Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 490 Zheng Zhilong’s Night Attack

Therefore, Sun Chuanting asked Li Guozhu and Zhong Bin to continue to act according to Zheng Zhilong's instructions, to move with other fleets, and then find the right time to destroy one of them.

Zheng Zhilong's fleet has a total of more than a thousand ships, large and small. Zheng Zhilong leads the main fleet with more than [-] ships, and the other four routes have more than [-] ships each, while Li Guozhu and Zhong Bin only have more than [-] ships.

With [-] versus [-], under normal circumstances, it is definitely impossible to win, but if one of them fails to attack and loses a lot of troops, and Li Guozhu and Zhong Bin suddenly counterattack, they may defeat the fleet of one.

Sun Chuanting's requirements are not high, as long as he can capture more than [-] medium-sized ships, Sun Chuanting will be satisfied.

Sun Chuanting's plan was that if he could capture about [-] medium-sized ships, then he could discard the small ships with little combat effectiveness and form a fleet of more than [-] medium-sized ships. After installing all these ships with new artillery , plus Li Guozhu and Zhong Bin's fleet, Sun Chuanting can reach more than a hundred ships, and at this time Sun Chuanting has the strength to challenge Zheng Zhilong.

Sun Chuanting knew that he was still a rookie in naval warfare. Before he was sure, Sun Chuanting didn't want to take any risks to fight Zheng Zhilong at sea, and he didn't give Zheng Zhilong any chance to destroy himself.

For this reason, when Zheng Zhilong attacked Penghu at night, Sun Chuanting ordered all the ships to hide.

However, after learning of Lin Shijie's results, Sun Chuanting knew that he was too sure.

Zheng Zhilong lost a total of more than [-] people in two attacks. For Zheng Zhilong's total force, the loss of this manpower is nothing. But Zheng Zhilong came by boat, so many people were reduced at once, and some ships have insufficient sailors. Yes, especially those small boats.

A small boat generally has only ten to twenty sailors, and these small boats are not equipped with weapons such as artillery. Its greatest use is to approach and set fire when fighting against large ships.

In the Naval Battle of Liaoluo Bay, Zheng Zhilong took advantage of the characteristics of small ships, small targets, fast speed, and not easy to be attacked by large ships. He approached the enemy ships and ignited them.

After the war, the reason why the Dutch army agreed to Zheng Zhilong's conditions and did not dare to continue fighting with Zheng Zhilong was because they were afraid of Zheng Zhilong's tactics.

Small boats are consumables during naval battles, so it is not a pity to lose them, but due to insufficient personnel, they cannot maneuver the small boats, so they were finally abandoned. Zheng Zhilong was unwilling to lose like this.

Moreover, not only small ships, but also some medium-sized ships also have the problem of insufficient manpower.With insufficient manpower on board, the combat effectiveness would naturally be greatly reduced. If Sun Chuanting led the fleet to make a surprise attack when Zheng Zhilong retreated, it would be no problem to capture some more ships.

It's a pity that because Sun Chuanting was too cautious, he hid the ship. After he learned the situation of the battle, it was too late to lead the ship to attack.

However, Sun Chuanting was very satisfied with this. Zheng Zhilong abandoned four stranded medium-sized ships and more than ten small boats when he retreated.

Having captured so many ships at once, Sun Chuanting immediately discovered a problem, that is, he did not have enough manpower to handle these ships.

No one sailed the boats, so these boats became decorations, so Sun Chuanting had no choice but to focus on the wounded soldiers.

At this time, Lin Shijie had already cleaned up the battlefield, and the results of the battle were also counted. In this battle, more than 100 people from Zheng Zhilong's tribe were eliminated, of which more than [-] people were directly killed, more than [-] people were seriously injured, and more than [-] people were slightly injured. , Nearly [-] people were captured without injury.

Sun Chuanting was overjoyed when he learned of the results of the battle, and immediately ordered the military doctor to treat the wounded soldiers, and then asked Lin Shijie to persuade them to surrender.

Although these wounded soldiers had followed Zheng Zhilong for a long time, but now they had a decent background after all, many of them were unwilling to rebel against Zheng Zhilong, and they surrendered without hesitation when they heard that the officers and soldiers persuaded them to surrender.

With the captives who surrendered, Sun Chuanting immediately reorganized the fleet.These captives were assigned to each ship as sailors, and the original sailors were liberated to serve as combatants.

With this arrangement, there is one aspect of worrying about the captives. The main reason is that these people do not know how to use new weapons at all, and they do not know how to use weapons, which means they have no combat effectiveness.

Sun Chuanting doesn't know how to fight on board. With medium-range and short-range weapons such as portable guns and rifles, he doesn't need to fight on board with the enemy.

After allocating troops, the rest will wait for the high tide. After the high tide, the stranded ships will be driven to the shore and the artillery will be reinstalled.

However, when Sun Chuanting and Lin Shijie proposed to install the heavy artillery on the ship, Lin Shijie rejected it.

Lin Shijie's reason was that although he was temporarily subordinated to Sun Chuanting, he was Sun Meng's subordinate, and it was impossible to recruit his weapons without Sun Meng's consent.

In addition, Penghu is only about [-] miles away from Taiwan, and it only takes more than an hour for the Dutch troops stationed in Taiwan to arrive.Once the Dutch army attacked the island, there was no heavy artillery on the island, so it was impossible to defend.

(Note: At that time, the speed of Western sailing ships could reach more than ten knots, while the speed of Zheng Zhilong’s ship was seven knots. One knot is one nautical mile, and one nautical mile is equal to 1 kilometers, ten knots per hour, that is, a little more than eighteen kilometers. The closest distance between Penghu and Taiwan is 852 kilometers, and at a speed of [-] knots, it will take just over two hours.)
Listening to Lin Shijie's argument, Sun Chuanting will not use his official position to force him. Lin Shijie is Sun Meng's subordinate, and Sun Meng's intention to cultivate Lin Shijie is very obvious. Now Sun Chuanting needs Sun Meng to cooperate with him in fighting, and he is unwilling to fall out with Sun Meng over weapons. .

And even if Lin Shijie was willing to give Sun Chuanting heavy artillery, the quantity would not be enough.There were only thirty heavy artillery pieces in Penghu, and it was because Sun Meng saw that Penghu was isolated overseas, so he gave ten extra heavy artillery pieces on purpose.

This time, four medium-sized ships were captured, and each ship had ten heavy artillery positions. He was short of all thirty artillery pieces on the island.

In addition, Zheng Zhilong's artillery is different from the artillery model designed by Li Jing. The gun positions on the ship need to be greatly modified to install the new type of artillery. On the island, they can only be installed temporarily, and eventually the shipyard has to re-install the gun positions. .

In Fujian, the only shipyard that can change gun positions is the one built by Zheng Zhilong in his hometown of Shijing Township.Now that the shipyard has been controlled by Liu Erleng's people, Sun Chuanting needs to go to the shipyard to change the artillery positions, and there is no need to take away the heavy artillery from Penghu.

With the addition of four medium-sized ships, Sun Chuanting naturally wanted to put the new ships into battle as soon as possible, handed over all affairs on the island to Lin Shijie, and gave some instructions on what should be paid attention to. Sun Chuanting led the fleet back to Fujian immediately.

Penghu is nearly [-] miles away from Fujian, and Sun Chuanting's fleet sailed at full speed for more than half a day to reach it.

When Sun Chuanting's fleet arrived at Kinmen Island, they saw a mess on the seashore, countless ship boards, and dead bodies floating in the sea. It was obvious that a tragic battle had just taken place here.

Seeing this scene, Sun Chuanting was shocked.

The geographical location of Kinmen Island is extremely critical. Once Kinmen is lost, the outlets of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou will be within Zheng Zhilong's attack range. Zheng Zhilong can send troops from Kinmen to attack these places anytime and anywhere.However, the imperial fleet could not compete with Zheng Zhilong, and if Zheng Zhilong's fleet could not be destroyed, there would be no way to attack the troops stationed on the island in Kinmen.

To be honest, Sun Chuanting has never understood why Zheng Zhilong would give up such an important place like Kinmen Island so easily. Sun Chuanting believes that the people who were originally stationed on Kinmen Island must be Zheng Zhilong's most powerful cronies.

The only explanation is that Zheng Zhilong didn't want to rebel. When the imperial court sent someone to guard Jinmen, Zheng Zhilong's people dared not disobey the imperial court's order.

Seeing the mess on the coast outside the island, but the silence inside the island, Sun Chuanting was in a hurry. At this moment, he could not even bother to go to the Ishii Shipyard to refit the ships.

Sun Chuanting urgently ordered the fleet to approach Kinmen Island and made an attack.

However, not long after Sun Chuanting's fleet approached Kinmen Island, he saw through the telescope that there were officers and soldiers on the island deploying defenses on the shore, and Sun Chuanting was relieved.

Knowing that Kinmen Island was still under control, Sun Chuanting immediately ordered soldiers to land on the island.

Obviously, when Sun Chuanting saw the officers and soldiers on the island, the people on the island also recognized Sun Chuanting's flagship. Therefore, the officers and soldiers on the island quickly lifted their guards and lined up on the shore to greet them.

When Sun Chuanting's flagship docked and got off the ship, Xiao Yi, the Golden Gate guard, had already lined up with a group of soldiers.

Seeing Sun Chuanting get off the boat, Xiao Yi hastily stepped forward to salute: "Xiao Yi, who has a humble job, sees the commander-in-chief.

Seeing Xiao Yi's tired face, and the soldiers' tired faces, Sun Chuanting waved his hand to stop everyone from saluting.

"What happened?" Sun Chuanting asked.

"Return to Commander-in-Chief, yesterday Zheng Zhilong's troops led a sneak attack with a boat, and I led my brothers to fight against the rebels all night. Early this morning, the rebels reinforced a fleet. Although I have dealt heavy damage to the enemy, but the shells have run out, I have to let the enemy go. Entering the island for close combat. Relying on sharp weapons and brave troops, they finally repelled the rebels." Xiao Yi said.

Sun Chuanting nodded. Although Xiao Yi said it lightly, but looking at the situation at the seaside, he knew that the battle must have been extremely tragic.

After sweeping around the soldiers, Sun Chuanting said loudly: "Brothers have worked hard, I think you have not rested this night, you go back and rest first, I will send someone to temporarily defend you."

"Thank you, Commander-in-Chief, for your compassion!" the soldiers shouted.

Sun Chuanting waved his hands and ordered the soldiers to go back to rest, and then ordered the soldiers on board to take over the defense.

Seeing that Sun Chuanting was also looking tired, Xiao Yi hurriedly said: "Commander, please follow me to the Garrison Mansion to have a rest!"

Sun Chuanting nodded, and Xiao Yi hurriedly led the way.

When he arrived at the Garrison Mansion, Xiao Yi ordered someone to serve tea.

Sun Chuanting took the teacup, looked at Xiao Yi and said, "How much did our army lose in the battle last night?"

Xiao Yi was saddened when he heard this, and he was silent for a while before he said: "There are more than 700 troops in the Jinmen garrison, and now there are only less than [-] left."

Sun Chuanting nodded silently. If the 500 people on the island were not for the elite troops dispatched by Sun Meng and Liu Erleng, Kinmen Island would have been captured long ago. After fighting for a day and a night, the loss was less than a thousand people. acceptable.

Seeing that Sun Chuanting was silent, Xiao Yi said: "I would like to report to the Commander-in-Chief, in fact, it is not the meritorious service of the officers and soldiers on the island to repel the rebels with a humble job."

(End of this chapter)