Nan Ming Sun Never Sets

Chapter 486 Entering Gibraltar
Of the 67 Spanish warships, 25 were sunk by the Ming Navy fleet, and the remaining one did not escape and were all captured. These warships were even relatively intact, because the Ming Navy’s artillery basically hit them and was shot. Shen didn't run away.

This battle almost completely ruined the Spanish navy. In 1639, the Spanish navy lost to the Dutch navy in the Battle of Downs, giving up its position as the sea supremacy.Although the four Spanish navies in the past 20 years have recovered to a certain extent, they are no longer as brave as they used to be.Facing the more powerful Daming Navy now, they are not even capable of fighting back.

The European naval colleagues really wanted to congratulate Commander Wang Kai, but Bai Mingxiu refused to let these people leave the battleship Xihai at all.

"The corresponding captive ships and Spanish sailors have been taken over by the Portuguese side. Our mission is not over yet. We must pass through the Strait of Gibraltar and enter the Mediterranean Sea to attack Spain's maritime trade and attack its coastal port cities to carry out a devastating attack. Fight." Bai Mingxiu's idea was very direct and clear. He not only wanted to destroy the main force of the Spanish Navy, but even nearly paralyzed the entire Spanish maritime strength.

Of course, it is not necessary to use a large fleet to truly break the engagement. Bai Mingxiu still asked the fleet to form a small formation of four ships and begin blockade and seizure operations in the Mediterranean.

All ships sailing in the Mediterranean must be inspected by the Ming Dynasty. If it is confirmed that it is a Spanish merchant ship, the Ming Navy will directly seize it.

Bai Ming kept working hard and led a total of eight warships to appear in Gibraltar.

Eight Ming warships, including six battleships, a cruiser and a frigate, bombarded the castle of Gibraltar for 16 hours. Finally, when the Ming army did not land, the Spanish army in Gibraltar erected white flag.

"This is simply..." Van Gent looked at what was originally a majestic castle, but it was bombarded into ruins by the Ming army's heavy artillery. Even looking from the ship to the land, he could see the corpses of Spanish soldiers lying dead everywhere. He couldn't find an exact adjective to describe what he saw.

Bai Mingxiu was also unambiguous. He personally led 200 marines to land in Gibraltar and occupied this place of great strategic value.Bai Mingxiu even led his troops to occupy the stronghold of the Spanish army near Algeciras Bay without stopping, completely controlling the area.

Since the Ming army has occupied this place, they will not leave.Bai Mingxiu has no intention of occupying such a vast area as the entire province of Cadiz. There are all Spaniards living here, and it is more troublesome to control it.But it is only the coastal area of ​​Algeciras Bay, where there are deep-water bays and coastal plains, which are very suitable for being controlled as a small colony.This area also has the Penive Tilly Mountains as a natural barrier, and it is also very handy to defend.

"It's been decided. In the future, Gibraltar will be the Department of Consolation under my Ming Dynasty. This time, I will directly appoint a consolation envoy here, and the troops will be stationed here. Tangier is now controlled by the British in the area of ​​Morocco in North Africa. , Ceuta is controlled by the Portuguese, so there is no need to pull them out now, and it will be easier to accept them if they can't maintain it later."

Although Bai Mingxiu had just arrived at this place, after taking a general look at the situation here, he immediately came up with a particularly positive idea.Although in terms of wealth, Gibraltar is far from comparable to regions such as Catalonia or Aragon, it has an extremely important geographical location. Bai Mingxiu even considered using it as an important free port in the Mediterranean, imitating the Ming Dynasty in What Singapore has done is to provide very good shipyard, financial and commercial services and build it into a prosperous and commercial free port city.

Gibraltar, which was occupied by the British in history, is actually only a small corner, and the land area is extremely small, but at 6.5 square kilometers, it is basically the total area of ​​a university campus. It is obviously impossible for Bai Mingxiu to satisfy this small area , so Bai Mingxiu directly placed it in the coastal plain south of the Penivetilli Mountains. The area of ​​this area is two to three thousand square kilometers. Although it is not that large, it is enough.

"After the war, part of the Spaniards in this area will be expelled, and tens of thousands of troops will be sent to garrison troops. By the way, people from other European countries can come here to create a relatively international society where multiple ethnicities coexist. Liberty City, after all, this is an important place for Ming to control the Mediterranean Sea and even radiate European business." Bai Mingxiu thought very clearly and smiled.

In fact, even Europeans such as Van Gent and Tedman felt that it was impossible for Ming to return such strategically valuable land to Spain after seeing the Ming army occupying Gibraltar and the surrounding area of ​​Algeciras Bay. .If it were them, they would do the same thing, but at this time they can only envy Daming.

Throughout the war against Spain, the Ming Navy also maintained a high frequency of attacks, not only defeated the main force of the Spanish Navy in the Strait of Gibraltar, but also defeated the Spanish Navy many times afterwards, which was regarded as the complete expulsion of the Spanish Navy.Before and after the Ming Navy captured more than 50 warships, sank and destroyed more than [-] warships, and captured and detained a large number of Spanish merchant ships.This also caused Spain to basically lose the supply of funds and materials from the outside world during the war.

Just intercepting Spanish merchant ships brought huge benefits to Ming Dynasty.Some large sailing ships from the American colonies carried large amounts of gold, silver and local products. The value of each cargo was several hundred thousand taels or even nearly one million taels.As for such merchant ships, the Ming Dynasty intercepted several of them. Coupled with the Spanish merchant ships that were conducting daily trade in the Mediterranean, as well as several Spanish port cities that the Ming Dynasty plundered, the Ming Dynasty navy in just over a month, from Spanish maritime trade brought in approximately 10 million Ming taels in revenue.

After Bai Mingxiu saw the numbers later, he was also really shocked. Sure enough, Spain did everything possible to control and squeeze the colonies, and gained a lot of benefits.But he also ridiculed that Spain, which has obtained so much money, has no ability to convert it into real national power. Even after facing the competition from Britain, France and other powerful countries in history, it finally went into decline, and became a complete second-rate country in modern times.

(End of this chapter)