1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 340 Lost Ship
"The Xingye and Tuoye haven't come back yet?" Luo Rucheng was half lying on the bed, frowning and asked.

"No." Bian Chunyong shook his head and said, "It's been seven or eight days. Even if the storm blows to Luzon, it's time to return."

Hearing this, Luo Rucheng was silent for a while, and then said solemnly, "I'm afraid...the odds are too bad. Alas, 900 people are gone!"

Luo Rucheng and his party of five boats set off from Hanxing Island 20 days ago and headed for Midway Island against the wind.But on the way, there was a huge wind.After several days of struggling, several ships including Luo Rucheng passed through the storm area with difficulty and arrived at Midway Island one after another.

But in the next few days, Xingye and Tuoye never arrived at Midway Island.This made everyone feel a sense of inexplicable heaviness, and even more fear.

In the four years of Hanzhou, although ships have sunk, they have never lost two ships at once, and the ships were still full of immigrants.This made Luo Rucheng, the person in charge of the emigration fleet, blame himself, and also regret it.

"Unload all the food and cloth, and we will return to Hanxing Island in five days." Luo Rucheng said in a deep voice.

"What's wrong, I won't go to Tongzhou Fort anymore." Bian Chunyong asked in surprise: "Although the next section of the road is also against the wind, the distance is much closer."

"If we take people back to Hanzhou, if we delay for a while, it will be September. If we return to Daming, it will probably be around November-December. When we collect enough hungry people in Daming, it will cost at least one More than a month. Calculated in this way, if we plan to transport people back to Hanzhou, it will be February to March, and the northwest trade wind will weaken, and the return journey will still be very slow." Luo Rucheng said: "If we don't go back to Hanxing Island, Then continue to organize the collection of immigrants from Ming Dynasty, hoard enough people, and then when the monsoon comes in June, large-scale transportation of people back to Hanzhou."

"Hanxing Island can't accommodate too many people." Bian Chunyong also felt that what Luo Rucheng said was reasonable, but then he thought that the Hanxing Island base had only been established for half a year, and the various infrastructures were not perfect, and the food reserves could not support too much People gather there.

"There is no food, cloth and other materials, so we will go to Annan and Champa to buy." Luo Rucheng said: "The climate of Hanxing Island is warm, and some wooden houses or tents can be built casually, and immigrants can live there. With so many people, it is natural to use them to develop the cultivated land on the island on a large scale, and urge them to build houses and build cities. I have done the math, as long as I can pull three boats of grain to Hanxing Island, it is enough to support 1 people for half a year need."

"If this is the case, we can form an immigration practice in the future, collect immigrants in Daming from June to July, and transport them back after December." Bian Chunyong said: "But this time, we may have to spend some words to convince the sailors After all, we are going to return to Hanzhou to reunite with our family after a while."

"It's better to give more money than to waste your words." Luo Rucheng said with a smile: "Most people have wives and children, isn't it just for their families to improve their lives."

"Where did we get the money to send them?" Bian Chunyong smiled wryly, "The money brought from Weiyuan Castle has long been turned into food, cloth, and many tools for production and living."

"We don't have any money, but we can borrow some from someone!"

"Who can I borrow from? Zheng Zhilong, he is not easy to mess with."

"Annan people!" Luo Rucheng said: "I heard from Zhang Wenqi on Hanxing Island that Commander Qi Er and Niu Hu were on Xinsheng Island, and they wiped out the 200 troops of the Guangnan Kingdom in World War I. After that, they also severely damaged their navy. And bombarded their royal city. From this point of view, the Guangnan Navy is weak, we can take Li Defa from Hanxing Island to Xinsheng Island with more than [-] marines, and then ask Hu Pingjiang for some soldiers to go to the coast of Guangnan Find a rich place, loot it, and you will have a lot of money."

"Looting the Annan people?!" Bian Chunyong was taken aback. "Would it be a bit presumptuous for us to rob them with a few hundred people?"

"On Xinsheng Island, there are five or six hundred musketeers, facing four thousand elite Annan people, they are not destroyed in one battle." Luo Rucheng said: "Let's go to find a coastal town and kill them suddenly. The Annan people must be caught off guard. .It only takes two days, and when their army responds, we will leave by boat."

"The towns of the Annan people are probably not easy to break into." Bian Chunyong was also a little moved by the words.

"It doesn't matter, if the city wall is thin, we will go ashore with artillery and quickly break through the city. If the city wall is tall and solid, with many soldiers, we will leave. Annan's navy is all small boats, can they stop us?"

"Okay! Since the Annan people have attacked us on Xinsheng Island twice, we will also go to their territory and fight back." Bian Chunyong nodded and said: "However, we will leave more than 1000 people on Midway Island, nothing will happen. question."

"Probably not. Midway Island is in the vast sea. How dare these hungry people make any changes? Don't be afraid that we will cut off their food supply and trap them to death on the island." Luo Rucheng said: "They traveled thousands of miles from Daming to follow them. We went to sea to seek a living, not thinking of rebelling and self-reliance here. We will stay here for a few more days, pick out some capable immigrants, organize them, and join our civil affairs officials and township soldiers in Hanzhou , will be able to settle these 1000 people well."

Watching Bian Chunyong walk out of the room, Luo Rucheng sighed and lay down on the bed again, staring blankly at the roof.He felt sorry for the two ships lost in the storm, nearly [-] skilled sailors, and many old brothers from Dengzhou, plus more than [-] immigrants, which made him feel an unspeakable pain.

If we say that the rescheduling of the immigration time is not so much to better adapt to the monsoon route, it is more to avoid the scrutiny of Hanzhou.Although sailing at sea, it is inevitable that there will be some damage.But now, two large ships have been lost at once, which makes it even more difficult for Hanzhou, which was already struggling because of its capacity.

Perhaps, collecting more immigrants for Hanzhou in Daming, and assisting Zhang Wenqi to build a more complete Hanxing Island base, Luo Rucheng's heart will feel a little better.
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"The Dutch want us to have a hard time, but we want to live a good life. Let them watch, but there is nothing we can do!" A soldier of the Hanzhou Marine Corps arrogantly held up a grilled fish, standing by the pier, towards A Dutch armed merchant ship in the distance shouted.

A few marine soldiers and country soldiers around smiled and looked at the shouting soldier, and then let out a strange cry, wantonly teasing the Dutchman.

As the Hanzhou people in Dili City were fishing in several places by the sea, the Dutch armed merchant ships shelled several times at low and close range without any effect. Afterwards, they gave up the "leisure elegance" of preventing the Hanzhou people from fishing by the seaside.

Faced with this situation, unless the Dutch send another landing force, relying on warships to blockade Dili Port will seem a bit powerless.It was originally planned to use Dili City as a bait to force Hanzhou's limited warships to come to the rescue, thus severely damaging their sea power in one fell swoop.But since the blockade, the Hanzhou people have not taken the bait at all. They only occasionally send a very fast boat to check the situation, and there is no more movement.

It was originally thought that the Hanzhou people in Dili City would be forced to surrender due to food shortages due to the blockade.But they still underestimated the tenacious will of the Hanzhou people.Although they don't know what their real situation is, after seeing them fishing on the shore every day, the Dutch understand that it is impossible for the city of Dili to force the Han people to submit through a sea blockade.

The coast is wide and there are countless fish and shrimps. No matter how many armed merchant ships the Dutch have, it is impossible to prevent the Hanzhou people from obtaining food in the sea.Moreover, they also speculated that the Hanzhou people in Dili City may have grown some food, and may have received support from the nearby natives.They seem to have a good life, and they may even live a better life than the Dutch who are carrying out the blockade mission at sea.

Major Manfred Eigen, the commander of the Dutch squadron, put down his binoculars silently, looked at each other with several Dutch officers next to him, and showed a helpless wry smile.Faced with the provocation of the Hanzhou people on the dock, shelling retaliation seemed to yield nothing except wasting gunpowder and shells.Moreover, every gunpowder and every shell is the cost of the East India Company.If it was wasted on emotional catharsis, it would be too cost-effective.

"Major, the Han people... are too arrogant." A Dutch officer said angrily.

"So?" asked Major Manfred Eigen.

"The natives who besieged Batavia have retreated. We should send a landing force to attack Dili City again."

"How many landing troops do we need to send to ensure that we can break through Dili City?"

"...2000 people." The Dutch officer said hesitantly: "Perhaps, after such a long blockade, the Han people in Dili City have consumed a lot of personnel and supplies, and their strength has become very weak."

"Perhaps." Major Manfred Eigen said, "But how much loss can we Dutch bear again to break through the city of Dili?"

When the Dutch officers around heard this, their expressions were all terrified.In the offensive and defensive battle of Batavia for more than two months, although the Dutch severely damaged the armies of the Kingdom of Mataland and the Kingdom of Banten, their own losses were not small.For organizing the army to besiege Dili City again, I am afraid that it is a bit powerless.

In addition, the warships of the Hanzhou people did not seem to be as easy to deal with as imagined.More than a month ago, the armed merchant ships "Warrior" and "Grey Deer" collided with two Hanzhou warships in the waters of Hanzhou, but were sunk by the other side. Major Curtis Bellman on board the "Warrior" None of the following officers and soldiers were saved.This shocked all the East India Company navy.

It is amazing that Hanzhou can sink the Dutch warship with the same number of ships.According to the returned officers and soldiers of the "Grey Deer", a warship in Hanzhou fired a missile that could catch fire, which ignited the "Warrior" and detonated the gunpowder on the deck, causing it to sink.The sparkling missile they invented is very deadly to wooden sailing ships.

The Dutch Navy attached great importance to this, and urgently formulated a new naval warfare specification, that is, in the event of a firefight with the Hanzhou warship, it is strictly forbidden to pile up barrels of gunpowder on the upper open deck, and prepare a large number of fire-fighting buckets to deal with them at any time. Enemy fire bomb attack.

In this way, many armed merchant ships in the Netherlands will inevitably sacrifice part of the artillery attack power on the upper deck, but this cannot prevent Han Zhou from attacking the sails on their ships.

Perhaps, in the future sea confrontation between Hanzhou and Hezhou, the Dutch navy may more or less have a ship hit by Hanzhou igniting missiles and burned.

(End of this chapter)