1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 539 Stalemate ([-])

On April 1645, 4, the Ryukyu waters.

"Bastard, this is a posture to drive us all to death!" She Dekui stared at the Dutch armed merchant ship a few miles behind the ship with hatred, cursed, and then spat into the sea.

She Dekui and his group of three merchant ships were going to return to Quanzhou, Fujian via Taiwan after trading from Nagasaki, Japan a few days ago.Unexpectedly, in the early morning of this morning, near the Ryukyu Island, they suddenly encountered five armed Dutch merchant ships, and the other party rushed towards them.Seeing this situation, several ships of the Zheng family immediately turned around and fled towards the southwest.
In October last year, the Dutch sent representatives to Quanzhou, Fujian, and made representations to Zheng Zhilong, asking him to limit the number of trading ships going to Japan, and earnestly fulfill the agreement to deliver raw silk, porcelain and other Chinese goods to the Dutch.

But Zheng Zhilong, who is busy coping with changes in the domestic situation, has no time to deal with the Dutch, and with the expansion of the Zheng family's influence in Fujian, Zhejiang, and Guangdong, coupled with the increasing development of Taiwan and Luzon, Zheng Zhilong is now at a time when he is full of ambition. , The request of the Dutch was simply ignored.The Zheng family increased their trade with Japan, wishing to eat up the Netherlands' trade share as soon as possible.I want our Zheng family to reduce trade with Japan and provide you with a lot of cheap goods. I am afraid that you Dutch people have been on the boat for a long time, and you are a little dizzy!
However, since December, several ships of the Zheng family going to Japan for trade have been attacked by armed Dutch merchant ships. At least two merchant ships have been out of order for more than a month, and they may have been sunk or captured by the Dutch.Even the ships heading to Taiwan for transshipment of immigrants and supplies were attacked by the Dutch, causing huge losses in personnel and supplies.

Zheng Zhilong was furious about this, more than ten years ago, when Lao Tzu dominated the Daming sea area, he beat you, the Dutch, and ran away with your head in your arms.Today, Lao Tzu owns a province of Fujian, parts of Zhejiang and Guangdong, thousands of warships, and [-] to [-] troops under his command. He is the king of the southeast.

You little Dutch East India Company, how dare you come and lick my beard!
Immediately, Zheng Zhilong assembled a large number of warships, trying to encircle and suppress the Dutch armed merchant ships that came to the Ming and Japanese waters.The Dutch were also bachelors, and temporarily abandoned the shrinking Japanese market, and did not send merchant ships to Nagasaki, Japan for trading.Instead, they organized several sabotage fleets to attack Zheng's ships in multiple sea areas.In order to force Zheng Zhilong to make certain concessions to the Dutch East India Company through this method of continuously bloodletting the Zheng family.

In Annan, Java, Borneo, Taiwan, Luzon, Ming Dynasty, and Japan, the Zheng family's trading ships were indiscriminately attacked by the Dutch.Although the sea is vast, only a few were found by the Dutch armed merchant ships and were sunk and captured, but for the Zheng family, the loss was quite painful.Losing a ship at random would cost tens of thousands of taels of silver.

You know, now the Zheng family not only has thousands of naval warships, but also has nearly 2 sailors, and there are also [-] to [-] troops stationed in Fujian, Zhejiang, Guangdong and other places on land, which consumes a lot of money every day. .In addition, there are continuous immigration and development to Taiwan and Luzon.And all of these need the money earned by the sea trade to maintain, and there is no room for loss.

But now the Dutch seem to want to try to destroy their overseas trade, tap the foundation of the Zheng family's sea trade, and reduce the inflow of silver.

Taking people's money is like killing their parents!
In order to deal with the threat from the Dutch at sea, Zheng Zhilong ordered Zheng Hongkui, the commander in chief of Zhenjiang, to mobilize half of the warships on the Yangtze River defense line, and together with several naval ships sent by Quanzhou Port, went out to sea to kill and expel the Dutch who were wandering around Daming and Japan. Armed merchant ships must completely drive the Dutch out of the surrounding waters to ensure the Zheng family's trade with Japan.

But in the sea, trying to find dozens of Dutch armed merchant ships is naturally very difficult.As a last resort, the Zheng family navy assembled more than a dozen ships each time to go to Taiwan and Japan, hoping to deter possible attacks by the Dutch by virtue of the number of ships.

However, the centralized escort of large-scale ships is simply not sustainable. This mode of consuming manpower and transport capacity was abandoned by the Zheng family in less than a month.Because the venue is too big, I can't take care of it at all.Even the large-scale assembly of Zheng's fleet, the Netherlands followed behind without hesitation.Either take advantage of a sudden attack before dark, and then immediately escape into the sea under the cover of night, or take advantage of the situation that Zheng's ships are alone, swarm over, bite, and then scatter away, a typical attack of wolves model.

Of course, the fleet assembled by the Zheng family sometimes caught the Dutch raiding fleet, but when they saw that the situation was not good, they immediately fled in all directions. , put a few shots, at most it can damage the Dutch ship a little or two.

But in most cases, the empty Dutch armed merchant ships could easily escape the siege of Zheng's fleet.However, some of the Zheng family's trading ships loaded with goods or money would have much less chance of escaping if they were surrounded by four or five Dutch armed merchant ships.

After fleeing for a while with three merchant ships, She Dekui and his party saw that it was difficult to get rid of the siege of the Dutch armed merchant ships before dark, so they simply fled in three directions in separate directions.As for which merchant ship was sunk or captured by the Dutch armed forces in the end, it can only be fate.

The Dutch ignored a merchant ship fleeing east, and the fleet was divided into two, chasing the merchant ships fleeing west and south separately.

"Boss, I remember that not far to the southwest is Hanxing Island occupied by Hanzhou. Let's hide there!" A navigator on the ship said loudly.

"...Han Zhou dares to keep us?" She Dekui froze for a moment.

"Could it be that they dare to hand us over to the Dutch?"

"That's right!" She Dekui nodded and said, "Turn around! Go to Hanxing Island!"

Since Hanzhou will not hand them over to the Dutch, they can only temporarily live on the island to avoid the Dutch's pursuit.It would be the best if the Netherlands refused to let it go and broke into Hanxing Island and fought with Hanzhou.

In the afternoon (15:17 to [-]:[-]), a wounded merchant ship of the Zheng family sailed into the wharf on the northwest side of Hanxing Island in a panic, followed by three Dutch armed merchant ships taking advantage of the situation to break into the port.However, as two warning shells fired from the pier fort fell into the sea near the Dutch armed merchant ship, they immediately stopped their "footsteps", and then slowly retreated from the harbor.

Before dark, the Dutch fleet sent a small boat into the port, and negotiated with the Hanzhou Fort officers stationed at the pier, asking them to drive away the Zheng family merchant ship that had just hid in the port, and claimed that the East India Company was in conflict with Zheng Zhilong. In the state of war, I hope Hanzhou will stick to neutrality and not be involved in the war between them.

The officer on duty at the pier fort hesitated for a moment, not daring to be self-reliant, and sent someone to take the Dutch representative to the city to meet Chen Dalang, the general manager of Hanxing Island.

At dawn the next day, the Dutch fleet, which had been anxiously waiting all night, received a reply from Hanxing Island. The Zheng family ships and sailors who took refuge in the port yesterday have been disarmed on Hanxing Island and captured by Hanzhou. Please The Dutch fleet left quickly and was not allowed to stay outside the port.Otherwise, it will be regarded as an invasion of Hanzhou's overseas territories.

The fat meat to the mouth was eaten by the Hanzhou people, which made the Dutch fleet stationed outside Hanxing Island very angry.However, considering that the relationship with Hanzhou cannot be intensified, so as not to cause tension between the two sides, and Hanxing Island is full of forts and tight defenses.The three armed merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company could only retreat to the open sea.But he didn't stay away, staring at the direction of the pier, waiting for the Zheng family's boat to come out.

"I'm afraid you'll have to stay on the island for a while." Chen Dalang looked at She Dekui, "It's very reconciled that the Dutch didn't catch you. Now they're wandering outside the port, presumably waiting for you to go out."

"These goddamn red-haired ghosts!" She Dekui cursed, then cupped his hands at Chen Dalang, and said gratefully: "I am grateful to you Hanzhou for helping me this time. If I get out of trouble and return to Fujian, I will report it to you." Nan'anbo, declare the friendship between the two families."

"You Nan'anbo mobilized more than half of the naval warships on the Yangtze River defense line, and went out to sea to find the Dutch attack fleet. Aren't you afraid that Jiannu will attack the Yangtze River and threaten Nanjing?"

"The four towns in Jiangbei have hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Jiannu may not even be able to attack the Jianghuai River. How could they easily attack the Yangtze River?" She Dekui said disapprovingly.

"However, it would be inappropriate to easily withdraw the naval warships and weaken the defense line of the Yangtze River." Chen Dalang said: "Building slaves in Shaanxi to attack the Shun army is irresistible. If they destroy the Shun army, how can they know that they will not be defeated?" Turn around and attack Jianghuai, threatening Nanjing."

"No way, the Jiannu and the Chuangnishun Army should be inseparable in a short time, right?" She Dekui said in a daze, "Aren't they at a stalemate in Shaanxi right now?"

"Shunjun should be difficult to stand up against Jiannu, and it will collapse sooner or later." Chen Dalang said worriedly.

(End of this chapter)