At the time of the arrival of outsiders

Red is the beard of the children of the sun

Those with long beards came from the East

When they came to the vicinity of the land

As a foreigner

Since then, we have grieved and wept over their presence

—Kira of Chumayel. The Book of Barra

Panama was the beginning of the nightmare of the Indians, the first Spanish colony on the American continent.

Cortés, the first vice-king of New Spain, the Aztec conqueror, borrowed numerous foreign debts to form an army to conquer Central America, but to his disappointment he and his subordinates were that many Mayan chiefdoms did not have the gold they had imagined.

In Central America, with the exception of a few silver mines that are very expensive to extract, local production is some cocoa and indigo. In fact, Panama, as the wealthiest city in the Americas, was originally a commodity of people. The Spaniards found many urban settlements along the Pacific coast of Central America, which made it very cheap to capture slaves. In these 100 years, perhaps 1 million Central American Indians have been sold across the Americas.

Central America is a link between two oceans, and the ethnic situation is complex. The Spaniards divided Central America into 16 classes according to the color of their skin. The first class were the Peninsulars, Spaniards from Europe, who monopolized all the high-ranking positions in the colonies. The second class is Creoles, who can become lower-middle officials. The third class is the Mestizos, a mixture of whites and Indians. And so on, there is a very clear chain of contempt between the individual skin tones. Blacks and Indians with slave marks on their faces are the least registered. The royal family set racial restrictions on people of inferior skin colors, such as not being able to wear silk clothes, and so on.

The conquistadors of Mesoamerica were bastards and villains, and when they hunted slaves, they did not spare even the allies who helped them conquer the Mayans, and they did not discriminate against them, and even the church could not stand it. "The Spaniards never had any mercy for the Indians, and treated them almost as poorly as pork. It's even like treating a pile of on the road. I prayed to God that the Spaniards would treat the Indians with the same care they had for their livestock. —Catholic monks

The men were taken to plantations, construction sites and mines everywhere, and the women were forced to become mistresses of the Spaniards, or even worse, as instruments of supply. "We're all kids, we're the only ones left." —The Cacchiks, allies of the Spanish conquest of the Maya.

This is the end of the slave of the dead country, the man is a slave, and the woman is J.

But now, a fleet of Native American soldiers with a high proportion of soldiers was under Panama City, and the thirst for revenge was imprinted on the faces of each and every one of them.

It's just that this one doesn't seem to be going well at first.

Field guns were hoisted off battleships, marines and sailors climbed down the longboats along rope nets, and the shouts of personnel were everywhere. A barrel of gunpowder was not tightly tied when it was hoisted, and as soon as it was hoisted to the side of the ship, it rolled into the sea, causing a burst of exclamation from the soldiers on the longboat. Chen Shouxu took a look, but fortunately he didn't hit anyone.

Looking at the terrible scene in front of him, Chen Shouxuan was a little helpless. The port of Panama is in sight, but the tragedy is that the channel conditions of the port of Panama are very bad, and Chen Shouxu's cruiser has too deep a draft to enter the port.

The ship had no choice but to anchor 3 nautical miles from the city and begin the transfer operation. Based on information provided by the capture of merchant ships near the port, the governor of Panama City assembled a large army and waited for the city in battle. If you want to take the richest city in the Americas, you may face an uphill battle, and a lightly armed raid like in Portovelo will not do. This time, the pirates will land in front of the enemy with all their heavy weapons.

The spears, cuirasses, and ammunition were all hoisted onto the longboat, and the 4-pounder guns were placed on the sideboard to the sloop. The fleet did not have experience in such landing battles, and often gunpowder was loaded on the ships, but the shells were not carried. What a hell of a life.

From early morning to noon, the first attack wave 300 people, led by Holren, were ready. The first wave was the essence of the entire fleet of land warfare, and in addition to the whole of the Marine Corps, those sailors who were the most capable of fighting were also selected.

The forts in Panama City were not strong, and all the defenses here were built against the Indians. But landing directly in front of the guns was an exaggeration, and the pirates chose a beach on the northeast side of the harbor as the landing site, a nautical mile from where the fleet was anchored, where there was some muddy farmland.

The longboat hung up its sails, and the sailors took out their oars and rowed to the shore. In order to save the physical strength of the sailors, three sloops with a shallower draft were to be sent forward, and the ships were to provide a second wave of 200 men and all field artillery. Finally, there was the third wave of 200 people led by Chen Shouxu, and it would definitely be dark after all the landings.

The whole landing plan was complicated, and Westheim racked his brains in order to get more forces ashore in the shortest time possible. In his words, such an unreliable combat plan is bound to be shot in Europe.

The pirates don't care, in their opinion, as long as they can send people up. The lazy money in Panama City has made them impatient.

Panama's Provincial Governor Alonso. Morality. Salinus looked at the huge pirate fleet at sea and turned pale. Lima's garrison fleet was nothing short of waste, and Panama was left alone after the silver fleet was escorted, allowing these pirates to be so unscrupulous. The corrupt bureaucrats of the vice-royal court only knew how to make money with their heads, and the income from corruption and bribery was 100 times the salary paid to them by the king, but they always did their business perfunctory.

Alonso looked back at his assembled army, and his heart calmed down a little. With an army of 1,700 men, he learned of the pirate fleet and swept up the territory under his jurisdiction.

The king forbade the Indians and blacks of the colony to hold arms, but now there is so much to care about. The governor gathered all his men, and there were only about 200 white soldiers, plus only 1,000 Mestizo Mulatos, and the rest were all slaves and Indians that he had pieced together. After emergency training, the Mestizo soldiers finally learned to shoot in platoons and platoons.

There was no hope of defending the city, and there was not enough heavy artillery in the city, so he could only fight a battle with the pirates. 3 field guns and 200 cavalry were the biggest trump cards of the defenders.

As the pirate longship advanced, their choice of landing beach was almost certain.

"Your Excellency, the pirates are approaching the beach, shall we attack?" The officer consulted the Governor.

"Let the infantry go out, and the cavalry will stay first."

"What about the Indians and slaves?"

"Letting those people out of the city will only add to the chaos, let them hold the city first."

The 800-strong Mestizo soldiers, led by white officers, marched out of the city, marching on the main road of the port, in a relatively orderly procession. To the governor's embarrassment, the whole formation fell apart when the soldiers descended to the fields. The east is a mess and the west is in chaos.

Seeing the defenders out of the city, the three sloops USS Storm, USS Adventure and HMS Excellence opened fire at extreme distances.

Raised to the highest muzzle, it can hit about 600 meters, which is no longer accurate at this range. When the shells fall in the muddy fields, it is difficult to form a ricochet, and they are almost lethal.

But the shelling still made the formation of the defenders even more chaotic, some slowed down, others simply stopped and waited, and the most unbearable ones had already fallen into the mud. For the colonial army, it has always been them who dragged artillery to bombard the Indians, and when they themselves were bombarded. Moreover, many of the people here are farmers and craftsmen who have just received military training.

The officers were furious and kicked the soldiers in the ass to force them forward.

The pirates took the opportunity to paddle for a while and rushed to the beachhead. Hand-to-hand infantry in cuirass rushed to the front, and the gunners lagged behind slightly.

The sailors in charge of the longboat quickly turned around and rowed towards the three sloops to receive the second wave of soldiers on board.

Holren, with more than 40 men, rushed head-on to the Spanish ranks, preemptively occupying the mouth of a stream, along which the arriving soldiers extended their flanks to the north. The whole formation is 30 meters from the stream.

It took a long time for the Spanish officers to sort out the queue. More than an hour passed from the time the Spanish army was forced in front of the stream. The officers were also helpless, these colonial armies could not fight without being armed. If you want to form a team, you must fix their position, otherwise if you advance a short distance, the battle formation will be scattered.

The Spanish soldiers formed three incomplete battalion phalanxes, with spearmen in the center of each camp and arquebusiers flanked by arquebusiers. The Spanish army was very long, with 5 columns of spearmen and 10 columns of arquebusiers. In addition, about 80 soldiers armed with light arquebuses marched in front of the phalanx.

The pirate marines were more mobile, and although they were on the landing side, they lined up at about the same time as the Spanish soldiers.

Because there are only 300 people, the numerical disadvantage is very obvious. Holrennes was forced to move out of the way of the coast and stretch as far as he could on the northern flank. The depth was shallow, there was only one row of spearmen and three rows of arquebusiers.

Holren looked at the battleship behind him, reinforcements and artillery had already begun to change. The spearman crouched on the ground, and he drew his command knife. The Spaniards' skirmish line fired interference shots at the pirates, and occasionally a few unlucky Marines were knocked out, and the men in the back row quickly filled the queue.

The Spaniards' skirmishers approached the stream and began to wade across the river, with a brief pause. Holrenne duly ordered the first volley to break up the Spaniards' skirmish line.

The arquebusiers in the first row retreated to reload.

Due to the influence of the arquebus, arquebuses can be lined up in dense queues and have a slower rate of fire than flintlock pistols. Three rows of rounds cannot form a dense fire, and it takes five to seven rows to maintain the continuity of firepower.

However, Holrenne does not intend to get into a line with the Spaniards right now to shoot. The Marines endured casualties, firing at Spanish skirmishers blocked by streams with spaced rows. Such a shot hit rate was higher than that of the skirmishers, and with casualties, the Spaniards' shots were no longer effective.

Once the battle began, it was difficult for Spanish officers to control the troops they had been in contact with as before. The infantry base units had to rely on a large number of experienced and enterprising non-commissioned officers, which was the most lacking strength in the colonial army. Some of the Spanish skirmishers crossed the creek, while others remained on the other side of the stream.

Seeing that the Spanish phalanx was approaching, Holren fired his long-accumulated volley of three volleys, and more than 200 arquebuses were firing almost simultaneously. The Spanish soldiers fell in a whole row.

"Go back 200 meters and reline." Hall Lane immediately ordered.

Because of the high proportion of experienced non-commissioned officers in the unit, and the total number of non-commissioned officers was only 300, Holren dared to risk retreating in front of the enemy.

The Spanish phalanx was tightly formed, but it was not flexible enough in such small and medium-sized battles. The Spanish officers saw that the pirates were retreating under the cover of the spearmen, and there was nothing they could do at this time. The stragglers could only continue to press forward, and the phalanx itself still had to move through the creek in a step-by-step manner.

After re-alignment, the Spanish phalanx continued to advance. Holrenne repeated the same tactic, but this time he retreated 500 metres before regrouping without the help of Brook.

It can't be withdrawn anymore, the landing point is in the background. Holrenne abandoned the beach side, the spearmen crouched on the ground, and the pirates formed a formation of six rows in depth.

The gunners of the heavy arquebuses of the Spanish phalanx walked to the front of the queue, set up their guns with wooden frames, and began to fire volleys at the pirates.

As in the broadside artillery battles of the fleet, there is no golden finger to be opened in this form of combat, and the contest is the will and quality of the soldiers.

The Spanish phalanx, the spearmen and the arquebusiers were about 1 to 1, and now there were more than 300 people shooting at the 200 pirates, and the Spaniards were outnumbered, and the pirates were better at shooting, and the two sides were evenly matched in the counter-shooting. But the Spanish officer saw that the second wave of pirates was about to land, and he duly threw in spearmen. Almost 5 to 1, the spearman he has an absolute advantage.

The 5-meter spear was held flat, and the second row extended the tip of the spear from the shoulder of the first row. The phalanx began to advance slowly in battle formation.

If they make contact like this, the pirates will almost lose.

Hallren glanced back, smiling. He retracted the formation at the top of the front, took the left wing as the axis, and retreated in a semi-rotation towards the beach.

The Spaniards didn't notice that the tide was slowly rising because they had delayed too much. At 3 p.m., the climax came. The fleet's smallest warship, the Adventure, tentatively approached the landing site.

With a flat bottom, the Adventure was originally a typical small offshore merchant ship and had the shallowest draft of any pirate fleet. Robert commanded the ship to the point where it was about to run aground, bringing the Spanish phalanx into the effective range of the ship. The pirates immediately moved the ballast to balance the hull slightly. Three 4-pounder naval guns on the port side were pointed at the Spanish phalanx.

In the first few rounds of shelling, nothing hit. But the point of impact kept getting closer to the Spaniards.

In the frightened eyes of the Spanish officers, two solid bullets finally pierced through the phalanx's ranks, leaving a mess behind.

Then the naval guns switched to effective firing, and after several rounds of shelling, the phalanx disintegrated.

The officer asked Hallren, "Do you want to pursue?" ”

"Wait, our mission is to secure the landing site."

Holren waited for the ship's guns to overheat and stop firing, and then pursued a shallow section forward, taking control of the main battlefield.