The Chu army is just outside the city, and the senior officials of the Dutch East India Company in the city have made up their minds to fight to the end, trying to hold on for a long time to force the Chu army to retreat on their own.

This kind of thing is not impossible. After all, the Chu Empire is an expeditionary force. Even if troops can be mobilized from the nearby Sumatra Island, many things, especially weapons, equipment and ammunition, still need to be supplied from within the country.

Once the war reaches a stalemate, it will be very uncomfortable for the Chu army besieging Batavia City.

By then, there may not be an opportunity for peace talks.

It is very difficult for any country to mobilize troops overseas, especially large-scale mobilization, even for the Chu Empire.

Although the industrial revolution has begun in the Chu Empire, including trains and ships, and the national strength has been greatly improved, it is still not easy for the Chu army to mobilize large-scale troops overseas.

This is also the reason why in the early years, the Chu Empire established two monopoly armed trading companies, the Western Trading Company and the Eastern Trading Company, to carry out colonial activities in India and America respectively.

The purpose is to obtain enough profits by monopolizing colonial trade to support colonial activities, thereby reducing the official overseas expansion costs.

Therefore, if the Dutch can really defend Batavia City for a year and a half, or even two or three years, the Chu Empire may really consider other ways to solve the problem, such as through negotiation.

But can the Dutch really hold on for a year and a half or even several years?

The Dutch themselves are confident in this and have made full preparations. They have all kinds of materials such as weapons, ammunition, and food. They also have sufficient troops, with about 3,000 Dutch soldiers and more than 5,000 Javanese indigenous soldiers.

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The total strength reaches more than 8,000 people, which is a quite large number, especially for a colonial company!

There are also many kinds of artillery. The garrison in the city and the port fort have more than 30 artillery pieces of various sizes. Later, they brought in more than 50 artillery pieces of various calibers from the abandoned warships in the port.

There are more than 80 artillery pieces in total, and the Dutch in the city can't even find enough gunners to use so many artillery pieces.

Sufficient troops, a large number of artillery, solid city defenses, and sufficient ammunition, food and other supplies.

The Dutch in the city have great confidence in defending Batavia.

In their view, even if the Chu people mobilized 30,000 to 50,000 troops to besiege, they would not be able to defeat it.

As for when the Chu army attacked the indigenous peoples of various Southeast Asian countries, every attack was overwhelming. The Dutch said: I am not one of those indigenous people. How can the fighting power of the indigenous people be compared with that of the Dutch?

The Dutch are so confident, and the Chu army outside the city is even more confident!

Army Major General Wan Binglin never paid attention to these red-haired barbarians. As for the fact that the red-haired barbarians have higher combat effectiveness than the indigenous people, he said it was pure nonsense.

The natives are certainly not very good, but the red-haired barbarians are not very good either. There is no essential difference between the two.

In terms of weapons and equipment, infantry weapons are also mainly equipped with matchlocks and spears. The red-haired barbarians have more matchlocks at most, and they may also be equipped with some flintlock guns with poor performance, but this difference is

It seems that there is no difference between Chu Jun...

Because their infantry fighting method still stays at the same level: mixing musketeers and spearmen, and using dense and deep square formations to fight.

The Chu army also used this tactic in the early years, but that was in the middle and early stages of the Unification War. In the late period of the Unification War, the Chu army had already begun to install flintlock muskets, and some of the main forces had begun to adopt line tactics.

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Today, in the 23rd year of Chengshun, not to mention, the main force of the Chu army has begun to install percussion rifles. They have been practicing various line tactics for 20 years and have already become proficient in them.

Incomparable.

Under the volleys of line infantry, those arquebusiers and spearmen mixed in dense formations were living targets.

In terms of artillery equipment, although both sides use front-loading smoothbore cannons, there are huge differences even with front-loading smoothbore cannons.

Just like the first Opium War in the original time and space, both the Qing army and the British army used front-loading smoothbore cannons, but the British army's front-loading smoothbore cannons defeated the Qing army's front-loading smoothbore cannons throughout.

Because there is a huge gap in artillery performance between the two sides.

This performance gap is caused by industrial strength. When the Qing army was still using various traditional methods to cast pig iron artillery, the British had already used various industrial equipment to drill and expand the diameter to produce artillery.
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Coupled with the gap in smelting technology, this will lead to a huge gap in the weight, ability to withstand chamber pressure, and shooting accuracy of the artillery on both sides.

The artillery gap between the Qing army and the British army in the original time and space is exactly the gap between the Dutch and Chu troops today.

Although their artillery is all front-loaded smoothbore cannon, the performance gap is huge.

Even the actual gap is even greater, because in the original time and space, the British army did not use grenades with wooden sabots and metal disc fuses on a large scale. They still used traditional solid artillery shells and wooden fuse grenades, and there were no sabots.

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However, the Chu army installed grenades on a large scale with wooden sabots and metal disc fuzes.

The Chu army has always attached great importance to the development of artillery, and also attached great importance to the development of grenades. When fighting, they usually fire grenades for free.

To a certain extent, the current artillery technology of the Chu Army is ahead of other domestic industries. Up to now, its overall technical level has been equivalent to the mid-19th century in original time and space, which was the period of the American Civil War.

Relatively speaking, the development of infantry weapons has been slower, and its flash cap percussion guns are probably equivalent to the level of the 1820s.

Whether it’s artillery or muskets, the Chu army’s equipment is at least several generations ahead of the Dutch!

The Dutch are not even equipped with reliable and mature flintlock guns, and they have not even begun to engage in line tactics, but the Chu army has already begun to play with percussion guns.

The gap between early flintlock guns and flash cap percussion guns, according to the original time and space, is a gap of at least two hundred years!

The above is only the lead in weapons, and Major General Wan Binglin's confidence comes not only from the lead in weapons, but also from the advanced tactics brought about by the lead in weapons.

Weapons are never alone.

The emergence of new weapons can bring about changes in tactics.

The emergence of the arquebus led to classic tactics such as the Spanish phalanx, the Dutch phalanx, and the Swedish Gustav phalanx.

The emergence of flintlock guns led to the emergence of line tactics, which developed to its peak in the era of flash cap percussion guns and Mini rifles.

When breech-loading rifles mature and are used, skirmishing tactics will naturally appear... Then with the gradual emergence of magazine rifles, machine guns, semi-automatic rifles, automatic rifles, etc., the combat width of infantry will become wider and wider.

, the distance expanded from about three meters to five meters, six meters or even more than ten meters.

In the line era, the combat width of a division was only one or two thousand meters or even hundreds of meters; during the Franco-Prussian War, the combat width of a division was only a few kilometers; but during World War II, the combat width of a division could reach more than ten kilometers.

; As for modern warfare, it is even wider. It is common for a highly mechanized combined division to control battlefield areas dozens of kilometers wide and hundreds of kilometers deep.

Advanced weapons also brought great changes in tactics to the Chu army.

When the Dutch and a large number of European countries still stayed in the Gustavus Square, the most they could do was increase the proportion of musketeers to about 70 or 80%, and began to use less reliable fusiliers.

The army has already mastered line tactics.

When the artillery units of those European armies were still supporting infantry operations, simply firing solid artillery shells to attack enemies hundreds of meters away during battles, and there were not even many specialized artillery units, the artillery units of the Chu Army had already

After more than ten years of infantry and artillery coordination, various specialized artillery units have already been established.

And grenades were widely used in battles, and the artillery range in the field was extended to more than a thousand meters.

The 13-year-old 115mm field gun, the most commonly used in the army, has an effective range of 1,300 meters when firing solid shells. Its latest improved version, the 13-year-old Type A-2 115mm field gun,

Because the elevation angle has been increased, the bore accuracy has been improved, and the propellant has been improved, its effective range can reach an astonishing 1,500 meters, and the maximum range can reach 1,900 meters.

However, the field artillery of the same level used by contemporary European countries, including the Dutch, that is, the twelve-pound field artillery, has an effective range of only five or six hundred meters, not more than seven or eight hundred meters... In this way, it is often better than Chu's.

The military’s 13-year-old improved field gun is even heavier...

The gap between the two sides is all-round!

From weapons to tactics, and even the combat qualities of the soldiers on both sides, everything is covered.

Wan Binglin didn't believe that the Dutch soldiers on the opposite side could open their bellies and eat whatever they wanted every day, and then undergo high-intensity professional training for many years. This can be seen from the size of the Dutch soldiers on the opposite side.

Although the distance is still quite far, Army Major General Wan Binglin can still clearly see some of the other side's soldiers on the top of the city through a monocular telescope.

These soldiers are generally not very tall, and they are also relatively thin. Unlike the soldiers from the Chu army, all of them are over 1.7 meters tall, and they are all very strong.

Whether this soldier's fighting ability is strong or not can be seen to some extent from his body shape.

This does not mean that tall and powerful soldiers must be strong in combat, but that soldiers who are thin and weak must have poor food. If the food is not good, they cannot accept high-intensity daily training.

If daily training is not sufficient, do you believe how powerful he is in combat?

The Dutch soldiers on the opposite side didn't look like they had enough to eat and received high-intensity training every day.

Even the Dutch soldiers were like this, not to mention the Javanese indigenous soldiers beside them. They were all very thin. Just like this kind of Javanese indigenous soldiers, with bare hands, the soldiers of the 14th Division under Wan Binglin

I dare not say that one will hit ten of them, but if I kick them hard, they will definitely knock one of them away!

After all, he is one of the few first-class combat-ready divisions in the Chu Empire, and the conditions for selecting new recruits are relatively higher.

At the same time, the new recruits in the army are all the new generation of young people who grew up after the establishment of the empire. The average height of the younger generation is much higher than that of the older generation. There are many boys aged 17 or 17 who are over 1.7 meters.
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Therefore, the average height of soldiers in the 14th Division is 1.72 meters, which is much taller than the average height of 1.67 meters in ordinary troops.

They are much taller than the Dutch soldiers opposite, and much taller than the indigenous Javanese soldiers.

For example, Lawrence, who has now sneaked into the city to hide, has a very typical Dutch appearance, with light blond hair that looks like red, blue eyes, a tall nose, and clear facial contours.
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If you are as tall as the northern Europeans of later generations, dress appropriately and pay attention to hygiene, then you will be a very typical handsome European guy.

It is a pity that Lawrence, who has been serving in overseas colonies for many years to earn a living, is dirty all over his body, and exudes an unbearable rancid smell because he has not showered for a long time. His red hair is already greasy, knotted and wrinkled.

Stick it on your forehead.

The most important thing is that he is not tall, only 1.63 meters tall, which is completely different from the Dutch who will be the tallest in the world in later generations!
To be continued...