Mr. Napuri's words are obvious, that is, Sun Tianwei, the head of the family, has been put under house arrest, and now several clansmen who are very close to Sun Tianniu have surrounded him, and Sun Tianming continues to incite the crowd: "Forget our bloodline, we will open a new chapter in history, whether it is the Spaniards, the Rainbow Army or the Chinese, it will be a passing cloud in this land, only us...... Only we will rule the land. ”

This was his declaration, and the deepest words of his heart were that he did not support the army that was about to enter Manila because of his blood, but that he would always focus on profit, just like Mr. Napley.

Mr. Naplei was even more pleased to announce: "What Mr. Sun Tianniu said is very good, we will get a hundredfold and a thousandfold benefit, and we will hopefully rule this rich land......"

Lin Mengchu was ignorant of this small turn of events, and he was directing his landing force to attack Manila with a thunderous force.

Even after numerous rehearsals on the map and many actual combat exercises, the march was still more or less troublesome, such as the fact that the artillery was always out of touch with the infantry, and to open the fortress of Manila, it was necessary to have enough shells - in fact, these fortifications built in the 16th century could be conquered by more than just enough shells.

The resistance encountered along the road is incalculable, whether it is a Spanish sergeant leading a few indigenous soldiers, or a sporadic policeman, or a small number of National Guards, they simply cannot withstand the blow of this hundred battles of the heroic division, you must know that most of the officers in this combat unit have more than two years of actual combat experience, most of the soldiers are more than one year old, even if they have less than one year of military experience, they have participated in at least many actual battles.

The only strong resistance was a suicide attack by a few Spanish officers, who found it impossible to retreat to Manila intact, by organizing a suicide attack on a number of nearby outposts, about two hundred Spanish and indigenous soldiers, and the battle ended in just one and a half hours, leaving thirteen corpses and more than twenty seriously wounded on the battlefield, and seventy-six indigenous soldiers captured. These indigenous soldiers were soon incorporated into the teaching team as pawns.

But for the capture of Manila, how many enemies in Manila, Lin Mengchu is still bottomless, according to his experience, such as Fuzhou, Hangzhou, such a big city, the enemy troops in the city will not be too small, and there is a full battalion, it will take some effort to fight.

He frowned. Preparing to wait for the battle report of the Pioneer Company, at this time the Pioneer Company brought Mr. Napuli and the representatives of the Sun family: "This is the British businessman Mr. Napuley, Sun Tianshan, who is also a famous businessman in Manila, and they welcome us on behalf of the citizens of Manila!" ”

"Welcome!" Although he did not conquer Manila, Lin Mengchu has already made a promise: "For the friends who cooperate with us. We will return a hundredfold thousandfold, do you need us to do something? ”

"Thank you, just do it like Ningbo!" Naplei immediately replied: "For the actions of your army in Ningbo and Fujian, we European merchants would like to express a welcome of 120,000 copies!" ”

Although the Philippines is a country rich in natural resources, the Spaniards often did not think about how to develop the territory, but simply engaged in the galleon trade, and it was not until the 1780s that the new Governor General of the Philippines changed his previous policy and began to run the colony of the Philippines. Tobacco cultivation, handicrafts, commerce, foreign trade, and so on made great progress, but until now the Spaniards still wanted to monopolize all the interests of the colony, and the fact that they expelled all foreign merchants in 1857 shows how closed the colony was—even more so than the secluded Manchus.

It's just that Lin Mengchu obviously got it wrong: "You mean Ningbo?" Such an example is not easy to do, and you should know how difficult it is to leave such a city to a foreigner. ”

Napuri and Sun Tianshan glanced at each other, and they both felt that they had been hit by a pie smashed from the sky, which was too unexpected!

They just wanted to find a special place to replace the Spaniards, but they didn't expect the Rainbow Army to be willing to hand over the city. Like in Ningbo, with an Englishman in charge - know the legend of Consul Fumar. The whole Far East is a legend of the Thousand and One Nights, but he became the protagonist of such a legend. What an honor it would be.

"What do you mean? Are you in favor of a Sino-Western condominium in Manila? Napuri put it another way, and he made his tone as subdued as possible: "Like the conquest of Manila by my English kingdom in 1762?" ”

Lin Mengchu also knew that he seemed to have made undue promises, but as long as he took Manila, everything would be easy, he did not know what kind of management system was in place when the British conquered Manila in 1762, but he said without thinking: "We can cite the precedent of Ningbo, but if we want to take Manila, what should we do?" ”

Of course, he knew that these two gentlemen came to him, so they naturally wanted to act as an internal response, and according to his feelings, as long as he grasped the hearts and minds of the people in Luzon, he could completely take Manila.

"You should first get a Catholic pastor!" After a little thought, Mr. Naplei came up with his own answer: "A reputable priest." ”

Priest? Catholic priests?

As a middle-level commander of the Hong Army, Lin Mengchu is a Chinese in the traditional sense, and has a natural rejection of foreign religions such as Christianity, let alone a rigid sect such as Catholicism.

You must know that one of the causes of the just-concluded Sino-French War was that the French preached their right to protect the Church and attempted to forcibly expand Catholicism throughout China.

Therefore, Lin Mengchu had to be vigilant enough against Napuri's suggestion: "You mean, if we want to defeat the Spaniards, we must first find a Catholic priest, but in this land, there are only Spanish priests?" Or that we have to go back to Fujian to find a Catholic missionary. ”

"I think you're mistaken!" Napuri was quick to clarify: "I'm not a Catholic, I'm an Anglican!" ”

He quickly explained the specific reason, completely different from Chinese mainland, not only did Spain conquer the land of the Philippines for 300 years, and when they conquered the Philippines, the indigenous Filipinos did not have as complete ancestral beliefs and traditional religions as Chinese mainland, only very simple primitive religions.

Catholicism swept across the Philippines with rapid momentum and suppressed Islam from the north back to the south within three hundred years. The Philippines has become a thoroughly Catholic country like Spain, except for the Moro people in the south, the indigenous people of the Philippines believe in Catholicism 100%, and even many Chinese believe in Catholicism, and Catholicism has supreme authority on this land.

But after 300 years, the Catholic Church has been forging ahead. There was also a serious shadow inside, with the Spanish missionaries working less and earning more money in the Catholic Church, while the hard work was left to the Filipino missionaries.

At present, there are about 500 Spanish missionaries in the Philippines, who monopolize all the top positions of the Catholic Church and live a corrupt life. The days were as painful as they were, and the Filipino pastors, despite their total suppression, had grown to 2,000 in number, four times as many as the Spanish missionaries.

Although they were numerically superior and even less capable of evangelizing than the Spanish missionaries, they could only serve as assistants to foreign missionaries, and only a small number of them were able to rule over some remote dioceses, which according to the Spaniards themselves numbered 700 dioceses in the Philippines during this period. Of these, there were as many as 600 in the hands of the Spanish missionaries, and only 100 dioceses belonged to the secular clergy, and these 100 dioceses belonged to remote and poor parishes.

Therefore, the Filipino clergy had a serious dissatisfaction with this, and a group of indigenous religious fanatics, who had not been recognized within the church more than a decade ago, simply launched a popular revolt under the dual pressure of the government and the church, killed the provincial governors, captured three provinces, and finally had to transfer an elite army of several hundred people from Manila to suppress them.

However, although the civil uprising was resolved, the aftermath was endless. The decades-long "Philippinesization Movement of the Parisheces" was formed. And now Napuri is telling the story: "You should find a Filipino pastor of repute and ask him to come forward and calm the people!" ”

"It's most convenient for you!" Lin Mengchu immediately said: "I don't know what your opinion is on the Anglican Church?" ”

This is a wonderful person!

Both Napuri and Sun Tianshan felt this way. On the one hand, he sold Napleli a great favor, no matter who the Filipino priest came forward in the end, he had to accept Napleli's great favor, and this officer of the Rainbow Army even knew how to use Anglican to fight against Catholicism in the Philippines.

It's wonderful.

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The authority of Catholicism in this land is even beyond Lin Mengchu's imagination, and after the emergence of several Filipino priests who have been suppressed for a long time and have not been promoted, but because of their roots at the grassroots level, the thousands of indigenous people who may have gathered outside Manila immediately dispersed.

They waited for the winner to be decided, and the resistance in Manila was unexpectedly difficult.

Although there were only 200 artillery men of the 70th Regiment in the city, and the governor temporarily mobilized some Spaniards and Sifi Mistizo, the total number was only five or six hundred, but the Rainbow Army had an internal response, and the fortress, which was the biggest support of the Spaniards, was broken into without playing any role.

However, the successful raid of the rainbow army was counterattacked by the Spaniards many times in the city, they launched counterattacks again and again, and even many artillerymen gave up their gun positions and picked up rifles to fight hand-to-hand with the rainbow army, and the final battle was solved with bayonets, and finally the Spaniards abandoned hundreds of corpses on the battlefield.

Twenty-three were killed and seventy-seven wounded, the deadliest battle of the entire Luzon campaign, but it also captured the entire city of Manila and captured the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the Spanish archbishop.

These are the three most powerful people in the Philippines, the governor cannot be inaugurated, the lieutenant governor is inaugurated, the lieutenant governor cannot be inaugurated, the archbishop is inaugurated as the governor, in fact, for a long time, it was during the governor's departure, the archbishop directly acted as the governor, but the military and the clergy have always had disputes, the military is loyal to Madrid, the clergy is loyal to Rome, and the military naturally does not want the position of the governor to fall into the hands of the clergy for a long time, so the post of deputy governor was added.

It's just that now Lin Mengchu still can't believe this fact: "Manila is going to be taken down?" ”

Anyway, this is a big city like a province, right? Spain has been in business for three hundred years, and as a result, an infantry battalion was taken down in one night?

He did not know that Spain had a good ability to spread Catholicism in the Philippines, but it was not strong in martial arts, otherwise it would not have been a European power that could only look at the coast of China for 300 years.

In these three hundred years, they did not even pacify the Moros who believed in Islam in the southern islands, and even in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the clippers of southern Sudan set sail northward, and captured a large number of Catholics from the north as slaves, until 1848, when the Spaniards bought steamships from Europe, and achieved complete victory at the speed of sailing, and then launched the conquest of the southern Moros, but the end of the three hundred and thirty years of Spanish rule in the Philippines, The Spaniards were never able to achieve a complete victory over the Moros, but only nominally suzerain, and even by the time of the Philippine Revolution of 1896, most of their troops were suppressing the Moros in the south.

From this point of view, Spain's martial arts in the Philippines were not as good as those of the Qing Dynasty, which completely suppressed the Hui Dynasty.

However, Lin Mengchu did not dare to be careless, took Manila, and only controlled Luzon, but the Philippines has thousands of islands, and there are even several independent sultanates in the south, in a sense, now the Hong Army does not even control all of Luzon, and there are hundreds of soldiers of the Seventy Regiment scattered throughout the island in Luzon, and in Cavite, not far from Manila, there is also a Spanish navy.

And he only has 2,000 soldiers in his hands, and to master such a huge island country, he is indeed a little more than willing to do it, and has to wait for further support from Fujian and the navy.

Just as he pondered, an officer rushed in: "We have a great discovery in the Governor's Palace!" ”