Chapter 632 Fight (1)

"When I get back here, I will definitely catch this damn guy and hang him on the pier!" Spikes was still full of resentment after boarding the ship, but due to the schedule, he was unable to view the island at the moment.

These natives took retaliatory actions and could only vent their anger by swearing a few words.

Just before boarding the ship and leaving, his men reported to him that two tents were lost in the morning - just after the crew packed up their gear and returned to the ship for breakfast, there were fewer tents camped on the shore last night.

Two tents. There is only a group of indigenous people on the island. There is no doubt that this is a good thing they did, but it is unlikely that the fleet that is eager to set off will stop to find out the truth for the two tents. No matter how angry Spikes is,

I can only take the overall situation into consideration and leave the island with a lot of unhappiness.

"Okay, Mr. Spikes, these monkeys are not the target of our trip, let's focus on our mission!" Brouwer's tone was still cold and emotionless, but judging from his wrinkled face

It can still be seen from his brows that he is also dissatisfied with the situation of the island. If he were not on a mission, perhaps his attacks would be more terrifying than Spikes' methods.

Only Van Longen felt a little relaxed. He just wanted to leave this place quickly and go to the Natuna Islands. At least there were taverns opened by the Dutch on that island and there was basic social order at all, and here it was completely like the original

Society is pretty much the same, chaotic, disorderly, and disorganized.

About 200 nautical miles north from the Tamailan Islands, there is the only port on the main island of Ambuna. There are many islands on both sides of this route, and there have been signs of pirates in previous years. The crew

You must keep your spirits up, because no one knows whether those missing Dutch merchant ships happened in this sea area.

After an uneasy three-day voyage, the outline of the Ambunas Islands finally appeared in the fleet's field of vision, which made every fleet member secretly breath a sigh of relief. Arriving here means that this

Nearly half of the mission has been completed. Although from the perspective of the voyage, it is only about one-third of the entire journey from Batavia to Damian Port, there are almost no opportunities in the next two-thirds of the voyage.

Seeing the existence of a large area of ​​land, the next supply will probably have to wait until about twenty days later.

However, considering that Captain Jonker of Belitung Island had mentioned that a coastal defense fort was being built here, the commanders still did not dare to take it lightly before sailing into the port. Maybe there were pirates nearby.

Only then can we force the old Jansen, who has never been active in infrastructure construction, to organize the construction of fortifications on the island.

About ten nautical miles away from the port, the crew discovered two fishing boats on the sea. However, after seeing the appearance of the fleet, the two boats quickly changed direction and headed towards the port quickly.

"Those seemed to be two Ming-style sailing ships." This discovery made Van Longen a little confused: "Did Old Jansen recruit a group of Ming fishermen to settle here? This has not been seen in recent reports!"

Spikes and Brouwer also noticed the sailing ships leaving quickly in the distance on their respective ships, but they were also not alert to it, thinking that this was just a normal reaction of the Ming immigrants who had just arrived here when they saw a large fleet of ships.

That's all. After all, these immigrants probably had very few opportunities to see this kind of fleet of Western-style sailing ships along the coast of Ming Dynasty before.

The port on Ampurna Island does not have a semi-enclosed bay that goes deep into the land. It is just a bay slightly concave to the land. Therefore, you can have a glance of the situation in the port several nautical miles away from the port.

There is nothing left.

The first thing Van Longen noticed was that there were three sailing ships docked side by side on the pier on the south side of the port. Although they were far apart, he recognized them at a glance as three merchant ships belonging to the East India Company - the company's name was represented on the ship's side.

The VOC (VereenigdeOostindischeCompagnie) symbol was easily visible even from a long distance away. This made him breathe a huge sigh of relief. Who said the merchant ship was missing? Wasn't it a good stop here? Maybe it was just that the ship encountered stormy weather on the way and the ship was damaged.

They were damaged, so they were detained here for repairs. Of course, given the local conditions, it is probably difficult to provide these merchant ships with perfect repair conditions, but this can also explain why these ships disappeared on the way for so long.

"Old Janssen is probably going to be in trouble." Van Longen's thoughts quickly dispersed. According to the East India Company's procedures, such a situation should have been reported to the company headquarters as early as a month ago, and from Damuan Port

Starting from the time when the returning merchant ship did not arrive as scheduled, Batavia has not received any news from Natuna Island so far. This negligence is obviously the responsibility of the old Jansen. Van Longen has even figured out what to do after docking.

The scene of Brower reprimanding Old Jansen with a straight face, after all, the military spent a lot of money to dispatch personnel to go to sea to carry out this search and rescue mission, and this labor-intensive operation and the corresponding expenses were originally unnecessary.

"But the forts in this port are quite well built..." Van Longen also quickly noticed the more than ten coastal defense forts standing all over the port. These forts blocked all the ship docking points and landings in the port in an orderly manner.

The area has obviously been carefully designed. The last time he passed here, there must have been no such fortifications on the shore. This was obviously a newly built project in recent months, which also confirmed what Jonker provided.

The intelligence is indeed true - maybe something did happen here, so that old Jansen had to brace himself to organize and strengthen the island's defense.

In addition to these three East India Company merchant ships, Van Longen also noticed several pointed and narrow-bodied Cantonese sailing ships docked at the port. These ships were not equipped with the large hard sails commonly used by Ming Dynasty sailing ships.

It is a fabric soft sail similar to a Western-style soft sail. Fan Longgen knew that this new type of soft sail was invented and promoted by the Haihan people. It is said that this kind of sail is more flexible than the Chinese hard sail and easier to operate than the Western-style soft sail, and it is equipped with this kind of soft sail.

The speed of the ship has been greatly improved. This is the first time he has seen the actual sail system. He plans to see what is unique about this so-called Haihan sail after getting off the ship.

place.

After all, Van Longen was just a businessman. His attention was almost entirely on the various sailboats docked in the port, but he did not notice the weird atmosphere here. But Spikes and Brouwer were semi-professional soldiers, and their vigilance was obvious. It was much higher than Van Longen. As they approached the port, they discovered something was wrong here on their respective ships.

First of all, there is not even a single offshore ship in the harbor in broad daylight. All the ships within sight are docked on the shore. There is not even a small fishing sampan on the sea. This is very important for a port town. To be honest, it was a bit strange. Secondly, they didn't see a single person either on the shore or on the boat parked at the dock. There were no laborers carrying goods on the dock, no drunken and shouting sailors, and not even a wandering wild dog.

"Sign the flag and tell the fleet to stop and not approach the dock again!" Brouwer gave the order immediately and decisively.

At the same time, Spikes on another troop carrier was also giving orders to the soldiers on board: "Put down your luggage, pick up your weapons, and prepare to fight!"

"What happened?" Van Longen saw the flags displayed by the two troop transport ships, but he still didn't come to his senses for a while.

At the same time, in a fort on the shore, Mu Xiabai held up a telescope to observe the situation at sea and murmured: "They still discovered us!"

Due to the relatively flat local terrain, it is difficult to establish effective early warning observation points near the port. In order to conceal one's identity, the faster Haihan warship cannot be dispatched to patrol the nearby waters. Early warning posts disguised as fishing boats have been This was the ultimate measure that Mu Xiabai could take. When he received the warning, Mu Xiabai also understood that the moment he had been waiting for had finally arrived - the Dutch finally discovered that something was wrong and sent a fleet along the way. Found here.

The garrison stationed on the island received the warning about an hour and a half ago. During this period, all Mu Xiabai could do was to organize combatants to get into position on the front line, and then clear out the people near the dock. It is not that he did not I thought that doing this might arouse the other party's vigilance, but it might be okay for the Portuguese on the island to deceive the Ming Dynasty maritime merchants, but it would be too difficult to deceive the Dutch. Rather than letting them be seen through by the Dutch, it would be better Clear out the dock area and have a good fight with the Dutch.

"It's time to show your true combat effectiveness!" Mu Xiabai gave the order: "Raise the flag and prepare all forts to fire!" He

Of course, they also noticed that the other party's fleet was sending out semaphores, and then the two armed ships immediately slowed down and opened the gun windows on the ship's side. Apparently the other party had noticed the strange situation on the dock and was on alert. It was over. At this point, the battle was imminent and had to be launched.

At this time, Van Longen had noticed that something was wrong on the shore and ordered to stop docking and prepare to turn around. At this time, he saw a flag raised on the top of the warehouse on the dock. This flag was not the tricolor flag of the East India Company, but the tricolor flag of the East India Company. It was a gray flag with a large white Chinese character embroidered on it.

"What the hell is that?" Van Longen quickly asked a Chinese steward on the ship to identify it.

"Captain, that is the word 'Ruan'." After the Chinese steward finished speaking, he saw that Fan Longgen still looked confused. Knowing that he still didn't understand, he further explained: "This is a surname, but Ming does not

It’s common, but it’s more common in Annan Kingdom.”

"Annan Kingdom?" Fan Longgen suddenly came to his senses - wasn't the Ruan family in charge of the southern Annan regime that was wiped out two years ago? Among the various pirate rumors that had been circulated before, one of them said that they escaped

The Ruan clan from Annan gathered and organized an armed force in the South China Sea and started piracy. Judging from the situation on the dock, this organization under the banner of "Ruan" should have taken control of the port. Could it be that they are

The legendary remnants of the Southern ***?

"All personnel enter the combat position!" Van Longen shuddered, and after coming back to his senses, he immediately ordered the entire ship to prepare for battle - since the other party was able to seize the port quietly, it was obviously not a good thing. And the fleet he was in

Breaking in so recklessly was tantamount to throwing yourself into a trap. At this time, looking at the forts on the shore, Van Longen felt that there seemed to be many dark muzzles aimed at him.

However, his premonition was not an illusion. Before the Dutch fleet could figure out how to deal with the strange situation on the shore, the forts on the shore opened fire first. Their targets were the two Dutch ships that were the first to respond.

The warship and more than ten coastal defense guns first launched a concentrated fire attack on the "Victor" where Spikes was located. At a distance of less than 300 meters, the ship was nothing more than a motionless living target. The first

In one round of fire, at least half of the shells hit the 27-meter-long sailing ship, immediately causing double-digit crew casualties.

"These bastards! Fire, fire them all!" Brouwer, who narrowly escaped the first round of shelling, gave the order in shock. However, at this distance, the naval gun equipped by his "Otter" was very effective.

Limited, because the flat firing range of these artillery is generally about two hundred meters, let alone hitting the target, even hitting the shore is a luxury. After all, these artillery were originally designed to be used in naval battles, not from sea to sea.

The land launched an artillery bombardment to compete with the long-range and high-precision coastal defense artillery. As expected, all the shells fired by the "Otter" missed, and only caused a splash of water on the sea.

Van Longen also ordered his ships to fire at this time, but similar to the "Otter", the artillery equipped on these ships was not much better. After all, these were only armed merchant ships, not professional warships, and they were not suitable for use at sea.

It's enough to deal with pirates who don't have thermal weapons, but it's performance is still far behind when it comes to this kind of amphibious assault.

Therefore, this battle also formed a spectacle. The Dutch had much more artillery, and they fought lively but had no effect at all. However, the forts on the shore took aim and fired leisurely, aiming at the nearest ones.

The two Dutch troopships began to roll their names one by one. During the third round of bombardment, a shell directly cut off the mainmast of the "Victor", which almost declared the loss of its ability to move.

Mu Xiabai noticed this detail and immediately turned the forts to focus on the other "Otter" - he did not need to sink these Dutch warships immediately, as long as he could make the opponent lose the ability to move, then he could do it next.

Slowly pick up the pieces in time.

Of course, Broward on the "Otter" also noticed the fatal blows suffered by his colleagues. At the same time, he also realized that his warship was at a disadvantage in terms of artillery range. He had to either get closer to the opponent or retreat quickly to protect himself.

, there is no third way available.
Chapter completed!