Chapter 735 The city is broken
Bart actually knew little about Van Diemen's arrangements before the war and was not completely clear. Moreover, there are probably no more than five people in the entire city of Batavia who know the contents of this combat plan, so the information he can reveal to Cheng Dapeng 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 Matalan people failed to capture Batavia in the battle three years ago and finally withdrew in anger, Cohen, the governor at the time, did not take it lightly and believed that this would solve the foreign problem of Matalan 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 engagement. Building fortresses outside the city, expanding garrison troops, upgrading weapons and other measures to strengthen the city's defenses are all to deal with the Ma Da Blue Army who don't know when they will come over again. In addition to these basic war preparation measures, Cohen also prepared It is hoped that this can be used to solve the problem of the war between the horses and the blue people.
Cohen's plan is simple and simple, which is to hide troops outside and deploy a dispersed armed force in the Southeast Asian colonies outside Batavia, only to assemble for unified action during wartime. Of course, this plan is based on his sufficient understanding of the strategic intentions of the Malta Blue Army, and it is determined that the opponent has the city of Batavia as the main target. Otherwise, these armed forces distributed throughout Southeast Asia will be divided by Malta Blue. If they are defeated individually, the game will be 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 Matalan and other countries. The country's trade exchanges - 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. land.
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. By the time they receive the news, many days have passed, and they may not be able to rescue them if they rush back. The enemies who invaded the homeland were blocked. Therefore, Cohen's plan was very extreme. The main purpose was not to return to Batavia and lift the siege, but to destroy the Materan port as the primary task - destroy the Materan port first, and then Think about the rescue in one step.
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 declare its fall before the fleets from various places can return to their defense positions. And even if these fleets can take advantage of the empty enemy base camp to destroy their respective combat targets, it does not mean that their return to defense will definitely solve the siege of Batavia City. They may even lose their own capital. . But after discussing with Van Diemen, Cohen and Van Diemen hit it off immediately and formulated this battle plan without hesitation, determined to use it to end the fight with the Ma Dalan Man.
In addition to their extremely strong adventurous spirit, the more objective reason is that the crusade of the Matalan Kingdom has greatly affected the development of Batavia. It only took less than seven years for Batavia to develop from a seaside town with a population of just over 1,000 people when it was founded in 1621 to a "big city in Southeast Asia" with a population of 50,000. However, it took two consecutive years in 1628 and 1629. The war has slowed down the development momentum of this rapidly developing seaport city. The population has declined instead of rising, and the originally good situation has been cast into a dark cloud.
If the war pace of the Matalan people continues, the city of Batavia will have only two consequences. 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 in the end the Dutch were forced to abandon this place. No matter which outcome, the East India Company cannot accept it, so Cohen and Van Diemen have a mentality of fighting to the death. Even if Batavia cannot be saved, the Materan people must bear the corresponding losses - —By then, what the Matalan people will only snatch is a dilapidated Batavia, and all the domestic ports will be destroyed. Then the regional trade center status they expect will probably not be realized 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, it is still better than being dominated by the horse or 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. Fighting back to Batavia to relieve the siege and cutting off the Malta blue people's maritime supply lines are all possible counterattacks. The difficulty lies in controlling the timing. If the counterattack is too early, the strength of the horse and blue people will be retained. The reinforcements that are sent back may become self-inflicted. If the counterattack is too late, the horse and blue people will receive it. If they safely evacuate the battlefield after the news, or have already captured Batavia City, then the meaning of counterattack is lost.
After all, this is a very risky combat 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 offensive of the Malta Blue Army, 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 I don’t know what month or day that will be.
However, the attacks from the Ma Dalan people continued, and the defenders became increasingly difficult to withstand. 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 he made in need opened their hearts and even such high-level military secrets were leaked to him. Of course, even if Cheng Dapeng is a spy who colludes with the Ma Talan people, there is absolutely no way to pass the news to the local camp at this time. Bart can be sure of this.
Cheng Dapeng quickly recovered from his confusion and asked seriously: "If the city is destroyed, what will Lord Bart do?"
Bart responded decisively this time: "The defenders will retreat into 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 it really gets to that point, soldiers like Bart will probably all die in battle. Cheng Dapeng can feel the determination from his words without saying it too clearly.
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 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," Cheng Dapeng said in his heart after listening to Bart's instructions. Sad, but 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 convened a meeting with his colleagues and believed that for the sake of safety, he should follow Bart's advice and reduce outing activities recently. In addition, a backup version of the intelligence collected so far must be copied as soon as possible and stored in a safe place outside Dacheng Rice Store to avoid being confiscated by Madalan people after the city is broken. Although Bart believes that there will be no problem with the safety of Dacheng Rice Store, it is now a time of war, and no one can guarantee safety issues.
On August 9, the siege of the Malta Blue Army launched the largest offensive since August, investing approximately 20,000 troops in the direction of the north gate of Batavia alone. This is probably the remaining elite force of the Malta Blue Army for this expedition. If Batavia's defense line cannot be captured, then their commander Lang Sang may really need to consider withdrawing his troops. The news of the attack on the old nest had actually reached the front line, but due to the deliberate concealment by the senior officials, ordinary soldiers and low-level officers did not know that the Dutch had launched retaliatory actions on the land of Matalan.
In fact, the North City Gate had lost its gate a few days ago. At that time, the siege engines of the Ma Dalan Men had completely destroyed the city gate. This heavy siege vehicle is actually a huge log with a number of wheels mounted on it, and a solid roof built on top to prevent heavy objects from being thrown and fire attacks on the city wall. Nearly a hundred strong men pushed the siege vehicle. The city car traveled 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, which followed closely behind, failed to seize this excellent opportunity to attack the city because their way forward was blocked. Then the defenders in the city blocked the city gate with stones, destroyed the wheels of the huge siege vehicle, and blocked it in the city gate as well. In this way, even if the horse-defying blue army could capture the city gate again, they would have to do so. It was necessary to use manpower to clear away the giant log, which was nearly ten meters long and held by three people, before we could 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 the city wall. Since almost all the heavy weapons on the city wall had been scrapped during the month-long battle, the Dutch defenders did not have a 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 Matalan soldiers held wooden shields in one hand and sabers in the other, climbing up the ladders as nimbly as monkeys.
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 established a foothold. Bart was very depressed to find that the arrival speed of his reinforcements was not even as fast as the enemy troops climbing up the ladder to the city. Although the defenders were able to gain an upper hand in the kill ratio by relying on certain weapon advantages, they could not effectively change the enemy's momentum of advancing the front line 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 enemies, but immediately surrounded and suppressed the 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 one hundred and fifty soldiers were deployed. Lancer. There are many barricades like this in the city, and the defenders hope that these measures can further delay the enemy's occupation of the city. Even if it's only half a day or even an hour or two, it's good. As long as it's not until the last moment, everyone still has the hope of making a comeback.
Bart and the troops under his command had about half an hour of breathing time, and then they were greeted by another wave of attacks from the Ma Da Blue Men. Due to the lack of heavy weapons, the Ma Da Blue Army who had just climbed to the top of the city were unable to fight back in the face of barricade fire. After leaving more than 20 corpses, they retreated to the city wall. It was obvious that the barricade tactics had played their due role. Before the Malta Blue Army transported artillery into the city, it was difficult to conquer these streets with very narrow offensive surfaces from the front.
The Matalan soldiers were unwilling to charge blindly in this situation. It was another thing to advance on the plains outside the city under enemy artillery fire. After all, only a few people would be hit. However, there is no way to avoid it on the streets of the city. 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, open up another route from the area outside the streets, and bypass the deadly barricades erected by the Dutch defenders.
(End of chapter)