Chapter 26 Natural Selection

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, months have passed.

On January 24, 1893, in Luzon, a sudden accident interrupted Chen Zeyu's trip, which was inspecting the shipyard.

On the morning of this day, the two Luzon-class ironclad battleships, "Shantou" and "Quanzhou", of the Avalanche Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. in Sizhejiang, also completed all the construction period and were officially completed and launched today after the first ship "Zhanjiang" entered service.

Just as Chen Zeyu was accompanying his uncle and his party to attend the commissioning ceremony of the two Luzon-class warships, Ah Ming, director of the Nanyang Department of the Intelligence Bureau, who had been in charge of handling intelligence, suddenly broke into the shipyard and reported a shocking news to Chen Zeyu.

At noon today, in the port of San Fernando in western Luzon, there was an armed clash between Chinese League personnel and the garrison of the Spanish colonial authorities.

The news only turned around in his mind, and Chen Zeyu and his party had already made a decision after urgent discussion.

"Send a report to the armed forces of the Chinese League in various places, and the 'Garden Plan' is officially launched! ――”

Chen Zeyu gave the order word by word.

"Yes!" Amin didn't talk much nonsense and hurried away again......

Although the Huameng has been trying to postpone the conflict with the colonial authorities as much as possible, this day has finally come!

Although Chen Zeyu was not shocked, in fact, it was only a matter of time before he met with the Spanish authorities, looking at the current development momentum of the Huameng in Luzon, the Spaniards would definitely not be indifferent, they did not do anything in the past, but they were tied up by each other, and the conflict between the two was just a matter of time.

Chen Zeyu fastened the collar of his windbreaker, said goodbye to his uncle and got into the carriage unhurriedly, and drove to the outskirts of Sizhejiang City under the escort of several security personnel.

An hour later, all the armed forces of the Chinese League, which received a radio message from the headquarters of the Chinese League, immediately launched an attack on the garrison barracks, the governor's palace, and the telegraph rooms of the Spanish authorities in various places.

The whole Philippines was instantly plunged into a burst of gunfire.

The 100,000 armed forces stationed in the Sizhejiang military camp also marched westward under the personal command of Chen Zeyu, and easily defeated the recalcitrant Spanish garrison in the city of Manila at the beginning of the war.

It wasn't until the troops reached the westernmost port area that the Huameng army was in trouble.

As an excellent port built on both sides of the Bashi River, the Port of Manila is slightly higher on the north and south sides, facing the sea at its back, and the terrain gradually rises from north to south in a V-shaped shape with a northward opening.

Because of the terrain, it was very unfavorable for the troops to attack on the back, and the previous attacks of the Huameng troops failed one after another.

Chen Zeyu was not in a hurry, and the artillery unit that attacked the Manila battalion and the governor's palace according to the plan should come up.

Seeing that the several Spaniards' shore artillery fortifications above were still firing, Chen Zeyu, who was dressed in military uniform, narrowed his eyes.

Although it is only an old-fashioned breech gun, the caliber is really not small.

"Boom!! ――”

In the sound of artillery bombardment, several of the attacking Huameng soldiers were affected and suffered minor injuries. It can be seen that the Spaniards in the fortress have begun to fight desperately, and according to this old-fashioned breech gun, such frequent fire is already to the point that it can explode at any time.

Chen Zeyu raised his right hand and temporarily stopped the attack of the troops in front.

Sideways to ask the staff officer next to him, "Where are the artillerymen?" ”

"There! It's already here! Before the words fell, the guards around him responded.

"Boom! Rumble! Rumble! - Woooooooooo - "As the artillery of the artillery regiment began to speak, the fortified area where the Spanish soldiers were staying was suddenly in flames.

Perhaps annoyed by the casualties caused by the resistance in the fortress to their own soldiers, the artillery units of the Huameng directly came up with 150 mm large-caliber howitzer heavy guns.

More than a dozen 150mm guns took turns speaking in the roar, and after only a few rounds of artillery fire, the ancient and impregnable fortresses in the hilltop area had been destroyed one by one.

"Bang! - "One of the fortresses may have been ignited by an ammunition depot, and the entire fortress was reduced to a huge fireball.

The spectacular scene stunned all the soldiers of the Huameng who were observing the effect of their own artillery bombardment, and then attacked the half-crippled fortress area under the leadership of their respective officers, leaving only the artillery brothers to stay in place and be contented......

"Boom!! ――”

At the same time, on the sea outside the port of Manila, more than a dozen warships of the Spanish Navy were also shelling the troops of the Chinese Alliance on land.

However, Chen Zeyu's side, which had been prepared for a long time, did not suffer any losses, but began to carry out artillery return fire in an organized manner.

Because the range and power of the Spanish naval guns were far behind the new guns equipped by their own army, several warships of the Spanish fleet began to be hit and caught fire one after another...... It didn't take long for it to be completely suppressed by the organized artillery fire of the Chinese League.

At this time, the advantage of more than 60 rear-loading rifled heavy guns on our side became apparent, because the bore pressure was generally higher than that of the artillery equipped by other countries in this era, and the shells fired by the heavy artillery reached a terrifying initial velocity. Coupled with the smokeless gunpowder that has been fully popularized in Sizhejiang earlier, not only the artillery positions are more hidden, compared with the black particle gunpowder still used by the Spaniards, its power is naturally very different, and the range advantage of the entire heavy artillery group is even more like a lifeline to press towards the Spaniards.

Soon, the ships of the Spanish Navy, which were destroyed and injured one after another on the sea, also rushed to the open sea to escape and cruise away after throwing down several battleships that were about to sink......

Looking at the bright five-star red flag on a red background rising from the top floor of the former Spanish colonial governor's palace in the city center, which was about to be bombed into ruins, Chen Zeyu took a long breath.

For a long time, even if the strength of the Huameng where he belongs has gradually overwhelmed the colonial authorities, Chen Zeyu's side is still stubbornly following the strategy of "building a high wall and slowly becoming king", increasing his own weight bit by bit.

At the beginning, Allegria, a native of Barcelona who was reassigned here last year to take over the post of governor of the Philippines, simply announced that he refused to take over, which made Fiore, the former governor of Spain, who had already made a lot of money in the local area, scold.

After discovering that the Chinese armed forces that had been temporarily let go by themselves had grown to such a terrifying level, the Spaniards simply adopted such a method of "covering their ears and stealing the bell."

Anyway, it's good not to have an accident during your tenure, a sentence that said the words of the Governor, Mr. Fiore.

It's a pity that the huge wealth he has looted over the years is destined to be the same as himself, and he can't slip away.

Spain's announced presence in the Philippines is 4. 20,000 people, but Chen Zeyu didn't care, after years of investigation by the intelligence department, what kind of virtue the Spanish colonial army was, the Huameng side already knew everything about it.

Among the more than 40,000 people, there are only less than 10,000 who can really undergo rigorous training every day and have combat effectiveness in Chen Zeyu's eyes. Even if these more than 40,000 Spanish troops can fight, Chen Zeyu is not afraid, and now his Chinese League army has greatly improved from various combat equipment to quality, at least against this kind of Spanish colonial army will not be at a disadvantage, and the results of the battlefields in various places during this period of time also prove this.

In addition to the will to fight, the colonial army also lagged behind in terms of equipment. The Spanish garrison in the entire Philippine Islands was equipped with extremely limited breech guns of 75mm caliber or more, on the contrary, the "Chinese militia", which had been looked down upon by the Spaniards in the past, had a large number of infantry guns and heavy artillery at the same time.

Looking at the broken corpses of Spanish soldiers in front of the gate of the Governor's Palace being carried away by his own people, Chen Zeyu suddenly remembered a sentence in Mr. Yan Fu's "Theory of Heavenly Evolution" written by Mr. Yan Fu decades ago, natural selection, survival of the fittest.

It has to be said that this era is no longer the sixteenth century when Spanish galleons dominated the world.

With the soft twilight of the evening glow, surrounded by cheering soldiers around him, Chen Zeyu, wearing a black military uniform, walked into the Spanish Governor's Palace, which was known as the colonial Philippines in the past......

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