The Spaniards were not arrogant enough to think that their own force had reached the point where they could crush the two rivals, in fact, for a long time, the two countries with Portugal and the Netherlands had won and lost each other in Southeast Asia, and the Spanish sailing ships were not as active in Northeast Asia as they were in the Northeast Asian region, and the purpose of establishing a base in Taipei was to contain the Dutch on the one hand, and on the other hand, they also hoped to use the local base to open up trade routes to Northeast Asia in order to catch up with the competitors. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The Haihan had destroyed the strongholds of Tamsui and Chicken Coop, and the Spaniards could still regard this as an unexpected result of the raid, but if both the Dutch and the Portuguese had been defeated before then, then the true strength of the Haihan had to be carefully considered. Although the Spaniards are a bit arrogant, they are not stupid, and with a little care, it is not difficult to gather more intelligence information about the Haihan forces.

At this time, there were more than 20,000 Chinese settled in and around Manila, and there were many Han Chinese maritime merchants who went to the local trade every year, and there were countless rumors about Haihan.

Prior to this, the Spaniards, although they were aware of the existence of the Haihan, had always thought that this group was just a group of merchants skilled in maritime trade, and had never associated them with the image of competitors for sea supremacy. But these so-called "businessmen" are obviously acting in a big drama of pretending to be pigs and eating tigers, and only now are they slowly showing their fangs.

The Viceroy of the Philippines, Aragonés, was not an uneducated bureaucrat, and although he had won the position through his royal affiliation, he was no worse than his predecessors, having served as the administrator of the port of Acapulco, a colony of New Spain in North America, and was relatively knowledgeable about the doorways of maritime trade between the East and the West. The two strongholds in Taipei were also new colonies that he organized and opened up after taking office, which can be regarded as one of his political achievements, but the actions of the Haihan people in early 1633 had already made his efforts in previous years come to naught.

Knowing that the Haihan might have strong maritime armaments, Aragonés decided to organize an armed fleet against the Haihan in revenge for his losses on the island of Taiwan. However, most of the high-ranking officials in Manila, including his staff, after comprehensively studying the information gathered from all sides, did not believe that there was no need to rush to war against Haihan, and even if they lost their stronghold in Taiwan, Ming merchants would still take the initiative to trade with Spain.

In recent years, the Manila authorities have sent an average of 4 million pesos of silver to the Ming Dynasty every year, which is equivalent to about 3 million taels of official silver, and in addition to the underground transactions between Spain and the smugglers of the Ming Dynasty, the silver imported from Spain to the Ming Dynasty is at least 4 million taels per year. During this period, the state revenue of the Ming Dynasty was not much different from this figure, and if there was such a huge amount of cash in circulation in the market, it would inevitably cause economic turmoil in the coastal areas of the Ming Dynasty.

The staff believed that in order to avoid the chaos of the financial order caused by the rupture of the capital chain, the Ming merchants would rely on their natural sense of smell to re-transport the goods originally shipped to Taipei to Manila for trading, after all, only here will there be inexhaustible cash. However, the territory of the Haihan people has not heard of any large-scale silver mines, and they will certainly not be able to fill the cash silver holes needed in the market. Expelling Spain from Taipei may seem useful, but it will only cause some minor problems for Spain, and will not change the status quo of Ming's dependence on Spanish cash inputs.

The aides even suggested that Aragonés order the expansion of the docks at the Port of Manila in preparation for the arrival of more Ming merchants. According to their predictions, the negative reaction to the interruption of the supply of cash silver would be apparent as soon as the spring and summer of 1633, when the Daming Maritime Chamber of Commerce abandoned the Haihan, who could not afford to produce enough cash, and chose to bring the goods south to Manila to trade with Spain.

After listening to this analysis, Aragonés also felt that there was some truth, he had been in power for several years, and he also had a certain amount of research on the economic situation of the Ming Dynasty, knowing that the cash in the Ming Dynasty had always been more dependent on external imports, and among the three most important channels, Spain was one of them. The other two are clearly Dongying, as well as Portugal and the Netherlands. Dongying is produced by its own silver mines, but its output is far less than the silver mines controlled by Spain in the Americas, and Portugal and the Netherlands do not have the Pacific route controlled by Spain, and almost all of their current silver is shipped from distant Europe, and the quantity and cost of use cannot be compared with Spain.

Every year, Spain accounts for about sixty or seventy percent of the cash imported into the Ming Dynasty from outside, and the rest is divided by several others. At such a rate, the loopholes caused by the abrupt interruption of cash inputs are not something that any one company can fill in a short period of time. Although the Haihan people were very wealthy, it was probably impossible to raise millions of taels of silver to subsidize trade in just a few months. Although the capture of the Spanish stronghold is really annoying, it can indeed be put aside for a while, because once the fight with the Haihan starts, the maritime merchants of Fuguang and Guang will probably give up going south to Manila during this period in order to avoid the war. Aragonés planned to put the time into the second half of the year, and wait for the annual sailing fleet to the Americas to depart, and then come to settle accounts with the Haihans.

So Aragonés followed the advice of his staff, and the only way to start a war on the island of Taiwan was to send a written letter of protest to Sanya through an intermediary, condemning Haihan's undeclared war and demanding that he take back the ownership of the area. Of course, the effect of this kind of written protest can be imagined, and after it was sent out, it was like a stone sinking into the sea, and not even a single blister appeared. At the same time, Aragonés also ordered the expansion of the port of Manila's terminals, as well as the improvement of the port's freight and storage facilities, in preparation for the coming tide of merchant ships.

Then the wait waited until the summer, and not many Ming merchants came south to Manila to trade, as the staff had predicted. With not enough cargo to take place, Aragonés had to halve the size of his fleet to the Americas, hurrying to the road in the final period before the currents could change.

By this time, the script had obviously not matched the actual plot, and Aragonés certainly knew that this was a very serious error in the judgment and speculation of his staff. Immediately after the fleet left the port of Manila, Aragonés imprisoned several members of his staff on charges of "embezzlement of public funds", "deception", and "dereliction of duty". There was no way, someone had to take the blame for such a major mistake, and it was obviously impossible for the Governor to play such a disgraceful role, and he could only grieve these wise men who had worked for him.

The so-called "collapse theory" of the staff at the beginning has unwittingly turned into a big joke, but Aragonés knew that his gang was not a wine bag and rice bag, and the inference he made was not unfounded, and he himself agreed with the staff's speculation at the beginning. Pushing people out to take the blame is just to deal with domestic accountability, but Aragonés will not fool the country and forget it, he still has to figure out what happened, so that the economic situation of Daming has not developed in the direction expected in advance at all. It was only after the news from all sides slowly pieced together that the Spaniards realized what had happened after the Battle of Taipei.

The forced withdrawal of the Spaniards from the southeast coast did cause an obvious shortage of cash in the coastal areas of Daming, but the Haihan people were obviously more fully prepared for the emergence of this situation, on the one hand, they raised nearly one million taels of silver in advance and transported it to Penghu as a reserve, on the other hand, the Fujian government and the business community also jointly guaranteed the Haihan and promoted the use of a paper voucher printed by the Haihan in the local area. Although the settlement of such vouchers is mainly concentrated in bulk trade and is not widely circulated among the people, this has greatly alleviated the lack of cash.

The shortage of cash in the market did not last long, and from the turn of spring and summer, the Haihan people began to settle and cash out some of the payments that had been temporarily paid with vouchers, and they used a large amount of gold. There is credible information that the gold was not the wealth that the Haihan had amassed in the past through trade, but that it had come from the newly occupied chicken coop area of Taipei at the beginning of the year. After the Haihan people occupied the area, they couldn't wait to recruit a large number of miners along the coast of Fujian to mine the deposits, and there was always a certain scale of Haihan troops stationed in the local area to protect them.

Aragonés believed that this information was one of the main reasons for the Haihan people's undeclared war on Taipei, and that they must have predetermined the existence of gold ore veins in the area through some channel before they brazenly launched the war. The output of this gold mine can probably make up for the gap in the circulation of precious metals in Daming, and will not be too affected by Spain's withdrawal. The Haihan people counted all the subsequent developments, and it is no wonder that Ming merchants did not flood Manila in large numbers after the war.

If the business reputation of the Haihan people is not so high, then the negotiable coupons they use probably will not be able to act as firefighters in the Daming market, and if there are no gold mines in Taipei, it may not lead to the covetousness of the Haihan people. But none of these assumptions came to the fore, and the Haihan seized Taipei, opened gold mines, and successfully topped Spain's position in the Ming foreign trade market, which was the real purpose behind the war.

In addition to admiring the methods of the Haihan, Aragonés can also be sure of another thing, this group of Haihan people is by no means only greedy for small bargains, they have a far greater grasp of the overall situation than their opponents, including their own opponents, and the political, economic, and military methods displayed in this matter are all commendable. This is not a pattern that ordinary smugglers can play, but a big chess game that can only be played by real advanced players.

It was only by this time that Aragonés truly understood why the Portuguese had to hug Haihan's thigh, and the Dutch, who had suffered a few defeats, could still tolerate Haihan's brutal behavior. Presumably, they are not without temper, but they really understand Haihan's strength, and they don't want to fight him head-on anymore. Of course, Aragonés probably could have guessed that his European neighbors must be laughing at the Manila authorities somewhere for their mismanagement, and now not only has they lost the best opportunity to regain Taipei, but even Spain's share of the Ming foreign trade market has been replaced by Haihan and other forces.

Although Aragonés did not abandon his attempt to solve the problem by force, he was well aware that it would not be easy. According to the information we have, Haihan has a professional army with an establishment of several thousand people, and its weapons and equipment are not inferior to those of European countries in terms of muskets, artillery, and sail ships, and its achievements are very proud, and it is said that it has rarely been defeated since its formation, and is known as the first victorious army in the South China Sea. With such an armament, Aragonés really had no certainty of victory.

The situation of the Spanish garrison in the Far East was similar to that of the Netherlands, because the number of immigrants in the country was extremely limited, so a considerable part of the army was trained indigenous co-operatives, and the combat effectiveness was relatively worrying. The actual army composed of citizens is not large, and most of them are only soldiers who have emigrated for a military salary and work part-time, and the overall combat effectiveness is still not comparable with that of the professional army. If the Dutch had already suffered a few defeats at the hands of Haihan, then Aragonés would not have much confidence that he could do better than the Dutch.

After the time entered the second half of the year, news came that the Haihan army had conquered the Zhoushan Islands off Hangzhou Bay in the Ming Dynasty, eliminated the local pirates and set up a stronghold, and the Ming local government seemed to have accepted this matter by default. Soon new news reached Manila, and the Haihan fleet went to Miyako Island in the East China Sea to exterminate the Eighteen Zhi Yu Dang, which had been famous on the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty.

The previous news means that Haihan's control over the coastal waters of Daming has increased a lot, and almost all the areas that can be engaged in maritime trade are included, and it is probably only a matter of time before it monopolizes Daming's maritime import and export trade. The latter news means that the Dutch have basically completely lost their competitiveness and trade rights along the Ming coast, and without the middleman of Shibazhi, if they still want to continue to maintain trade with the Ming Dynasty, there seems to be no other way to go except to hand over the trade orders to Haihan as an intermediary. In this way, it seems that the Portuguese are the most shrewd, and they hugged Haihan's thigh early in the morning, basically maintaining their position in the Ming foreign trade system. (To be continued.) )