Chapter 469: Zheng Jiajun recovers Taiwan
***
The Qing army was defeated, and the news that the Qin army broke through Xuzhou, Fengyang, and Shouzhou reached Fujian, Zheng Zhilong was worried, and he stabilized Gannan while secretly preparing for the attack on Taiwan, repairing ships, reorganizing the army, preparing grain, grass and weapons, and everything was done very secretly.
December 23 of the first year of Qin. The Zheng family's fleet was assembled at Liaoluo Bay in Kinmen, with a total of 25,000 men and horses, hundreds of warships, led by Zheng Zhibao, sailed out of the harbor and sailed eastward.
In this attack on the island of Taiwan, the morale of the Zheng family army was still very high. Because they have beaten the Dutch many times.
The Dutch retreated to southern Taiwan only after they were defeated by the Ming Dynasty sailors at Penghu in May of the fourth year of the Ming Dynasty's Apocalypse. It was also the year when Yan Siqi, Zheng Zhilong and others conspired to overthrow the Japanese shogunate, but they fled to the island of Taiwan and began the great development of Taiwan.
After Zheng Zhilong accepted the Ming court's recruitment, the scope of his activities gradually shifted to the coastal areas of Fujian, and his control over Taiwan decreased a lot. The Dutch seized the opportunity to grow and tried to break Zheng Zhilong's monopoly on trade in the Far East;
The two sides fought several times, basically ending in the defeat of the Dutch, especially in the sea battle of Liuluo Bay, the Dutch suffered an unprecedented defeat.
Compared with the optimism of ordinary soldiers, coach Zheng Zhibao is not so optimistic, he knows more about the situation of the Dutch, and knows that this is a tough battle, but it is not easy to fight.
Over the past few years, the Dutch have been growing stronger in Taiwan, although they have only built two cities, the city of Geranza and the city of Chichi. These two castles are also different from the Chinese cities, the area is not large, but they are purely for military use, and they are very strong, and ordinary artillery can't help it.
The Dutch garrison on the island currently numbered 1,800 men, and although it sounds like a small number, they were very well armed.
First of all, the large warships of the Dutch were very advantageous, and Zheng Zhibao called them plywood ships. The plywood boat is constructed of two decks, with a lowered bow and an extended hull that gives it unprecedented stability on the surface. At the same time, the wind resistance of the port side is reduced;
Each ship is equipped with three to five masts, and most of them, with the exception of the last mast, which uses a spinnaker, are equipped with a crosssail as a sail, which allows for increased sailing speed and easy steering.
Each plywood ship was armed with more than twenty-five cannons, and the maximum was as many as forty or fifty. The artillery is more powerful than Zheng's army; Secondly, the Dutch basically used the most advanced rifles made by Westerners. This rifle is said to have a long range, high accuracy, and incredible power.
This time, Zheng Zhibao brought 25,000 men and horses. Five or six hundred warships, so prosperous, out of fear of the Dutch well-armed. For the Zheng family, this battle must be won, otherwise the Zheng family will not even have a place to live.
With this in mind, Zheng Zhibao led the huge fleet eastward with the wind, and the first day of the voyage was very smooth, and the next day, the fleet arrived on the Penghu Islands.
After a day of rest in the Penghu Islands. The Zheng family's fleet continued to sail eastward, but encountered heavy fog, but fortunately, Zheng Zhibao and they were more familiar with the nearby waterways, and it was noon. The fog cleared, the blue sky was like a wash, and there were no clouds, and Zheng Zhibao ordered the full sail to move forward at full speed.
The next day dawned. The fleet arrived at the outer sand line of Taiwan Island, and at dawn, sailed to Luermen. At this time, it was raining heavily. The sea is vast, and there are many reefs here, so it is very dangerous to move forward.
As a result, the soldiers became restless, and some generals advised Zheng Zhibao to retreat temporarily and wait for the weather to improve before attacking.
Zheng Zhibao knew that once the Dao retreated, morale would be low, so he encouraged everyone: "This rain will not fall sooner or later, and it will only fall at this time, and it is God who is helping us and hiding our whereabouts for us." The red-haired devils must not have imagined that we would attack them in such weather, don't be afraid, as long as we hold on, we will definitely be able to catch the red-haired devils off guard. ”
The city of Chichia is not very far from the city of Geranza, and there are many small islands on the seaside side, and there are two main channels of passage;
One is the North Channel, also known as the Luermen Harbor Road, the hydrological conditions of this harbor are very complicated, the harbor is tortuous and circuitous, and the water depth is shallow, the bottom of the water is sandy, vertical and horizontal, and it is very difficult for large ships to enter. Only those who are familiar with the waterways can find access to the harbor from a little deeper, and the harbor is narrow enough to allow only two ships to run parallel.
The other is the Southern Passage, also known as the Grand Harbour Road, which has a narrow entrance and allows the water to enter and exit the big ships, but the city of Geranza was built here, and the Dutch artillery fire could cover the entire entrance to the channel.
The Zheng family's strength is ten times that of the Dutch, but if they can't land, the advantage of their strength will not be reflected, so the key to whether they can defeat the Dutch is whether they can successfully land on the beach.
In order to avoid the Dutch fort, Zheng Zhibao chose to enter through the Luermen Port Road of the North Channel. This channel is narrow and tortuous, and it is very difficult to walk, and with the encouragement of Zheng Zhibao, Zheng Jiajun continued to advance in the rain, and there were many dangers along the way.
Fortunately, Zheng Zhilong is a caring person, when he came to work as a translator for the Dutch, he had drawn a drawing of this waterway, and after preparing to attack Taiwan a while ago, he sent someone to investigate it on the grounds of fake trade.
For the sake of safety, Zheng Zhibao also sent two small boats to explore the road in front, and a wooden pole slightly deeper than the draft of the large boat was nailed on each side of the boat.
Zheng Zhibao carefully calculated the itinerary again, at this time, it was a high tide, the sea tide was rising, and the sea level rose several feet, just like that, the ships in Zheng Junzhong actually entered the port smoothly in the rain.
This operation went so smoothly that even Zheng Zhibao didn't expect that maybe it was really because of the heavy rain that hid their actions, and the Netherlands probably never dreamed that in the case of heavy rain and poor vision, there would be an enemy who could kill from Luermen Harbor.
This huge army of 25,000 men and hundreds of warships managed to get under the noses of the Dutch without knowing it.
The Dutch were unprepared for Zheng's attack on Taiwan, and it was not until Zheng's army successfully landed at Luermen by surprise that the Dutch knew that the enemy was coming, and the governor O'Ward and the military governor Macri hurriedly gathered troops and came to meet them.
At this time, the Zheng Jiajun preemptively occupied the northern line of Weiyu, which was connected to the north and south of Luermen, and was the entrance to control the north-south waterway, and its strategic position was significant.
Macri planned to take back this strategic place first, and he sent Captain Coos to lead 300 soldiers to land at the southern end of the northern line of Weiyu, and approached the position of Zheng's army with a phalanx of 15 men and a total of 20 platoons.
The Dutch often suppressed the uprisings of the Taiwanese people, and because the Taiwanese were backward in weapons and did not have a strong leader, the Dutch could easily suppress the uprising every time. Over time, the Dutch have a contempt for the Chinese. I thought that as soon as the shot was fired, the Chinese in front would scatter and flee in fright, as before.
They advanced with a salvo, and previously they were invincible in this way. But this time, Zheng Jiajun lined up a shield wall with a one-man high-speed iron shield, and the Dutch's bullets hit the iron shield, which failed to cause enough damage to Zheng Jiajun, and Zheng Jiajun returned fire with a rain of arrows behind the shield wall, but the Dutch suffered heavy casualties.
The two sides were very close, Zheng Jiajun's arrow rain threw arrows out of the river in waves, the Dutch used hot weapons to penetrate, there was no armor on their bodies at all, the sound of popping into the flesh continued, one by one screaming and falling to the ground, soon, they couldn't support it, and they turned around one by one and fled.
Zheng Jiajun took the opportunity to cover up and kill, defeated the Dutch, and chased all the way to Macri's own position, Macri still had more than 1,000 people, but there were his own people in front of him who fled back, he couldn't order a salvo, he could only let the soldiers shoot, just when he was about to stabilize the situation, Zheng Zhibao personally led thousands of people from behind;
The Dutch were attacked from both sides, panicked and thrown into disarray.
The morale of the Zheng family army was like a rainbow, and the strength of the Dutch was more than ten times that of the Dutch, and they rushed up to besiege fiercely, and the Dutch quickly collapsed, some raised their hands to surrender, and some ran for their lives, and no longer had the courage to resist.
In fact, this battle, from the beginning of the successful landing of the Zheng army, has already doomed the Dutch to defeat, not to mention that they are still facing the vulnerable rebel army on the island of Taiwan.
***********************
PS: In order to be able to add more tomorrow, I buried my head in the word for a day, looked up at the window, it was already sunset, and I don't know if the road is still hanging on the classified monthly pass list, anyway, the feeling is always dangerous, ask my brother for a monthly pass!.
(To be continued......)