1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 638 Fighting ([-])

After the Dutch were frustrated in the frontal battle, they would shift their offensive direction to the town's flanks. This was what the Haihan defenders expected. Therefore, Mu Xiabo deployed scouts in advance on several places on the two flanks where it was easier to cross the river. .Due to the geographical environment, the Dutch are unlikely to put large troops on the flanks. They can only send a small team to look for opportunities to harass, and the pressure on the town's defenders will not be too great.Mu Xiabai didn't even put too many regular militia troops on the flanks. The northern side was dominated by militias mixed with Portuguese and local aborigines, and only one squad of militia troops was assigned to be in charge of command and coordination, while the south side had a The militia infantry of the platoon, and dozens of local militiamen - occupying the advantages of weapon performance and geographical environment, this arrangement should be enough to deal with three or four times the attacking force.

Compared with Van Longen, another team led by Brower to the north of the town was obviously more difficult. A large swamp made it take them twice as long to reach the predetermined location, and there were only relatively low There is no dense forest on the route of Van Longen in the south to hide their tracks. They were discovered by the investigators on the roof when they were still a hundred meters away from the stream on the outskirts of the town.

But Brower's thoughts were more optimistic than Van Longen's. Although the stream was a bit in the way, fortunately it was not deep and could be waded directly.And the town on the other side of the stream obviously didn't have heavy fire positions such as artillery emplacements, so there should still be a chance for the infantry to charge into the town.Of course, the premise is that the offensive launched by Spikes in the front can attract enough attention from the opponent.So according to the agreement before departure, Brower also sent a messenger back to the port, and informed Spikes of the situation in the north.

However, due to too much delay on the road on Brower's side, Spikes finally fired the first shot of the second round of offensive at three o'clock in the afternoon.The Dutch learned the lesson from the morning, moved the artillery positions back a certain distance, and temporarily built a mound of soil in front of the artillery positions to resist the second blow after the opponent's shells landed, and even the supervisor team consciously retreated to at a relatively safe distance.

Although the Dutch have taken a lot of measures, they are still the ones who suffer the most in the first fight.The naval guns used to recharge the Dutch positions had a relatively short range, but this retreat led to a new low hit rate, and the range of the Haihan artillery was all over one mile. Changing the status quo that they were still within the effective strike range of Haihan's artillery fire, the one-sided situation was even more serious than in the morning.

Of course, Spikes didn't expect to really defeat his opponent with artillery fire. He still pinned his hopes on the two teams attacking the town from the north and the south.If Van Longen and Brower can successfully charge in and cause chaos, then Spikes can have a chance to lead his army to break through the opponent's defense line from the front.

However, the development of the situation was completely different from the ideal trend in the hearts of the Dutch. Van Longen directed his men to rush out of the dense forest and step into the creek. About ten.

Fan Longen's heart felt cold immediately, he didn't even have time to greet other people, and immediately turned back to drill into the woods.There was a burst of gunshots behind him, followed by screams of misery. Fan Longen didn't dare to stop and turn his head to look at the situation behind him, and went straight to the densely forested area.

The Haihan garrison fired three rounds of gunfire at the commanding heights. Seven out of ten Dutch mercenaries who tried to cross the creek were overturned in the water and on the river bank. Fleeing back to the woods, it is considered to have picked a life to come back.

Fan Longen ran for a long time in the woods in shock, before he stopped due to lack of energy. Panting heavily, he looked back at the few remaining soldiers who were also in shock, and sat down on the ground weakly.It only took a minute or two from launching an attack to fleeing after being frustrated, but Van Longen felt that he had gone from life to death, and from death to life.

Despite the failure of the operation, Van Longen is still very glad that he was able to save his life. As for the results of the battle... After all, there is no way to force it, and Van Longen can only hope that the offensive in the other two directions can be harvested.Maybe Browar attacked all the way?
Van Longen sat on the ground and rested for a while, and after his breath calmed down, he patted his buttocks and got up, ready to go back to report.At this time, he found that his close-fitting firearm had fallen off at some point.But he didn't dare to go back and look for it by himself, so he assigned two men to look for it along the escape route just now.

The two men went reluctantly with expressions of stepping on **** on their faces.But after a while, the two ran back yelling, with expressions like they had seen a ghost.Van Longen shouted: "Don't panic! What happened?"

One of them responded, "The enemy... the enemy has already crossed the creek and is already searching this way!"

"How many people?" Van Longen asked sharply.

"About... About a hundred people..." The subordinate replied tremblingly.

"Withdraw!" Van Longen immediately made a decision without the slightest hesitation after listening.With the current manpower, it is definitely impossible to stop the opponent's hunt. The only thing that can be done is to rush back and inform Spikes so that he can be on guard against the enemy's counterattack.

With the pursuers behind, their physical strength seemed to have recovered a lot, and the group stumbled back to the Dutch position near the port along the way they came.Seeing them like this, Spikes already guessed the result: "Defeated?"

"The enemy has a lot of musketeers... They are deployed in the south... They have left the town and are chasing them from the woods!" Van Longen didn't bother to elaborate on his failure, and first informed Spikes of the enemy's attack: "Listen, we'd better retreat as soon as possible, and retreat to the sea!"

Spikes hesitated and said, "But there is no news from Broward..."

"Brower may not be back!" Van Longen interrupted Spikes emotionally: "The enemy has been digging holes for us to jump in! They are just waiting for us to attack so that they can attack at a closer distance. Kill our soldiers! If we don’t retreat quickly, maybe we won’t be able to leave this island alive!”

Spikes hesitated for a moment, but still shook his head and said, "No, we can't leave our own people alone."

Van Longen was silent for a moment, and then said again: "Then I will apply to go to the port to make the ships ready for sailing first. If the battle is unfavorable, at least we will have time to retreat."

"Okay, you go. Remember to arrange for people to move the ammunition on the troop carrier to your ship first!" Spikes didn't insist anymore this time, and agreed to Van Longen's request.The damage to the two troop carriers is serious. If the next situation really deteriorates to the point where one side has to retreat to the sea, then the two troop carriers can only be temporarily abandoned.

After Van Longen left in a hurry, Spikes looked sullenly at the opponent's position.The shelling and fighting had stopped before Van Longen fled back, because almost all the artillery on the Dutch position was plowed by the opponent's shells, and the dozens of surviving gunners were unwilling to go forward to bear this one-sided single There was shelling.

Although the news from the north has not yet come back, with the lessons learned from Van Longen, Spikes is not very optimistic about the results of Broward's journey.But despite the obvious trend of the battle, the opponent is not eager to go out of the town to pursue. Spikes believes that this is not a normal phenomenon.In fact, he still hopes that when the opponent attacks, he can rely on his own musket formation to pull his wrist again, and he feels very unwilling to admit defeat like this.

Ten minutes later, the first man who fled from the north appeared on the Dutch line, and the news he brought back made Spikes' heart tense again.

Undoubtedly, the team led by Brower was attacked by a large number of musketeers, and Brower himself was not as lucky as Van Longen, so he was shot and fell down on the spot.

Of course, the fleeing soldiers did not throw him down directly, they still dragged him out of the battlefield, and then several people took turns carrying him back, and the person who ran at the front to report the message was to let the position here Can quickly prepare medical first aid measures.

But the Dutch really don't have any good first aid methods. For trauma, all the military doctors can use is cloth strips boiled in boiling water and a few simple surgical tools.

After a few minutes, Browar was finally carried out of the woods and appeared in front of Spikes.He was shot in the right chest, but because Brower was wearing leather armor, the bullet didn't go straight through the body, but got stuck somewhere inside.The lung injury and the bumps along the way made him cough up blood from his mouth continuously. When Spikes saw him, his face was pale and he couldn't speak.

Although the two had a lot of differences and even had some disputes during this mission, Spikes couldn't help feeling a little bit sad when his colleague was seriously injured, so he ordered the military doctor to treat him quickly.

However, the ability of military doctors is also very limited. To perform thoracic surgery to remove the bullets in the lung lobes in this environment, even professionals like Morgan and Johnson have to be very cautious, and after Brower was injured, he failed to get timely and effective treatment. Dealing with it, being carried on the back all the way back, the injury also aggravated a lot invisibly.

Before the military doctor could take out the bullet, Brower belched due to excessive blood loss.The matter has come to this point, and there will be no morale to speak of if the troops are forced to continue fighting. Spikes gave an order with a stern face, ordering all personnel to retreat to the port immediately——before the opponent has time to pursue, hurry up The correct solution is to retreat to the sea as Van Longen suggested.

However, things still did not develop according to the rhythm he expected. Just as the soldiers began to evacuate, the defenders in the small town in the distance finally showed their ferocious side and began to line up to attack.

Although the positions of the two sides were nearly a mile apart, the pressure of the opponent's attack immediately caused confusion among the Dutch soldiers. Some tried to return to the position to block the enemy, while others panicked and wanted to rush to the pier as soon as possible. The boat, suddenly the team was in chaos.

One mile may seem like a long distance, but at normal marching speed, it is actually only a few minutes away.Of course Spikes knew that his own situation was no longer suitable for high-intensity battles, so he could only yell at the chaotic team to evacuate to the port.

At this time, opponent musketeers appeared sporadically from the woods on both sides of the north and south, which made the Dutch feel even more panicked, and more people gave up the idea of ​​sticking to the spot and began to flee to the port regardless.However, they did not know that there were not many Haihan soldiers who attacked from the dense forests on the north and south routes, and many of them were local militiamen. Their combat effectiveness was not the same as that of the regular militia army. So flustered, immediately launching a counterattack on the spot, maybe some achievements can be achieved.

But once such a thing as a battlefield rout occurs, it will be difficult to rely on the ability of individual commanders to turn the tide.Spikes had no better way to deal with such a situation, so he could only flee to the port surrounded by several personal guards.

"The Dutch escaped!" After Mu Xiabo saw this scene through the telescope, his heart finally returned to his stomach.Although the scale of the two-day battle was not large, and the battle situation could not be said to be so tragic, it was indeed a big test for the island guards.He was able to quickly change his state from the defeat in the initial battle, and gave the Dutch a head-on blow on the second line of defense. Mu Xiabo felt that he still played a commanding level that he should have.

But Mu Xiabo didn't intend to let the Dutch leave so easily. The reason why they seized the opportunity of the Dutch retreat to push the troops out was to let them leave a little price before they left.

When Haihan's troops chased after them to the port, two Dutch sailing ships had already left the dock first, but there were still about 200 Dutchmen boarding the ship in a mess.The militia soldiers calmly lined up a burst of fire a hundred meters away, and then started shooting at the few sailboats still parked on the pier and the people on the shore.

The panicked and crowded crowd has completely become a living target without resistance. Every 20 seconds, a round of rotating shooting will knock down several people. On the Dutch side, only a very small number of people who have already been on the deck can take care of organizing a weak wave. counterattack.But this kind of sporadic shooting will soon attract at least two platoons of musket fire, and then there will be no more.

The sailors on the ship had no time to untie the cable, and cut off the cable with a knife in a panic. Some people who had no time to board the ship could only cling to the rope net outside the ship's side, but many of them were killed before they climbed onto the ship's side. A buckshot hit the back and fell into the sea.

(End of this chapter)