Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 346 Enemy Situation
"Nine large plywood boats? But the Penghu defenders saw it with their own eyes?" Lin Hai was greatly surprised when he heard this. His first reaction was that the intelligence was wrong.

"The patrol officers saw it with their own eyes. There were at least nine large plywood ships with a capacity of more than 1,000 tons, all flying red flags."

The person sent by Yang Lu to report the news was his trusted servant. This person was not used to using tonnage to describe the size of a ship like the officers and soldiers of the Navy Department. The so-called one thousand tons was roughly equivalent to a displacement of 500 tons, a genuine cruiser level.

Lin Hai's heart sank when he heard this, and he quickly asked, "How many cannons does the red-haired fleet have?"

"I don't know about that." Yang Lu's servant said, "The patrol officers were far away at the time, so they could only roughly count the number of red-haired plywood boats, but they couldn't see the gun ports clearly."

Lin Hai then asked: "Where did the patrol ship see the enemy fleet? When was it exactly?"

"The enemy fleet was discovered in the area of ​​Nan'ao Island three days ago. Penghu received the news the night before yesterday. General Yang immediately sent a flagman to Tamsui to report the news. When the flagman set out, no enemy ships had been found in the Penghu area. The flagman has no idea what happened afterwards."

"Got it. You go down and have a rest first." Lin Hai felt relieved when he heard that. It takes more than a day to travel from Nan'ao to Penghu and from Penghu to Tamsui with a favorable wind. It also takes an hour to ride a horse from the mouth of the Tamsui River to the Firearms Bureau. The efficiency of the entire message transmission process can be said to be quite high.

At this time, he was very grateful that Li Kuiqi had sent spies to Penghu and Wanggang in advance. If Yang Lu's men had not captured the enemy's patrol boat, the situation would have been unimaginable.

As early as half a month ago, after learning about the abnormal movements of Li Kuiqi's troops, Lin Hai ordered Yang Ce to send ships to scout far out to the Nan'ao area, thus buying precious time for the withdrawal of Penghu's military and civilians.

Since the new immigrants were still in centralized quarantine, it did not take too long to organize them to board the ship, and there were enough ships on the Penghu side. As long as Yang Lu could faithfully implement the established deployment, it should not be a problem to bring these immigrants safely to Beigang.

Beigang is currently garrisoned by Jiuzhi, which is almost at the same latitude as the main island of Penghu, and is even closer to Magong Port than Wanggang.

More importantly, the Han immigrant village in Beigang had moats and bamboo fences, and was some distance away from the mouth of Beigang Creek. The large ships of the VOC and Li Kuiqi's troops could not enter Beigang Creek, so they could only fight a land battle if they wanted to attack.

Unless they could pull the naval guns ashore, it would be difficult for the enemy to gain an advantage over the Vanguard Division. And Nine Fingers had cavalry under his command, so how could he allow the enemy to easily transport heavy guns on land?
As for Wanggang, because the new immigrants were also in quarantine, there were only garrisons but no civilians. After receiving military intelligence from Penghu, Feng Yidao would definitely lead his troops to Beigang to join Jiuzhi. In addition, Yang Lu had another 1,000 troops under his command, which should be enough to protect nearly 10,000 new and old immigrants.

Moreover, the VOC and Li Kuiqi coalition forces are unlikely to put much effort into attacking Beigang. This does not make much sense to them. At most, they can just plunder some food and labor, which are everywhere along the coast of Fujian. There is no need to suffer heavy casualties for this.

When the VOC made such a big scene, Lin Hai's first reaction was not to think that the other party was coming for him. He felt that the target must still be to invade Fujian and achieve the goal of taking the city by force.

After all, Zheng Zhilong is dead now, and the Xu family has been incorporated into the Huiyou Company, which means that the Dayuan Trading Company has cut off its main source of goods.

However, with Li Kuiqi instigating, the VOC might also cause trouble for Lin. Even so, the main targets of attack must be Tamsui and Keelung, and if they encounter stubborn resistance, they are unlikely to risk their lives to attack. But the enemy must occupy Penghu, after all, it is a transit point between Tainan and Fujian, and the port conditions are far superior to Tainan. The VOC has also done detailed surveying work here, and will definitely use Magong Port as the home port of the fleet...

Lin Hai sat in the lobby of the Firearms Bureau, closed his eyes and considered the current situation, then said to Viper, "Hurry up and pass on the order to inform the directors in Tamsui and Keelung immediately of the military situation, and order the Navy and Army to immediately recall all soldiers on leave and have them on standby in Keelung."

"Yes, Commander!" Viper asked, "What about Tamsui and Yilan? Should the Garrison General Administration issue a mobilization order to assemble the peasant soldiers and wait for orders?"

"Not for now. The enemy's intentions are still unclear, so there's no need for us to panic." Lin Hai decided to wait for news from Penghu and Jianan. Yang Lu should send someone to report on the evacuation of immigrants soon.

He then added: "Order the Navy Department to send more patrol ships to conduct scouts far away. Except for patrol ships, no other ships are allowed to go out to sea. Order the Ministry of Communications to immediately send ships to Jiangnan and Japan to prevent grain ships from returning to the country and wait for further orders from the company."

"Captain, should we send another ship to Haojing?" Viper reminded, "The Bowang may already be on its way back."

"What you said is that the ship going to Haojing should go through the east coast to avoid the Red Hair and Li Kuiqi's fleets." Lin Hai nodded when he heard it. He forgot for a moment that Li Guozhu should have returned from Goa, and there might be envoys from Portugal and EIC on the ship.

Ozoji on the East Sea route did not need to worry. He and Miguel went to Manila together and then went south to Java. Lin Hai ordered his brother to stay in the Sultanate of Mataram and wait for Sultan Agon to suffer a disastrous defeat in Batavia before selling him the plan of alliance. It was estimated that he would not be able to return home until the end of the year at the earliest.

"Yes, sir!" Viper responded, "Then I will pass on the order right away."

"Wait a minute." Lin Hai stopped Viper again, "Strictly order all directors not to leak military information to irrelevant people, especially not to let the relevant people know about Red Hair's movements."

Longquilo's galleon was still docked at Keelung Harbor. If the Spaniards knew that the VOC had sent nine large galleons, they might flee immediately.

But Lin Hai wanted to keep the ship in Keelung. After all, in terms of naval power, the enemy was strong and we were weak. Having one more cruiser would increase our chances of winning.

After Viper left, Lin Hai continued to accompany Long Kuiluo to visit the Firearms Bureau, but returned to Guandu City overnight. This place is closest to the mouth of the Tamsui River, and he needs to receive follow-up intelligence from Penghu and Jianan as soon as possible.

However, unexpectedly, the second piece of intelligence did not come from Penghu or Jianan, but from faraway Batavia...

The very next morning, a person who surprised Lin Hai came to Tamsui - Su Tingxuan from Tongan, Fujian. His brother was Su Minggang, the Chinese Kapitan of Batavia.

(End of this chapter)