Nanming Yiming

Chapter 165 The Dutch Come to Disrupt the Situation
Liu Yichen said happily: "It seems that these Suzhou businessmen are still very knowledgeable about current affairs. They volunteered to donate money and food, and even helped us build our defense line."

Qian Mo said: "A group of old foxes, if they don't take the initiative to donate, will the governor let them go?"

"The Chengxi line of defense was built for them. Now these profiteers not only asked the governor to owe them a favor, but also sent us a mission."

Liu Yichen thought so too, according to his father's temperament, he would definitely find a way to make them pay the money.Now they take the initiative to donate, not only sold well, but also successfully achieved the purpose of opening up business routes.

When the Ming army regained the state capital, they usually found an excuse to punish a group of big traitors and confiscate their property.

But in the most affluent Suzhou Prefecture, there are no big businessmen to let them take advantage of it. The income here is much less. This is really a bunch of profiteers.

Qian Mo said: "These old foxes are not so easy to deal with; Suzhou has always been the area where Daming's tax resistance is fiercest. It is impossible for them to report as a group like now. The Intelligence Department must find a way to develop our people among them , so as to divide them."

Liu Yichen said: "There are also some of us among the businessmen in Suzhou. The humble officials must work hard to divide them; the Zhoushan Intelligence Department has long been infiltrated, and now it has made a breakthrough. It will definitely help the army take Zhoushan smoothly."

Qian Mo said: "Conquering Zhoushan mainly depends on the naval battle. Now it is in our hands. As long as the Zhoushan Navy is defeated, Huang Binqing is a turtle in an urn. Order the Zhejiang Navy to block the Zhoushan Islands and wipe out the Zhoushan Navy!"

Huang Binqing once ushered in the highlight moment of his life after he changed from Su Lubo of the Ming Dynasty to Duke Yue of the Qing Dynasty.Even after sending troops to capture Chongming, he still wanted to capture King Lu and let the Qing court honor his title.

But at the moment he is not in a good mood.

Because he heard that Qian Mo had been canonized as Duke of Yue by Emperor Yongli, it was obvious that Yongli wanted Qian Mo to deal with him.There is a saying that one mountain cannot accommodate two tigers, and now there are two Dukes of Yue, which obviously means to make them fight to the death.

Originally relying on the sharpness of the navy, Huang Binqing was not afraid of Qian Mo.No matter how powerful the Ming army is on land, it can't threaten his Zhoushan. He is still the Duke of Yue who lived in Zhoushan.

But since the two giant ships suddenly appeared in the Zhejiang Navy, everything has changed.

The Ming army directly relied on the sharpness of the navy to expel the Zhoushan navy in the sea off Ningbo, and even directly occupied Dinghai and Dingguan, and drove Huang Binqing out of Ningbo abruptly. Now he has become the "Zhoushan island owner" .

The point is that his island master's strength is not as good as before. Since he landed in Ningbo, he has been beaten by the Qing army and the Ming army successively, and lost more than 2 horses.Although there are still 2 people on the island today, more than half of them are recruits he forced, and the original old team has been folded in Ningbo.Several of the generals under his command also died and surrendered.

What's even worse is that the strength of his Zhoushan navy has also shrunk severely. He had several encounters with the Ming army's Zhejiang navy, which can be said to have suffered heavy losses, and he completely gave up the command of the sea along the Ningbo coast.

Now he can only huddle among the islands of Zhoushan, fearing that he will be wiped out by the Ming army.

After many inquiries, Huang Binqing found out that the huge ship in Qian Mo's hand was bought from a Portuguese businessman in Macau.So in order to keep his rights in Zhoushan, the world town, Huang Binqing also fought hard.The foreign devils with boats are not limited to the Portuguese in Macau. Since Qian Mo can buy them, so can he.

So as soon as Huang Binqing gritted his teeth, he found the Dutch entrenched in Taiwan.Although he knew that he was seeking skin from a tiger, he had no choice but to fight desperately.

Wang Sihai is the largest maritime merchant in Ningbo and also Huang Binqing's spokesperson in the business world.Soon he used his relationship to get in touch with a Dutch businessman doing business in Japan, and expressed his intention to buy warships from the Netherlands, and said that money was not a problem.

After spending a lot of money, he was finally received by the Governor of Taiwan, Auward.

So Wang Sihai and his party came to Zeelandia City in Tainan.

In September 1624, the Dutch armed fleet commanded by Song Ke arrived in Taiwan after leaving Penghu Fenggui.At that time, the Dutch, who pretended to be pitiful, proposed that they only need to borrow "a place the size of a cowhide". Of course, the kind-hearted Chinese believed it, thinking that the Dutch only needed a small place to park their ships and disembark, so they agreed. .

How big is a cowhide in the eyes of the colonists?The Dutch colonists first occupied Kunsha, which is today's Anping area in Tainan, and built the "Orange City" on a large scale.When the local Chinese asked the Dutch to promise "a place as big as a piece of cowhide", the shameless colonists actually divided a piece of cowhide into very thin leather lines and connected them to enclose the land. This is "a piece of cowhide".Orange City was later changed to a "state" of the Netherlands, named "Zelandia City", and became the "Governor's Palace" of the Netherlands in Taiwan.The inner city was completed at the end of 1632, and the outer city was completed 2 years later. It was the first stronghold of foreign invaders established in Taiwan, China.

Wang Sihai was stunned when he saw this strange-shaped castle, but he didn't expect that there are already several such bastions in the northern Zhejiang area.

Of course, the bastion built by the Ming army with "fairy lime" is much smaller in scale than that of the Dutch.

Soon he met Owald, the governor of Taiwan in the Netherlands at this time.

When Owald heard that he was going to buy the largest warship in the Netherlands, he smiled maliciously.

He said: "My friend from the East, I know that the largest three-masted warship of the Zheng family is only 400 tons in size; currently the largest warship of the East India Company in Taiwan is the 860-ton Rotterdam, which is not something you can buy with money. Arrived."

"Any Western country will not sell such warships to you."

After all, Wang Sihai is also a big businessman who has seen the world. He said: "My lord, as far as I know, the Putao people in Macau sold a warship of similar tonnage to the Ming army in Hangzhou."

"As you said, under normal circumstances the Portuguese would not sell such warships to them. I think they must have reached an agreement."

When Wang Sihai said this, Owald quickly realized that the two parties must have reached a deal.Although the Dutch will not participate in the struggle between the Ming and Qing Dynasties, they are still very clear about the situation in mainland China.The newly-emerged governor of Ming Dynasty controlled the main producing areas of foreign trade commodities such as silk and tea.

The Portuguese must have sold the Lisbon to the Ming army in order to monopolize trade.

The Dutch East India Company has more than 800 armed merchant ships in Batavia and is the most powerful presence on the seas of East Asia.But the Rotterdam, the strongest in Taiwan, is about the same tonnage as the Lisbon.However, the Portuguese Lisbon is an old warship, and Oward is still confident that he can sink the Lisbon.

But it was clear that Huang Binqing did not have the strength of Qian Mo, and it was not worth selling the warship to him from the Dutch.

So Owald said: "The Rotterdam is our flagship, and it is impossible to sell it to you."

"However, I can consider renting the Rotterdam to you temporarily!"

Hearing this, Wang Sihai was overjoyed. Anyway, their purpose was to sink the Ming army's giant ship, and renting a ship was fine.Quickly asked: "I don't know how to collect the rent?"

Owald said: "You first deposit 20 taels of silver here. The daily rent of the Rotterdam is 2000 taels of silver. The losses in the naval battle will be calculated separately. You have to give us 10 taels of silver for the Lisbon that sank the Ming army." bounty."

Wang Sihai gasped, this is a sky-high price to rent a boat, 6 taels of silver a month, and the price of renting for 3 months can directly buy one.

Now that Zhoushan is in danger, it seems that the Dutchman has decided on himself, and he has no choice but to agree to this lease plan.

Fortunately, the distance between Taiwan and Zhoushan is not too far, and soon the giant ship arrived at the Zhoushan Islands.

When the huge figure of the Rotterdam appeared, Zhoushan was almost empty, and everyone came to the pier to admire the elegance of this giant ship.

Huang Binqing is also in a good mood at the moment. It seems that Zhoushan's morale has fully recovered.However, the sky-high rent forced him to take the initiative.

Under the leadership of the Rotterdam, the Zhoushan Navy, which had been hiding for a long time, was dispatched again, and they came to the sea off Ningbo.

A patrol ship of the Ming army quickly discovered the enemy's situation. When he saw this huge ship, he was also taken aback, and at first mistook him for his own Hongwu.

However, the roaring artillery immediately made him see the situation clearly.The captain shouted: "The enemy ship is attacking, the left rudder is full, and withdraw from the battlefield at full speed."

Brent on the Rotterdam said lightly: "Catch him and sink him directly!"

Soon the patrol ship of the Ming army entered the range of the Rotterdam. This battleship was equipped with 54 12-pound cannons, even 6 more than the Hongwu.

After only one round of salvo, the No. 2 Fuchuan of the Ming army was hit by artillery, and the huge explosion directly blew the hull into two halves, and slowly sank into the sea.

Of course, the Zhoushan navy is familiar with this scene. This is how they were beaten up by the Zhejiang navy before, and now they are finally proud.

But this joy did not last long, and soon a large number of warships appeared in the distance, and it was the Zhejiang Navy of the Ming Army that appeared.

Brent didn't care at first. Although the Lisbon in the opponent's fleet was a warship of the same tonnage as his own, he knew that the Portuguese warship had been in service for a long time, and it didn't have an advantage in terms of speed and artillery.

But soon his face changed, because there were four 4-ton warships beside the Galen sailing ship of the Ming army, and he let these cunning yellow-skinned monkeys play tricks on him.

In a one-on-one situation, he is still very confident that he can sink the opponent. Now one-on-five, what are you kidding?However, he still wanted to teach the Ming army navy a lesson. He decided to use his advantage in speed to fire on the weaker 600-ton warship first.

After giving the opponent a certain amount of deterrence, he then took advantage of his own speed and withdrew from the battlefield.

After all, although the other party concealed the strength of the Ming army, it cost money. If he retreated without firing a shot, he would not be able to explain it.

Soon the Rotterdam left the Zhoushan Navy behind and headed directly towards the Zhejiang Navy.

At this time, Raphael, the Portuguese first officer on the Hongwu, also recognized the Dutchman, and he said, "Zeng Zongbing, this is the Dutchman's Rotterdam, and its performance is slightly stronger than that of the Hongwu."

In addition to the Hongwu, four 600-ton battleships of the Ming army, Huzhou, Jiaxing, Hangzhou and Shaoxing, have also been refitted.Although the artillery equipped on the Jiaxing and Hangzhou are basically the red cannons of the Qing army that were removed from Wusongkou.

However, as the last warship that has been remodeled, Shaoxing is equipped with the latest 12-pound cannon produced by the Governor's Mansion. Originally, the gunpowder performance of the Ming army was better than that of the Dutch, and this batch of new artillery was improved. The gun barrel has increased his effective shooting distance by 500 meters compared to the original.

Brent shouted excitedly: "Go at full speed, the enemy ship is almost within our range."

Just as he was smug and ready to teach the Ming army a lesson, the Shaoxing opened fire. In the first round of shelling by the Ming army, two shells directly hit the Rotterdam, and one shell exploded directly in front of his conning tower. The air wave almost lifted him out.

The Dutchman was not equipped with explosive ammunition, but he quickly came to the conclusion that the naval guns of the Ming army were stronger than himself in terms of range and power.

Brent shouted desperately: "Turn the rudder quickly and pull the side sails. The firepower of the Ming army is too strong. We must evacuate the battlefield immediately."

The reason why the Dutch came to this muddy water is actually for profit.They want to do business with Qian Mo, so they are going to sink the Lisbon to give Qian Mo a disgrace, so that the Netherlands will fully take the initiative in the next trade negotiations.

It's just that they didn't expect that Huang Binqing would put them in a position. The Ming army had 5 huge ships, and the artillery was so sharp. If they didn't run away at this time, the Rotterdam might never go back.

As it turns out, Brent was right.Although they were bombarded twice by the Ming army when they changed course, dozens of people were killed on board, and a fire had already started.Fortunately, the battleship was strong enough, and they successfully evacuated from the battlefield.

Seeing this scene, the Zhoushan sailor next to him was dumbfounded, and the elder brother who called for help actually ran away.But the Ming army will not give them a chance to escape. At this time, the tonnage of the Zhoushan Navy is not enough to fight against the 5 giant ships of the Ming army, and their speed is not as fast as the Ming army.

But for an hour, the sea area was full of shipwrecks and sailors struggling in the water; 7% of the warships of the Zhoushan Navy had been damaged, and the remaining people had no intention of fighting and surrendered directly to the Ming army.

Not long after, the "remnant forces" of the Zhoushan Navy fled back to Zhoushan Island, and Huang Binqing's face turned pale when he heard the news of the defeat.

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