Behind the garrison's requirements, what is hidden is Zhou Shixiang's fiery heart of robbery. The reason why he wanted to rob Macao was not only the difficulties of the Portuguese in the firearms trade, but more importantly, the place of Macao was indeed too rich, so rich that Zhou Shixiang could not be moved.

From the mouths of the merchants who used to come and go to Macao, Zhou Shixiang had a rough idea of how the Portuguese were born in Macao. They brought silver, pepper, sumac, ivory, sandalwood and other commodities from Europe to trade with the Chinese, and silver was the bulk of it, which means that the Portuguese in Macao had a large amount of silver in their hands, and the amount was at least hundreds of thousands of taels. The items purchased by the Portuguese in Daming are raw silk, silk, tea, porcelain, musk, licorice, gold, brass, etc., among which raw silk is the most popular among grape people.

This trade can be described as a lucrative trade, with profits as high as more than 20 times, which attracted countless Portuguese shipowners to travel thousands of miles to the East. However, all this is not allowed by the laws of the Ming Dynasty, and it belongs to the smuggling trade, in other words, the Portuguese in Macao are all smugglers, and the Chinese merchants who cooperate with them are also pirates dressed in the garb of maritime merchants. Therefore, de jure terms, Zhou Shixiang, as the chief military officer of the Ming Dynasty, had the power to meddle in the affairs of Macao, and the stationing of troops in Macao in the name of cracking down on smuggling was enough to make the Portuguese speechless, and they either accepted it or opposed it. But no matter which one is chosen, war is inevitable, because garrisoning has never been Zhou Shixiang's goal, what he wants is the wealth of Macau.

In his past and present lives, Zhou Shixiang never believed in the supremacy of white ghosts, he only believed in the supremacy of strength. There is enough strength. Even if you are the king of heaven, I will rob you if I catch you. Damn; If the strength is not enough, then shrink obediently. In the history of the Han family, there has never been a shortage of stories of enduring humiliation and burden.

The Portuguese in history have never been good goods, and they have invaded China, so Zhou Shixiang has no psychological burden on robbing Macao. Once the war broke out, he didn't have to worry about the Portuguese navy tens of thousands of miles away, he only had to deal with the Grape army in Macau. Even if Portugal really sent a fleet to the East. It was lucky enough to reach the destination, and Zhou Shixiang was not afraid, because the East in the 17th century was not just what the Portuguese said.

The former cottage was the bridgehead for the Taiping army to attack Macao.

This military stronghold was built during the Apocalypse to defend against the Portuguese. At the same time, officials in charge of Macao affairs from Xiangshan County were also stationed in this village. After the Qing army occupied Xiangshan, they followed the system of the Ming Dynasty and also set up a thousand chief officials in the former cottage, and changed this village to the direct jurisdiction of the Guangzhou Prefecture, and still left the Portuguese in Macao as left to do in the Ming Dynasty.

After the Taiping army occupied Xiangshan. Chen Shiqi, the general manager of the village, abandoned the village and fled. So that the Taiping army effortlessly captured this military fortress, which was only 20 miles away from Macao. Originally, Zhou Shixiang had no intention of attacking Macau, so everything was normal in the former cottage, and now he is ready to rob the Portuguese, so the importance of the former cottage is highlighted.

There is a bridgehead for attacking, but how to attack, how to succeed, and how to deal with the aftermath after winning have become the next problem for Zhou Shixiang to consider.

How much input can Macao make each year, Xiao Bailang, who is only a generalist, definitely does not know. What he provided to Zhou Shixiang was the situation of the Portuguese garrison and forts in Macao.

According to Sieau, the Portuguese garrison in Macau was expanded from the original Guard. The number of people is not large, just over 500 people. Except for some of these Portuguese soldiers, who maintained order in the city, most of them were stationed on the two forts on the walls of Guan'ao. There were dozens of large and small cannons on these two batteries. In addition, Siu said that the highest Portuguese governor in Macao was Governor Bougalo, who had been an officer.

The defenders of more than 500 people obviously would not be looked down upon by Zhou Shixiang, even if they had two forts, it would not be enough for the Taiping army.

Zhou Shixiang's headache was that the real strength of the Portuguese in Macao was not only the garrison of more than 500 people, but they also had a force that not only far outnumbered the garrison, but was also no less effective than these garrisons - they were the sailors of the Portuguese ships that docked in Macao all year round.

For a well-known reason, sailors on European ships, including the Portuguese, could become soldiers and pirates at any time, and murder and arson were commonplace for them. The ships were equipped with artillery, and several ships were organized into a small fleet.

The most conservative estimate is that if the Taiping army really attacked Macao, the governor Bugallo would be able to quickly recruit sailors on these ships to resist the Taiping army, and their number would never be less than 3,000, and even if Bugallo was willing to sacrifice his blood and levy all those Westerners and adventurers in Macao, he would be able to form an army of one or two thousand people. In this way, the number of defenders of Macao will not be less than 5,000, and they are all equipped with arquebuses, so they are not weaker than the Taiping army in firearms.

Therefore, after repeated consideration, Zhou Shixiang decided not to storm the enemy, but instead lured the enemy out of the hole, using the power of the former cottage, a military stronghold, to kill and injure the Portuguese, and to bleed them little by little as he did with the Qing army, until they could no longer bear it.

And if he wanted to force the Portuguese to come out of Macao, Zhou Shixiang had a ready-made method at his disposal, and this solution was very simple, that is, to cut off all supplies from Macao.

On June 18, Zhou Shixiang immediately closed the wall of Guanao from now on, preventing anyone from providing wine, rice, food and all daily necessities to the Portuguese in Guan, and at the same time sent someone to inform the Portuguese Governor Bu Jiaren that in view of the serious banditry situation, the commander-in-chief of Guangzhou of the Ming Dynasty sent an army composed of 3,000 brave soldiers of the Ming Dynasty to Macao, so as to assist the Macao authorities in maintaining law and order and protecting the safety of residents.

The Guanao City Wall was built along the periphery of the Portuguese residential community in the Ming Dynasty, leaving a gate in the middle to be guarded by officers and soldiers. The gates were opened every five days to provide the Portuguese with rice and food and necessities. Later, the Portuguese on the other side of the city wall played a clever trick and widened and thickened the wall behind their side, and built two forts, so that any army on land who wanted to enter Macao had to take the road of passing the city gate.

The Portuguese were very good at their calculations, converting the Ming Dynasty wall into their barrier, using two forts to hold the wall, so that they could not worry about any enemy attack on Macau. But they never thought that if the Ming Dynasty people on the opposite side also closed the city gate and stopped sending all supplies to Macao behind the city wall, then Macao would become a dead city in a short time. The fleet, which had been tossed and turned on the sea for more than half a year, arrived in Macao and found that there was no food they needed, no fruits and vegetables, and even no goods to transport away.

Not wanting Macau to become a dead city, the Portuguese would either accept Zhou Shixiang's request to garrison the city, or they would have to open the city gates themselves and defeat the Taiping army blockading outside. In this way, it was in line with Zhou Shixiang's wishes, and what he asked was for the Portuguese to come out by themselves.

The blockade of Macao and the fight against the Grape army would inevitably have to be redrawn from the north to the elite battalions of the Taiping army, so that the northern defense line would be weak.

Although the current heat is not suitable for large-scale combat of the army, Zhou Shixiang still sent an envoy to Xinhui, asking the old general Chen Qice and Zhenguo general Zhu Tong and others to use the naval division to carry out a series of attacks on the Qing army in Sanjiangkou, and it is best to cause the Ming army to attack Sanjiangkou on a large scale again.

After receiving Zhou Shixiang's request, the old general Chen Qice agreed heartily, because Xinhui has received a lot of money and grain supplies from the Taiping army for most of the past six months, and a few days ago, Zhou Shixiang arranged for someone to secretly send a batch of grain to Xinhui in Zhaoqing, which greatly relieved the pressure of the shortage of grain and grass in the Xinhui Ming army.

Zhu Tong, the general of Zhenguo, noticed from the envoy's words that Zhou Shixiang seemed to be going to make a big move in Xiangshan, and he quietly interrogated the envoy a few words, but the envoy was too young to hold his breath, and in a few words, he asked Zhu Tong to give him the information that the Taiping army was going to do something to the Portuguese in Macao.

Chen Qice was taken aback by Zhou Shixiang's bold move, I don't know how Zhou Shixiang remembered to attack the Franc machine man in Macau, although the Franc machine man occupied the land of the Ming Dynasty, but for more than 100 years to the Ming Dynasty is quite deferential, the Apocalypse, Chongzhen Dynasty is to provide a large number of Hongyi cannons to the Ming Dynasty to fight against the Eastern Prisoners, in the first year of the Yongli calendar, the imperial court eunuch Pang Tianshou also bought dozens of Hongyi cannons from Macao, and also recruited hundreds of Franc machine people to participate in the Ming army to fight the Qing army, so in general, Chen Qice did not approve of Zhou Shixiang's idea of attacking Macao.

Zhu Tong smelled the smell of "copper smell" from Zhou Shixiang's bold move, he had actually been smuggling with the Franc machine people in Macau, and knew that the Franc machine people had accumulated a large amount of wealth in Macao, if the Taiping army could really take Macao, it would undoubtedly be a cornucopia, and it was conceivable how much wealth Zhou Xiu would make.

"Go back and tell your family Xiucai, he is embarrassed to swallow the matter of making a fortune? Count me Zhu Laozi as a share, if it doesn't work, Zhu Laozi and I won't cover for him. ”

The envoy went back to tell Zhou Shixiang what Zhu Tong said, Zhou Shixiang knew that if Zhu Tong was not counted, they would definitely not succeed, and in line with the principle of receiving friendly troops and strengthening friendly troops to contain more powerful enemy forces, Zhou Shixiang agreed to seize Zhu Tong and Chen Qice after the matter was completed.

With the right words, Zhu Tong was concerned, and after three days of preparation with Chen Qice, he swaggered into the mouth of the Sanjiang River with hundreds of warships of the naval division, and fired a cannon at the Qing army on the shore, so frightened that the Qing army immediately rushed back to Guangzhou to report the news -- the Ming army was attacking in a big way!

Cheng Bangjun, who ran to Xinhui to persuade Chen Qice and Zhu Tong to lead the army westward, was very confused by their actions, but he was only the head of the military department, and he only came to Guangdong to announce the decree, and he had no other imperial orders, so he could not stop Chen and Zhu from acting.

At the same time, the Portuguese governor in Macao, Bougalo, received a note from Zhou Shixiang, the commander-in-chief of the Ming army in Guangzhou, and learned that since yesterday, the gate of Guanao had been cut off by the Ming army outside. (To be continued.) )