In the sea west of Palawan, the naval battle between the Beiyang Naval Division and the Dutch fleet was still going on and had entered a fever pitch.

Both sides are suffering losses, but neither is willing to retreat, and retreating means admitting defeat, which is unwilling to accept for the newborn calf of the Beiyang Naval Division, and even more unwilling to accept for the self-proclaimed Viscount Jon of Batavia, the strongest Dutch navy.

If this governor has a first-class battleship under his command, it doesn't need many, only five, how can it fall to the point of bombarding the Ming warship? Jon, the governor of Batavia, the Netherlands, hated his heart.

The countries of Europa have almost successively completed military reforms, and most of them not only have standing armies, but also have a strict and uniform system of military ranks, namely marshals, generals, colonels, and lieutenants.

On naval warships, the Europa countries graded large sail warships according to tonnage and number of guns.

In the era of sail battleships, battleships were divided into six classes, first-class battleships, equipped with three decks, equipped with guns of up to a hundred or more.

Battleships of the second rank also had three decks with about ninety guns, battleships of the third rank had only two decks and were equipped with sixty-four to seventy-four guns, and battleships of the fourth rank were also equipped with two decks but were equipped with fewer guns of fifty to fifty-eight guns, and frigates of the fifth to sixth ranks.

However, at this time, the first and second class battleships, their navigation was very bad, the main problem was that the three decks would cause the center of gravity of the battleship to be higher, and at this time the Suez Canal had not yet opened, and Europa's battleships had to go all the way south from the Atlantic Ocean around the southernmost Cape of Good Hope in Africa, and then enter the Indian Ocean, and finally reach Southeast Asia.

However, the storm raged in the waters of the Cape of Good Hope, and the first and second class battleships wanted to drive thousands of miles to the Far Eastern Seas, and the most likely thing was to sink halfway.

The first and second class battleships were expensive, and even the Dutch state, which claimed to be the richest in Europa, could not afford it.

In contrast, the Ming Fu ship is different, the No. 1 Fu ship and the No. 2 Fu ship are both three-deck, but the number of guns is very different from that of the Dutch battleships.

The No. 1 Fu ship built by Tianjin Bao Shipyard can be equipped with 50 guns, which can reach the artillery level of Europa's fourth-class battleship, and the No. 2 Fu ship can be equipped with 38 guns.

However, although the number of guns equipped with the Fukubune battleship is small, the caliber is not small, half of the guns on the No. 1 Fukubune have reached the level of Europa 2nd class battleships, while the No. 2 Fukubune barely reaches the level of Europa 3rd class battleships.

The battleship of the Governor of Batavia, Jon, was only a third-class battleship, and although it was modified in Batavia to strengthen the defense and the caliber of some guns, it still could not change the dilemma that the Dutch did not have large battleships in Southeast Asia.

Fortunately, he had heard that the large shipyard at the company's headquarters had been built, and it might not be long before his army could be equipped with more sophisticated and large battleships.

"Lord Governor, no!" Second mate Theon ran over with a frightened face, interrupting Jon's thoughts.

"Damn! What are you panicking about? Jon said with a gloomy face.

"Look, sir." Theon didn't answer, instead handing Jon the binoculars in his hand.

Jon didn't know why, so he took the telescope and rushed to the battleship in front of the Beiyang Naval Division, and his brows twisted into twists when he saw it.

On the Jingyuan battleship in the front row of the Beiyang Naval Division, Viscount Ovat, the former Dutch governor in Taiwan, was hoisted high on the mast, and two people were also hung below him.

Not only the No. 1 Fu ship Jingyuan, but also several No. 2 Fu ships Liaodong, Tianjin, Fuzhou, Datong and other warships on both sides of it were hanging with either five or six, or seven or eight Dutch prisoners.

At a distance of more than a hundred yards, he could see clearly through the telescope, and Viscount Ovat had long since lost his glamorous appearance as the governor of Taiwan.

After a month in prison, imprisoned at the bottom of the dark and damp cabin, eating leftover meals from the soldiers of the Beiyang Naval Division, Liu Hong gradually responded to Owat's statement of honorable surrender, but it was the opposite.

Jon couldn't believe his eyes, even though he and Ovat were old acquaintances, it took him a good three seconds to see that it was Ovat.

Unkempt and still wearing the same clothes that had been torn to strips of cloth from the same clothes he had worn when he had been captured more than a month earlier, Ovat struggled on his mast as if looking in the direction of the Dutch fleet.

Jon almost made eye contact with Ovat through the telescope, though he knew that Ovat would not be able to see him clearly.

"Your Excellency Governor, the battleship on the Taiwan side refuses to open fire!" At this time, the first mate Varys also rushed over.

This Dutch fleet consisted of two parts, Taiwan and Batavia, and most of the Taiwanese warships, these warships were all under Ovat, and now their governor was hoisted on the warships of the Beiyang Naval Division, how could they continue to open fire.

"Hmph, incompetent!" Jon yelled at Ovat.

He and Ovat have known each other since childhood, but they have a grudge over the fight, and Jon is still crippled in his left foot, and Ovatt has been stabbed in the left arm.

Even if the two inherited the title of viscount successively, the two still looked at each other unpleasantly.

Now that Ovat has lost Taiwan, and he has been captured by the Ming Dynasty, and his fleet has been affected, Jon is naturally extremely angry in his heart.

But no matter how Jon got angry, Ovat's men refused to obey the orders passed on by the standard-bearer, and the captain of a third-class battleship, Major Laura, even risked his life to board the flagship Hector in a small boat.

"Major General Jon, Governor Owat is in the hands of the Ming people, we must stop the attack immediately, or we will accuse you of murdering the nobles of the kingdom!" Major Laura said with a calm face when she saw Jon.

Major Laura had clearly violated the ordinance, and could be convicted of a felony if strictly speaking it was simply disobeying military orders and defying superiors.

But Laura was only temporarily transferred to Jon's subordinates, he didn't care what Jon thought of him, Viscount Ovat was kind to him, he couldn't sit idly by and watch Ovatt die under the fire of his own people, and the captains of the Dutch warships that were originally subordinate to Taiwan also meant the same.

"Humph! The Governor will report the matter to the truth, and you will wait for your judgment!" "The fleet is still under fire from the Great Ming Mariners, and Jon knows he has to make a choice.

Even if he was furious in his heart, even if he could kill Laura without any responsibility now, he couldn't.

He feared that if he killed Laura, his fleet would get out of control, and then the Ming sailors would be crushed, and even he himself would be punished by the company's headquarters, and even if the matter was finally reported to the co-ruling Prince of Orange, he would not be pleased.

"Varys, give the order to retreat, we retreat to Palawan!" Jon almost gritted his teeth and ordered to his first mate.

As the governor of Batavia, the viscount of the Netherlands, and the titular uncle of the co-ruling Prince of Orange, he was defeated by a great Ming sailor who was said to have been formed less than two years ago!

Damn ironclads, damn Owat, hell!

A quarter of an hour later, the Dutch fleet as a whole completed the rudder turn, and began to retreat in the direction from which it came.

On the other hand, even though the steel sheets covered by many battleships had been blown off by the guns of the Dutch battleships, the soldiers of the Beiyang Naval Division were still fighting in an orderly manner.

Especially on the Jingyuan, the captain Cui even stood on the top deck of the battleship and commanded the soldiers below to open fire.

"The Dutch retreated?" Liu Hong said in surprise.

PS: Push a friend's book "I will never be the emperor" His Royal Highness the Prince should not be the emperor even if he dies of poverty and starvation, is this a distortion of human nature, or??

Friends who are short of books can read it.