"Your Excellency the Governor, the reef ahead is Blackstone Island."

Li Dan said with an oath.

As a consultant and guide hired by the Spaniards in Manila, he felt compelled to tell the Spanish governor everything he knew.

"Oh."

Sanchez replied lightly, and said in a somewhat broken Chinese dialect: "How long will it take to go north from here to the shore of the Ming Kingdom?" ”

Li Dan pondered for a moment and said, "According to this wind direction, it will take five days at most to reach the coastal waters of the Ming Kingdom. ”

Li Dan was robbed of the old nest Wuzhushan Island by Ning Xiu. From that moment on, Li Dan decided to defect to the Spaniards, even to be a lackey for him and to take revenge on Ning Xiu.

Now it's finally time for him to wait for his chance. His Excellency Sanchez, the Governor of Manila, decided to attack the Ming Kingdom, sent 20,000 troops, claimed to be 100,000, and set out from Luzon and went straight to Guangdong.

Because Li Dan travels back and forth between Nanyang, Fujian and Guangdong all the year round, he should be taken by Sanchez as a guide.

"Regano. What do you say about the strength of the national water division? ”

Sanchez asked, looking at the ocean and tapping his fingers.

Regano was Li Dan's Spanish name, and he was stunned for a moment before replying: "Most of the Ming sailors are rabble, and Your Excellency the Governor doesn't have to worry about it at all. ”

"But the governor heard that the state had set up a coastal defense road in Guangdong, and called an official named Ning Xiu to serve as an envoy. Under Ning Xiu's organization, the Ming Kingdom quickly had a well-trained sailor, whose strength should not be underestimated. ”

Li Dan sighed in his heart.

He had also heard the news, but had always thought that Ning Xiu was bluffing. This person is good at using strategy, and outside Xiangshan County, he used tricks to deal a heavy blow to himself. He also seized the island of Wuzhu Mountain with a trick. But in Li Dan's impression, Ning Xiu didn't have a powerful water master, could he be able to conjure it in a short period of time?

"Your Excellency the Governor, I think that the words of the missionaries cannot be trusted."

"Hmph, whether what they say is true or not, the governor will naturally have a judgment. But this governor wants what you say to be true. ”

With that, he flicked his sleeves and walked towards the cabin.

Li Dan looked at Sanchez's back and went away, and sighed in his heart that the taste of a lost dog was really uncomfortable.

...

Blackstone Island.

As the last of the Spaniards' boat docked in the bay, the islander, Hengel, narrowed his eyes slightly.

It seemed to him that the Spaniard, though he was only a passer-by, could offer him a large sum of money. Because the Spaniards needed to replenish the island with fresh water and food for the rest of the voyage.

As a Dutchman, Hengle did not hate the Spaniards as much as his compatriots.

In his opinion, as long as it can make him money, it is a friend.

Originally a sailor, Hengle was attracted by the richness of the South Seas and decided not to return to Europe.

After years of hard work, he also pulled up a team of his own, and occupied Blackstone Island to provide services for merchant ships.

It is said to be a service, but in fact, Blackstone Island is a smuggling den.

A few years ago, the Ming Dynasty had a ban on the sea, and only one port in Fujian Yuegang was opened. Many merchant ships still make money from smuggling.

Because it was only a few days away from the Ming Kingdom, many merchant ships would choose to dock at Blackstone Island and ship them to Hengel, who would then use their connections to sell them to the Portuguese in the trenches.

To put it bluntly, Hunger plays the role of a second-class peddler.

However, since the imperial court lifted the sea ban, more and more merchant ships will give up unloading at Heishi Island, and will go directly to Guangdong to trade.

Although he had to pay taxes to the Ming Dynasty City, the profit was still higher than selling to Hengel.

Because of this, Hengel's income was greatly reduced, and he naturally hated the Ming Kingdom. But his strength was not good, and it was impossible for him to send troops to attack the Ming Kingdom, so he could only gather people to plunder merchant ships and barely get by.

But in this way, the merchant ships were also well learned, and they all chose to avoid Blackstone Island far away, so that Hengle would have to go further if he wanted to rob the ship. In order to avoid these Dutch pirates, the merchant ships avoided even further. Then Hengle continued to chase...

Finally looking forward to a Spanish fleet, Hunger's joy is understandable.

What's more, he also hoped that the Spaniards would bite the Ming Kingdom hard, so that the stupid Ming people would resume the policy of closing the country to the outside world, so that Hengle could continue to smuggle for profit.

As for the Spanish governor Sánchez's claim to occupy the Ming Kingdom, Hengle scoffed at it.

If the country is an elephant, the Spaniards in Manila are wild dogs at best.

A wild dog may be able to bite an elephant while he is not paying attention, but it is impossible to swallow it.

The Spaniards' delusional dream that 20,000 people would destroy the Ming Kingdom is really a fool's dream.

But Hengle wasn't going to remind Sanchez.

Because if Sanchez really captured one or two coastal counties of the Ming Kingdom, he would definitely need supplies. It was impossible to rely on the local area alone, and at this point Hengle could stand up and sell the Spaniards a sum of money, and thus make a lot of money.

The longer the Spaniards spent in the Ming Kingdom, the more advantageous Hengle became.

He only needs to buy grain from the Portuguese through connections, and then sell it to make a lot of money.

Fight, fight as much as you want, as long as the war starts, the money will not stop.

...

"My lord, according to the report from the sentry, the Spaniards have entered Blackstone Island."

In the conference hall, Qi Wen clasped his fists in his hands and reported to Ning Xiuyu.

"Oh? Blackstone Island? ”

Ning Xiu was no stranger to this name. He knew that the island was in the hands of a Dutch pirate, how did the Spaniards get involved with the Dutch?

Ning Xiu walked to the side of the map, picked up a charcoal pen, and drew a circle on the Black Rock Island.

"Blackstone Island, this is not far from Wuzhushan Island, right?"

"If the wind is down, it will be three or four days at most."

Qi Wen said with emotion: "If you occupy this place, you can attack and retreat, and you can defend it, and the Francophile is really good at picking a place." ”

"No, how did the Spaniards find Blackstone Island?"

Ning Xiu suddenly woke up: "Could it be that they have internal responses?" ”

It stands to reason that the Spaniards had never been to the Ming Kingdom, and they certainly did not know much about the nearby shipping lanes.

And Blackstone Island is only known to some smuggling merchant ships and pirates. Ning Xiu believed that it was more likely that the Spaniards had obtained this information from smuggling merchant ships, but it could not be ruled out that they had absorbed some local pirates and thus obtained the information.

Either way, Ning Xiu thought that the Spaniards must have known something about the coast of Guangdong, so they had to raise their defense level.

"From now on, you have to organize people to go out to sea every day to patrol and report back every two hours."

Whatever the Spaniards had planned, Ning Xiu had to know. He would never allow the Spaniards to use intrigue under his nose.

"The subordinates obeyed. But there's one more thing I want to ask my lord. What if the Spaniards and the Portuguese were in harmony with each other? ”

...

...