On December 1, 1651, Xiao Baitu, who arrived in the area of Tunguburi in the southwestern part of Madagascar, looked at the more than 100 "garbage" (Polish soldiers) who had been picked up like rags, and his face was tense, and his anger was already overflowing.

The left and right wings of Hyotaro and Zhai Xiaoshan, who were sent out to act as vanguards, have suffered heavy blows in these days. Not only were they short of supplies, but they were not very familiar with the terrain, so they were surrounded by natives on a loess slope and attacked repeatedly. Despite the help of improvised barbed wire, and although they circled the carts as a line of defense, the casualties were still numerous under the incessant attack of more than 1,000 natives (of whom there were about 100 musketeers, and by the 30th the number of natives had increased to more than 2,000).

To make matters worse, there was no water source on the small dirt slope where they were trapped, but the hot weather and fierce fighting were constantly depleting the water in their bodies, and after drinking the cool white water and even alcohol from the logistics vehicles, Hyotaro had to order the slaughter of the livestock (cattle and camels) carried by the army, and maintain the water in his body by drinking blood. The battle was so miserable that the East Coast Army was really the only one in the battle with the Turen - if it hadn't been for Xiao Baitu's main force overcoming difficulties and quickly coming to the rescue, most of their 300 men would have been wiped out.

Could it be that rising nations have a combat power bonus compared to normal states? Or was the native-based nation of ploughing warfare (the Sakarava had been attacking the Melina in the central highlands and maintained military superiority for many years) that was itself well-versed in a variety of strategies and tactics? Xiao Baitu could not find the answer to this question, but he subconsciously felt that these Malay colonists from Indonesia were not inferior in civilization, they could smelt iron, use cattle to plough the fields, and build water conservancy facilities. They will compost farmland, build all kinds of buildings, and develop terraces in high areas. A number of feudal kingdoms, although rudimentary, but generally passable, were also established, and it would be incorrect to equate them with the Indians of South America. They will also suffer a big loss, they are already considered "semi-civilized people", and they must be treated with caution.

Xiao Baitu circled around the battlefield they had been holding on to for days, and by this moment the Sakarava had retreated, and only a mess was left on the battlefield. Perhaps the decisive advance of Xiao Baitu's troops was somewhat unexpected by the natives, so the enemy's retreat was hasty, and some damaged arquebuses were still lost on the battlefield - such damaged muskets were also important treasures to the natives, and should not be discarded at will.

Over the course of a few days, the natives killed and wounded "thousands" (Zhai Xiaoshan). But Xiao Baitu thought it was an exaggeration, the natives may have only lost four or five hundred soldiers), and the thirsty yellow earth was full of blood from both sides of the enemy, and at this moment it shone with a strange red light. Looking at the Polish soldiers with bandages on their heads and the rest of their lives, the words of accusation were suddenly blocked in their mouths; Looking at the muddy and tired East Coast Army soldiers under his command, Xiao Baitu couldn't say anything harsh, so he could only temporarily change his words to encourage and comfort these Qiu Ba, to the effect that he hoped that everyone would not be intimidated by difficulties, continue to carry forward the fighting spirit, and eliminate the stubborn enemy. Don't let your uniform be disgraced.

After Xiao Baitu finished speaking, the liaison staff officer beside him immediately put down the small notebook in his hand, and then said in Polish to the Polish soldiers in the ranks, who were still numbering in the hundreds: "The commander-in-chief praised us for showing tenacity. He promised that if we continued to be excellent, the task of breaking into the palace of the Turen King would be carried out by our troops. This caused great cheers among the Polish soldiers, for everyone knew that this meant that they would share the greatest share of the wealth.

Zhai Xiaoshan will take the remaining dozens of soldiers (150 at the time of departure) and 300 officers and soldiers of the Eight Banners of the island to stay here and wait for the arrival of the second batch of baggage troops to be met by the main force of the South African cavalry company.

After resting for a day at the station, on December 2, the troops brought a certain amount of water and military supplies, and then walked along the valley of the Cotton River. Keep going. Their goal is still to find the main force of the natives to fight a decisive battle and solve each other once and for all. Save yourself from fighting guerrillas with them in the future and spending money on military salaries and materials. And the natives seem to have the same idea. Perhaps it was the victories on the battlefield that greatly boosted their morale, so that in the face of such foreign colonial forces on the east bank, the king of the Sakaravas, Andrian Dashi Fuqi, and his two sons, led a large army along the Cotton River, and the two sides finally met on December 4 on a river beach more than 30 kilometers east of the station.

Although the people on the east coast had cavalry for reconnaissance, due to the rolling hills and dense forests, and the natives' familiarity with geography, the two sides discovered each other almost at the same time, and this made the battle completely an encounter and a field battle.

At this critical moment, Xiao Baitu did not make a mistake again, and he ordered the whole army to urgently erect field fortifications to provide cover for the artillery positions in accordance with the construction of the operational staff officer, and at the same time, dozens of cavalry still around him were also dispersed to slow down the march of the Sakarava people.

The battle finally began at three o'clock in the afternoon, and the king of the Sakarava people gathered an astonishing army of seven or eight thousand—which made Xiao Baitu and others almost scold, who said they had only five or six thousand soldiers—and then they did not care about any tactics or tactics, but they charged in waves, and it was evident that they were confident in themselves.

After firing two rounds of hollow iron balls, 13 large and small guns of the two artillery batteries on the east bank (three other gun trucks were damaged and abandoned on the way) decisively replaced explosive shells, and finally stuffed loose shells into the barrels. The metal storm they created caused great casualties among the natives, with at least 300 people killed and wounded under the various types of shells they fired.

There were more than 1,000 musketeers composed of Polish soldiers from the East Bank Army and part of the Cotton River garrison, and they skillfully fired a volley of guns at the onrushing natives, and after the natives charged at the initial cold weapon group, the arquebusiers phalanx also approached under their cover, and then launched a confrontation with the East Bank Army. Casualties on both sides began to increase dramatically, but the natives remained desperate until the artillerymen moved their artillery and dropped some shells on their heads, and the arquebus phalanx, which was also nearly 1,000 men, broke down. The cavalry of the people on the east coast only pursued the enemy for a moment, and then ran back with a roar, and the main force of the natives remained, and now was not the time for them to chase them north.

The short and fierce battle caused a small 2,000 casualties on both sides within an hour, and the army, the garrison of the Cotton River, and the cavalry on the east bank of the city suffered a total of more than 200 casualties. As their opponent, the army of Sakarava of the Manabar Kingdom suffered more than 1,400 casualties, which makes people have to lament the cruelty of this war.

However, the casualties are great, and the people on the east coast will not give the opponent a chance to breathe! I saw that under the order of the officer, the musketeers of the East Coast Army took out a 41-year-old steel bayonet from their waists, twisted it under the muzzle, and then picked up a rifle with a length of more than 1.70 meters, put on cuirasses, escorted the artillery, and slowly advanced towards the enemy. And the remnants of the soldiers of the Eight Banners of the Thousand Islands, armed with spears, bows and arrows, drove ox carts, and guarded the weak wings of the military formation. As for the cavalry, they were still roaming the edge of the battlefield, and they had more or less pinned down some of the Sakaravas, so that they had to allocate hundreds of men for defense.

Once within range of the artillery, the whole army stopped advancing, and then the same artillery bombardment began. This is the consistent tactics of the people on the east coast, that is, relying on the super mobility of the artillery, the ultra-long range and the relatively accurate landing point of the shells, they constantly attack the enemy's formation and demoralize them until they can no longer maintain the military formation and completely collapse. This method of warfare has been tried and tested both in the battle against the Spaniards and in the war with the black people of Xhosa in South Africa, and now it is the turn of these Sakarava natives to be equally good.

No, before a few rounds of shelling, the enemy's formation was a little scattered. It's a pity that the people on the east coast don't have enough cavalry at hand at this time, and they can't take the opportunity to attack the weak point of the opponent's formation, otherwise they can get a big victory at this time. Of course, the Sakalava commanders were not idiots, and they soon discovered that they had been too pre-war to recognize the dominance of light artillery and well-trained artillery on the battlefield, and so they suffered a great loss in this otherwise confident field battle - they now suffered more than 1,600 dead and wounded, which had never been done in the decades-long history of the Manab kingdom.

Now that you recognize your mistakes, you have to correct them in time! So, under the order of the old king, his eldest son Qi Marlon Galifo immediately led the elite musketeers and some of the king's guards to escort the old king backwards; As the king's second son, Qi Maladona led a force of about 2,000 soldiers to launch a frantic counterattack on the army formation of the people on the east bank again, in order to cover the retreat of the king and his elite troops. The musketeers in their hands had been trained for many years, at great cost, and were the mainstay of the war against other tribes and kingdoms, but they could not be wiped out here; On the other hand, the other soldiers are as much as they want, and they don't feel distressed when they die, so the choice is not difficult to make.

The battle finally came to an end in the evening, the exhausted East Bank Army completely crushed the last wave of the enemy's counterattack, Qi Maladona with a few hundred desperately escaped the pursuit of the East Bank cavalry, fled into the mountains and forests, as for the other more than 1,000 soldiers, more than half of them were killed and wounded, and the rest were all captured.

In this battle, the king of the Kingdom of Manab led nearly 8,000 men to fight in person, but he was defeated, and was killed, wounded and captured by the people on the east coast with a total of about 3,000 people (if you add the previous battle, the total casualties are about 3,600), which can be described as an unprecedented defeat! At the same time, the people on the east coast fought two battles before and after, and the cumulative casualties reached 388 (most of them were Polish soldiers' casualties), and the eight banners of the island also suffered three or four hundred casualties, and the casualties could not be regarded as light.

What's even more troublesome is that the enemy's king withdrew with the remaining 5,000 men, and there are many veterans of many years of war, Xiao Baitu knows that this war is far from over. (To be continued)