomb ensured its power, a mixture of black gold, T N T, aluminium powder and paraffin wax that was indistinguishable from the famous Mother Bomb charge, and was nearly half as powerful as a simple T N T.

Half an hour later, the airship had arrived at the position directly above the city of Manila, and after observing clearly, Liu Zhendong communicated with the ground for the last time through the walkie-talkie, and after receiving the confirmed news, he gave the bomb command.

Lin Baoyi pulled the connecting rod, the pitch port opened, and with a crisp click, the fixed bolt bounced upward, and the first bomb slipped out of the cabin under the action of gravity.

After a breath, the bomb began to accelerate and fall towards the building below under the gravitational traction, the speed became faster and faster, and Liu Zhendong became a little excited to watch the gyroscopic fuse on its tail spinning at high speed gradually become smaller.

'Happy Ascension,' he said silently in his mind.......

On August 15th, the day of the legendary Virgin Mary's accession to heaven, 98 years ago today, the Spanish captured the 'capital' of the Aztec Empire, the world is always full of coincidences, and now the scales of victory have reoriented.

Whether the people on the ground looked up at the sky or not, they were suddenly interrupted by a somewhat piercing scream.

In fact, not long after the airship appeared, many smart people thought of the enemy outside the city. And now the 'devil' suspended in the sky suddenly threw down a strange thing, and finally some people began to speculate about what it was, but whatever it was, it was undoubtedly not a good thing to be hit by such a stone or iron ingot falling from such a high altitude of the air. Just as some people in the distance were gloating to see if there were any unlucky people, the bomb landed impartially on the dome of the Manila Cathedral and then easily pierced through it.

There was a burst of exclamation from the crowd, knowing that there were many people gathered in the church today, and if anyone was hit, the person who fell on the head with the power that could penetrate the dome of the church would probably not be killed. Some were praying, some were waiting, the mood was good and bad, but they all had a thought in their hearts that the incident had passed, and whatever had fallen, it was all over the moment he landed, and the result might be known immediately, and at the latest it would not be easily buried in the street talk this afternoon.

A breath of time passed in the blink of an eye, and just when everyone thought that they were all right, a loud bang rose into the sky.

A red lotus bloomed, and after it swirled and swirled, the space within a hundred meters was instantly filled with countless building debris and dust, and some people who stood close were beaten on the spot and fell to the ground with their heads broken and bleeding, as for the situation in the cathedral, it was obvious that no one cared about the fate of those who prayed at this moment.

The narrow streets prevented the further spread of the explosion, but left the crowd on the outskirts of the cathedral with nowhere to escape.

Miguel was a little further away from the blast, but his shocked look could not be concealed.

For a moment, a second bomb followed, this time crashing like a meteor into the crowd gathered in front of the square. There was no laydown, no evacuation, everything at the point of impact instantly turned to ashes, and the heated and expanded air currents formed a visible ripple that spread out in all directions, and the people who were hit were almost immediately shattered, and the stumps and internal organs were thrown into the sky, and from the pod, the ground seemed to be celebrating the festival in the bloodiest way.

The textbook demonstration of the explosion quickly subsided as the shock wave decayed, but the human mind could not be calmed.

The air seemed to freeze until His Excellency the Governor and his guards arrived.

No one knew what had just happened, not even the cannon fire of the fortress of San Tiago could not cause such noise and damage, but soon leaflets falling from the sky gave the answer.

'Is it a good thing for Australians to do again?' ’

Bishop Miguel's mind had a strange thought, that the Chinese seemed to be not only industrious farmers and good craftsmen, but also fierce enemies.

[Note 1: Don't ask me why the names of some compounds are so awkward, because the generic name can't be sent out and will be blocked, and the space also means this]

[Note 2: The first time there is a place with English in the remarks, it means that this person and this place really exists, and I try to restore the original record as close as possible to the historical facts]

[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、《The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila Official Website》

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

16、《History of the Mutsunokuni》Scipione Amati

17、《Recit de l'entree solemnelle et remarquable faite a Rome,par Dom Philippe Francois Faxicura》Abraham Savgrain

18, "The Historical Changes of Manila's Chinatown" Shen Lixin

19、《 The Philippine Islands 1493–1898》Volume

20、《Under New Spain 1565–1761》