Chapter 632 Fight (1)
"When I get back here, I will definitely catch this damn guy and hang him on the dock!" 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 tops. There is only a group of indigenous people on the island. There is no doubt that this is a good thing they did, but the fleet that is eager to set off is unlikely to stop to find out the truth for two tents. No matter how angry Spikes was, he could only consider the overall situation 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 condition of the island. If he hadn't been on a mission, perhaps his attacks would have been 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 run by the Dutch on that island and there was a basic social order at all, and here it was completely like the original Society is pretty much the same, chaotic and disorganized.
About 200 nautical miles north from the Temeilan Islands is the only port on the main island of Ambuna. There are many islands scattered on both sides of this route, and there have been signs of pirates in previous years. The crew must keep their spirits up, because no one knows whether the missing Dutch merchant ships happened in this sea area.
After an uneasy three-day voyage, the outline of the Ambrosia Islands finally appeared in the fleet's field of vision, which made every fleet member secretly breathe a sigh of relief. Arriving here means that nearly half of the mission has been completed. Although from the perspective of the voyage, getting here is only about one-third of the entire journey from Batavia to Damuan Port, but there is almost no chance to see large tracts of land in the next two-thirds of the voyage. Next time Supplies will probably have to wait until about twenty days.
However, thinking 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 are really pirates nearby, which will 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 turned around 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!"
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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 Western-style sailing fleet on the coast of Daming before.
The port on Ambrosia 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 an overview 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 was represented on the ship's side. The VOC (VereenigdeOostindischeCompagnie) symbol is easily visible from a distance. This made him breathe a huge sigh of relief. Who said the merchant ship was missing? Isn’t this a good stop here? Perhaps we just encountered stormy weather on the way and the ship was damaged, so we were stranded here for repairs. Of course, given local conditions, it may be difficult to provide perfect repair conditions for these merchant ships, but this can also explain why these ships disappeared on the way for so long.
"Old Jansen is probably going to be in trouble." Van Longen's thoughts quickly dispersed. According to the procedures of the East India Company, such a situation should have been reported to the company headquarters as early as a month ago. Since the merchant ship returning from Damuan Port did not arrive as scheduled, Batavia has not received any notification so far. According to the past news from Natuna Island, this dereliction of duty is obviously the responsibility of old Jansen. Van Longen had even imagined the scene in which Brower scolded Old Jansen with a straight face after landing. 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 laborious operation and corresponding expenses It's all unnecessary in the first place.
"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 by here, there must have been no such defenses on the shore. This was obviously a newly built project in recent months, which also confirmed that the information provided by Jonker was indeed true - maybe this place is indeed Something happened that forced Old Jansen to brace himself to organize and strengthen the island's defenses.
In addition to these three East India Company merchant ships, Van Longen also noticed several Cantonese-style sailing ships with pointed noses and narrow bodies docked in the port. These ships are not equipped with the large hard sails commonly used by Ming Dynasty sailing ships, but soft fabric sails similar to Western-style soft sails. Van Longen 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 soft sail. Moreover, the speed of ships equipped with this kind of soft sail has been greatly improved. This was the first time he had seen this type of sail system in action. He planned to see what was so unique about this so-called Haihan sail after he got off the ship.
After all, Van Longen was just a businessman. His attention was almost all 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 obviously much higher than that of Van Longen. As they approached the port, they discovered something was wrong on their respective ships.
First of all, there is not even a single offshore boat in the harbor in broad daylight. All the boats within sight are docked on the shore. There is not even a small fishing sampan on the sea. This is very difficult for a port town. It's a bit strange. Secondly, they didn't see even a single person on the shore or on the ship parked at the dock. There were no laborers carrying goods, no drunken and shouting sailors, and not even a wandering wild dog on the dock.
"Sign the flag and tell the fleet to stop and not approach the dock again!" Broward 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 two ships The flags played on the troop transport ship made him unable to recover 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 were still discovered!"
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 nearby waters. Early warning posts disguised as fishing boats have been This is the ultimate measure that Mu Xiabai can 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 something was wrong and sent a fleet to find this place along the way.
The garrison stationed on the island received the warning an hour and a half ago. During this period, all Mu Xiabai could do was organize the combatants to get into position on the front line, and then clear the people near the dock. Mu Xiabai did not expect that doing so might arouse the other party's vigilance, but the Portuguese on the island might be able to deceive the Ming Dynasty maritime merchants, but it would be too difficult to deceive the Dutch. Rather than letting them be discovered by the Dutch, it would be better to clear 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 opponent's fleet was sending out semaphores, and then the two armed ships immediately slowed down and opened the gun windows on the side of the ship. Obviously the other party has noticed the strange situation on the dock and has begun to be alert. At this point, the battle is imminent and must begin.
At this time, Van Longen had already noticed that something was wrong on the shore, and ordered to stop docking and prepare to turn. At this time, he saw a flag raised on the top of the warehouse at the dock on the shore. This flag is not the tricolor flag of the East India Company, but 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 Dynasty 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 destroyed two years ago? Among the various pirate rumors that had been circulated before, one said that the Ruan clan members who escaped from Annam 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. Are they the legendary remnants of the Southern Corruption?
"All personnel get into combat positions!" Van Longen shuddered, and after coming 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 for his own fleet to barge in so recklessly is tantamount to throwing themselves into a trap. Looking at the forts on the shore at this time, 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 fort on the shore opened fire first. Their targets were the two Dutch troopships that were the first to respond. More than a dozen 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. In the first round of concentrated fire, at least half of the shells hit the 27-meter-long sailing ship, causing immediate damage. Double-digit crew casualties.
"These bastards! Fire, fire them all!" Brouwer, who was lucky enough to escape the first round of shelling, gave the order in shock. However, at this distance, the naval guns equipped by his "Otter" can play a very limited role, because the flat firing range of these guns is generally about two hundred meters. Not to mention hitting the target, they can even hit the shore. It's all a luxury. After all, these artillery were originally designed to be used in naval battles, not to launch bombardments from sea to land to compete with long-range and high-precision coastal defense artillery. As expected, all the shells fired by the "Otter" were shot empty, leaving only a splash on the sea.
Van Longen also ordered his ships to fire at this time, but similar to the "Otter", the artillery equipped by his ships was not much better. After all, these are just armed merchant ships, not professional warships. They are enough to deal with pirates without hot weapons at sea, but they are still far behind in terms of performance for such amphibious assault warfare.
Therefore, this battle also formed a spectacle. The Dutch had much more artillery, and the fighting was lively but had no effect at all. The fort on the shore, however, took aim and fired calmly, and began to call the names of the two nearest Dutch troopships. During the third round of shelling, a shell directly cut off the main mast 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, Brower 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.
(End of chapter)