1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 740 Information Transmission

After the defenders at the top of the city waited anxiously for more than an hour, the rangers who went out to reconnaissance finally brought back exciting news-the Mata blue army was boarding the ship and leaving the port, and the evacuation was very thorough, because Before they left, they also burned all the port buildings that had survived the fire yesterday.Obviously, the Matalan people had given up their plan to occupy the Batavia Port and destroyed the port facilities. On the one hand, they were unwilling to vent their anger, and on the other hand, they also wanted to bring more troubles to the Dutch reconstruction project in the future.

In order to ensure that the Matalan people were not playing tricks, Fan Dimen sent several teams out of the city to investigate in various directions outside the city.Afterwards, the news from various sources was consistent. The people of Matalan had indeed withdrawn, but they searched and cleaned up all the supplies outside the city, and all the plantations and farms were destroyed. Except for a few old and weak, almost all were taken away.It can be seen that the people of Matalan want to use this method to increase Batavia's economic losses as much as possible, but Fan Diemen can't care about regrets now, and it is already very fortunate to have escaped from the tiger's mouth thing.Having said that, similar things have happened twice in the past few years, and Van Diemen was actually mentally prepared for the destructive measures that the Matalan people would take when they evacuated.

That afternoon, after realizing that the Matalan people had retreated by boat, the Dutch fleet cruising the open sea finally sent several ships back to the port, and then got in touch with the city of Batavia.Half of the armed forces from the fleet landed in the city of Batavia to assist the council and the military in maintaining order in the city after the war.

The battle lasted for more than 30 days, and the final result was still the same as the previous two. The Mata blue army swallowed their anger and chose to retreat actively.Of course, this result cannot be said to be a victory for the Dutch. This confrontation has already been broken into by the opponent. The losses suffered by the East India Company and the city of Batavia far exceed the sum of the previous two Homer wars. , and its negative effects will last for a long time.

Although it may take some time for specific property loss statistics to come out, the general situation can be seen at a glance.The Port of Batavia has almost turned into ruins, and all the buildings in the port have been basically destroyed. It is conservatively estimated that it will take more than half a year to restore the old appearance of the port.In addition, a large number of plantations and farms outside the city of Batavia were destroyed. It may take longer than rebuilding the port to resume production in these fields mainly planting tropical fruits and spices.

Another place that was severely damaged was the city defense system of Batavia City, especially the northern city wall. Many city walls had collapsed during the days of fierce fighting and lost their proper function.Although the East India Company spent huge sums of money to build additional forts outside the city in the past two years, although they made great contributions to this defensive battle, they were all turned into rubble during the battle.After the Mata blue army broke through the city, the two sides fought on the streets of the city for days, and also damaged a large number of buildings in the city, especially within two to 300 meters of the council castle in the city center, almost no buildings were seen. Intact buildings.The Dutch would have to spend a lot of money to rebuild these areas.

In addition to these losses that can be seen at a glance, another loss that cannot be ignored is the loss of the local population in this war.If the casualties, the fleeing population, and the population captured by the enemy are roughly added together, then the population loss caused by this war to Batavia is at least tens of thousands.Moreover, a considerable part of the lost population is young and strong men, which is not a small bad news for the reconstruction work that required a lot of labor after the war.

In addition, during the days of fighting, a large number of corpses were abandoned inside and outside the city without time to bury them, which could easily lead to outbreaks of epidemics after the war.In addition, the local food supply has also been announced to be interrupted, and the time that the food can be stored is also very limited.There are still many troubles like this. For the East India Company, post-war Batavia can be said to be a very difficult mess to clean up.

The economic loss is not bad. After all, as long as the place is still there, the East India Company can rely on continuing to operate the maritime trade between the East and the West to make profits. The main force of Matalan used all its strength to frantically attack the ports in various parts of the South Seas, and this Dutch fleet has indeed made a lot of real money in this month.Although it may not be able to fully compensate for the losses suffered by Batavia, it can somewhat subsidize part of the reconstruction project expenses.

Of course, only some high-level people were troubled by the chaos after the war. The vast majority of ordinary people are still very happy that they can survive until the end of the war.Although Cheng Dapeng has experienced more serious wars and did not encounter any major difficulties in the offensive and defensive battle of Batavia this time, it still allowed him to relive the memory of the rest of his life in the past month. Feel.Dacheng Rice Co., Ltd. was very lucky in this catastrophe. There were no casualties or large property losses. Although most of the food was seized and transported away by the council before the war, the food was not requisitioned for free. In the end, I will definitely settle the accounts slowly.Fortunately, the Dutch won the battle. If they lost, they would definitely not be able to get any of these grains back.

The Matalan people also hastily dispatched a fleet to let the people from Mixing lead the way to Champa to buy food, but this fleet probably will not have a chance to return to Batavia.Because on the night of the end of the war, Bart came to the door and made the same request to Cheng Dapeng, hoping that he could go north as soon as possible to organize the purchase of a batch of grain and send it back to Batavia.As for the ships, the council will select four or five merchant ships in better condition from the Dutch fleet that just came back for Cheng Dapeng to use.

Naturally, Cheng Dapeng would not refuse such a good deed, so he immediately agreed.It's just a pity that Dacheng Rice Company's original two [-]-material lucky boats were docked at the port and were requisitioned by Matalan people. There may be no chance to get them back.

On this trip, Cheng Dapeng did not give up his errands to his colleagues, but chose to go north in person.After the war, Batavia didn't have much valuable information for the time being, so he decided to go north in person, looking for an opportunity to report the battle to his superiors in person.

Cheng Dapeng’s departure time was about eight days later than the previous group of colleagues who went north with the Mata blue fleet. Calculating the time, if the previous fleet went smoothly, it would probably arrive at the Abunna Islands by this time. near the sea.But Cheng Dapeng is not in a hurry, he can be sure that before his colleagues return from Champa, he must have arrived at the Abuna Islands and inform the local chief of the latest news.After that, the superior will naturally find a way to try his best to ensure the personal safety of the colleagues in that fleet.

According to the armistice agreement signed by the two sides of the Dutch Sea last year and the subsequent revised and supplementary draft, Dutch merchant ships can enter the port of Ambuna to dock and receive supplies after being disarmed.Moreover, Cheng Dapeng also said that he has a good relationship with the Haihan people, and the fleet can get better treatment when resupplying locally, so the East India Company has no objection to using Ambuna Port as one of the stops on this voyage. .

On August 8, Cheng Dapeng's fleet finally arrived at the Port of Ambuna.Outside the harbor, they first accept the boarding inspection of the port staff in accordance with local rules to ensure that there are no prohibited items or suspicious persons on board, and then guide them into the port and dock at the designated dock.

The safety regulations of the Port of Ambuna have extremely strict regulations on the scope of activities and accessible objects of the Dutch crew before docking locally, but these regulations obviously do not apply to Cheng Dapeng.He quickly contacted the port staff and persuaded them to inform Li Dagui.

A few days ago, another fleet came to dock here, and the Haihan intelligence personnel among them were also handed over by Li Dagui.Although Li Dagui now spends more time dealing with civil affairs, commercial affairs, but after all, he has not completely broken away from his identity as an intelligence officer of the Ministry of Security.However, he actually didn't know the identity of the intelligence chief arranged by the Ministry of Security in Batavia. After all, it was a secret among Haihan's senior management, let alone a grassroots person like him who was a naturalized citizen.

But after he heard the message from the port staff, he was able to confirm from the agreed secret language that the other party should be one of the persons in charge of the Batavia Intelligence Station. Roger was notified.

About half an hour later, Cheng Dapeng entered the port center to meet with Luo Jie and Li Dagui under the pretext of "discussing the price of supplies".Since it is this kind of hidden transaction, there are naturally good reasons to exclude the Dutch, and the Dutch will not be suspicious of this. After all, this is a transaction between the Han people, as long as there are actual results in the end. .If he could save some money in this link, the captain could put it in his pocket as a matter of course.

"Cheng Dapeng, the intelligence officer of the Ministry of Security in Batavia, has met the chief!" Although Cheng Dapeng had never met Roger before, all he had to do was look at Roger's short hair and blouse, and his eyes. The self-confidence revealed in his eyes naturally immediately affirmed his identity.There was no need for an introduction from Li Dagui who was standing next to him, so he went up to see him, and then presented his identity certificate with both hands.

The identity certificates of the intelligence personnel of the Ministry of Security are all manufactured in Sanya. For the sake of safety and convenience of storage, the identity certificates of the personnel of the Ministry of Security are all in the form of dog tags.The dog tag only uses pinyin and Arabic numerals to indicate the wearer's name and the internal ID number of the Ministry of Security. There are no Chinese characters, and outsiders can't understand the above content at all.

"Excuse me, sit down and talk!" After checking Cheng Dapeng's number plate, Roger had already confirmed his identity.Although Roger is a member of the military, since he is the only traveler in the southern part of the Indochina Peninsula, the department he is in charge of is almost the most created in Haihan, which naturally includes the "Nanyang Special Department of the Ministry of Security". Inspector" such a temporary position.Roger also received a true instruction on how to distinguish the identity of the intelligence personnel of the Ministry of Security.

In fact, when the Mata blue fleet from Batavia arrived locally, the relevant information had already been delivered to Haihan, and he sent it back to the headquarters by telegram immediately.However, written information has a lot of limitations compared to dictation. The arrival of Cheng Dapeng can undoubtedly provide supplementary explanations for many missing details in the previous intelligence, and make up for the results of the battle that Haihan is most concerned about.

At this time, Li Dagui interjected at the right time and introduced: "This is Chief Luo Jie, the director of Nanyang affairs specially appointed by the Executive Committee. In Xia Li Dagui, he also worked under Minister Hao of the Security Department before. Speaking of which, we are also half colleagues."

Roger is not immune, so the first question he asked was about the outcome of the Battle of Batavia: "Before your colleague said that the Mata blue army had already captured the city of Batavia, and the Dutch had no way to recover. But why did you come here on a Dutch merchant ship this time, is there any change?"

"Sir, the Dutch came back to life at the last moment." Cheng Dapeng replied, "The Dutch arranged a fleet outside of Batavia, and they didn't come back until after the city was broken. The people hoarded all kinds of supplies by the sea and forced them to go out of the city for rescue. The Dutch in the city also took advantage of this to counterattack and reoccupied the city of Batavia..."

Although Cheng Dapeng is not a high-level executive, he also knows that the chiefs will definitely be very concerned about the outcome of the battle in Nanyang, so during the voyage here, he has already prepared a draft, how to describe the situation concisely and vividly In the last paragraph, the situation of the confrontation between the two armies was explained to the superior.And this part of the battle was indeed the most dramatic part of the whole battle process. Cheng Dapeng talked enthusiastically, and Roger listened with great interest, only occasionally interjecting to ask some detailed questions.

It took an hour to talk about this, and Cheng Dapeng kept talking about the battle until Bart came to him after the war and asked him to go north to buy grain.

Roger was very careful. After looking at the time, he asked, "I have to ask you more details about some things, but if you stay here for too long, will the Dutch suspect you?"

"It doesn't matter, the official has already thought of an excuse." Cheng Dapeng replied: "The Dutch only care about whether they can get supplies at a relatively low price here, and the whereabouts of the subordinate are secondary. Send someone to inform later The Dutch said that they met an old acquaintance at the port and were invited to a banquet. It was getting late at this time, and the Dutch would not go on the road in the dark, so they must park here overnight before leaving.”

Luo Jie nodded, and told Li Dagui: "Go and go through the supply procedures with the Dutch, give some sweetness appropriately, and remember to show credit to Cheng Dapeng, so as not to arouse the suspicion of the Dutch."

(End of this chapter)