Take the arsenal to Da Ming

Chapter 331 Airborne

Knowing that the Ming army and the Portuguese army were coming fiercely, the Dutch didn't even think about field battles, so they huddled in the city of Batavia early, preparing to resist in the city of Yijian.

Because they had long prevented the Ming army from attacking Batavia City, in recent years, the Dutch have further reinforced Batavia City and strengthened its defenses in all aspects.

In the past few months, they have accumulated a large amount of supplies in the city. With these supplies, they think they can hold on for more than a year.

The Ming Empire is so far away from Batavia, so all kinds of supplies are naturally very inconvenient. The consumption of more than 1 troops for more than a year may be difficult to bear even with the financial resources of the Ming Empire.

Therefore, the policy formulated by the Dutch at the beginning was not to directly defeat the Ming-Portuguese coalition forces, but to consume the coalition forces to death, so that the coalition forces could not persist and then withdraw directly.

The Intelligence Department of the Ming Army also conducted information spies on all aspects of Batavia City before, and Batavia City surpassed Manila City run by the Spaniards in almost all aspects.

Moreover, the Dutch had many contacts with Daming before, and there were several wars between the two sides, and the Dutch knew the Ming army better than the Spaniards.

So from these aspects, Batavia City must be more difficult to win than Manila City.

But no matter what, the Ming army had to try it first, using hot air balloons and German artillery to intimidate and threaten.

However, the people of the Netherlands had suffered from the German cannons countless times. It could be said that among all Tangning's targets, they had experienced the German cannons the most times and intensity.

Because of this, the Dutch people know that the advanced artillery of the Ming army is not invincible, and the number is very limited, so it is unlikely to directly destroy the city of Batavia.

They also learned that when the Ming army attacked Manila, they used this kind of artillery very rarely, and the number of shells fired each time was not large.

Moreover, the Ming army did not rely on this kind of artillery to break into the city of Manila. Therefore, they were not worried that the Ming army would directly use this advanced artillery to bombard the city. Instead, they were strictly preventing the Ming army from capturing Manila. means to deal with Batavia.

Therefore, the Dutch paid close attention to every move of the Ming army, for fear that the Ming army would unknowingly dig a secret passage directly under the city wall, and then plant a large amount of gunpowder to blow up the city wall.

In fact, the worries of the Dutch were unnecessary, and Ye Dacheng, the commander of the Ming army, gave up this strategy at the beginning.

Because the Dutch dug several deep long trenches around the city for defense, although the Dutch did not deploy troops in the long trenches, they could effectively block the opponent's army's attack on the city.

Because the long trenches can effectively block the speed of the attacking army, all kinds of siege equipment of the attackers are not lucky to reach the city, but the Dutch can use artillery to launch a counterattack, causing all kinds of damage to the attackers trapped in the long trenches. kill.

And if the attacker wants to dig a secret passage directly to the city, it will be easily blocked by the long trench and exposed.

If it is almost dug out with great difficulty, and then suddenly exposed, it will definitely deal a great blow to the attacker, so Ye Dacheng has long felt that the method of digging secret tunnels is a bad idea, and this method will not be adopted unless it is a last resort.

There is no need to use secret channels, is the only way left for the Ming-Portuguese coalition forces to attack at any cost?
Of course not, Tangning, the king of light with many methods, had already thought of a strategy that no one would have thought of: falling from the sky.

Yes, it is from the sky, referred to as airborne.

The Ming army already had hot air balloons, and they needed parachutes if they wanted to go airborne.

In Tangning's arsenal, there were German parachutes. Even if there were no German parachutes, it would not be too difficult to make a self-made parachute, but the performance was not as good as the military ones.

After the hot air balloon was invented, Tangning immediately thought of capturing some difficult cities by airborne.

But airborne is definitely not a simple job, but very technically difficult. Even in Tangning's era, airborne still has certain risks.

Therefore, it will naturally take a lot of time and energy to train a group of high-quality airborne troops.

Tang Ning is not a paratrooper, she only has a certain concept of paratroopers, and has never jumped out of a parachute in her life.

Therefore, he could only provide some theoretical guidance, and he could not practice it for the soldiers himself.

In order to reduce the casualties of the soldiers, he first passed a lot of training so that the soldiers could open the umbrella bag proficiently, and then let some death row prisoners go to the experiment again and again.

After finding out some experience, let the soldiers try one by one. After several years of hard work, they finally trained a group of airborne troops.

But even so, a lot of price has been paid in the past few years, but no matter what, once this tactic is successful, it will be worth it.

Today, the fortified city of Batavia has become the first experimental site for the Ming army to conduct airborne operations.

Through the observation of the scouts on the hot air balloon, almost all the Dutch troops in the city of Batavia were deployed on the castle, and it was almost difficult to see an organized army in the city, which created good conditions for the airborne.

For this airborne landing, the Ming army transported hundreds of hot air balloons with the army.

In order to make the airborne go smoothly, Ye Dacheng deliberately chose a good weather, with good visibility and good wind direction.

Early in the morning, Ye Dacheng ordered the artillery to bombard the city of Batavia violently. He pretended to attack by force, but in fact it was just to cover the airborne operation.

Hot air balloons soared up in the rear of the Ming army. Each hot air balloon carried seven people, five of whom were paratroopers.

A total of 160 hot air balloons were launched this time, with a total of 800 troops, including 200 Manchu soldiers, 200 Mongolian soldiers, and 400 Han soldiers.

Among the 400 Han soldiers, there are five platoons of soldiers equipped with German-style light weapons, just to quickly control the situation with firepower when the troops are not dominant after a successful airborne landing.

The hot air balloons rose higher and higher, like clouds in the sky, and then under the control of the hot air balloon pilot, they floated in the direction of Batavia City.

The Dutch knew that the Ming army had hot air balloons, but they didn't know that they were called hot air balloons. These days, several hot air balloons were floating over Batavia every day, so they were not surprised.

However, it was the first time for them to see so many hot air balloons flying in the sky. They felt that something big was about to happen, but they didn't know what to do.

Even more surprising is, why do they fly so high?Isn't it inconvenient to fly too high for observation?
The hot air balloons finally stopped at a height of about two hundred feet, and the airborne troops carried by each hot air balloon began to prepare.

"Swish, swish..." Several signal flares flew out, giving the order to parachute.

One by one, the paratroopers stood beside the gondola, with their comrades supporting their bodies, while he himself made preparations for parachute jumping, curled up.

"One, two, three, jump..."

Airborne soldiers jumped off the hot air balloon one by one.

(End of this chapter)