Chapter 735 The city is broken

Bart actually knew a little about Van Diemen's arrangements before the war, and was not completely clear about it. Moreover, there were probably no more than five people in the entire city of Batavia who knew the contents of this combat plan, so he could reveal it to Cheng.

Dapeng's information is also very limited. However, Cheng Dapeng's guess based on the battle situation over the past month is indeed very close to the facts, and is basically consistent with Bart's own guess.

To be precise, Van Diemen's pre-war arrangements were conceived by the late Governor Cohen. Although the Matarans failed to capture Batavia in the battle three years ago, and finally withdrew in despair,

But the then Governor-General Cohen did not take it lightly and thought that this would solve the foreign problem of Matalang once and for all. In the three years after the war, and until his death, Cohen did not relax in preparing for the next possible war.

.Building fortresses outside the city, expanding garrison troops, upgrading weapons configuration and other measures to strengthen the city's defense are all to deal with the Ma Da Blue Army who do not know when they will come over again. In addition to these basic war preparation measures, Cohen also prepared

I have used extra moves in the hope that this can solve the problem of the warlike momentum of the horse and the blue people.

Cohen's plan is simple and simple. It is to hide troops outside and deploy a dispersed armed force in the Southeast Asian colonies outside Batavia, and only assemble it in time of war to take unified action. Of course, this plan is based on

Based on his sufficient understanding of the strategic intentions of the Matalan Army, he determined that the opponent had taken the city of Batavia as the main target. Otherwise, if these armed forces distributed throughout Southeast Asia were defeated by Matalan separately, then this would

The game was completely ruined.

According to Cohen's plan, these armed ships and personnel will take action the next time the Matalan people send troops to attack Batavia. They will launch operations in the South China Sea in the form of armed fleets and destroy the main ports of the Matalan Kingdom.

.As a regime whose territory is spread over Southeast Asian islands, the importance of ports is self-evident. If this battle plan succeeds, it will greatly shake the foundation of Matalan’s rule, and will greatly affect the relationship between Matalan and the country.

Trade exchanges with other countries - One of the main reasons why Laden Langsang persevered in attacking Batavia was to seize this important trading port known as the trade capital of Southeast Asia, and Cohen's operational intention was to attack it and save it.

place.

Of course, the Matalan people may not necessarily withdraw their troops to rescue the area under attack, because the timeliness of the dissemination of news is limited. When they receive the news, many days have passed, and they may not be able to rescue them if they rush back.

The enemy who invaded his homeland was blocked. Therefore, Cohen's plan was very extreme. It was not aimed at returning to defend Batavia and lifting the siege. Instead, the main purpose was to destroy the Port of Matalan - destroy it first.

If you lose your horse and attack the blue port, consider the next step to rescue the siege.

This is a very risky approach, because the city of Batavia is very likely to be unable to withstand the offensive of the Malta Blue Army and fall before the fleets in various places can return to their defense positions. And even if these fleets can take advantage of the empty enemy base camp

When they destroyed their respective combat targets, it did not mean that their return to defense would definitely solve the siege of Batavia City. They might even lose their own capital. But Cohen and Van Diemen hit it off after discussing it.

, formulated this battle plan without hesitation, determined to use it to end the fight with the Ma Dallan people.

In addition to their extremely strong adventurous spirit, the more objective reason is that the expedition of the Matalan Kingdom has greatly affected the development of Batavia. Batavia had a population of just over a thousand when it was first founded in 1621.

It only took less than seven years for a seaside town to develop into a "big city in Nanyang" with a population of 50,000. However, the two consecutive years of war in 1628 and 1629 slowed down the development of this rapidly developing seaport city.

The population size has declined instead of rising, and the originally promising situation has been cast into a dark cloud.

If the war pace of the Matalan people continues, Batavia City will have only two endings. One is that it will be captured by them and become the territory of the Matalan country; the other is that it will be destroyed by successive wars and unable to conduct trade.

It went into decline and eventually forced the Dutch to abandon this place. No matter which outcome, the East India Company could not accept it, so Cohen and Van Diemen had a mentality of fighting to the death, even if Badawi could not be saved.

Asia, the Matalan people must also suffer corresponding losses - by then the Matalan people will only snatch a dilapidated Batavia, and all domestic ports will be destroyed, then the regional trade center they expected

The status may no longer be achieved in the short term.

The worst outcome is that Batavia is captured and the East India Company headquarters is destroyed. However, after the Dutch fleet destroys the ports in Matalang, it may be able to plunder a fortune and start building strongholds elsewhere. Although

This result hurts both sides, but it is still better than being dominated by the horse and the blue man or being dragged to death.

But if the Dutch are lucky enough and Batavia City still holds on after realizing this strategic intention, then there will be other things to do. Fight back to Batavia to rescue the siege and intercept Ma Dalan.

People's sea supply lines are all counterattack methods that can be adopted. The difficulty lies in controlling the timing. If the counterattack is too early, the horse will defeat the blue man and retain more strength. The reinforcements that are sent back may become self-destruction.

The trap was set, and the counterattack was too late, so that the Ma Dalan people could safely retreat from the battlefield after receiving the news, or the city of Batavia had already been captured, so the meaning of the counterattack was lost.

After all, this is a very risky battle plan. Any accident may make all deployments useless, but the Dutch still boldly implemented this plan. When Bart and other Dutch soldiers fought bravely on the city wall to resist the Ma

During the Blue Army's offensive, they still had some hope in their hearts that they might be able to hold on to the city until the reinforcements came back - although most people didn't know the specific month or day that would be.

However, the attacks from the Ma Dalan people continued, and the defenders became increasingly difficult to resist. Seeing that the city was about to be destroyed, Bart also had some doubts about whether he could survive until the dawn of dawn, so he turned to Cheng Dapeng, a recent newcomer.

The friends in need opened their hearts and even such high-level military secrets were leaked to him. Of course, even if Cheng Dapeng was a spy who colluded with the Ma Talan people, there was absolutely no way to pass the news to the local camp at this time.

In the end, Bart is certain of this.

Cheng Dapeng quickly recovered from his confusion and asked seriously: "What will Lord Bart do if the city is destroyed?"

Bart responded decisively this time: "The defenders will retreat to the Council Castle in the city center and resist until the last moment!"

The Parliament Castle is located in the city center, but this so-called castle does not have many strong fortifications to speak of. The approximately three-meter-high wall hardly plays a defensive role, and there are no trenches or other obstacles on the periphery to stop the enemy.

Offensive. Even if the Dutch retreat, it's hard to say whether they can hold out for two or three days. If they really get to that point, all soldiers like Bart will probably die in the battle. Needless to say, Cheng Dapeng can also

Feel the determination in his words.

Bart, in turn, comforted Cheng Dapeng and said: "Starting tomorrow, you should stop coming to deliver food. It is best to cancel all outings and wait for the war to end at home! You are the main food supplier in the Batavia area.

After the Matalan people occupy this place, they will not be able to provide food supplies for the tens of thousands of people in Batavia on their own in the short term, so they won't do anything to you, don't worry."

Although Cheng Dapeng felt sad after listening to Bart's advice, he was not so impulsive that he wanted to live and die with the Dutch. He could only give Bart a few words of comfort. After returning to Dacheng Mihang that night, Cheng Dapeng summoned his colleagues

They held a meeting and thought that for the sake of safety, they should follow Bart's advice and reduce their outing activities recently. In addition, a backup version of the intelligence collected so far should be copied as soon as possible and stored in a safe place outside Dacheng Mihang to avoid future leaks.

After the city was breached, the house was ransacked and confiscated by Madalan men. Although Bart believed that there would be no problem with the safety of Dacheng Rice Store, it was now a time of war, and no one could guarantee safety issues.

On August 9, the siege of the Mata Blue Army launched the largest offensive since August. In the direction of the northern city gate of Batavia alone, about 20,000 troops were invested. This is probably also the reason why the Mata Blue Army

The remaining main force of the Blue Army in this expedition is elite. If Batavia's defense line cannot be captured, then their commander Lang Sang may really need to consider withdrawing his troops. News of the attack on the old nest has actually reached the front line.

However, due to the deliberate concealment of the high-level officials, ordinary soldiers and low-level officers did not know that the Dutch had launched retaliatory actions on the land of Matalan.

The North City Gate actually lost its gate a few days ago. At that time, the city gate was completely destroyed by the siege engine of the Ma Dalan Men. This heavy siege engine was actually mounted under a huge log.

It was mounted on several wheels, and a strong roof was built on it to prevent heavy objects from being thrown from the city wall and fire attacks. Nearly a hundred strong men pushed the siege vehicle all the way to the north city gate, and then directly hit the city gate with logs.

The defenders tried various methods, but failed to stop the Matalan people's offensive regardless of casualties. In the end, the two city gates collapsed.

However, thanks to Van Diemen's advance arrangements, after the city gate collapsed, several artillery pieces immediately bombarded the siege vehicles that had not yet evacuated to make way.

They all died under intensive close-range artillery fire. The Ma Da Blue Army that followed was unable to seize this excellent opportunity to attack the city because their way forward was blocked. Then the defenders in the city used stones to attack them.

The city gate was blocked, and the huge siege vehicle was blocked in the city gate after destroying its wheels. In this way, even if the horse-defying blue army could capture the city gate again, they would still have to use manpower to clear out the three-dimensional siege engine.

Only when people hug each other can a giant log nearly ten meters long enter the city.

However, the offensive launched by the Malata Blue Army on the 9th no longer focused on capturing the city gate, but once again used the tactic of massively climbing on the city wall. Since almost all the heavy weapons on the city wall had been removed during the month-long battle,

Scraped, the Dutch defenders had no good way to prevent the Malta blue army from quickly approaching the city wall. Soon hundreds of siege ladders were erected outside the city wall. The Malta blue soldiers held wooden shields in one hand and swords in the other.

, climbing up the ladder as flexibly as a monkey.

Although Bart mobilized three reserve teams in a row, the area on the city wall where he was was still quickly climbed to the top of the city by the enemy and gained a foothold. Bart was very depressed to find that the speed at which his reinforcements arrived was even slower than

The enemy troops climbed up the ladder to the top of the city. Although the defenders were able to gain an upper hand in the kill ratio with certain weapon advantages, they could not effectively change the enemy's momentum of advancing into the city step by step.

"Lord Bart, Lord Van Diemen requires you to lead your team to withdraw into the city immediately!"

The military order brought by the messenger forced Bart to abandon the city wall defense line that was about to be completely lost, and let the musketeers cover the spearmen's retreat from the front line. The enemy troops occupying the city wall were not in a hurry to pursue the retreating people.

Instead of attacking the enemy, they immediately surrounded and suppressed the small garrison teams that had not had time to withdraw from the city wall.

Bart quickly led his troops to evacuate to a barricade about two hundred meters away from the city wall. Two six-pound cannons were set up on the five-meter-wide street, and based on this, two teams of musketeers and about 150 soldiers were deployed.

Spearmen. There are many barricades like this in the city. The defenders hope to use these measures to further delay the enemy's occupation of the whole city. Even if it is only half a day or even an hour or two, it is good, as long as it does not reach the end.

For a moment, everyone still had hopes of a comeback.

Bart and the troops under his command got about half an hour of breathing space, and then they ushered in another wave of attacks from the Mata Blues. The Mata Blues, who had just climbed to the top of the city, lacked heavy weapons and were overwhelmed by barricade artillery fire.

There was no way to fight back. After leaving more than 20 corpses, they retreated to the city wall. Obviously, the barricade tactics played their due role. Before the horse and blue army transported the artillery into the city, it was difficult to conquer from the front.

These attack surfaces are very narrow streets.

The Matalan soldiers were not willing to charge blindly in this situation. It was another matter to brave enemy artillery fire on the plains outside the city. After all, only a few people would be hit. However, inside the city

There is no way to escape on the streets, and the only result of rushing up is to become cannon fodder.

Some officers quickly found other ways, directing soldiers to rush into houses in the city and open up another marching route from the area outside the streets, bypassing the deadly barricades erected by the Dutch defenders.
Chapter completed!