The atmosphere in Mexico City has been terrible lately.

First the city was seized by hundreds of Ming troops, and then the Indian slaves raised troops, although at the level of war, Mexico City changed hands twice and failed to determine the direction of the war, but the fluctuation of the hearts of the people in Mexico City was unavoidable.

The Ming army's green cloak captured the city, the defenders and citizens almost did not resist, and when they saw the Ming army appear in the city, the news of Bernal's annihilation spread wildly, and the morale of the defenders collapsed, and a large number of nobles fled, but it did not cause much damage to the town.

The Indian slave workers were the property of the Spaniards, not to mention the fact that the pent-up resentment broke out, and more than a thousand Spaniards died in the chaos, and the fires that started in the Mexican silk mills burned almost half the city.

Duke Alva, who led his army into the town to suppress the uprising, even wondered from the bottom of his heart what had caused the Indians to burn down his city.

This did not happen when Hernán Cortés captured Mexico City more than sixty years ago.

The Duke of Alva was not only a Spanish military strategist, as a feudal nobleman, he naturally had many identities, general, nobleman, politician, he was in and out of the court as one of the two most important ruling ministers in the whole of Spain, and also as the governor of the Low Countries sent troops to the Netherlands, and in just a few months suppressed the rabble of butter manufacturers and cheese sellers.

He was the most professional in the suppression of merchants and citizens who opposed His Majesty Philip, and there was no second man like him in all of Spain.

The situation in Mexico City is no more complicated than in the Netherlands – at least that's what he thought when he first advanced into Mexico City with his army.

But the reality is much trickier than you think.

On the one hand, the Duke of Alva wanted his subordinates to summarize the reasons for Bernal's several defeats, and find out the shortcomings of the Spanish legion from them, so as to deal with the more complicated world situation after the Ming Kingdom was defeated in the future.

He did a good job and found the problem: the firearms of the Spanish army were too low, and it can be seen from the muskets retrieved by the deserters inscribed with the first year of Wanli of the Xiangshan Qianhu Armory Bureau that the Ming Dynasty added short swords to the muskets, in order to fight against the bayonet short knives in close combat.

The clerk next to the duke wrote a report on the matter, and the well-read monk suggested that this was a Chinese variant of the ancient firecracker, and that the Portuguese monks who lived in Shuangyu in the early years had seen the Ming army's standard long-poleed firearm 'fast gun', which was the construction of stuffing the spearhead into the barrel to increase melee combat ability.

The officers of each legion submitted their reports on the tactics of the Ming army after seeing this weapon, and these reports had different focuses, but what was the same was that they pointed out that the Ming army and the Western army were more similar in land warfare than the European countries, and that they used the same legions to fight, but the organization was different.

According to the report, the Western Army is 3,000 men and can be divided into ten small phalanxes of 300 men or three large phalanxes; The Ming army was 5,600 people, which could be divided into five troops and fifty squads.

All military reports ultimately point to the point that muskets with guns and the ubiquitous heavily armored musketeers greatly enhanced the melee combat capabilities of the Ming musketeers, making their spears only used against cavalry, and more musket salvos allowed the Ming army to have more firepower against the Western army.

Acosta's report systematically pointed out the root cause of the high morale of the Ming army - cruel first-class merit and strict military law.

Through his conversations with the common people, banner soldiers, and bureaucrats in Changsheng County, the monk concluded that the first-rank merit system followed by the Ming Kingdom provided ordinary soldiers with a common opportunity to become nobles, and therefore usually showed extraordinary courage from the bottom up in a battle in which they had the advantage.

The weakness of this system is that the party faces a disadvantage, and in order to save their lives, there will be a large number of routs, and only strict military laws can cut off their survival after fleeing to maintain a high combat effectiveness.

The dozens of legional infantry who escaped the First Battle of the White Horse River are still apprehensive about the scene of the Ming army braving the rain of bullets and hearing the war drums silently moving forward.

Duke Alva believed that the tactics and systems of the Ming army could be learned, because the combat target of his army was Portugal, and the tactics of the Portuguese were almost the same as those of Spain, and the Ming army could defeat the Spaniards, so it must be easier to deal with the Portuguese by using the way the Ming army dealt with the Spanish legions.

If you find a problem, you have to solve it, and the lack of artillery and the different systems will not be changed in a while, so the duke decided to start with firepower first.

The Duke of Alva did this very well, and in two months the workers of Mexico City rushed to produce 2,600 light muskets and 400 heavy muskets, which greatly increased the firepower of the Spanish regiments.

However, he encountered some difficulties in the spurs, the land lacked iron, and all the iron that could be collected was used to make muskets, and after trying his best to overcome the difficulties, he found that the cuirass of the musketeers was not enough, and finally made up some chain mail and cotton armor, and the spurs were found to be not suitable for use.

Their muskets were of different calibers, and the spurs either could not be inserted or were put in and dangled, and a bucket fell off the straw man.

And even if the size is very appropriate, it will fall out if you can't poke it twice.

Later, the quick-witted Duke Alva snatched the insoles of half of the Spanish citizens of Mexico City - unlike the Ming Kingdom, their insoles were made of cork, and the craftsmen crushed the insoles to remake them with the wooden hilt, and this time the spurs were finally able to fit in, but they could not be pulled out.

If you can't pull it out, you can't pull it out, the blade is still broken, and the disheartened Duke Alva finally felt that his people in Portugal could not use the stinger, a new thing that those ruffians at sea had never seen, so he simply packed the report and sent it back to Spain, asking King Philip to order the Spanish sword-making center Toledo to create a qualified steel spur.

His confidence in the victory over Portugal was already abundant, and now that he has seen the good aspects of the Ming army, this confidence is even stronger.

In contrast, Mexico City is getting harder.

What do you mean by that? There is no harm without contrast.

If there was no border line of the Ming Dynasty, all Indians would be content with the status quo, and the tribes that rebelled against the Spaniards were suppressed and annihilated everywhere in the south and north, and the impression of the invincible Spaniards had long been deeply rooted in the minds of every Indian, and they could not think of the word resistance at all.

But now it's different, the successive defeats in the battle against the Ming Kingdom have brought trouble to the Duke of Alva not only because he is tired of dealing with Chen Mu, who has a long horn in his head and a tail and is a demon, but also has to deal with the turmoil in Mexico City.

The Ming Kingdom made the Indians live too well, today they fled to the west side of the border with their bare stomachs and bags, and tomorrow they wore cotton clothes and tied their hair in a bun, and swaggered on the border side with a wooden sign indicating Ming Guo's name, resume, village, and work, and bought their relatives from the plantation owner with Tongbao.

The plantation owner can choose not to sell it, of course, but those green cloaks with muskets are looking at you with a smirk - who would dare not sell them?

Alva didn't even know how the news came out, but it was rumored everywhere that slave laborers had lived a much better life after fleeing to the border, and even he had heard that the imperial court that was willing to farm rented a certain amount of land, and planted whatever they liked, as long as they paid the emperor's 'tax' and 'eleventh tax', they were completely free people, no different from immigrants from the Ming Dynasty.

Even if they don't want to farm, there are countless jobs waiting for them, and they can earn a lot of money by raising them.

Alva's Trifecta against the Dutch Warriors: Extermination, Massacre, and Riot Committee, is not working here, and he's driven insane.

At this time, ships from the Old Continent arrived in Havana with exciting news - King Sebastião of Portugal had lost the Mahazan River, the Portuguese army was defeated, and the king fell into the river and drowned!