The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 648 What is this? Life for life, ship for ship? (Please vote, please subscribe)
Early morning of December 1858, 12, Palembang.

Vice Admiral Van der Wilde's boots tapped a rapid rhythm on the teak floor, his eyes fixed on the Sunda Strait on the nautical chart. "Twenty warships?" He turned to look at the panting communications officer, "Can the Surabaya confirm that it is the main fleet of the Chinese?"

"Yes, General!" The communications officer wiped the sweat from his forehead, "The lookout confirmed that the shadow of the 'Shanghai-class' ship was seen, and there were at least twenty smoke columns!"

Lieutenant General Van Hoeven ran his finger across the sea chart: "The Chinese are targeting the port of Banten!"

The former commander of the Dutch East Indies Fleet was also in charge of the Dutch army in the East Indies in the past year, and he was also responsible for the defense of Java Island. After the fall of Batavia, the port of Banten in the west of Java Island became the largest stronghold of the Dutch on Java Island. If Banten was lost, the Dutch rule on Java Island would basically end.

Once Java was lost, the Spice Islands east of Java would be lost one by one. The Dutch could finally keep Sumatra and several archipelagos at the eastern entrance of the Strait of Malacca, but they had to rely on the British Empire to stir up trouble!

So when Vice Admiral Wilde's fleet brought 6000 Dutch soldiers to the Dutch East Indies, Van Hoeven immediately suggested to his new superior that half of them be used to strengthen the port of Banten.

However, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Java Heavenly Kingdom were not idle in the past year. Under the protection of the "truce supervision ship" and "truce supervisor" of the Korean Heavenly Kingdom, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom sent at least 10 strong men to Java, and the Java Heavenly Kingdom trained at least troops! It also significantly expanded the control area around Batavia, Semarang, and Surabaya, and carried out land reform in the newly controlled areas. Hundreds of thousands of landless natives were allocated land that originally belonged to tribal leaders through the reform.
Van Hoeven gritted his teeth and said, "The Chinese have assembled an army of about 50,000 troops in Batavia, and will soon launch an attack on Banten. The combined army of us and the Banten Sultan is only 30,000. If another elite Chinese army lands near the port of Banten, our defense line in Banten is likely to collapse quickly!"

"This won't happen!"

Vice Admiral Wilder turned around abruptly, "Order! The entire fleet immediately weighs anchor and must intercept them in the Sunda Strait!"

The whistle of the Seven Provinces Alliance broke through the dawn, and twelve steam warships and twenty-four sailing warships sailed out of the mouth of the Mushi River one after another. Vice Admiral Van der Hoeven stood on the bridge of the flagship, looking at the fleet stretching for several miles behind him, with a sneer on his face: "The Chinese finally can't hold back."

"Enemy ship spotted! Three o'clock!"

The roar from the watchtower pierced the rumbling sound of the Shunchang's paddle wheel. Chen Yongsheng grabbed the telescope, then climbed up the mast with nimble hands and feet, and then looked in the direction indicated by the lookout post.

The decoy fleet of 17 armed merchant ships under his command was approaching the Sunda Strait in a loose goose formation, when three columns of black smoke suddenly emerged from the sea surface to the north.

"It must be the Dutch Surabaya class!" Chen Yongsheng shouted.

Hong Amao, the one-eyed first mate of the Shunchang, only then saw the black smoke rising from the sea level in the distance. "Three Sishuis lead the way. The Dutch fleet should be behind them!"

The scar on Chen Yongsheng's face twitched: "Order all ships to raise the flag of the main fleet!" He turned and shouted to the gunnery chief: "Armstrong guns ready! Show the red-haired devils our 'Shanghai-class' greeting!"

The waterproof canvas at the rear of the four "Jianghai-class" merchant ships was suddenly opened, and the black 70mm breech-loading gun barrels were all pointed at the vast ocean. This was a secret weapon borrowed by Luo Yaoguo from Yang Xiuqing's Korean Heavenly Kingdom, and its range was twice that of the Dutch 68-pound gun.

"Pass the order, the whole team slows down to 4 knots," Chen Yongsheng said, "Shunchang, Funing, Dasanyuan, and Lanfang form a line to cover the rear!"

He then issued a series of orders, dividing the 17 steam-armed merchant ships into two teams, with four Jianghai-class steam ships forming a horizontal formation to the rear, and the remaining 13 steam ships forming a double column to go ahead.

The speed of the entire team was reduced from 7 knots to 4 knots so that the three Surabaya-class ships following behind them could get closer and be hit!
"4500 meters away!"

About an hour later, the gunnery officer on the Shunchang shouted.

“4000 meters away.”

"."

“3000 meters away!
"Three rapid fire!" When Chen Yongsheng heard the number "3000", he gave the order to open fire without hesitation.

The metallic collision sound of the breech block opening and closing was crisp and pleasant, and the 70mm picric acid shell developed by the "Psychic Department" of Tianjing Taiping University was spinning at high speed under the action of the rifling. Suddenly, two orange clouds of fire exploded in the distance, and two balls of fire instantly rose on the sea surface on one side of the Dutch reconnaissance ship!
"Damn it! How can the Chinese artillery shells reach so far?" On the Dutch reconnaissance ship "The Hague Man", Major Van Speck's monocle shattered on the deck, "What kind of artillery is this?"

Before he finished speaking, the other three Jianghai-class ships on the sea also opened fire!

A total of 8 70mm Armstrong breech-loading guns, three rapid shots, that is 24 picric acid shells, hit the "Hague Man" like raindrops at a distance of 3000 meters!

At the same time as a series of loud noises, the Hague Man was hit by two picric acid shells, one of which hit the sail. When the shell collided with the sail, it turned into a fireball. The fragments of the shell swept across the deck, instantly turning the seven Dutch sailors who were manning the sail and gun on the rear deck into bloody gourds! The burning picric acid splashed out and ignited the sail!

Another picric acid shell hit the deck near the bridge. Fortunately, it was a 70mm shell with limited power. It only blew a large hole in the wooden deck and sent two Dutchmen to see God. If it was replaced with a 24-pound picric acid shell, the "Hague Man" might have been killed.

But this picric acid shell still made Major Van Speck break out in a cold sweat. By then he already knew what kind of gun the enemy was equipped with.
"Breech-loaders! Damn the British, they actually..." Major Van Speck shouted, "Send signal rockets immediately to discover the enemy's main fleet!"

The chimney of the Seven Provinces Union spewed out black smoke, and Vice Admiral Deville's telescope showed the burning "The Hague Man".

The 800-ton Surabaya-class steam gunboat was now like a floating torch, its sails twisted into ashes in the green flames, and the Dutch sailors on the deck were screaming and jumping into the burning sea.

"General!" the observation officer suddenly exclaimed, "the enemy ship's gun muzzle flashes!"

Before he finished speaking, eight roars suddenly sounded. Deville saw eight balls of blazing flames spurting out from the sterns of the four Jianghai-class ships, and then the "Hague Man" was hit again, with two balls of yellow-green flames rising up - this was the "drag knife strategy" carefully designed by Chen Yongsheng. The main guns of the four Jianghai-class ships' sterns were always locked on the Hague Man!

"This rate of fire, this range. Damn it!" Deville roared, "Damn the British, this is their Armstrong breech-loader."

A muzzle-loader cannot have such a rate of fire and range. You can tell from the fireball that the shell is not very big. If it were a muzzle-loader, it would not be able to hit anything beyond 1000 yards. But now it can hit about 3000 yards, which is not much different from a 68-pound rifled cannon.

This must be a breech-loader!
Currently, only Britain, France and Prussia are developing breech-loading guns, and Britain's Armstrong breech-loading gun is the most mature. Moreover, the Queen of England is the sister of the kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!
"Order! Divide the entire fleet into two groups - 'Seven Provinces' and 'Prince William' will follow me to attack head-on, and 'Netherland' will lead the rest of the steam ships to attack the flanks!" Vice Admiral Deville tried hard to suppress his anger, gritted his teeth and issued an order to divide the troops, "We can't let these damn Chinese go."

Nine Dutch steamships cut through the waves, and black smoke instantly covered half of the sky, then split into two streams.

Vice Admiral Wilde's tactical intention was clear: use the heavy firepower of the flagship formation (two "Seven Provinces" class ships) to attract the enemy, and use the "Netherlands" (Seven Provinces) to lead a flanking formation to outflank and attack.

While Vice Admiral Deville led nine steam ships to attack the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's four Jianghai-class ships in two groups, three or four nautical miles behind the Dutch East India Fleet's steam ship force, in an array of twenty-four sailing warships, Vice Admiral Van Hoeven was holding a monocular telescope tightly.

"The steam ships are chasing at full speed. What are our sailing ships? Just the mules and horses that run with us?" Vice Admiral Huo Wen frowned. "Those four ships don't look like Shanghai-class ships. Where are those damn Shanghai-class ships? Pass the order! All sailing ships lower their sails to half sail and maintain the battle line!"

Chen Yongsheng stood on the bridge of the violently shaking "Shunchang", watching the encirclement gradually formed on both sides, but a sneer appeared on the corners of his mouth. He grabbed the megaphone and shouted in Minnan dialect: "A Shui! Raise my Hongxi flag!"

A linen battle flag with brown stains was unfurled at the top of the mast. The 1639-year-old gunner Ah Shui suddenly understood what those stains were - that was the blood that soaked the flag when the ancestors of the Chen family were massacred by the Dutch during the Red Creek Massacre in Batavia in !

"Grandpa and grandma are watching!" Chen Yongsheng's eyes were bloodshot, and his Mandarin with a Minnan accent resounded throughout the ship: "Let the red-haired devils taste the wrath of Hongxi River!"

The four Jianghai-class ships suddenly turned right collectively, their paddle wheels stirred up turbid waves, and they changed from a horizontal formation to a vertical formation, rushing towards the seven Dutch steamships that were outflanking them. This counterintuitive maneuver caused a brief chaos in the Dutch outflanking fleet.

Vice Admiral Deville did not understand for a moment what those four Jianghai-class ships were doing, but he still carefully commanded two "big ships" with a displacement of nearly 2000 tons to approach from the left wing of the four Jianghai-class ships - he was prepared to take a few 70mm picric acid shells to close the distance, and then use 68-pound picric acid shells to send away the four armed merchant ships!
"The distance is three thousand four hundred meters!"

The lookout on the "Shunchang" roared with a crying tone.

Chen Yongsheng smiled. He recalled that when he was five years old, his grandfather pointed to the mottled family tree and told him: "Our Chen family arrived in Java 300 years earlier than the Dutch. At that time, the Java Sea was ours! In the future, we must take this sea back!"

"Boom boom boom"

The eight Armstrong cannons fired rapidly like a storm!

This time two shells hit the target, one of which seemed to have eyes and penetrated into the engine room of the Seven Provinces Alliance. The Dutch flagship, which was charging at full speed, suddenly trembled violently, and black smoke spewed out from every riveted gap - the picric acid burned through the steam pipe!
Lieutenant General Deville staggered and held on to the compass, watching the air pressure needle on the dashboard drop wildly, his eyes almost bleeding from anger!
"Lieutenant General, the Chinese have turned!"

Through the broken porthole, he discovered with horror that the four Jianghai-class ships, which had no firepower at all, had chosen to turn in front of them, regardless of the seven Dutch steamships that would soon take the T-position in front of them - they were trying to seize the T-position and concentrate their firepower on bombarding the Seven Provinces Alliance!
What is this? Life for life, ship for ship?

"Mads. These Chinese are all crazy!" The lieutenant general's roar was drowned out by the explosion of picric acid shells.

(End of this chapter)