The boats released by the Western fire attack ships are actually the same as the fire attack ships in the East, and the fire attack ships in the East are sub-mother ships, and the sub-ships are separated from the mother ship, and the sailors drive the small boats to escape. Western fire-attacking dinghys carry smaller boats, and when the fire-attacking dinghy collides with each other, the sailors drive the dinghy to escape.

At that time, Westerners' fire attack ships could also release a kind of small boat called a self-detonating ship, which not only carried flammable materials on it, but also carried a large number of powder barrels, which ignited and exploded after hitting the target.

In fact, the later mineboats to torpedo boats were also a supplementary force in the battleship era, and could not be regarded as the main force at sea. The same is true for fire attack ships, which can only cooperate with battleships, waiting for opportunities to approach the enemy under the cover of fire from sail ships. Without the gunfire of the battleship, the boat would have been sunk to the bottom of the sea halfway.

Since it is a fire attack boat, the speed is naturally the fastest, and the speed of sail and oars can reach sixteen knots, which is already an astonishing speed in this era, because the speed of ordinary sail warships is only six to eight knots.

Because of the need for reconnaissance, the Ming army's catamaran speedboat did not run at full speed, and as a result, the Dutch's fire attack speedboat quickly closed the distance, approaching within three miles.

"The red-haired ghost's boat is catching up!" Tang Wei shouted, "Quickly raise the full sails, don't let the red-haired ghost's boat catch up!" ”

The catamaran clipper was a light clipper for reconnaissance and messenger delivery, with nothing but a three-pounder cannon and only muskets and cold weapons for sailors to defend themselves.

"Pull!" Several sailors pulled the ropes, and the sails were quickly raised.

The wind blew in the Indian Ocean, and the white sails of the catamaran were full of power, and in full view of the Dutch, the ship accelerated very fast, from a slow speed of eight knots, to a high speed of sixteen knots.

The Dutchmen in the dinghy were panting with oars, and the boat they were about to chase had no oars, and could reach about the same speed with the kinetic energy of the sails alone, much to the astonishment of Tepra and de Knight whose mouths opened wide. But what happened next surprised them even more: they saw that the clipper was still accelerating!

"Oh my God! How fast can the ship of the Ming people go? Tepra was dumbfounded as the white sail swept across the sea like lightning.

The catamaran quickened to an astonishing twenty-six knots, and as if a provocation, rushed past the Dutch fleet, making a great circle two miles from the Dutch, so that the Dutch could see them, but could do nothing about them.

"Fire!" De Knight felt like he had been provoked and shouted angrily.

On the battleship Amsterdam, Dutch sailors signal the flag.

The outermost Yakob 3rd class battleship, which was closest to the Ming catamaran clipper, had all 34 gun doors open on one side, and a heavy gun stretched out from the gun door, accompanied by an order from the Dutch officer, in the double-layer gun deck, one by one the gun doors spit out fire, like a thunderbolt across the sea.

The distance was still too far, and all the shells fired by the Dutch smashed into the sea, raising columns of water that soared into the sky.

"Don't be afraid, they can't hit us so far!" Tang Wei said to his soldiers.

On the catamaran clipper, several draftsmen drew on paper with pencils, and the pencils were also Wang Xinyu's masterpieces, and with such things as pencils, intelligence officers drew pictures much faster. The cartographer drew down the Dutch battleships, marked them, and recorded the number.

A draftsman picked up a telescope and looked at the Dutchman's flagship Amsterdam from a distance, and saw that it was a huge ship of at least 1,000 tons, with more than 40 gun doors on each side, and you can imagine the power of such a huge ship.

"Alright, let's evacuate!" Seeing that the intelligence was almost gathered, Tang Wei ordered a retreat.

The catamaran schooner turned nimbly and flew across the sea, heading back to the far east.

Although de Knight was very spied on, the small clipper was almost useless, and could not pose any threat to the Dutch warship, only to spy on the military, and similarly, the Dutch giant ship could not catch up with the small ship, and could only watch the Ming army retreat.

Tepra said with a solemn face: "This small ship of the Ming pirate is indeed very hateful! It's so fast, I don't know how they made it! ”

"Honorable General!" De Knight said disapprerovingly, "Although the small ships of the Ming pirates are hateful, they do not pose any threat to us!" They can only run as fast as rabbits, but they can't bite us. ”

"No!" Tepra shook his head, "What does it mean that the Ming people were able to build such a fast ship?" Shows that they already have the technology to build advanced warships! Just imagine, if they had a kind of enlarged version of the clipper, equipped with powerful guns, and they would go around with us, looking for an opportunity to come up and take a bite, and run into that kind of ship, how would we deal with it? We can't catch up with them, and they won't fight us, they will only maneuver around, and bite the merchant ships behind us when they find an opportunity! Then our battle will not be so easy! ”

But De Knight disagreed: "An enlarged version of the Clippers? Isn't that a joke? The pirates will definitely not be cheap to build a small ship like this! I've just taken a closer look, and the pirate's boat is a very strange structure, as if it has two hulls, and the two hulls are very thin, so it is estimated that the drag is reduced. And the sails are surprisingly large, and compared with the sails of ordinary sailing ships, they are not proportional at all, as if they are particularly large. Also, the bow of the ship appears to be copper-clad. Oh my God, how much silver does it cost to build a ship like this? Enlarged version? No way! If the hull becomes larger, the requirements for strength will be higher, and with this kind of double-hull structure, are they not afraid of breaking off? ”

De Knight was right when he said that the larger the object, the smaller the surface area required per cubic unit, which means that more strength is required.

With the current level of technology, if you build a catamaran clipper of five or six hundred tons, maybe a big wave will hit you, and the middle board will break.

Tepra said: "Thin hull, maybe the pirates of the Ming Kingdom will not build a large strange ship with two hulls, but they are very likely to build a relatively slender ship, and the speed can also be very fast." ”

was really guessed correctly by Tepra, the fast battleship of the Ming army is a slender hull and a flying clipper structure.

"If the ship is slender, their guns will not have a large caliber, because there will be no larger guns in the cabin, so their firepower will be reduced." De Knight said.

But de Knight didn't expect that Wang Xinyu cleverly took advantage of the relatively short barrel cannon and moved the short-barreled cannon onto the battleship, so that the hull could be thinner. Not to mention the rotating turret, which allows the slender hull of the ship to become a battleship, allowing the slender ship to use its maximum firepower.

Earlier, Tepra also said that the warships of the Ming army were not worth mentioning at all, they were just a group of pirates. But after seeing the catamaran reconnaissance clipper, Tepra vaguely felt that something was not right.

Having already stepped on the catamaran clipper on the return trip, Tang Wei was calculating his position according to the sextant.

"We're on the ocean outside the Red Sea, and this is supposed to be the Arabian Sea. The average speed of the red-haired ghost's fleet is about six to seven knots, and at this speed, plus their supplies along the way, etc., there are about two months before the red-haired fleet's fleet can enter the Strait of Malacca! We've got to get back to report as soon as possible! Tang Wei said to the sailors around him.

The maximum speed of the catamaran clipper could reach more than thirty knots, but it could not be used for a long time, otherwise it would be detrimental to the sails and the hull, so the ship maintained a speed of twenty-four knots, which was four times the speed of the Dutch, and saved supplies on the way, and at this speed they could return to Singapore in less than ten days.

The catamaran clipper that reported the news had not yet returned, and Li Dingguo had already sent troops over there.

In the end, it was the concept of national righteousness that overcame Li Dingguo's selfishness, Li Dingguo left 5,000 men and horses and 8,000 sailors to protect the Xingdu City, where Yongli was located, and personally ordered troops and led 10,000 troops to set off to assist the Nanyang Marines.

It was enough to have 5,000 land divisions and 8,000 naval divisions to protect Hindu, because there were also the Mon army and other minority armies in Burma, who had been oppressed by the Burmese in the past, and who had rebelled again and again, and were brutally suppressed by the Burmese. Now it is the Ming army that has made the Mon, Kachin and other Burmese ethnic minorities have a status and have their own armed forces, they do not want the Ming people to be defeated, you must know that if the Ming country is defeated, they will have to return to the previous situation of being bullied by the Burmese. Therefore, these Burmese ethnic minorities will definitely try their best to protect the imperial city of the Ming Dynasty at the mouth of the Dajinsha River.

On the cruiser Drake, the flagship of the Nanyang Navy, Zhang Yukun respectfully bowed his hand to Li Dingguo: "The last general thanks King Jin for sending troops to help!" ”

Li Dingguo replied: "After all, blood is thicker than water!" We are all people of Daming! If my nephew is defeated, I will have no place to stand, so are we really going to stay overseas forever and never go back? To tell the truth, the brothers are homesick and wish they could fight back soon! If we can take Batavia and eliminate the red-haired ghosts who cooperate with the Tartars, then our brothers will be able to return to their homeland as soon as possible. ”

Zhang Yukun replied: "Yes, taking Batavia is the key to defeating the red-haired ghost fleet!" The fleet of red-haired ghosts has come from afar, they need food and fresh water, and we have captured Batavia, and they have lost their roots. No matter how powerful the navy is, it needs to have roots on land. If we uproot them, we will be able to defeat the mighty red-haired ghosts. ”

More than 100 large and small warships of the Nanyang Navy and more than 50 large Western-style merchant ships were used as troop carriers, and more than 10,000 Ming troops and more than 2,000 officers and men of the Nanyang Marine Corps under the jurisdiction of the Jin Dynasty left the mouth of the Dajinsha River and headed for the Strait of Malacca.

According to Zhang Yukun's request, the Ming army did not go directly to fight Batavia, but first went to attack Sumatra.

Sumatra is known as Jinzhou in Ming literature, and the island was once home to the three Buddhas, the Baiyi, Sumatra and the Aceh chieftains, all of which were small countries that once paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty.

However, with the invasion of Western colonizers, the control of the small indigenous states on the island of Sumatra gradually decreased, and their territory was encroached upon by Western colonizers. In the Wanli period, some small countries were directly wiped out by Western colonizers, and the surviving Emirate of Aceh was no longer able to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty because of the loss of seaports.

Therefore, the phenomenon that as many as forty countries once came to pay tribute was left in the Wanli period.

However, it is more interesting that the Portuguese and Spaniards, who occupied all parts of Southeast Asia, sometimes came to Beijing to pay tribute and give gifts to the Ming Dynasty.

The Dutch had less contact with the Ming Dynasty, and they would not give gifts to the Ming Emperor like the Portuguese and Spaniards, but continued to provoke along the southeast coast, until the Battle of Liuluo Bay was defeated by Zheng Zhilong, and the Dutch were much more honest.

The Dutch did not feel ashamed of the Battle of Liuluo Bay, because they did not do their best at all, and the ships that came to the East were either small warships or armed merchant ships. If the Dutch pulled all the fleets in Europe over, Zheng Zhilong would definitely not be able to defeat the Dutch fleet. It's just that the British pinned down the Dutch in Europe, and the Dutch didn't dare to let go to deal with the Daming Sailors.

This time, if it weren't for the conditions offered by the Qing state, which were too tempting, the Dutch would not have been able to send battleships to the Far East.

There is also a Dutch base on the island of Sumatra, although it is not large and the number is not large, but it is also one of the supply ports of the Dutch, and Zhang Yukun wants to take those ports down first.

The Ming fleet passed off the coast of Shalian, and the fleet stopped.

"Why don't you leave?" Li Dingguo asked.

"We're waiting for our allies to come together." Zhang Yukun replied.

The Ming fleet sent small boats into Salem, and after waiting for some time, a fleet was sent out from the direction of Salem, which was a fleet flying the Portuguese and Spanish flags.

"We take Sumatra, and we can only give them a little. Otherwise, we still won't be able to compete with the red-haired ghost by relying on our own strength. Zhang Yukun said.

The Portuguese were actually very willing to send troops to attack Sumatra, because Sumatra was originally occupied by the Portuguese first, but after the Dutch came, the Portuguese were defeated by the Dutch, and as a result, Sumatra was lost and became a colony of the Dutch.

"Dear General Zhang, hello! It's great that we can work together. The Portuguese general Kopelle boarded the Drake and stretched out his hand when he saw Zhang Yukun.

"Greetings, Dear General Koppel!" After all, Zhang Yukun has been in Nanyang for a long time and understands the etiquette of foreigners, so he also stretched out his hand.

"The Dutch fleet is very strong, and the island of Sumatra on the other side was originally occupied by us, but they shamelessly snatched it! Now that we are working together to recapture Sumatra, I am very grateful to you, General Wang! But I'm worried about one thing, can your fleet beat the Dutch expeditionary fleet? ”

"We may not be able to fight head-to-head, but we can deal with them." Zhang Yukun replied. (To be continued.) )