From the bottom of his heart, Shen Yourong did not agree with starting a war against the Zhonghua Company at this time. Firstly, he had a good impression of Yin Feng and did not think that he was bent on rebellion. He was just born overseas and did not know the majesty of the imperial court. He needed to fight and Secondly, although he believed that the Zhonghua Company should not use force against the barbarians in Luzon, Yin Feng's dispatch of troops to Luzon was supported by various merchants on the coast. At this time, the officers and soldiers went to stab Yin Feng in the back. It will alienate the people of Fujian from the government.
Helplessly, the governor, commander-in-chief and other superiors strictly ordered him to go to war. As a standard military man, Shen Yourong had no choice but to obey the order and lead the troops to go to war.
In the past few years, he had already inquired about the defense situation of Penghu through fishermen. In fact, when the officers and soldiers garrisoned Penghu every year, they always got along well with the people of the Zhonghua Company. Even the flood soldiers of Tongshan Water Village in the past two years were all Just going through the motions, I went to Penghu for a few days and then went home. But because of this, the officers and soldiers also knew the Chinese company's defense situation on Penghu Island relatively well.
The China Company's spies in Quanzhou also inquired about the movements of the officers and soldiers. Both Penghu and Taiwan were already prepared, but they did not find out the exact date when the officers and soldiers would send out troops. Shen Yourong got ahead of the commander-in-chief Luo Yiwen and sent out troops without permission. Because of his commanding ability, he forced the navy of the headquarters to travel overnight, led by the Guo brothers who were familiar with the Penghu waterways, and attacked Penghu Island in the middle of the night.
Shen Yourong is such a soldier. Although he does not agree with this action, once he takes action, he will strive to do his best.
Although the Chinese United Company garrison set up an observation post at the southern promontory of Xiyu Island, in the dark night, Shen Yourong took the risk and only let the leading ship light a lantern, and the other warships followed this light. As a result, Xiyu Island Due to negligence, the Chinese company's sentry on the island did not call the police in time, allowing Shen Yourong's 40 warships to rush into the inner sea of Magong Port.
There was a temporary wooden lighthouse on the Tiantian Island in the harbor. It was built by the Chinese Company and was guarded by sentries. Finally, the sentry on the Tiantian Island made an alarm in time and fired a three-pounder cannon in time. Suddenly, the whole bay rang like thunder. The sound of gunfire.
The original garrison of the Chinese Army was at the Niangma Palace, where a fierce battle with the Dutch took place a few years ago. Now, the commercial fortress where the Chinese company's escort team is stationed is at the end of Fenggui on the southern line of Magong Port. The side facing the land has a relatively high terrain. It is high, facing a hilly and gravel land; the other side is close to the bay, and the coastline is completely within the cannon range of the Merchant Fortress. The beach is long and narrow, which is not conducive to enemy landing attacks. The ships of the 12th World War Fleet were anchored at There.
The commander of the warships was the 20-year-old Mai Yazi, a son of the Mai family of the Yazhou Dan people. Although they also received a warning from Quanzhou, they never expected that the officers and soldiers of the navy would dare to make a sneak attack at night. Most of the sailors were still there. Sleeping in the fortress. Under the technical conditions at the time, it was conceivable that a sneak attack at sea would be difficult. It was understandable that they thought so. Although the sailors quickly got up when they heard the sound of cannons, there were only two sailors on duty on the two brigs who were on duty at night. , raised the sails and anchored in time, the rest of the warships were attacked by the fireboats of the officers and soldiers of Wuyu Water Village, and were burned to a mess in an instant. Fortunately, the sailors suffered few casualties, and most of them had not had time to get on the ship. Their warships The boat was already on fire.
Ma Yazi himself stayed on duty on a warship and rushed out of the mooring in time with another ship. He used artillery, gunpowder barrels, and rockets to clear the way. Relying on his familiarity with the waterways, he rushed out of the encirclement of officers and soldiers along the coastline and headed for Taiwan to seek help. However, in order to cover Ma Yazi, the brothers on the other warship took the initiative to turn around and rush towards the officer's warship. As a result, they were attacked by dozens of naval warships and sank in Penghu Bay.
More than 200 sailors who had abandoned their warships retreated to the Merchant Fort in time and assisted the infantry brothers in the garrison to repel Shen Yourong's navy with cannons and rockets.
Shen Yourong's spies had never been able to enter the fort for investigation, so Shen Yourong did not expect that there were cannons and rockets in the small fort, and there were a lot of them.
This fortress is a square building with stone walls, about 70 paces in length and width, with towers at the four corners. The stone wall is about one person high. There are two protruding gun mounts and enemy towers on each side, so there are no blind spots for shooting at the corners. , a trench was dug around the fort, one person wide and one person deep. There were doors on the four sides, and movable suspension bridges were used to enter and exit.
The stone wall is not high, but there is a wooden platform corridor along the wall inside, which is just enough for the defenders to stick their heads out and shoot out of the wall with their muskets. This small fortification was built based on the so-called Italian multi-bastion system. It can give full play to the role of firearms, and the fortress has three twenty-four-pound cast iron cannons, all facing the sea. They are the latest artillery produced by the Chinese company that just arrived a month ago; there are also twelve A light field gun was installed, and all the garrison troops were equipped with flintlock muskets with bayonet mounts. Half of the sailors had matchlocks, and most of the remaining sailors also had crossbows, swords and other hand-to-hand combat weapons on the warships.
According to the configuration of the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty, 80% of the 560 people in the fort owned firearms. This did not include cannons and rockets. The configuration was too luxurious and luxurious.
On Shen Yourong's 40 warships, in addition to a Folan machine gun on each ship, the nearly one thousand soldiers under his command only had fifty gunmen and fifty quick shooters, and the rest were all cold weapons, and, This gun is an improved version of the early Japanese matchlock gun, which is the style that Qi Jiguang got from the Japanese pirates, and was made 80 years ago; the fast gun is a matchlock gun of poorer quality, with no sight or rest, and the range is very short.
Therefore, after Shen Yourong eliminated the Chinese navy warships, he just encouraged his soldiers to launch a landing battle when he was caught off guard by the barrage of artillery, artillery and rockets. Many warships were directly sunk by cannons, and the officers and soldiers were attacked by intensive attacks. Shotguns and lead pellets were used to kill and injure people on the beach. The rest of the people had no experience in firearms warfare and were running around on the beach helplessly.
Shen Yourong was a little confused for a moment, and was about to give the order to retreat when he suddenly saw a rocket coming from the north watchtower facing the sea, trailing a long trail of smoke and making a sharp whistle, and rushed straight towards Shen Yourong. The flagship with the flag.
"Boom," the rocket fell into the sea at the limit of its range, and exploded on the sea more than ten steps away from the sinking ship, raising a ball of flame. This fire can still burn on the sea. This is China's The company's weapons research department had just invented a straight-rod rocket. The warhead carried a large amount of tung oil and gunpowder, specifically used to burn ships.
Although Shen Yourong had experienced hundreds of battles, he had never encountered such a violent firearms attack while fighting at sea, and he couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.
For some reason, the other party suddenly stopped shooting. Shen Yourong didn't think too much about whether it was a scam. He quickly pulled all his soldiers back to the ship, then sailed the ship away from the beach and docked far away from the mouth of Magong Port, about 100 meters away from the Zhonghua Company. The Shangguan Fort is a full five miles away.
Luo Yiwen's fleet of 3,500 soldiers and more than 100 sailing ships arrived at noon the next day, and found that Shen Yourong had taken the lead. Luo Yiwen was very angry, and relying on the support of Commander-in-Chief Zhu Wenda, he seized the opportunity. Shen Yourong scolded him for the hundreds of casualties he suffered when he stormed the beach. Then, he asked Shen Yourong's officers and soldiers to patrol the entrance of Penghu Bay and cool down away from the battlefield. The main offensive force attacking the fortress became Tongshan Water Village. And the officers and soldiers of Zhangzhou Guard and Quanzhou Guard.
The officers and soldiers of Luo Yiwen's unit first occupied Metian Island and Niangma Palace to build forts, and did not attack the Merchant Fortress for three days in a row.
The garrison captain of the Penghu Merchant Fort of the Chinese Company is Zhao Xuanming, the former commander of the second infantry post. He is a nephew of Zhao Tie of Zhaojiao. He once guarded the port and negotiated with the Spanish when the Spanish envoys came to Taiwan. He strictly abided by discipline, so after a few months of training at the military academy, he was transferred to the Penghu garrison as captain.
Zhao Xuanming was very reluctant to be transferred here. He thought he would go to Luzon to fight the Spaniards and avenge his brother. Now that the officers and soldiers came to attack for no reason, he took out his anger on the officers and soldiers. He was in the warship fleet. After the defeat, all Zhonghua Company sentries all over the island were withdrawn into the fort, and several strongholds on Xiyu, Tiantian Island and Niangma Palace were abandoned, and all personnel and materials were concentrated in Fengguiweibao.
When the officers and soldiers did not come to attack, Zhao Xuanming took the initiative and attacked Luo Yiwen's Niangma Palace camp at night. He used a new iron grenade to blow up the entire camp. The officers and soldiers were confused and the pursuing officers and soldiers were not familiar with the roads on the island. As a result, They were attacked again in the dark night, and were killed by a group of sailors who were familiar with hand-to-hand combat. Corpses were scattered all over the place. An officer of the Hundred Household of Zhangzhou Guards who was pursuing them out of the camp was killed in battle. More than 20 officers and soldiers were killed, including those who were blown up by grenades in the camp. They died, trampling each other to death in the chaos. Luo Yiwen's troops killed more than 100 people in one night, and injured countless others.
Luo Yiwen completely underestimated the enemy. He didn't believe what Shen Yourong said: the defenders in the fort had a large number of firearms. He thought this was Shen Yourong's excuse for his defeat.
After the camp was attacked by surprise, he became angry and drove 3,000 officers and soldiers along the coastline to attack Fenggui Weibao Village by land.
Fengguiweibao has a terrain advantage on the land side, coupled with the strong firepower in the fort, the results of the officers and soldiers' attack can be imagined. None of Luo Yiwen's soldiers could even get within 50 steps of the fort. Zhao Xuanming knew that Shen Who is Yourong? Yin Feng once warned them not to conflict with Shen Yourong's troops, so he let Shen Yourong go on the first day of the battle. He couldn't take care of the soldiers in Tongshan Water Village and left the ten gates alone. The field artillery concentrated on the forward line where the officers and soldiers attacked, using intensive shotgun fire to make the officers and soldiers fall in pieces. The 100 soldiers of the garrison were shooting at the top of the wall, and the two rows of 200 soldiers under the wall covered their heads and only loaded ammunition. Then he handed the loaded flintlock musket to his comrades on the wall to shoot. The almost continuous bullets swept down the officers and soldiers holding wooden shields.
The vast majority of the officers and soldiers participating in the war had no experience in dealing with pure firearms warfare. Although they also had cannons, blunderbuss, and bird blunderbuss, the range did not reach the walls of the fort at all. The guns and cannons of the Chinese company's garrison had already hit their heads. As soon as the war began, it evolved into a unilateral massacre of officers and soldiers by the Chinese company's garrison.
In one morning, Luo Yiwen's soldiers killed and injured nearly 600 people. This completely stunned Luo Yiwen. He was completely at a loss and had to retreat to his camp. Unable to defend himself, he abandoned the camp in front of Fengguiweibao. One cannon, several blunderbuss, and countless swords and guns.
After a temporary truce for five days, Luo Yiwen attempted a sneak attack at night. As a result, his soldiers stepped on a mine with a steel wheel ignition device outside the trench of the fort. More than ten people were killed for no reason. The defenders were alarmed and a barrage of bullets Under the attack, he had to retreat. In the days that followed, Luo Yiwen desperately asked Zhu Wenda, the commander-in-chief stationed in Quanzhou, for reinforcements.
Zhu Wenda had no choice but to send more than 1,000 naval troops from Fenghuomen and Nanrishanshui Village and 300 flag troops from Dajin Qianhu Station who were gathered in Quanzhou Port again. The result was the same: it was impossible to approach the Zhonghua Company's fort. .
Therefore, Zhu Wenda mobilized the officers and soldiers of Fuzhou Central Guard, Fuzhou Left Guard, and Funing Guard to gather in Quanzhou, and at the same time urged reinforcements from the Zhejiang General Army.
General Wen Chu under the jurisdiction of the Zhejiang General Army, General Yan Yan from Taijin, and soldiers from the Guards Department had just arrived at Quanzhou Port that day. Zhu Wenda issued a fish ban on this day, which caused resentment among the people along the coast of Fujian.
Zhu Wenda was very confident in the 800 nominal Yiwu soldiers transferred from Zhejiang. They were strong soldiers who became famous during the Qi Jiguang era. They basically retained some of the disciplines and tactics taught by Qi Jiguang. During this period, the Yiwu soldiers were very popular, and they were popular all over the country in the Ming Dynasty. Whenever there is a war in various places, they rush to mobilize soldiers from Yiwu to fight. As a result, the Zhejiang General Soldier, local officials and others constantly complain to the court that Yiwu's population has decreased and it cannot afford more military service. These days, he has been busy coordinating the deployment of troops from various places. It is a rare thing for him to give special treatment to Zhejiang soldiers and provide them with full meals. It is a daily habit for him to deduct the food and salary of his subordinates.
Zhu Wenda stationed 100 soldiers in the Quanzhou government office, and sent dozens of people to monitor near the houses of the Zeng family and Yin Feng family. The Quanzhou government office also sent subordinate officials to help monitor, but Zhu Zongbing did not trust these local government officials. ; These people all have interests with the Zeng family and the Zhonghua Company, so it would be good to hope that they would not do any harm. So on the day when the Zhejiang soldiers arrived, he sent another Baihu official from Fuzhou Zuowei with more than 20 soldiers. Surveillance on the perimeter of Huaxing Co., Ltd.
The fisherman who was beaten on the pier was a Danmin Mihu from Quanzhou. He was not well-known. Everyone called him Li Qi. He was also one of the secret agents of the China Company in Quanzhou Port. He was known as a fish peddler the next day. Observing the situation outside the temporary military camp of the Zhejiang Soldiers outside Quanzhou Port, at night, he secretly sneaked into the area around the north gate of Quanzhou City, only to find that the area around the Huaxing Alliance was guarded by officers and soldiers.
After wandering around for a long time, in the dead of night, he finally got his chance; all the officers and soldiers guarding the back door of Huaxing Union huddled in the corner and fell asleep.
Li Qi took advantage of the cover of darkness in the corner, climbed over the wall and entered the backyard of Huaxing Co., Ltd. He went directly to Xu Xinsu's bedroom by familiar routes, and then gently knocked on the window.
Xu Xinsu, the big shopkeeper of China United Company and Huaxing Co., Ltd., and Huaxing Bank's Fujian branch, was not asleep at all. Hearing the noise, he jumped up from the bed with a flintlock pistol, squatted at the window and asked in a low voice: "Who is it?"
Li Qi replied in a low voice: "I am Qizai."
Xu Xinsu heard the voice of the visitor and hurriedly opened the door to let him in. She had no time to greet him and asked directly: "How are the officers and soldiers doing?"
Li Qi grabbed the teapot on Xu Xinsu's table, took a sip from the spout and said, "We have sent more troops again, this time from Zhejiang. I heard that there are Yiwu soldiers who are very capable of fighting."
"How many people?" Xu Xinsu lit the candle, took out a pen and paper, polished and wrote, and asked at the same time: "In addition to the Yiwu soldiers, there are also other people on the road."
"The Zhejiang soldiers are very tight and they don't let me get close to the camp. I don't know the specific number of people. I watched for a day and it was estimated that more than 3,000 Zhejiang soldiers came. They brought hundreds of ships with some sailors on board. Helmsman, I don’t know how many people there are,”
Xu Xinsu frowned, shook his head and said: "A few days ago, the number of Fujian officers and soldiers reached about 4,000, and this time there were 3,000 Zhejiang soldiers. This General Zhu is so generous. In this war, the total number of officers and soldiers has exceeded 10,000 taels." There are thousands of people, I don’t know what the situation is like in Penghu,”
Li Qi laughed: "Don't worry, big shopkeeper. I heard that the Penghu Fortress is still in the hands of the ship owner. The officers and soldiers suffered heavy casualties, but they just can't be defeated."
Due to the Penghu War, Quanzhou's coastal sea routes were cut off. Xu Xinsu still didn't know the news about Manila's victory. He shook his head worriedly and said: "The disparity in military strength is really huge. I hope the captain's team will come back soon. I only have the last two men left here." It’s just a homing pigeon. After this news was sent out, there was nothing I could do... I hope Penghu can guard it for a while longer.”