Daming Crazy Emperor

Chapter 417: An Expert in Building Bastions

On the morning of the fifth day, a large island finally appeared in front of the fleet on the left.

The coastline is invisible at a glance.

This big island should be Borneo, where the Boni Kingdom is located, and it will be called Sumatra Island in later generations.

The country of Boni is located in the sea in the southwest. It takes four or five days to go to Java, four days to go to the Three Buddhas, and three days to go to Champa and Mansaka. All of them are counted on the basis of favorable wind. The country is a city with more than ten thousand residents People, under the rule of fourteen states.

This is the record about the Boni Kingdom in the historical materials of the previous dynasty.

In the sixth year of Yongle, King Manaragana of Boni led a total of more than 150 people including his queen, siblings, children, and civil and military officials to pay tribute to Daming. In October of the same year, he unfortunately died of illness in Daming.

Emperor Chengzu Yongle was buried with royal rites, and his posthumous posthumous title was King Gongshun.

This country of Boni was originally a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, and Zheng He stopped here many times during his voyages to the West. Naturally, there are detailed records of this place in the historical materials of the Ming Dynasty.

It's a pity that the capital of the Boni Kingdom in the records is gone, and the port where Zheng He's fleet docked is also gone, and there is not even a single person near the coastline!
Nine times out of ten, the country of Boni was destroyed by the colonists, whether it was destroyed by the Spanish colonists or the Dutch colonists.

Taichang sighed slightly, then ordered the fleet to continue heading south.

According to the historical data of the previous dynasty, it is said that it takes four or five days for Boni Kingdom to go to Java. That refers to sailboats. Of course, ships do not need four or five days. That night, the fleet of the Daming Navy has already arrived in the south of Boni Kingdom, about [-] meters away from Batavia. It was less than five hundred miles away.

On the morning of the sixth day, the fleet continued to set off, heading straight for Batavia.

As a result, within three hours of sailing, more than ten giant ships appeared in the sea ahead.

Look at that unique triangular sail, it is clearly the Dutch fleet.

Of course, it wasn't that the Dutch knew they were coming and sent out to stop their fleet.

These more than ten giant ships are all armed merchant ships. If such a small number of armed merchant ships come to stop them, it will be death!
They probably just left Batavia and are about to go elsewhere.

These more than ten armed merchant ships did not expect such a huge fleet to suddenly appear on the sea.

These days, it is not a good thing to meet an unknown fleet at sea. When people see that you are a merchant ship, they will probably have the idea of ​​becoming a pirate!
So as soon as they saw the Daming Navy fleet, they panicked and turned around and ran away.

These Dutch armed merchant ships were really terrified.

They have never encountered such a terrifying fleet!
Dozens of giant ships brought more than a dozen warships as if they had four legs, and they looked like sea monsters. They looked terrible.

On the flagship, Sun Chuanting took a closer look with the binoculars, and then asked: "Your Majesty, these armed merchant ships don't have much combat effectiveness. Should we send Spike warships to intercept or sink them?"

Taichang thought for a while, then shook his head slightly and said: "Forget it, don't fire the cannon, let them go back.

After all, these are large merchant ships, and the goods on them are all measured in hundreds of thousands of catties.

If we intercept it, we have to drive to Batavia by ourselves. If it is sunk, the cargo will sink into the sea. A ship may be worth hundreds of thousands of catties. Isn’t it a big loss for us? ?
Order, all ships slow down, just follow them, let them guide us. "

Well, these goods are ours now, it's better not to touch them, to save time trouble.

When Sun Chuanting heard the words, he couldn't help but nodded and said: "The emperor is wise."

The Daming Navy Fleet followed more than a dozen armed merchant ships, and sailed southward slowly. In less than half an hour, a black line appeared in front of it.

The island of Java is finally here!
The dozen or so armed merchant ships were rushing back desperately, just in time to take them straight to Batavia, saving them even the time to search along the coastline.

Not long after, a huge port appeared in the telescope, and two double-layer bastions stood impressively on both sides of the port!

This is Batavia.

This Batavia is really a bit strange. There are two double-layer bastions on the left and right sides of the port, and there is actually a river in the middle that leads directly to the middle of the city behind.

The fort on the bastion can be seen through the barrel telescope, which proves that the fleet is only more than ten miles away from the bastion.

Seeing this, Taichang quickly issued an order: "Order, the fleet stops advancing, the ships disintegrate, and the Spike warships spread out to surround the entire port."

After waving the command flag, the entire fleet slowly came to a stop. Immediately afterwards, nearly a thousand Spike warships broke away from the Aegis and Dragon Fang warships and spread out to both sides.

At this time, Batavia Harbor was in chaos.

Dozens of armed merchant ships desperately squeezed into the river in the middle of the port, while the remaining few buildings, gunboats and ordinary warships turned around and retreated under the bastion. The whole scene was chaotic.

However, Taichang did not immediately order the attack.

Because there are too many forts on the Dutch bastion, the huge muzzle is really a bit penetrating, and he doesn't know how many shots the Aegis ship can withstand.

At this moment, the twenty Aegis ships are full of sailors and elites of the Shenji Battalion. If the watermelon-sized shell breaks through the armor and smashes in, the consequences will be unimaginable.

How to do it?

Although he was mentally prepared, he never thought that the Dutch would set up so many artillery pieces on the bastion. There might not be hundreds of artillery pieces in the densely packed muzzles!
As soon as the fleet stopped, he turned the binoculars to scan carefully.

It has to be said that the Dutch really have a way of building bastions.

Historically, the city of Zeelandia they built carried more than ten times as many troops as Zheng Chenggong for nearly ten months, and finally surrendered after being besieged and running out of ammunition and food, rather than being captured.

The horror of its defense can be seen.

This Batavia is where the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company is located, and the defense of the bastion they built is naturally even more terrifying.

They built a bastion on both sides of the port, and the size of the two bastions and the number of forts were not comparable to that of Zeelandia.

If there is a shortcoming of this bastion, the only shortcoming is that it is not high enough.

Because the first and second floors of the bastion seem to be only as high as three or four people stacked up, this can be roughly judged based on the height of the defenders in the bastion.

In other words, the height of the first and second floors of these two bastions may be less than two feet.

However, this is not a disadvantage.

Because the people's bastion is surrounded by moats, there is nowhere to stay.

In other words, if you want to attack these two bastions, you have to take the risk of filling up the surrounding moats, or sail up to attack them.

Both of these attack methods seem to be difficult to implement.

Because there are too many cannons on the bastion, let alone ships approaching the bastion, it is estimated that they will be smashed to pieces by huge shells if they are five or six miles away from the bastion.

Why is this bastion equipped with so many artillery pieces?

This situation seems to be very different from what Gao Wenlu and the others explained!
In fact, there were not so many artillery pieces on these two bastions.

The Dutch probably guessed that Ming Ming would come over sooner or later, so they desperately strengthened Batavia's defenses. Most of the artillery on the bastion was added in the past few months.

With so many cannons and such huge two bastions, a hard attack would probably cause heavy casualties!
Taichang glanced through the binoculars, and his brows could not help but frown.

This Batavia is really a bit difficult to fight.

Not to mention the bastions on both sides of the port, the entire city of Batavia was surrounded by walls and moats, so even if pawns landed, it would be very difficult to attack.

After all, people also have muskets and cannons, plus the barriers of the city walls and moats, if you want to attack, you don't know how many guns and shells you will eat!

How to do it?

He frowned and pondered for a while, then asked, "Bo Ya, Jian Dou, do you have any suggestions?"

Lu Xiangsheng thought for a while, and then said cautiously: "Your Majesty, why don't you take the lead to land on the shore first, and go around to the south of Batavia City to test the firepower on their walls. After all, the firepower on their bastion The artillery is all facing the port in the north, so it should be easier to attack from the south."

This suggestion does not seem to be very good.

If there are a lot of cannons on the walls of other people's cities, then running over to test them would be death in vain!
Taichang didn't say anything, and looked directly at Sun Chuanting.

Sun Chuanting thought for a while, then murmured: "Weichen suggested that we use the Spike warship to transfer the infantry to the shore first, and then we directly send twenty Aegis ships to lean up from both sides to try. Anyway, we don't We must break through from the front, and the same is true for breakthroughs from the flanks, and the main defense direction of the Dutch is obviously on the front port, and it seems that there are no artillery muzzles facing the sea on the flanks."

That's a good idea.

They really don't have to choose a frontal breakthrough. If the flanking firepower is not strong, it is the same to break through from the flank.

Anyway, there are so many of them, as long as they can find a breakthrough point and rush to the first floor of the bastion, the Dutch are basically finished!

(End of this chapter)