654 bad news, war of attrition

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"General, the statistics come out, we have lost a total of twenty-five warships, of which twelve were completely sunk, and four were also heavily damaged, and basically could not be taken away.

The remaining nine warships were not too badly damaged and could continue sailing.

At the same time, we also lost more than 130 soldiers and soldiers, more than 200 were injured, and the rest of the crew who fell into the water were basically rescued.

In addition, we left behind three red-haired ships, all of which were sunk, and several that escaped by light ships, killing an unknown number of enemies. ”

Soon, Zheng Hongkui got the post-war statistical results from his subordinates.

As a result, after Zheng Hongkui listened to such a battle report, his face was gloomy as water, his palm slapped the side of the ship violently, and his eyes were full of anger.

"Sink the four battleships that you can't take away, and the fleet will return overnight."

In the end, Zheng Hongkui calmed down and gave a new order.

In today's battle, it is said that they were caught off guard by the red-haired ghost fleet, preemptively, but the number of their warships is four times that of the red-haired ghost fleet!

With such a disparity in the number of warships, the red-haired ghost's fleet has always had the upper hand in this battle, pressing the Zheng family's fleet to fight.

It can be seen that the overall strength of this red-haired ghost Far East Fleet is still extremely terrifying.

The night was still calm, the fleet of the red-haired ghost never appeared again, and by dawn, the fleet led by Zheng Hongkui was already close to Anping Port, only about twenty nautical miles.

At this time, Zheng Hongkui was far away when he saw a fleet appear in front of them.

"Alert, unidentified ships in the sea ahead."

On the mast of Zheng Hongkui's three-masted gunboat, a sailor of the Zheng family stood at the highest point of the warship, and he could use a clairvoyant mirror to detect the movement ahead.

Whoa!

With the shout of this sailor, a large number of Zheng family soldiers poured out of the decks of the various warships of the fleet, and they became busy.

"It's not the enemy's fleet, it's ours."

Soon, some sailors of the Zheng family saw clearly the fleet that appeared in the sea ahead, and a big 'Zheng' flag was hoisted.

This time, it was no longer the fleet of red-haired ghosts that appeared, but Zheng Zhilong's fleet that had set off from Anping Harbor and was ready to find their convergence.

"Third child, are you at war with the red-haired ghost's fleet?"

When Zheng Zhilong saw that many of the warships in Zheng Hongkui's fleet were damaged, and even more than a dozen warships were missing, he knew that they should have had a fierce battle with the red-haired ghost's fleet.

Otherwise, how could it be possible for Zheng Hongkui, a powerful fleet, to lose more than ten warships at once!

"Big brother, don't mention it, Bruce, the red-haired ghost leader, is really not an ordinary difficult person, he got rid of us at night before.

But on our way back, he ambushed us and caused us a lot of losses, and this old devil has a hand. ”

At this time, Zheng Hongkui's face was still ugly, and he replied to Zheng Zhilong with a frown.

Zheng Hongkui has always had a high opinion of Bruce, the commander of the red-haired ghost Far East Fleet, thinking that this is a treacherous and cunning guy with rich experience in naval warfare.

Previously, Zheng Hongkui had fought with Bruce several times at sea, and almost none of that time he could get much cheap, so Zheng Hongkui was already instinctively afraid of Bruce.

"Big brother, have you taken Anping Port?" Immediately, Zheng Hongkui looked at Zheng Zhilong and asked.

"Well, Sen'er's plan has succeeded, and we now have control of the entire Anping Port area, except for the two fortified forts of the red-haired ghosts.

Now Sen'er led 8,000 men and horses to control Anping Port and surrounded the Red Embedded City, and the hundreds of red-haired ghosts in Anping City also cowered in the city and did not dare to come out.

Sen'er is leading people, preparing to take Chiji City first, and then deal with Anping City.

In order to ensure that Sen'er's siege on land continues, we have to solve the big trouble of the red-haired ghost Far East Fleet at sea for him. ”

"That's great, without Anping Port, Bruce's fleet is rootless, and if they want to return to Anping Port, they have to pass our fleet at sea."

After Zheng Hongkui heard Zheng Zhilong's words, his face rarely showed joy.

"I think so too, compared to destroying the fleet of the red-haired ghosts, solving the two castles of the red-haired ghosts in the big man is the most important thing for us.

However, the red-haired ghost will never let us succeed easily, and the red-haired devil's fleet will inevitably find a way to attack us next.

Therefore, our fleet will wait for the red-haired ghost's fleet to come over by itself, find the right opportunity, and leave them all in one fell swoop. ”

"Okay." Zheng Hongkui shouted excitedly.

"Let's go, let's go back, our fleet is guarding outside Anping Harbor, waiting for the red-haired ghost fleet to come." Zheng Zhilong smiled slightly and said.

Indeed, Zheng Zhilong had already seen Bruce's tactics before, and the commander of the Far East Fleet of the red-haired ghost was obviously experienced, and he obviously didn't want to fight the Zheng family fleet head-on at this time.

Instead, they constantly adopted sea guerrilla tactics, hoping to transfer the Zheng family's fleet away and disperse to find fighters for them.

And Zheng Zhilong is also an old fritter, and he can see the intention of the red-haired ghost at a glance, so he is simply ready to use the method of waiting for work.

Now, Zheng Zhilong's style of play is that the fleet is guarding outside Anping Port, waiting for the red-haired ghost fleet to attack, and then the two sides will have a head-on battle to decide the winner.

If the red-haired ghost's fleet doesn't come, it just leaves enough time for the leader to take people from Zheng Sen's side and slowly seize the red-haired ghost's two castles.

As long as the two castles of the red-haired ghost are in hand, then it means that the Ryukyu masters, and it is completely in the hands of the Zheng family, and if the red-haired ghost wants to come back, it is estimated that it will be more difficult than ascending to the sky.

Paul, the governor of the Ryukyus as a red-haired ghost, also thinks so, and he thinks that Akatsuki Castle and Anhei Castle are the most important.

Only they can defend the two castles, even if the Zheng family wins all the battles outside, it is useless, they still have a chance to fight back.

On Bruce's side, it was precisely the idea that Bruce believed that the importance of the fleet in his hands was far greater than their castles in the Ryukyus.

As long as their fleet is still there, they have a chance to retake the castle, and even if the fleet can defeat the Zheng family's fleet, they can completely turn the tide of the battle and achieve a big comeback with the weak defeating the strong.

Therefore, from beginning to end, Bruce was mainly to protect the Far East Fleet in his hands, and assisted Paul in defending the two castles of Chichi and Anping, which was only secondary.

It was Bruce's idea that determined that when he faced the Zheng family's huge fleet at this time, he would adopt the method of constant guerrilla warfare and not choose a head-on decisive battle.

Immediately, the Zheng family fleet returned to Anping Port, which originally belonged to the red-haired ghosts, and more than 200 warships were stationed inside and outside Anping Port.

On the other side, Zheng Sen also led 5,000 soldiers and horses to surround the red-haired ghost's red city.

But the strange thing is that two days have passed, and Zheng Sen still has not given the order to launch a strong attack on the Red Embedded City, which makes the red-haired ghost city defense commander in the castle feel terrified and uneasy.

Two days later, they were surprised to find that the Zheng family, who surrounded them, had sent an envoy into the city to see him.

You don't have to think about it, you can guess that this must be the envoy sent by the Zheng family to persuade them to surrender.

Compared with the fear of only 400 defenders of the city, Zheng Sen outside the city was still reluctant to storm the city even if he had more than 5,000 soldiers and horses in his hands at this time.

Because, having learned the lesson of the last siege, the Zheng family unanimously decided that until the last resort, they must not attack the two castles of the red-haired ghost again.

Because, in that case, they need to fill it with the lives of their corporaries, and it is very difficult for the Zheng family to break the turtle shell of the red-haired ghost at this time.

In order to get the depictions in the castle to agree to surrender, Zheng Sen even proposed that after the war, not only would their lives be protected, but they would also be allowed to leave with their possessions

But in the end, the depiction still chose to refuse the Zheng family's surrender, for them, until the last moment of despair, they were never willing to give up the castle in their hands easily.

It took them decades to expand to the Ming Dynasty and at great cost to gain a foothold on the island of the Ryukyus.

In these years, their port here, the annual trade volume, has increased significantly, allowing them to see huge profits.

Therefore, these red-haired ghosts will never leave easily unless they have to.

Similarly, Zheng Sen also sent people to Anping Castle to surrender to Paul, the red-haired Ryukyu Governor, but he was also ruthlessly refused.

Moreover, in front of the envoys of the Zheng family, Paul said very arrogantly: "Bendu has a thousand Denylan warriors in the city at this time, and they can fight against you yellow-skinned monkeys.

Last time, Ben Du was able to let your Zheng family escape in disgrace, and this time he was able to defeat you and want us to surrender, which is really ridiculous and generous. ”

After receiving the messenger's reply, Zheng Sen's face was cold, he knew that it was almost impossible to take down the two castles without blood and make the red-haired ghost surrender.

When the surrender failed, Zheng Sen, who was helpless, had to give an order to let the Zheng family army surrounded outside the city begin to prepare for the siege, and the artillery began to bombard the castle.

And just five days after the Zheng family seized the red-haired ghost Anping Port, they still didn't see Bruce's fleet appear, but they got bad news from the Penghu waterway.

On 20 April, more than 30 ships of the Zheng family, which had departed from Magong Port on Penghu Island, were attacked by a fleet of red-haired ghosts near Dongjiyu in the west of the Penghu Waterway.

And these more than 30 Zheng family fleets are actually the Zheng family's supply fleet, and more than two-thirds of them have sand boats, loaded with artillery, ammunition, money and food and other important materials.

The reason why Zheng Sen has been besieging the two castles of the red-haired ghost has not even launched a large-scale attack at one time, he is waiting for this batch of weapons and ammunition.

As a result, the Zheng family's supply fleet was ambushed by the small fleet of red-haired ghosts just half a day after leaving Penghu Magong Port.

And this small fleet of red-haired ghosts, which only has a total of seven warships, is really patient enough, they have been ambushing in the waters around the Penghu Islands, and finally let them wait for this excellent opportunity.

The sudden appearance of the seven red-haired ghost warships also frightened the commander of the Zheng family's supply fleet, making them a little hurried and rushed to the battle.

In the end, after a morning of fierce fighting, it was the red-haired ghost side who won in the end, regardless of the small number of their warships, but they were all battleships that could fight.

On the Zheng family's supply fleet, although there are more than 30 ships, two-thirds of them are transport sand ships that do not have much combat capacity.

When these sand ships faced the attack of the red-haired ghost warship, they basically had no power to fight back, and it was not surprising that they were defeated.

In the end, out of more than thirty ships, only thirteen, managed to escape, including two sand carriers, and the rest were sunk by the red-haired ghost's warships.

And the seven red-haired ghost fleets that were responsible for ambushing the Zheng family's supply fleet only lost two warships, and the price was definitely worth it.

More importantly, the loss of this supply fleet made Zheng Sen unable to wait for the siege equipment he needed any longer.

Peng!

When the news came back to Anping Port at this time, Zheng Zhilong's whole person was trembling, his palms were fiercely lined up on the wooden chair, and he roared angrily: "Waste, all of them are a bunch of waste, and this little thing can't be done." ”

It is no wonder that Zheng Zhilong was so angry, and the attack on the supply fleet made their Ryukyu commander's strategy have to continue to delay.

And the Zheng family's supply fleet was attacked, in fact, it was obvious that Zheng Zhilong himself missed this point, giving the red-haired ghost a hole to exploit.

Fortunately, in the end, there were still thirteen ships that were able to escape, and they were successfully received by the fleet sent by Zheng Zhilong, and returned to Anping Port to unload the artillery, ammunition, grain and grass and other materials they carried.

This sum of materials, in addition to providing the daily expenses of the Zheng family's army, also allowed Zheng Sen to take out a part of it and use it to launch a strong attack on the Red Embedded City.

On April 22, Zheng Sen finally stopped the siege and launched the first assault on Chichicheng with 38 artillery pieces and 2,500 men and horses.

The assault lasted for a whole day, and the artillery also bombarded the city for a day, and the Zheng family lost more than 400 people, but they still never attacked the castle.

And in this day's strong attack, for the red-haired ghosts in the Red Embedded City, their casualties were not many, and the total casualties were less than eighty.

After this strong attack and temptation, Zheng Sen officially gave up the strong attack plan and began to implement a long-term siege plan instead.

This point, he also got Zheng Zhilong's approval, it is really with the strength of the Zheng family at this time, if he wants to forcibly break through Chiji City and Anping City, the cost is too great, and the Zheng family must not accept it.

Anyway, at this time, the Zheng family still occupied Anping Port, and the Zheng family had enough time to consume the red-haired ghosts.

On the contrary, it was the fleet of Bruce, who was besieged in the castle and did not know that it was wandering on that sea at this time, it was impossible to consume the Zheng family without the red-haired ghost sending reinforcements.

However, Bruce was already the most powerful fleet in Asia at this time sent by the red-haired ghost from Batavia, how could he still send another reinforcement army!

As a result, the Zheng family's general attack on the Ryukyu bigwigs this time has turned into a war of time attrition, and it depends on who can survive to the end.

(End of chapter)