In ancient Latin, Gilmo means wilderness and swamp.

As the name suggests, the assembly location designated by Governor Sander is a wasteland in the upper reaches of the Bashi River. It is far away from the positions of the Ming army and is boundless, so it will not be ambushed, and is suitable for the assembly of the army.

The Spanish who arrived early, commanded the baptized indigenous people who accompanied him to build a temporary camp with wood and bamboo that could only shelter from wind and rain.

In the next month, people from various strongholds arrived one after another, but the camp was soon insufficient, and finally expanded to more than five times the initial expansion.

By the end of September, Gilmore had gathered nearly 100,000 people!

In fact, there are not many real Spanish officers and soldiers here.

Each stronghold can pull about a hundred people based on the amount of land and population controlled by the number of Spanish officers and New Spanish soldiers, and at most dozens of people. Only a few large fortresses with churches can bring about a hundred people.

So the army that really has the most troublesome is only about 3,000 people.

In addition, there were only about 7,000 priests and a large number of black slaves who served the men and did heavy work.

The remaining 90,000 people were natives under their control. I heard that the men were going to fight, and these baptized indigenous believers cut crosses and said, "We are willing to fight together and do our part to defend the glory of God!"

The Spanish men were rude and brave, and their minds were not very turned, thinking that this was a good thing. With the idea that more and more, they happily agreed to set off together...

Unexpectedly, when they were on the road, these Nanyang monkeys actually brought their families with them and brought all their belongings with them, as if they were going to move.

The men were shocked and scolded them for what the hell was. The natives were polite and said, "Don't the Lord want to protect our wives, children, and young people and prevent us from being warned?"

Now the Igoro people revolt everywhere. If the Lord's army leaves, they will definitely attack our village and massacre the Lord's believers!

Do you mainly ignore us? No, no?

The Spanish were speechless immediately, and they agreed that if they did not let them go on the road, the Lord would abandon them. But if these indigenous believers were really gone, and the efforts of these three years were gone, where would they go to collect food and grass in the future? Let's drink the northwest wind?

The priests cherished the fruits of their labor. Every believer was easily deceived by them. How could they be lost? They also helped to persuade them, which would make them more pious and their vast momentum could also shock the Ming people.

There was no choice but to bring the population under their control to the road. This is also the reason why the assembly was completed in two months.

Good guy, now Gilmo Camp has become the base camp for various indigenous tribes gatherings. These people are also provoking trouble all day long, either tribal conflicts, or who robs who slept whose supplies, or who slept whose wives.

And they were both stupid and lazy, so they couldn't even dig a trench... They could eat very well. Before they could start fighting, they had already consumed all the food they brought...

It made the Spanish commander Colonel Soldo so worried that he wanted to cry.

"How can you fight a good war with these worms?" At the pre-war meeting, he once again complained to his three phalanx leaders and the chief priest Franco.

The Spanish infantry phalanx is both a tactical unit and an administrative unit. A phalanx consists of 1,000 to 1,250 officers and soldiers and is divided into five companies.

The soldiers were temporarily recruited, but a total of 29 officers and non-commissioned officers belonged to a permanent establishment, which made them more familiar with their positions and allowed the phalanx to exert greater power. This was revolutionary in Europe.

After complaining, the colonel asked, "Have all the people from all over the country arrived?"

"Although there are still eight strongholds, no one will come again." Major Nagamendosa, the military policeman in charge of the matter, reported: "The previous team arrived was still eight days ago, the northernmost Agoo, who was in Dagupan."

"It seems that no one will come again." Lieutenant Colonel Raul sighed.

Those who did not come may be ambushed along the way by the cruel Igoro people. They may simply not save them. No matter which one is fine, they can't count on them.

"Where are the reinforcements from Cebu?" the colonel asked unwillingly.

"I just received news that they were still unable to break through the defense line of the Ming Fleet. Instead, half of the sailboats were sunk and had returned to Cebu." Lieutenant Colonel Gonzalez, the second liaison officer, was also the liaison officer.

Cebu naturally received a request for help from Governor Sander, but they were also scared when they saw Major General Bamund who had escaped from the escape. After hesitating for a long time, they sent a fleet of more than a dozen sailboats carrying more than 100 Spanish troops, plus 800 recruited natives from the Tattoo Island, and went north to reinforce the Luzon side.

However, due to fierce attacks from the naval battle fleet, they could not enter Manila Bay at all. They had to go around the north and wanted to land in Daimao Port, but the Ming people's destroyers followed like shadows, not only let their landing plan fail, but also sunk several of their sailboats.

In fact, the fleet could continue to go north and allow reinforcements to land from Balintang, but the commander was worried that the fleet would be pursued by the Ming fleet for a long time and would be unable to protect itself. So he left the battlefield on the grounds that the ship encountered a storm and had serious water leakage, and returned to Cebu...

"Damn it! I think they just don't help me!" The colonel cursed angrily and said to the priest and his subordinates: "Gentlemen, it seems that there will be no helpers anymore! We should decide the next step as soon as possible!"

"Yes." Everyone nodded and said yes, and all turned their eyes to the dirty map with a few wine and oil stains.

According to common sense, they should go south after assemble, cross the Bashi River from the upper reaches, and gather around the south side of the royal city. In this way, they can fight against the Ming people based on the strong city and fortress. With powerful fire support from the city and the Bashi River as a barrier, they can attack and retreat and defend, and the initiative will be returned to the hands of the Spanish.

But on the map, a straight black line was newly drawn on the south side of the Manila Royal City.

That was the masterpiece of the Ming people in the past two months. They actually built a high earth wall on the south side of the royal city, which went straight to the seashore from the banks of the Bashi River. It was 1.8 kilometers long and 6 meters high. There were trenches on both sides, there were forts and fire towers on the walls, and there were barracks under the walls, and there were troops stationed there.

There is nothing to shock this, it is just a small project. If there is cement, the Chinese civil engineering skills can bring out the entire bastion in such a long time.

And what's interesting is that the Ming people's barracks were actually located on the north side of the city wall, which is the direction of the royal city.

This shows that this wall was mainly built for aids outside the city.

For the Spaniards, who are mainly light infantry and only have a small number of cavalry, attacking is a difficult strategy. In order to avoid casualties, they usually dig trenches to siege the enemy city, and use the range advantages of artillery and heavy convex guns to continuously kill the enemy. In the end, they rely on their strong national strength to waste the enemy to the point of being unable to support and surrender.

But this is Manila, not Europe, they have no capital to fight the siege, let alone they can't afford it.

Fortunately, there was a second road in front of them to the east from Gilmore, and after crossing the river, they took the camps of the Ming people on the beach. As long as their camps were destroyed, the siege of Luzon would be lifted.

Although this will be under the attack of enemy naval guns, as long as an attack is launched from the east, the Mingguo camp will just block between them and the fleet and become the best bunker for the Spaniards.

But outside the camps of Ming people, there is also a small river as a barrier. Fortunately, the narrowest place is only 10 meters wide, and the water flow is not fast, so you can still force it to cross.

"Research shows that the troops used by the Ming people to siege the city were about 10,000, and thousands of people were wearing uniform and beautiful blue uniforms," ​​said the captain of the cavalry, Barbero, who reported: "It should be the main force of the Ming people."

Because they were worried that they would not be willing to come for rescue again, Governor Sand ordered the major and his subordinates not to disclose the real situation in the city. The colonel and others did not know the miserable situation in the city.

As a result, they kept thinking that the Ming people were carrying out a arduous siege.

Common sense, after more than two months of fierce battle, the Ming people must have suffered huge losses and were exhausted, and their combat effectiveness was greatly reduced.

So the colonel and his officers were very optimistic about this battle and decided to set out west tomorrow, three miles away from the enemy camp, then turn to the southwest corner, and use a square formation to cover the indigenous servants from the narrowest part of the river to build a bridge. Then, through the bridge deck, rushed into the beach camp, kill! Kill! Kill!

The Spanish's combat plan was that simple.

After all, since the phalanx matured, they have not lost any field battle in half a century.

When you have absolute confidence in your combat effectiveness, you will naturally subconsciously choose simple and direct tactics, and you will not pay much attention to sleekness or strategy.

The next morning, the whistle of getting up resounded throughout Gilmore Camp.

The Spanish soldiers yawned, walked out of the stinking tent and sat down in the camp where shit and urine were flowing.

The slaves had already prepared breakfast in advance. According to convention, this pre-war breakfast was particularly rich. It was made of pickled bacon split with axe and hard bread split with axe, and some diced onion and wild coriander. Of course, Spain called it bread soup.

The Spanish, wearing a dirty wide-brimmed hat, scooped big mouthfuls with a wooden spoon, and the Mexican soldiers ate directly into the bowl with their hands.

After breakfast, each of the Spanish officers and soldiers gave each boiled egg and two baked potatoes. The indigenous people received a banana leaf rice. This was the dry food they all had for today.

Then the priests set up their crosses and led the officers and soldiers to pray devoutly.

"Parent!" After the prayer was completed, the order to set out sounded. The camp gate opened and the reconnaissance cavalry took the lead.
Chapter completed!