Back to Ming Dynasty with Industrial Revolution System

Chapter 1619 Zheng Chenggong's determination
"A total of four treasure ships were captured, two of which were full of cargo and ready to return to Spain, that is, the two ships we saw on the way here, worth a total of 20 pounds, the reason why the other two treasure ships They are still staying in Haiti because they have not collected enough gold and silver goods, and their value together is about 10 pounds. We plan to give you one of the treasure ships worth 5 pounds as a spoil of war What do you think?" Sir Pennington shared the booty with Zheng Zhihu after the battle.

"Yes." Zheng Zhihu knew that he took 5 pounds this time, which is actually a lot. This time, the Royal Fleet and 5000 Irish soldiers led by Prince Rupert were mainly responsible for the capture of Haiti. It's just for auxiliary effect.

"Let's take down other Spanish strongholds in the West Indies next!" Sir Pennington was very excited about the spoils of this war.

Prince Rupert left several hundred infantry to garrison the destroyed fort to prevent the Spaniards from counterattacking, and the rest of the infantry set out on the march again.

This time they attacked the more important stronghold where the Spanish treasure ship was moored-the island of Cuba.

The tactic used by the West Indian Expeditionary Force was still to block the harbor with the fleet, and Prince Rupert led the infantry ashore to clean up the Spanish villages and towns, forcing the Spaniards to surrender.

However, the battle to occupy the island of Cuba had reached a stalemate, where the Spanish garrison was larger, the fortress stronger, and the will to resist stronger.The Irish Legion led by Prince Rupert had difficulty capturing the fortress on the island for a while.

At the same time, malaria, a terrible tropical infectious disease, suddenly broke out in the Irish Legion led by Prince Rupert. Groups of Irish soldiers died on the island of Cuba. The morale of the soldiers was low. They had to return to the ship and gave up attacking the island of Cuba. plan of.

After the adjustment of the naval officers, the British Royal Fleet left the island of Cuba and attacked Jamaica, which was weakly defended.

In less than a day, the Spanish defenders in Jamaica either surrendered or fled to the island of Cuba.

Now the pattern of the West Indies has become that the English occupied the southern islands such as Haiti and Jamaica, while the Spaniards occupied the northern islands such as Cuba and the Bahamas, forming a pattern of North-South confrontation.

"If you want to conquer tropical and subtropical islands, you need to conquer yellow fever and malaria, but there is not enough medicine, and it is not easy. Hundreds of Irish soldiers died before my eyes, and the quinine we carried was not much. , It can only be used by our own people, and it is a drop in the bucket..." Zheng Chenggong recorded the strange experiences of this round-the-world voyage in his logbook in the corner of the deck, and this time he participated in the British Royal Navy's expedition to the West Indies. Undoubtedly an incredible experience.

"What are you writing?" Hannah suddenly appeared beside Zheng Chenggong, curious to see what he wrote in the diary.

Zheng Chenggong put the diaries together: "The logbook, every ship has its own logbook, and I also want to describe the experience of this global voyage to future generations from a personal perspective. If I can become a famous person in the future, Maybe it can be passed down to future generations."

"Can you show me?" Hannah asked.

"No, this is a secret." Zheng Chenggong said.

"Stingy, if you want to pass on the diary to future generations, are you afraid of being seen?" Hannah curled her lips.

"How about the two seriously wounded?" Zheng Chenggong asked.

"They... died of wound infection." Hannah mentioned two classmates who were injured in the battle, her expression became serious, "Once there is a wound on the sea, it will be very dangerous. We lack medicine, and the shells caused damage. The wound was accompanied by blood loss and infection, and I was close to death. I now understand how dangerous it is for the knights of our Knights of the Hospital to go to sea to fight with the Ottoman Empire and Barbary pirates to obtain the supplies needed for survival.”

"The battle on the sea is indeed much crueler than we imagined." Zheng Chenggong had to admit.

When he was a child, he thought that his father was the commander of the Beiyang Fleet. Only then did he gradually understand what the navy and seafaring were all about.

Even the commander of a naval fleet is likely to be hit by shells flying from nowhere while fighting on the deck.It's like Nelson was hit and killed by the opponent's shells when he was fighting the French navy in the original world, and countless naval officers died under stray bullets.

"Try to avoid fighting. If you must fight, you must win quickly and reduce damage. That is to say, fighting at sea should be like lightning, attack quickly and destroy the main force of the enemy as soon as possible." Zheng Chenggong said about the experience of this expedition.

"After this battle, do you still want to be an admiral?" Hannah asked, sitting next to Zheng Chenggong, with her arms around her knees.

"Of course, although it is a very hard job to go to sea to fight, but without such a group of people to defend against the enemy thousands of miles away, how can the safety of the mainland be guaranteed!" Zheng Chenggong said as a matter of course.

The fleet successfully occupied the two important large islands of Haiti and Jamaica, each leaving hundreds of defenders, and did not carry out economic construction for the time being, because the English did not know whether the Spanish would send a fleet to counterattack.

The fleet returned to Barbados, and the three expedition ships were all safe and sound, but more than a dozen soldiers of the circumnavigation fleet died.

Zheng Zhihu asked people to transfer treasures worth 5 pounds from a treasure ship obtained by the circumnavigation fleet to the expedition ship, and the Royal Navy distributed 2 pounds of spoils captured in Jamaica to Zheng Zhihu's fleet to please the queen. ally.

In other words, Zheng Zhihu and others got 7 pounds worth of spoils from this expedition.

Zheng Zhihu had no more sailors under his command, so he left the empty treasure ship to the Royal Navy, and then bid farewell to Barbados, preparing to go to New England in North America, and then follow the ocean current to Europe.

After the Royal Navy occupied Haiti and Jamaica, the soldiers suffered from tropical diseases and were unable to continue to occupy Cuba, so they declared the end of the expedition and prepared to return to England directly from Barbados with a full load of spoils.

"Ling'er, it is estimated that we will arrive in Europe in two or three months, and you will see your father soon." Zheng Chenggong said to Ling'er who was following him.

(End of this chapter)