Under the escort of Su Ping's 3,000 men, the safety of the mission was finally guaranteed. As Su Ping said, the name of breaking through the sky on the ground in Shandong is still very effective.

Tong Tuchang and his entourage continued to the north without danger, passed through Jinan Mansion, and finally entered Beizhili in July of the second year of Shenwu.

It is not that the ordinary people of Beizhili can live and work in peace and contentment, but that most of the people have fled, and those who did not flee have become slaves of the Eight Banners of Manchuria. So the ground on the North Zhili side is quite peaceful.

Tong Tuchang and the others bid farewell to Su Ping's escort team in Hejian Mansion, and then went north to Tianjin Wei.

The mission finally came to the outside of Shuntianfu in August, looking at the Beijing city wall, which was taller than the Nanjing city wall, Tong Tuchang said in his heart: "It's finally here, I don't know if I can return to the south alive!" ”

Just when Tong Tuchang saw the city wall of Beijing, Zhu Hongsan, who was far away in Nanjing, also ushered in an embassy. However, this mission is not from China, but from Nanyang.

This year is the second year of Shenwu, and it is also 1648 AD, which is an important year in European history not only after the later years 1918 and 1945. Because the Thirty Years' War, which determined the territory of Europe for the next 200 years, finally came to an end.

The Thirty Years' War was a large-scale international war that broke out between 1618 and 1648 in major European countries, also known as the "War of Religion". To put it bluntly, in order to suppress the rise of new empires such as Britain and the Netherlands, the old Spanish empire took advantage of the contradictions between the Protestant and old Christian princes in Germany to fight a world war.

The tragedy of the Thirty Years' War was not inferior to the First World War and the Second World War in later generations, and European countries were involved in the war because of their own interests, reducing the total population of Europe by one-third. The war ended with the fall of the Spanish Empire, where the old empire was replaced by the new British Empire.

However, although the Spanish Empire declined, there were still 3,000 nails in the broken ship, and it was not until Napoleon was finally born and Britain defeated the combined fleets of Spain and France again at Trafalgar, and Spain completely withdrew from the stage of history.

It was 1648, and although Spain had been defeated in Europe, there were still large colonies in South America and Southeast Asia. However, these colonies were also challenged by emerging powers such as the Dutch and the British. The first to attack the Spanish colonies in the South Seas was the Netherlands.

Immediately after independence from Spain, the Netherlands opened fire on the former overlord. After the establishment of the East India Company, he immediately sent troops to occupy Galle in Sri Lanka, driving out the Spaniards, thus breaking the Spanish monopoly on the cinnamon trade, and also besieging Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, until 1640 the Spanish coastal strongholds in India were taken by the Dutch (at this time Spain annexed Portugal, so the South Seas were all Spanish spheres of influence).

At the same time, because of the drag of the war in Europe, Spain really did not have the energy to take care of these in the South Seas. Therefore, after learning that Luzon was occupied by the Ming Dynasty, he began to plan to use the power of the Ming Dynasty to drive away the Dutch.

When King Carlos II of Spain knew that one of his relatives had been robbed by the Ming Emperor to be his lover, he was not unhappy, but a little happy. After consulting with the prime minister, Carlos II decided to send a mission headed by Anna's father, Rear Admiral Juan López, to let him go to Daming first, and if Daming had the strength to help him, he would unite with Daming to drive away the Dutch in Java and India, and if Daming was not strong enough, then send an army to recapture Luzon.

This is not a joke, in history, Spain wanted to conquer the Ming Dynasty with 600 people under the opportunity of civil strife at the end of the Ming Dynasty. I don't know if these Spaniards have entered the water, the Ming Dynasty of this era is not the Manchu Qing of later generations, no matter in the fields of science and technology, economy, culture, etc., it is not inferior to the European powers.

In this way, Zhu Hongsan's cheap old man, Juan López, took the king's entrustment and got on the ship to Asia.

The Spanish mission was the first to arrive in Guangzhou, where Juan López was shocked by the size of the city. You must know that during this period, the population of Spain was only five or six million, and the city of Guangzhou alone had a population of nearly one million. Juan López saw that the national strength of the Ming Dynasty was deeply ashamed of Spain's inadequacy, did the aristocratic ministers in the court think that the Ming Dynasty was those natives of the Americas? A few hundred people want to conquer an empire?

López, who was impacted, felt that it was the best policy to unite with the Ming Dynasty, so after visiting Feng Ziyong, the governor of Liangguang, he decided to go north to Nanjing to meet the Ming Emperor, his hairy son-in-law.

Zhu Hongsan belongs to a typical ruthless person who plucks birds, and immediately forgot about her after getting tired of playing with Anna's long legs, and has been obsessed with Li Xiangjun and Kou Baimen in the past few months, and is tired of being with these two famous prostitutes every day.

Zhu Hongsan only remembered that he had a Spanish wife after learning of the arrival of the Spanish mission, although he was not a purebred Spaniard. But out of diplomatic politeness, Zhu Hongsan hurriedly issued an order to make Anna a virtuous concubine, which can be regarded as a better face.

Zhu Hongsan met his cheap old man in the Wenhua Palace, Juan López after seeing Anna, although not his favorite daughter, but after all, it is his own blood, López officially agreed to marry Zhu Hongsan after leaving a few tears.

Zhu Hongsan waited for López's father and daughter to recognize each other and asked, "Major General Juan, why are you here this time?" It won't just meet my daughter! ”

Listening to Zhu Hongsan's question, Juan López said: "I came this time on the orders of the king of our country to ask why the Ming Kingdom occupies our territory Luzon? ”

"Haha! When did Luzon become the territory of your Spaniards? Luzon has been the territory of our Ming Dynasty since ancient times, and there were people living in Luzon in our Chinese kingdom a thousand years ago! What were you Spaniards doing a thousand years ago? Not necessarily, you don't have to! ”

In terms of messing around, Lopez is really not Zhu Hongsan's opponent, not to mention that Zhu Hongsan still has the artifact "since ancient times"!

López is a soldier and a good hand at fighting, but this kind of political negotiation is really not good, and after being robbed by Zhu Hongsan and having nothing to say, he decided to go straight and stop playing around the bush.

"Emperor Ming, my wise and martial King Carlos II has decided to forgive you and want to join hands with Ming to deal with the Netherlands!"

Zhu Hongsan heard that this was the case, it seemed that the Spaniards had been beaten enough by the Dutch and wanted to unite themselves.

However, Zhu Hongsan, as an old politician, can directly agree that this kind of political alliance must first explore each other's hole cards, and Zhu Hongsan decided to look at Spain's hole cards first.

Zhu Hongsan, a political veteran, is comparable to an officer like López, and in Zhu Hongsan's words, he quickly learned about the current situation in Europe, and it turned out that the Thirty Years' War had just ended.

Zhu Hongsan sneered in his heart, it seems that the old empire of Spain has been beaten enough by the emerging empires such as Britain and the Netherlands, and has come to him for help!

However, Zhu Hongsan did not agree immediately, but said with a smile: "Major General Juan, you are a soldier, I will take you to see my Ming army first!" After speaking, Zhu Hongsan ordered his Praetorian Guard Division to prepare for shooting training and show it to these foreign devils.

Zhu Hongsan took these Spaniards to the Yulin Left Guard in Miyagi, which was the residence of the Praetorian Guard Division.

Han Sanqiang had already received the emperor's decree and waited here with a battalion of five hundred people.

Zhu Hongsan looked at the soldiers under him and said, "Sanqiang, give a show to these foreign devils and let them open their eyes!" ”

At first, López and other Spanish officers were still a little disdainful when they saw the all-firearms unit, because now it is popular in Europe to mix muskets and pikemen, because the musketeers need pikemen protection to deal with cavalry.

But when they saw the fast musket shooting of the Ming soldiers, these Spaniards were dumbfounded, they didn't expect the Ming army's muskets to shoot so fast.

It was during the Thirty Years' War that carried out military reforms, implemented universal conscription, established a standing army with strong combat effectiveness, streamlined the army establishment, improved weapons and equipment, turned artillery into an independent branch of the army, and made it closely cooperate with infantry, cavalry and logistics troops, and adopted flexible line tactics to make Sweden a Nordic power.

The Spanish Army officers present were all veterans of the Thirty Years War, and naturally knew that this kind of linear tactic of artillery and infantry coordination was the latest tactic in Europe, but they did not expect that it was also used in the distant Ming Kingdom.

Carlos put away his contempt for the Ming army and asked, "Your Majesty the Emperor, where did you learn this method of warfare?" ”

Zhu Hongsan snorted and sneered a few times: "Learned? My Great China has a long history, and when you European Ru Mao drank blood, we Great China would use firearms, and this formation was invented by Mu Ying, a general of my Ming Dynasty! ”

"Your Majesty the Emperor, can you let us meet this General Mu!"

"This formation was invented by Mu Ying three hundred years ago, and he has been dead for hundreds of years!"

As soon as these words came out, the Spanish officers were really shocked, and they didn't expect that the tactics they were proud of would have been played hundreds of years ago.

In fact, this is Zhu Hongsan blowing the conch here, and the three-stage attack is invented by Mu Ying, but this kind of infantry and artillery coordination is not an invention by Mu Ying, but Zhu Hongsan copied the tactics of the French army in later generations, but Napoleon has not yet been born in this era, and naturally no one accuses Zhu Hongsan of piracy, anyway, he can blow it no matter what.

Juan López was an admiral who did not study the army's muskets thoroughly, but he had knowledgeable army officers under his command.

One of the officers said to the translator that he wanted to see the Ming army's muskets, and Zhu Hongsan thought about it and nodded in agreement.

The officer looked at the Ming musket in his hand, and there was no essential difference between the Ming musket and the musket used in Europe, except that the firing device was more flexible.

The flintlock pistol was invented in Europe in the 16th century, and it was already very practical at this time, but because of its high cost, it was not widely used in the army, and the arquebus is still used by the European powers.