Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 334: Elephant Fights Tiger

On the second day, Liu Kun and Zu Ti followed Nguyen Si Qi's ship out of Da Nang and headed north against the wind along the coastline of Guangnan.

The separatist regime of Quang Nam began with Nguyen Hoang, the father of Nguyen Phuc Nguyen. He entered Hue 70 years ago and initially stayed in Aizh Commune. Thirteen years later, Nguyen Hoang took charge of both Hue and Quang Nam and moved his headquarters to Tra Ba Commune.

Until a few years ago, Nguyen Phuc Yuan refused to pay taxes to the Later Le Dynasty and established his own central government, openly breaking with the Zheng rulers. In order to prepare for the coming war, he moved his camp to Phuoc An, Thua Thien, which is only more than ten kilometers away from Hue, the capital of the late Quang Nam, Tây Sơn, and Nguyen dynasties.

Whether it is Aizishe, Tra Bashe or later Hue City, none of them are as convenient as Phuoc An in terms of sea access, because the latter is next to the Tri Giang Lagoon in the north of Hue. In case of emergency, you can just get on the boat and run away.

After a day and night of sailing against the wind, Lin Hai and his party finally arrived at the mouth of Sanjiang Lagoon. The so-called lagoon is a semi-enclosed area of ​​water separated from the open sea by sandbars or corals. It contains both fresh water and salt water, and generally has the characteristics of small waves and low tides, so it is called a lake.

The Tam Giang Lagoon is the largest lagoon in Southeast Asia. As the name suggests, three rivers flow into it, including Hue's mother river, the Perfume River. With a large amount of fresh water flowing in, and the low evaporation in the Hue area, the salinity of the Tam Giang Lagoon is very low, and it can basically be regarded as a freshwater area.

The Nguyen Lords’ naval base was located here. Desalination of the lagoon water helped with the maintenance of wooden boats, but due to the limited water depth, only ships with a draft of less than 3.5m could be moored here.

Outside the mouth of Sanjiang Lagoon, Lin Hai and his party encountered more than ten patrol boats. These patrol boats were all paddle boats with Portuguese guns on both sides, similar in shape to the Kuaixie at the mouth of the Pearl River. They also had two small-caliber muzzle-loading guns on board, and their firepower was not inferior to most of Gongsha's warships during the Battle of Lantau Island.

After entering the lake mouth, Lin Hai and his party continued to head north against the wind, and saw more Guangnan warships along the way. A rough count showed that there were about 300 ships with masts, of which about 200 were the patrol boats seen outside the lake mouth.

There are still nearly 6 pure sail-powered hard-sail warships left, with an average tonnage comparable to the Admiralty's frigates, but with a fatter hull, and an estimated average draft of about three meters. Each of these warships has 8 to 4 guns, with a caliber of 8 to pounds, and firepower roughly equivalent to the Admiralty's notification ships.

"The strength of the Guangnan Navy should not be underestimated. Although the guns are not big, there are so many of them!" Lin Hai thought secretly in his heart. Just looking at the fleet in front of him, there should be more than 3 guns with a firepower of more than 1000 pounds. This firepower can be said to be quite powerful in the navy of Asian countries.

What Lin Hai didn't know was that a few years later, Guangnan built a Vietnamese version of the Great Wall that was more than 3 kilometers long on the border between Zheng and Nguyen. The key defense section of the Rili Fort had a cannon every zhang, and a heavy cannon every 5 to 3000 zhang. There were more than cannons in the Rili Fort alone!
This was the wealth accumulated by Nguyen Hoang and Nguyen Phuc Nguyen over the past 70 years, and was also the key factor in the Nguyen Lords' victory over the seven Zheng-Nguyen Wars. Of course, due to the limited population and number of troops, the Nguyen Lords mostly fought defensive battles and basically did not have the strength to launch a large-scale northern expedition.

But if we only talk about the navy, the Nguyen Lords completely crushed the Zheng Lords. In 1642, the Zheng Lords invited three VOC warships to help them in the battle, but they were still beaten up by the Guangnan Navy and had no chance to fight back. This should be one of the only three naval defeats of the VOC against Eastern countries. The other two were the Battle of Liaoluo Bay and the Battle of Taijiang, where the opponents were Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Chenggong respectively.

"It seems that the following negotiations will not be smooth sailing." Lin Hai thought secretly in his heart. He originally planned to send only 10,000 troops to the Cambodian battlefield, but now it seems that he may have to send out all his troops. Except for Jeju Island, even Li Zhongguo's troops will be brought along... After sailing in the Sanjiang Lagoon for half an hour, Lin Hai and his party finally arrived at Fu'an, the residence of the Nguyen Lords, which the Guangnan people called the main camp.

Since Guangnan did not have the title of an established country and the Nguyen Lords were nominally still officials of the Later Le Dynasty, there was not much formality when the two sides met.

On behalf of Queen Jinhe, Lin Hai presented 100 forged iron cannons to Nguyen Phuc Yuan, including 20 large and small Weiyuan cannons, large and small Mielu cannons, and Yongzhu cannons. Although Guangnan had many cannons, they mainly used Portuguese technology and were not as good as Ming in terms of fast and mobile light cannons. The battlefield between Zheng and Nguyen was mainly in the Hengshan area, which was exactly the field weapon that the Nguyen Lord needed.

This was also a way of showing off his muscles. Nguyen Phuc Yuan gave the Queen of Kim Ha ten elephants and the accompanying elephant slaves in return, and then invited Lin Hai to watch a unique fight between an elephant and a tiger.

The poor tiger had its mouth sewn shut and its claws plucked out, while the elephant was covered in armor. Finally, the "brave" elephant used its tusks to pick up the tiger and threw it repeatedly into the air until it was killed...

After the elephant-tiger show, the elephant formation exercise followed. Elephant soldiers are a very common type of soldier in Indochina. All countries have a deep tradition of elephant soldiers. Monarchs known for their bravery are often keen on riding elephants to duel. Laos and Cambodia even had a bizarre diplomatic incident of using elephant fighting to determine the relationship between countries and their subjects.

The so-called elephant formation drill is actually more of a performance than an actual combat drill, and the main content is the battle between elephant soldiers and infantry. To put it simply, the infantry first attacks the elephant army, then retreats, and finally the elephant army counterattacks and smashes the infantry to pieces. Of course, the "infantry" in the last link will be replaced by scarecrows.

Nguyen Phuc Yuan dispatched a total of 3 war elephants, which were between 5 and 4 meters tall. The front row was covered with armor, which had a strong visual impact. When the elephants started running, the whole earth seemed to tremble, which was quite shocking.

Lin Hai sat below Nguyen Phuc Yuan, watching the elephant performance with great interest, exclaiming from time to time. After the performance, he said to Nguyen Phuc Yuan with a serious face: "Lord, I am very interested in elephants. I would like to import more from Quang Nam in the future. It would be best if we could buy dozens of elephants every year."

Nguyen Phuc Yuan could read and write Chinese, but could not speak it. After listening to the translation, he smiled and asked, "Why? Does your country also want to form an elephant army?"

Lin Hai waved his hands seriously and said, "No, no, I heard that elephants are very timid. They are afraid of fire and loud noises. They will be frightened and run around in a battlefield. If they are not careful, they will disrupt their own army."

The smile on Nguyen Phuc Yuan's face froze instantly. He originally thought that Lin Hai had never seen elephant soldiers before and would definitely be intimidated, but he didn't expect that the other party would immediately point out the elephant soldiers' weakness.

(End of this chapter)