Now that the city of Manila has been conquered, the Tang army began to sweep away the Spanish forces in Luzon like an autumn wind.

www.biquge.info In northern Luzon, such as Lingayan, Dagupan, Shigegarao and other towns, Li Dingguo led a battalion of soldiers and horses, and attacked and captured the cities one by one by strong means.

In the attack on these towns, it was the Spanish muskets like Fernandez who fought in the front, thus greatly reducing the casualties of the Don army.

In southern Luzon, the other troops and horses of the expedition were led by Li Xiao, the Duke of Tang, to attack towns such as Quezon, Lucena, and Bangya.

Compared with Li Dingguo's department, which could only blindly fight to the death with the enemy, Li Xiao's department attacked the remaining towns of the Spaniards, which was more effective.

The reason is that Li Xiao's subordinates have a special weapon to capture the city.

Former Spanish Governor López.

López was in a large wooden cage, his mouth stuffed with a rag.

López has thought of many ways to commit suicide, but they have not succeeded, even if he wants to go on a hunger strike, the Tang Army has a way to deal with him.

That is, every time it was time to eat, a soldier would take out the rags in his mouth, use a thick cow plug to feed the sick cow, insert the cow plug into his throat, and forcibly pour rice porridge into it, so that the Spanish governor could survive.

Of course, the Tang army only fed, no matter how it was pulled, so this governor López, every day the feces and urine were directly pulled on his body, making himself smelly and incomparable, every soldier who passed by him, had to frown and cover his nose, only for the large group of flies for the Spanish governor extremely fond, they buzzed around him, like a gray-black cloud, unable to get away.

In this way, the former Spanish governor López, whose living conditions were extremely disgusting, was transported by the Tang army like a dead pig to the outside of the cities to be attacked, in order to lure the Spaniards to surrender.

For example, the city of Batangas in southeast Manila is a typical example of the Tang army using López to force the enemy defending the city to surrender.

Batangas City, located at the eastern tip of Manila and bordering the Sibuyan Sea, is a city surrounded by mountains and the sea, with a circumference of nearly four miles.

The more than 300 Spanish soldiers in Wangcheng couldn't help but gasp when they saw the Tang army rolling in the iron stream.

With the rapid march of the Tang army, Francisco, the Spanish commander standing at the head of the city, was horrified to see that at the front of the Tang army's ranks, there was a large four-wheeled carriage pulled by two horses, and on the carriage, there was a large wooden cage, and the person in the cage with unkempt hair like a savage, but dressed in a dirty and gorgeous governor's costume, and a ball of tattered linen stuffed in his mouth, was not the Spanish governor López, who else could it be!

Francisco's mouth opened wide in horror, and the Spanish defenders next to him all had extremely shocked expressions.

This, how is this possible?

！

If the Spanish governor López has been captured alive by the Tang army, then the city of Manila, the heart city of Spain in the Philippines, has not fallen into the hands of the Tang army?

！

Soon, someone from the Tang army rode over and shouted loudly to the city from a stone's throw away.

The words are that now that the Tang army has destroyed the defenders of the city, if you want to live, you need to surrender as soon as possible before you can save your life.

After listening to the Tang army's fierce observation of the surrender, and seeing the tragic situation of the Spanish governor López outside the city, from the defender Francisco to the entire army, they were all terrified, and finally surrendered the city.

After the Tang army firmly grasped the entire Batangas Goose City, they immediately showed their hideous faces.

All the Spanish troops who surrendered, and all the Spanish men in the city who were taller than the wheels, were all killed, and none were left.

Subsequently, the Tang army counted the treasury, arranged personnel to garrison, and after resting the troops and horses, they went to the next city to be captured again.

Less than two months passed from the capture of Manila, and the entire island of Luzon was pacified by the Tang army.

However, the Spanish governor López finally completed his historical mission, and he was then escorted by the Tang army to the bank of the Bashi River outside Manila, where he was skinned and weeded and executed.

Li Xiao used such cruel means to avenge the blood of more than 30,000 Han people who died tragically that year.

At this point, all the Spaniards and all the disobedient native villages were swept away by the Tang army, and Luzon Island, which was nearly three times the size of Taiwan Island but was even richer and more fertile, finally became an inalienable inherent territory of China under the rule of the Tang Army.

Li Xiao finally completely wiped out the Filipinos in the Philippines, and completely subdued the local natives, and the entire Luzon Island was finally peaceful.

In total, nearly 5,000 Spanish women and children were escorted back to Taiwan by the Tang Army.

Li Xiao had sent a letter to Ding You, the head of the Taiwan colonization group, telling him that after these Spanish women and children arrived in Taiwan, they were all scattered to various prefectures and counties in Taiwan, and the children were forcibly handed over to Han families who lacked children to raise, while those Spanish women were forcibly married to unmarried or widowed men of the Han nationality in Taiwan.

Along with these Spaniards, the same early return was the ashes of more than 2,000 Tang soldiers who were wounded or sick in the battle to conquer Luzon, as well as more than 1,000 Tang soldiers.

In fact, in this battle to conquer Luzon, the Tang army suffered very few losses, with a total of only more than 400 casualties.

On the contrary, because of the hot and humid climate of the Philippines, the environment infested with mosquitoes and miasma, and common tropical diseases such as malaria, cholera, typhoid fever, eczema, etc., a large number of Tang Army officers and soldiers were killed, resulting in considerable non-combat attrition.

Among these returning Tang soldiers, Gou Dazhuang, the commander of the third class of the first battalion of the first battalion of Pingnan Town, who had made meritorious contributions on the first day of the Tang army's disembarkation, was also a member of the Tang army who was wounded and repatriated.

Limping, leaning on the side of the ship, Gou Dazhuang, saw this piece of land where he left blood and sweat very nostalgically, and couldn't help but feel a lot of emotion in his heart.

Gou Dazhuang's troops participated in several battles against the cities of northern Luzon, but in the last attack on a small town called Bangpan, Gou Dazhuang was stabbed in the lower leg by an indigenous soldier.

At that time, he thought that it would be fine if he let the military doctor bandage it, but he didn't expect that the tip of the native's spear was poisoned, causing his entire calf to suppurate and fester, and finally had to withdraw from the army and return to Taiwan with other wounded soldiers.

After these battles, Gou Dazhuang has made meritorious contributions several times and saved more than 30 gold yuan, and according to Taiwan's current living standards, he can be regarded as an ordinary rich man.

Of course, compared with the gains in materials and money, Gou Dazhuang is full of yearning for the honor and military exploits of the army.

It's just that now his left calf has ulcerated so badly, and now he has only one way to leave the army.

Thinking that after going back, he could successfully marry the Guangdong girl he had admired for a long time, and Gou Dazhuang's originally lonely mood still improved a lot.

He had already thought that if he succeeded in asking someone to tell him that he would return to Luzon with the girl when he had recovered from his injuries.

Because, according to Li Xiao's new regulations, in this land of Luzon, if the meritorious officers and soldiers of the Tang Army are willing to start a family and settle down in this Luzon, then they can not only be granted 10 fields of land according to their households, just like immigrants, but also according to the size of their military merits, they can also be granted different sizes of land.

Moreover, in order to comfort the meritorious soldiers, the land granted is the most fertile land.

Gou Dazhuang made a rough calculation in his heart, if according to his own military merits, after he got married, he could get at least 20 acres of land in Luzon, and in a year, at least 80 stones of rice could be produced, plus the yield of dozens of stones of potatoes planted at the end of the year, so that his family in Luzon could at least be regarded as an upper-middle family.

As the ship went all the way north, Gou Dazhuang fell asleep on the side of the ship, but the corners of his mouth were filled with an inexplicable smile.

After sending the wounded soldiers and Spanish women and children back to Taiwan, Li Xiao, who remained in Luzon, immediately began to plan various affairs for the development of Luzon.

First of all, Li Xiao appointed Wu Liang, the former governor of Jeju Island, and made him the head of the Luzon Island Colonization Regiment, and Hua Yuncheng, the former lord of Iron Dragon City, served as the deputy head of the Luzon Island Colonization Regiment.

The two of them will form the various government agencies of Luzon.

These two people, Wu Liang is a person who has followed Li Xiao since he was in Liaodong, and has been working for Li Xiao for several years, which can be described as profound and loyal, so when Li Xiao wanted to find someone to be responsible for managing the newly occupied Luzon, the first thing that came to mind was him.

And Hua Yuncheng, the former member of the Ming Dynasty's military department, after joining Li Xiao, because of his diligent and cautious work, and hard work, he managed the Iron Dragon City in an orderly manner, which made Li Xiao very satisfied, so he specially transferred Hua Yuncheng from Shandong to Luzon, and let him serve as the deputy head of the colonization regiment and become Wu Liang's deputy.

From these candidates, it can also be seen that Li Xiao attaches great importance to this Luzon, but he is determined to develop it thoroughly.

According to Li Xiao's estimates, there are more than 3 million immigrants on the island of Taiwan, and it has only slightly reached saturation.

This Luzon Island is nearly three times the size of Taiwan, and although there are many unsuitable areas for cultivation such as the Cordillera Mountains in the central location, at least like Taiwan, there are more than 3 million immigrants, which is absolutely not a problem.

Now, Li Xiao plans to first move all the more than 1 million surplus immigrants stationed in Taiwan to Luzon Island, so that they can become the first batch of Han immigrants to develop Luzon Island.

As for the future, when the Han Chinese immigrant population in Taiwan, Ezo, Sakhalin, Jeju and other places is almost saturated, it would be most appropriate for the people who have been moving from the mainland from the north to the south directly to live on this Luzon Island.

In fact, according to Li Xiao's estimates, it is not a problem for this land of Luzon to settle five million Han immigrants.

But because there is still more land to be developed in the south, such as the islands of the central Philippines, Mindanao, and further south on the island of New Guinea, the Australian mainland, and so on, Li Xiao does not plan to develop Luzon as saturated as Taiwan.

Under the premise that the speed of immigration cannot keep up with the speed of self-development, it is quite necessary to ensure that there are a certain number of Han immigrants for each newly developed piece of land, so that these immigrants can become the foundation of long-term local peace and stability.

As long as these hard-working Han immigrants can gain a firm foothold and multiply in these distant and fertile foreign lands, then Li Xiao can be sure that under the strong protection of the army, these newly occupied lands will definitely become the inherent territory of the Han nationality in China forever, and the land will be passed on forever to future generations.

After the arrival of the immigrants, Li Xiao planned to build roads throughout Luzon with Manila City as the center, and use wide cement roads to link the various towns in Luzon, so as to make transportation more convenient and military transportation more efficient.

As for Luzon's future planning, Li Xiao is ready to let this Luzon land mainly develop agriculture, so as to produce more food for the military and civilian people under Li Xiao's rule, and provide more abundant food support for Li Xiao's further expansion of the army in the future.

Luzon must first build a prosperous agricultural production base, and wait until there are more local immigrants and grain production is stable before considering the development of various mineral resources and related industrial projects.

As for the local aborigines in Luzon, Li Xiao plans to carry out Sinicization education just like the indigenous people in Taiwan.

Since the indigenous people of the Philippines had been basically completely subjugated by the Tang army, Li Xiao decided not to adopt gentle and gradual assimilation work, as in Taiwan, but to force them to accept the Han people's clothing, etiquette, hairstyle, and cultural concepts, in order to quickly assimilate them under the current conditions of full deterrence of the Tang army.

In order to assimilate the culture of Luzon more quickly, Li Xiao ordered Liu Zongzhou, the director of his own cultural department, to personally select a group of proud disciples to come to Luzon to educate the common people and natives.

Li Xiao believes that only by completely sinicizing these natives and making them a part of the Han nation will they finally be of one heart and one mind with the Han people in China, and there will be no dissent, and this land of Luzon will be able to maintain peace and stability for a long time.

Ethnic divisions are a source of turmoil.

Li Xiao will never allow all kinds of tragedies and splits caused by different nationalities in modern society to occur in his own time and space.

This is a task that needs to be taken seriously and vigorously promoted from the source.

After Li Xiao had finished arranging all the local work in Luzon, another week later, after seeing that the land of Luzon had indeed been stable and there was no more turmoil, he ordered the soldiers of the Tang Army's Pingnan Town A Battalion, led by Li Dingguo, the mayor of Pingnan Town, to return to Taiwan to rest and recuperate by sailors.

Li Xiao decided that after Li Dingguo's troops returned to Taiwan, he would take over the soldiers and horses of the second battalion of Pingnan Town to garrison Taiwan, and then Luo Zheng, the deputy mayor of Pingnan Town, led the soldiers and horses of the second battalion to Luzon, and after joining up with Cao Bianjiao's department, he began the next offensive plan, sweeping away the fragmentary islands in the central Philippines, and then eliminating the remnants of the Sulu country located on the southern Tagalu island.

With the strong impetus of Li Xiao, the ruler, the Tang army's conquest was wave after wave, and the pace of conquest never stopped.

After all, the world is as big as me......