"I never thought that the air of freedom could be so bloody." Sanada Yukimasa, who was standing at the top of the slope, looked at the corpses on the road below and in the rice fields on both sides of the road, and couldn't help but sigh to the Maori Katsuya next to him.

Unlike Sanada Yukimasa, who couldn't bear it, the Mori Katsuya smelled the strong smell of blood wafting from the battlefield but felt extremely excited. Ever since the ASEAN countries opened Japan's borders by force, foreigners have gradually become more powerful in Japan, and even if they encounter foreign businessmen who are helpless, they can only bow their heads and avoid the side.

Although the Maori Katsuri knew that it was not the foreign merchants they were avoiding, but the countries behind the merchants. But in the eyes of Japanese civilians, foreign merchants who even samurai masters dare not provoke can be seen that Japan is really about to become a colony for foreigners. After opening the door to the country, it is not only the goods from foreign countries that enter, but also the ideas and cultures from foreign countries.

As the most powerful country in the ASEAN Association and the historical suzerainty of East Asia, all books about China are the easiest to flow into Japan and become the reading materials of the enlightenment ideas of the middle and upper social classes. Among them, the "History of the Rise and Fall of Great Powers" series edited by the East Asian Tongbunkan is the most sought after by the Japanese, although this series has only three books, the first is about the Portuguese Empire, the second is about the Spanish Empire, and the third is about the Roman Empire.

The History of the Rise and Fall of Great Powers was originally a public opinion tool used by Chongzhen to advocate the necessity of reform, which not only encouraged domestic businessmen to develop overseas, but also advocated replacing the small-scale peasant economy with mercantilism. In order to avoid arguing with conservatives, the countries chosen in Books 1, 2, and 3 are distant European empires, so a large number of new terms appear in the book, and colonies are the most memorable of them.

After the Portuguese and Spaniards arrived in the Americas, they launched a war of extermination against the Native Americans, seizing their land and wealth, and making the Americas a colony that constantly imported wealth to the European mainland. Such a colony could be much more brutal than the annexation wars in East Asia.

After all, no matter how cruel the East Asian war was, after the war ended, it still intended to turn the vanquished into its own people. The European colonies, on the other hand, regarded the aborigines as humanoid animals similar to cows and horses, and only blindly squeezed the last copper coin from them.

It was precisely because of the fear of what happened to the American Indians that the Japanese middle and lower class samurai and low-level commoners were stimulated to combine to try to change the current Japanese feudal politics and establish a centralized state like China, so as to get rid of the prospect of being colonized by foreigners.

The Java War was the first time that Japanese samurai fought abroad, and the Dutch, who were on their way uphill, taught the Japanese a profound lesson that they could not fight against artillery. Although the battle was ultimately won, it was also achieved under the material support and leadership provided by the Ming Dynasty, which made these Japanese samurai once again realize the gap between Japan and the world powers. However, in the past two months, the Maori Victory has finally regained its self-confidence in these Filipino natives.

The rebellion set off by the Pampanga people won the support of many indigenous tribes, but it also made the feud of many Pampanga tribes quickly fall to the Chinese side, especially the tribes in the mountains near Baguio because of Lin Feng's relationship, and have always maintained friendship with the Chinese. So when the Pampanga crossed the Agno River and attacked the farms north of the river, the indigenous tribes of Baguio accepted the company's employment and drove the Pampanga back to the vicinity of the Agno River.

When Mori Katsuya and Sanada Yukimasa landed in Lingayen Bay with two wings, the regular army of 1,500 or 600 men quickly reversed the stalemate on the north bank of the Agno River. In contrast to the Vietnamese rebels and the unorganized indigenous rebels who occupied individual farms, the two Japanese wings, which had undergone years of military training, dealt with the rebels no different from the civilians with weapons.

Because of the rainy season, the Japanese muskets could not exert their due power here. However, the organization and training of the regular army, coupled with the hand-to-hand combat that the Japanese army itself emphasized, made them like a fish in water on such a cold-weapon battlefield, much better than the militia organized by the Four Seas Trading Company and the hired natives.

And although the rainy season restricts the use of weapons, it also restricts the offensive routes of the natives. In such weather, even the island's natives would not venture into the jungle and swamps, where they would first become food for crocodiles and snakes.

As a result, the roads, ports, and strongholds built by the Four Seas Trading Company in this area became the most fiercely contested targets for both sides. For battle-hardened officers such as Mori Katsuya and Sanada Yukimasa, it was easy for them to judge the route of march and the target of the attack of these natives.

For more than two months, the two of them cooperated with the militia and the Turkish mercenaries of the Four Seas Trading Company, and little by little forced the Turkish and Vietnamese rebels on the north bank of the Agno River out of their hiding places and drove them to the vicinity of Villasis.

Villasis is located 60 miles southeast of the port of Lingayan, where the forest meets the swamp. While more than 6,000 rebels were gathering here, still debating whether to cross the Agno River and attack another stronghold of the Shikai Trading Company across the forests to the northwest, Mori Katsuie and Sanada Yukimasa raided them with more than 3,000 men.

The massacre of the unprepared rebels was met with a front-and-back tactic by the Mori Katsuie and Sanada Yukimasa, making it difficult for the already unorganized rebels to come up with a response, thus leaving the rebels from each region in a situation where they were fighting on their own.

The locals, who were familiar with the geography, rushed into the forests and swamps, the Vietnamese rebels who were unfamiliar with the land chose to resist to the end, and the native rebels from other regions finally surrendered. In this battle, Mori Katsuya and Sanada Yukimasa wiped out nearly 2,000 rebels, and after 5 or 600 fled into the forests and swamps, the remaining 3,000 chose to surrender to the Japanese. After this battle, the rebels on the north bank of the Agno River had largely been cleared.

When the adjutant who counted the results of the battle came to report the good news to the two, the Maori Katsuya felt a chill on his face, so he looked up, and sure enough, it began to rain in the sky again. Mori Katsuya frowned and said to Sanada Yukimasa: "It looks like another rainstorm, and now there are too many prisoners, once the rain is heavy, we may not be able to control the situation." ”

Sanada Yukimasa glanced back at him and said, "They have already surrendered, and if we do anything to them, it will damage the reputation of our army." ”

The Maori Katsuna grinned and said, "When did those Spaniards tell the Indians that we could completely wipe out the rebels so that we could get a piece of land that truly belonged to Japan, isn't this the reason why our army fought bloody battles here?" Besides, I remember the Chinese once said that history is written by the victors. As long as it is we who win in the end, what right do others have to condemn us? ”

Sanada Yukimasa was silent for a while, and finally turned his head to look at the corpses on the road in the distance and said, "Separate the captives, let those militia and native mercenaries leave with a group of people first, and then dispose of the rest in batches." As long as they didn't see us kill the prisoners, we could always justify it. ”

Mori Katsuya said to the adjutant beside him: "Go and tell the company's representatives that we have decided to leave in batches in view of the fact that there are too many prisoners at present." Let them select a group of captives to return to the Lin family village in the northwest first, and we will try to catch up with them. In addition, divide the remaining captives into teams of 200 people, and each group of prisoners must be separated by more than 100 meters, take out the ponchos and distribute them to the soldiers, guard a team of 50 people, and build a canopy for rest and cook for the rest..."

Two days later, the company representatives who were waiting in the Lin family's village did not wait for an army of prisoners, but more than 300 prisoners who had fallen into a mental breakdown and more than 1,000 Japanese soldiers who were overly excited, which made the large number of shacks and food he had prepared in the past two days seem a little redundant.

Although Mori Katsuya and his men said that on the way back from escorting the captives, some of the captives staged a riot in tandem, causing many captives to flee into the forest. However, the representative did not agree with the Japanese army's account, and he quietly inquired, and finally learned of a sensational massacre from several Japanese soldiers and non-commissioned officers.

After thinking about it for several days, the representative finally recorded the confessions of these Japanese soldiers and personally sent them to Guo Qing, the company's representative in Manila. After reading the confession sent by the representative, Guo Qing thought for a long time before saying to him: "The company is very grateful for your meticulous work and loyalty, but I hope you still forget about this matter, which is a good thing for you and the company." ”

"But there are thousands of lives involved?" The representative looked at Guo Qing in disbelief and said.

Guo Qing slowly put down the report in his hand, stared at him for a long time, and then said coldly and emotionlessly: "This is not the Ming Dynasty, and they are not our compatriots.

Don't forget that the Japanese are fighting to protect the company's interests in the local area, and it is impossible for the company to tie their hands and feet. We can show mercy to the island's natives, but that doesn't mean we can tolerate them infringing on the company's interests.

I'm sure you should know very well what the causes of this war were. In the face of successive disasters in the northern part of the country, we need to have a stable grain production area overseas. Luzon is one of them, and the first rubber trees introduced on Luzon have already been planted, so we can't afford to give up this land.

Whether it is a native or a Spaniard, whoever prevents the company from developing the land is the enemy of the company. Kindness alone will not do much to deal with the enemy. Compared to the civilians slaughtered by the Spaniards in the Americas and the Philippines, this captivity is not even a fraction..."

Under Guo Qing's threat and lure, the representative who came to report finally left in a trance. After the other party left, Guo Qing looked at the report in front of him for a long time, and finally stored it in the file bag, and knocked down the first-class secret seal on the file bag, and he also wrote on the file bag, Chongzhen's eleventh year CL1638010121 file number, and then put this file into the file cabinet.

For Guo Qing, this is just an extremely ordinary workflow. But for the native tribes of Luzon, this was the real beginning of the disaster. On this very day, six wings of Japanese troops boarded the convoy at the port of Osaka, and their destination was none other than Luzon.