The losses of the Ming army were counted, 186 musketeers killed, 127 seriously wounded, 349 lightly wounded, and 48 cattle pulling carts, most of which were killed, some were killed by the Dutch's muskets, and some were wounded. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The dead cattle were dragged down to skin and decompose, and the wounded cattle were also killed with a knife, and the beef was eaten in the past few days.

At that time, it was not easy for people in the south to eat beef, and generally cattle were used as farming cattle, and old cattle that were too old to work could only be slaughtered with the permission of the government, and it was illegal to slaughter cultivated cattle privately. Now that so many cows have been killed at once, the officers and men can enjoy a good beef feast.

When the Ming army transported the mortar again, the Dutch, who had suffered heavy losses, did not dare to rob the idea of the cannon again.

"What are we going to do? Do you just watch them set up mortars and bombard us? "John Marsuiju gathered together the priest, several senior officers of the East India Company, and all the officers.

The priest gestured to his chest and said, "We are no less than them, so let's just go out of the city and attack, take the dirt slope, and drive these damned demons back to the sea!" ”

John Ma Suidug smiled helplessly: "Except for a thousand regular troops in our city, the rest are rabble, how can we go out of the city to fight them?" ”

However, the mortars of the Ming army were not erected so quickly, the range of the mortars was short, and the soil slopes built by the Ming army had to be slowly pushed forward, advancing for a while, and then digging out the back ones to dig out the artillery positions that could accommodate the mortars. This is a huge amount of work, and it will take at least half a month to construct.

The Dutch fleet was expected to reach the Strait of Malacca in just over a month, and the Dutch had lost New York three months earlier, but communications were so backward that the Dutch had just learned of the loss of New York and sent clippers to catch up with de Knight's fleet. At present, de Knight was given two choices in the Netherlands: the first was a quick victory, and he would return home from the war in the Far East as soon as possible, and he would fight a decisive battle with the British; The second is to ignore the Far East for the time being and fight with the British first.

In short, the loss of New York made it impossible for de Knight to fight the Ming army, and the first problem for the Dutch was the British.

For the Dutch, New York is more important than Jakarta, and it can make more profit in the Americas than in Asia. However, the Qing government offered the Dutch extremely favorable conditions, and if these conditions could be met, the profits of trade in Asia would not be lower than those of the Americas.

This leaves the Dutch with a dilemma, and the interests of Asia and the Americas will always be compromised. If you want to eat it all, you must first defeat the British.

In real history, New Amsterdam was renamed New York by the British after Peter Ste Ivisant, the Governor of New Amsterdam in the Netherlands, surrendered to the British. Later, although the Anglo-Dutch war gave the Dutch a certain advantage, the Netherlands were never able to recover New York.

Thousands of miles away, outside the city of Fuzhou.

The Ming army is still besieging Fuzhou City, and it has been besieged for more than a month, and from time to time it is thrown into the fierce fire oil cans in the city, and the animal carcasses in the city are thrown in, which makes the life in Fuzhou City in the hot summer more hot, so that the Qing soldiers can find some fun, and they will not feel bored in the city.

Sun Yuanzhang, the chief soldier of the Qing army in Fuzhou, and Wu Liuyi, the prefect of Fuzhou, lived like a year, and they were abandoned in Fuzhou as abandoned children.

The prefect Wu Liuyi is okay, he was originally a magistrate, and he lost Fuzhou and lost his land, and he could still keep his family safe if he died in battle. However, Sun Yuanzhang is the chief military officer, and the army does not need to bear the crime of losing the land, and if he can't fight, he can run, but he is besieged in Fuzhou City, and his mood is terrible.

Sun Yuanzhang has been thinking about when to break through the city and flee for his life, and the best time to break through is when the other party attacks the city, before the city is broken. If the opponent wants to attack the city, he must concentrate his elite troops to attack a few points, and there are always places that cannot be taken into account. At that time, as long as Sun Yuanzhang brought his elite personal soldiers and attacked the weak position of the Ming army's auxiliaries and Minzhuang, he would be able to escape with a small number of people. But the Ming army only besieged and did not attack, and I don't know when it will be a head if it continues like this.

In the summer, the climate of Fuzhou was extremely hot, and the Qing army in the city had a hard time, and although the Ming army outside the city set up a barracks by the river, life was a little better, but it was not so comfortable.

It's so hot that the air seems to be able to wring out water, and the heat dissipation of the humid air is inherently poor, and people sit there without moving, their bodies are sticky, the humidity is high, and they sweat more, and they can only be comfortable when they sit under the shade of trees.

However, Wang Xinyu did not allow the army to be stationed in the shade of the trees, which was also to prevent the opponent from attacking.

After continuous hot weather, the weather suddenly changed today, the wind became stronger, the temperature dropped a lot, and the scorching sun that was originally hanging in the air was obscured by dark clouds, and there was less sun exposure, and I felt much more comfortable.

"A typhoon is coming!" Everyone knows what the weather changes.

A typhoon is coming, which means that the next few days will be cool, good. However, Wang Xinyu was very worried, his food and material transportation completely relied on sea transportation, if the fleet could not enter the shelter in time to avoid the typhoon, once encountered a typhoon on the road, then the loss would be very heavy.

The wind was getting stronger and stronger, and Wang Xinyu felt a little worried, he was worried about the transport fleet. According to the time of the arrival of the last transport fleet, the next transport fleet will also arrive in these days, just in time for the typhoon.

Although Wang Xinyu invented the means of predicting a typhoon when a hot air balloon was lifted into the sky, if the forecast ship could not escape the typhoon and could not report the situation to the fleet behind in time, the fleet would be wiped out. In addition, it is impossible to guarantee that the hot air balloon will not be 100% accident-free, and if the forecast ship has a shipwreck, and the fleet behind does not know about it, and does not release a new forecast ship, then the fleet will also encounter a typhoon.

Another point is that if the forecast ship encounters a typhoon at night without a moon, because the weather changes cannot be detected when the hot air balloon rises at night without a moon, then the forecast ship can only return to the alarm after it is hit by strong winds, and then the forecast ship and the typhoon need to rush to speed.

The normal speed of a typhoon is 20 kilometers per hour, but the local wind speed can reach 100 kilometers per hour, if the night forecast ship encounters a typhoon, it is likely that the forecast ship will not be able to return in time to report the news and sink, so the whole fleet will not get the forecast of the typhoon and be wiped out.

In short, there are too many unpredictable factors on the sea, and the luck of the Manchus is always so good, it seems that God is helping them. This made Wang Xinyu worry about his transport team.

A fleet sailed on the route from Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province to Fuzhou, Fujian Province, and a galleys sailed 30 miles in front of the fleet, and the hot air balloon was raised on this fast boat, and the hot air balloon was tied to the ship with a strong hemp rope, which belonged to the ********.

After the invention of the hot air balloon, the Qiongzhou Army has been using ********, and only used the balloon in the air to attack Wenzhou. Safe and reliable, it will not be blown away by the wind, it can be recycled at any time, and it is a good thing to use for reconnaissance and weather forecasting.

"Typhoon! There's a typhoon coming! The observer on the hot air balloon noticed the weather change in the sea ahead, "Quickly extinguish the fire and lower the balloon!" ”

The operator on the balloon extinguishes the fire, the air inside the balloon cools down, and the balloon slowly lowers in altitude.

Spotting the balloon descending, the captain walked out of the cabin only to see the people on the balloon signaling the flag.

"A typhoon is coming! Turn now! All the paddlers in place! Alert the fleet! The captain ordered.

Galleys are still powered by sails, and oarsmen are only used in case of emergency, because oarsmen can not row for a long time, at most an hour, that is, this kind of boat can only sail at high speed for two hours at most.

All the oarsmen hurried into the paddle deck, sat in their seats, and rowed their oars vigorously. The galleys turned around, turned around and galloped in the direction of the convoy, sailing at a high speed of fifteen knots. Such a speed can rush to the fleet to call the police before the typhoon moves at a speed.

The convoy was about to be seen, and the forecast ship released a fireworks signal for alarm.

"There's a typhoon coming! Enter the haven now! "When the convoy saw the fireworks signal rising from the sea ahead, the flotilla immediately turned around and sailed into Ningde Bay.

After entering the harbor, the transport ships leaned to the shore and lowered their anchor chains. Except for some of the dead who remained on the ship, the rest went ashore in small boats.

Soon after, the typhoon arrived, and the storm raged over the sea, setting off huge waves. Although the ship is parked in a sheltered harbor, the waves in the harbor are not small. The dead men who remained on board fought the typhoon, using cables and other tools to control the ship and prevent it from being blown away by the wind. Some of the ships went into the water, and the dead men who remained on the ships desperately drained their water so that the ships would not sink.

The wind and waves were very strong, and the huge waves several meters high crashed on the embankment and shattered. The wind roared, staggering the ships moored in the harbor.

Many ships began to sink, and some even overturned and capsized at sea, and the dead men who remained on board to protect the ships also fell into the sea, and in the blink of an eye, they were swept away by the waves.

The typhoon raged for a whole night, and the next day the wind weakened, and the transport fleet, which originally had six flying clippers, four galleys and sails, more than 100 fortune ships, and more than 100 sea cangs, suffered heavy losses, and one flying clipper, two galleys and sail clippers, more than a dozen Fu boats and more than 20 Haicang ships sank, and a large number of military supplies sank into the sea.

The inner harbor of Ningde is not very deep, and after the tide recedes, the capsized ships are exposed to the surface and can be salvaged, but the grain transported on the ship, especially flour and the like, as well as gunpowder and other goods are basically gone. There are also ships carrying live pigs, live sheep, live chickens and ducks, and they are all lost.

The sailors of the convoy also suffered many casualties, with more than 200 dead men missing or drowned, and many others injured or infected in the raging storm.

"Fortunately, we retreated into the port in time, otherwise the loss would have been even greater!" Cai Yi, who was in charge of transporting supplies, said with palpitations.

Compared with the convoy from Jiangnan to Fuzhou, the convoy that was originally going to depart from Dongban was luckier, and the flotilla had not yet set sail when the typhoon came. All the cargo had not yet been loaded onto the ship, and although the ships anchored in the inner harbor had losses, the damage was not large, and the casualties were much smaller.

In fact, the route from Dongfan to Fuzhou is the safest, because if a typhoon comes, it will hit Dongfan Island first, and after Dongfan, it will enter the waters of Fujian. Dongfan Island, in itself, plays a role in predicting typhoons.

After the typhoon, the flotilla arrived in Fuzhou.

In addition to bringing supplies to Wang Xinyu, the fleet from Dongfan also brought good news: Dai Cang and Xu Zhengming from the Dongfan Gun Factory have built a pedal propeller and are conducting experiments in the past few days.

"Great! If the pedal propeller is successful, then our balloons will be able to fly at will! When the time comes, it will be possible to make not only hot air balloons, but also hydrogen balloons. Hearing the news, Wang Xinyu was overjoyed.

"Lightweight? What is it? Chen Shuijie asked in surprise.

"It's a very light gas that doesn't need to be heated like a hot air balloon." Wang Xinyu explained.

The way to make hydrogen is actually very simple, it can be made with iron powder, caustic soda and water. Hydrogen balloons are afraid of fire, but because they don't need to carry a stove like a hot air balloon, they have a larger payload capacity and better flexibility. With a foot-operated propeller, it is possible to create hydrogen balloons that can fly at will.

As for safety, hydrogen balloons are prone to fire and explosion. But in this day and age, what weapons can hit a hydrogen balloon flying in the air? As long as it is not the people on the hydrogen balloon who set the balloon on fire themselves, nothing will happen.

Of course, from a safety point of view, you can also continue to use hot air balloons, but the load capacity of hot air balloons is much smaller, and you also need to consider the fuel problem, and the time spent in the air is relatively short.

On Dongfan Island, a new hot air balloon rests on the ground. This hot air balloon doesn't look much different from the previous ones in appearance, except for a few differences on the gondola: this one has a strange-looking set of machinery mounted on the gondola and a wooden propeller behind it.

"Prepare for the fire!" Dai Cang ordered.

Xu Zhengming will personally board the hot air balloon and conduct a pedal propeller experiment. After hearing Dai Cang's order, Xu Zhengming climbed onto the hanging basket, the hot air balloon ignited, and the airbag gradually inflated.

It's a bad feeling to sit by the fire on a hot summer day, but the heat is nothing compared to the excitement of a hot air balloon. Xu Zhengming sat in the gondola, and after the balloon left the ground, he took the propeller out of the gondola and fixed it under the back of the gondola.

In addition to the propellers, the hot air balloon also has a rudder, which is also controlled by Xu Zhengming. There were two people in the hot air balloon, and the other person was in charge of the stove.

After the hot air balloon rose into the air, Xu Zhengming stepped on the pedal, through the gear transmission, the number of rotation turns was amplified, the propeller began to rotate at high speed, sending the wind to the back, and the hot air balloon flew slowly under the driving force of the propeller. The speed of the flight is not very fast, about six to seven kilometers per hour, which is only a little faster than the speed of a human walk. (To be continued.) )