Behind the garrison's request was Zhou Shixiang's passionate robbery. The reason that prompted him to rob Macau was not only the Portuguese's difficulties in the firearm transaction, but more importantly, Macau is indeed too rich, so rich that Zhou Shixiang had to be moved.

From the vendors who often traveled to Macau in the past, Zhou Shixiang roughly learned how the Portuguese grew hair in Macau. They transported silver, pepper, suma, ivory, sandalwood and other commodities from Europe to trade with the Chinese, with silver as the bulk, which means that the Portuguese in Macau 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 the Ming Dynasty were raw silk, silk, satin, tea, porcelain, musk, licorice, gold, brass, etc., among which raw silk was the most popular among grape people.

This trade can be said to be a huge profit, with a profit of more than 20 times, which attracted countless Portuguese ship owners to travel thousands of miles to the East. However, all this is not allowed by the Ming law and belongs to smuggling trade. In other words, the Portuguese in Macau were all smuggling dealers, and the Chinese merchants they cooperated with were also pirates dressed in maritime merchant garments. Therefore, in terms of law, Zhou Shixiang, as the general officer of the Ming Dynasty, had the power to interfere in Macau affairs. Stopping the garrison to Macau in the name of cracking down on smuggling was enough to make the Portuguese speechless. They either accepted or opposed it. But no matter which one they chose, war was inevitable, because the garrison was never the purpose of Zhou Shixiang, and what he wanted was Macau's wealth.

In his past and present lives, Zhou Shixiang never believed that the White Ghost was supreme. He only believed that strength was supreme. He had enough strength. No matter if you are the king of heaven, you will rob you if you grab it. Mother's mother; if you don't have enough strength, then you will shrank. The history of the Han family has never been missing.

The Portuguese in history have never been a good product, and they have invaded China, so Zhou Shixiang has no psychological burden for robbing Macau. Once the war breaks out, he is not worried about the Portuguese navy that is tens of thousands of miles away. He only needs to deal with the Grape Army in Macau. Even if Portugal really sends a fleet to the East, he is lucky enough to reach his destination, Zhou Shixiang is not afraid, because the East in the 17th century was not the Portuguese who came here as soon as the Portuguese said.

The former mountain village is the bridgehead for the Taiping Army to attack Macau.

This military camp built during the Tianqi period was used to prevent the Portuguese. At the same time, the officials in charge of Macau affairs in Xiangshan County also dispatched this camp. After the Qing army occupied Xiangshan, they also established Thousand General Officers in the former villages in accordance with the Ming Dynasty system, and changed the village to the Guangzhou Prefecture to directly govern the Macau Portuguese, as they were allowed to ignore the Ming Dynasty.

After the Taiping Army occupied Xiangshan, Chen Shiqi, the thousand general of the village, abandoned the village and fled. The Taiping Army seized this military camp, which was only 20 miles away from Macau without any effort. Originally, Zhou Shixiang had no intention of making a move to Macau, so everything in the past village was as usual. Now he was preparing to rob the Portuguese, so the importance of the former past village was highlighted.

There is a bridgehead for attack, but how to attack, how to succeed, and how to deal with it after success have become the next issue that Zhou Shixiang needs to consider.

Xiao Bailang, who is just a common cause, certainly did not know how many inputs Macau can have each year. What he provided to Zhou Shixiang was the situation of the Portuguese garrison and the fort.

According to Xiao Bailang, the Portuguese garrison in Macau expanded from the original guards. The number was not large, with only more than 500 people. Except for some of these Portuguese soldiers maintaining order in the city, most of them were stationed on two forts on the walls of Guanao. There were dozens of large and small cannons on these two forts. In addition, Xiao Bailang said that the highest commander of the Portuguese in Macau was Governor Bugallo, who was originally an officer.

The defenders of more than 500 people would obviously not be seen by Zhou Shixiang. Even if they had two forts, it would not be enough for the Taiping Army to fight.

Zhou Shixiang's headache was that the true strength of the Portuguese in Macau was not just the garrison of more than 500 people. They also had another force. Not only did this force far exceed the number of people, but its combat effectiveness was not inferior to these garrisons - they were sailors who docked on Portuguese ships that had been docking in Macau all year round.

As we all know, sailors on European sea ships, including the Portuguese, can become soldiers at any time and turn into pirates at any time. Killing and setting fires are common for them. Those sea ships are equipped with artillery, and several ships are organized together to form a small fleet.

The most conservative estimate is that if the Taiping Army really attacked Macau, Governor Bugalo could quickly recruit sailors from these sea boats to resist the Taiping Army, and their number would never be less than 3,000 people. If Bugalo was willing to spend a lot of money, recruited all the Westerners and adventurers in Macau, and formed an army of one or two thousand people. In this way, the number of defenders in Macau would not be less than 5,000, and they were all equipped with a comb, so they were not weaker than the Taiping Army in firearms.

Therefore, after repeated consideration, Zhou Shi decided not to attack, but instead lured the enemy out of the cave, using the power of the former military camp to kill the Portuguese, and just like dealing with the Qing army, they let their blood be released until they could not bear it.

If you want to force the Portuguese to leave Macau, Zhou Shixiang has a ready-made method. This method is very simple, that is, to cut off all supplies in Macau.

On June 18, Zhou Shixiang wrote a copycat in the name of the Military Commander's Office, and immediately closed the Guanao City Wall from now on to prevent anyone from providing wine, rice, food and all daily necessities to the Portuguese people in the Pass. At the same time, he sent someone to notify the Portuguese Governor Buga. In view of the serious bandits, the general officer of the Ming Dynasty sent an army of 3,000 brave Ming soldiers to Macau to assist the Macao authorities in maintaining public order and protecting residents' safety.

The Guanao City Wall was a city wall built along the outskirts of the Portuguese residential community in the Ming Dynasty. There was a Guan gate in the middle to guard the officers and soldiers. The city gate was opened every five days to provide the Portuguese with wine, rice, food and daily necessities. Later, the Portuguese on the other end of the city wall became clever and widened the back of the city wall and built two forts. In this way, any army on the land wanted to enter Macau, so they could only take the Guanao City Gate.

The Portuguese had a very good idea of ​​converting the city wall built by the Ming Dynasty into their barrier and using two forts to guard the city wall, so that there was no need to worry that Macau would be attacked by any enemy. But they never thought that if the Ming people on the opposite side also closed the city gate and stopped sending all supplies to Macau behind the city wall, Macau would become a dead city in a short time. After the fleets that had been bumping on the sea for more than half a year arrived in Macau, they found that there was no food they needed, no fruits and vegetables, or even no goods to transport them away. The consequences can be imagined.

If he didn't want Macau to become a dead city, the Portuguese either accepted the request of Zhou Shixiang's army or had to open the city gates by themselves and defeat the Taiping Army blocked outside. In this way, Zhou Shixiang's wishes were in line with Zhou Shixiang's wishes, and what he asked was the Portuguese to come out by themselves.

To block Macau and fight against the Grape Army, we must draw back the elite battalion of the Taiping Army from the north, so that the power of the defense line in the north will be weak.

There is no fear of ten thousand things in the world, but if it is a matter of a matter of a certain situation. Although it is not suitable for large-scale military operations now, Zhou Shixiang still sent an envoy to Xinhui, asking the veteran general Chen Qice and the general Zhu Tong and others to use the navy to carry out a series of harassment against the Qing army at Sanjiangkou, which would best cause the Ming army to attack Sanjiangkou again to make a large-scale attack.

After receiving Zhou Shixiang's request, the veteran general Chen Qice agreed cheerfully, because Xinhui has received a lot of money and grain supply from the Taiping Army in the past six months. A few days ago, Zhou Shixiang arranged for people to secretly send a batch of grain to Xinhui in Zhaoqing, which greatly alleviated the pressure of the shortage of food and grass in the Xinhui Ming army. Now Zhou Shixiang just asked Xinhui to create momentum and feint attack the Qing army at Sanjiangkou. Chen Qice naturally wanted to return the favor to Zhou Shixiang.

However, Zhu Tong, the general of the State, realized from the envoy's words that Zhou Shixiang seemed to be making a big move in Xiangshan. He asked the envoy calmly for a few words. As a result, the envoy was too young and could not calm down. In a few words, Zhu Tong asked Zhu Tong to give information that the Taiping Army was going to attack the Portuguese in Macau.

Chen Qice was shocked by Zhou Shixiang's bold move. I wonder why Zhou Shixiang thought of the Folang Jiren who wanted to attack Macau. Although the Folang Jiren occupied the land of the Ming Dynasty, he was still quite respectful to the Ming Dynasty for more than a hundred years. The two dynasties of Tianqi and Chongzhen provided a large number of red barbarian cannons for the Ming Dynasty to fight against the Eastern Barbarians. In the first year of Yongli, the eunuch of the court, Pang Tianshou, also bought dozens of red barbarian cannons from Macau, and also recruited hundreds of Folang Jiren to participate in the Ming army's attack on the Qing army. So in general, Chen Qice did not agree with Zhou Shixiang's proposal to attack Macau.

Zhu Tong smelled the "copper smell" from Zhou Shixiang's bold move. He had actually been smuggling with the Folang Ji people in Macau. He knew that the Folang Ji people had accumulated a large amount of wealth in Macau. If the Taiping Army could really conquer Macau, it would undoubtedly have built a treasure pot. It is conceivable how much money Zhou Xiucai would make.

"Go back and tell your scholar that he is embarrassed to take the money from himself? I, Zhu Laozi, if it doesn't work, I won't cover him."

The envoy went back to tell Zhou Shixiang what Zhu Tong said, and Zhou Shixiang knew that it would definitely not be possible if Zhu Tong and the others were not counted. Based on the principle of helping friendly forces and strong friendly forces to restrain more powerful enemy forces, Zhou Shixiang agreed to seize the matter after the matter was completed, and Chen Qice and the others would be involved.

With the right words, Zhu Tong became concerned. After three days of preparation, he and Chen Qice took hundreds of warships from the navy into Sanjiangkou in a swagger. He fired a cannon at the Qing army on the shore, which scared the Qing army immediately rushed back to Guangzhou to report the news that the Ming army was attacking in a large scale!

Cheng Bangjun, who ran to Xinhui to persuade Chen Qice and Zhu to lead the army westward, was confused by their actions, but he was just the head of the Ministry of War, and when he came to Guangdong, he was just an imperial envoy. He had no other emperor's orders, so he could not stop Chen and Zhu from acting.
Chapter completed!