Note 29 — Relation of the Insurrection of the Chinese

The weapons that the Sangleys collected, besides some few firearms, were: javelins and Japanese catanas, fastened to poles (and some were made in Manila), some of these weighing more than an arroba, which will indicate the force with which they could be used; sickles and pruning-hooks, also fastened to poles; iron tridents; and bamboos with sharp points hardened in fire, four or five brazas in length. They also carried away the iron from the houses and churches that they burned, and whenever they were left undisturbed in any encampment, they set up their forges and made weapons, in order that no one might he unprovided with them. The men were divided into tens, like [the Roman] decurias, so that the exact number of their men was known; and, of each ten, six fought, and four were responsible for their food, in order that the fighting men might be entirely relieved from that work.29 They did not fight all at one time, but only three from each decuria, in order that while these were fighting the others might rest, and thus always they could have men who could enter the battle in fresh condition. They employed stratagems in fighting—in the beginning, when they had not so many arms, they made sham weapons, covering these with cloth, so that they looked like steel. In their camp near Sanpaloc,30 in some towers that they built they placed straw figures of Sangleys, so that our infantry might fire at these and use up their bullets, and then the Sangleys could, without risk of being hit, rush to attack our men.