Eighteen Zhi spent a lot of money to invite the Dutch to come to Nanri Island to help in the war, not just to let them serve as sentinels on the periphery. ... ≦, in fact, Zheng Zhilong hopes that the Dutch can play the role of the Haihan people in the opposing camp, after all, the previous Ming Haihan coalition army attacked Nanri Island, in fact, it was not the Ming army that fought the main force, but the Haihan militia who came to help.

Yesterday's request for help was rejected, Zheng Zhihu was already holding back his anger in his heart, if he hadn't asked the other party, he would have turned his face at that time. However, after one night, the Ming army sailors could no longer hold back their own knocking on the door, and now the Dutch could not be idle even if they wanted to. Zheng Zhihu also did not order his men and horses to go to sea to assist the Dutch, and he had a little bit of a mind to watch the excitement. Of course, he also knew that although the number of Ming warships seemed to be a lot larger, it was difficult to cause substantial trouble to the Dutch, as long as the Dutch did not stupidly pestle in place, and did not let the Ming warships rush up and surround them.

The Dutch did not disappoint Zheng Zhihu, and while bombarding the Ming warships with heavy artillery fire, they sensibly maintained the combat distance to avoid giving the other side a chance to engage in hand-to-hand combat. The Ming army soon realized their inferiority in weapons and ship performance, and soon began to turn west and fight and retreat.

Of course, Van der Wegen noticed the change in his opponent's tactics, but he didn't plan to stop there, since Akito was so ignorant of how to send it to the door himself, he should take this opportunity to teach them a lesson. Of course, the main reason was that Vanderwegen realized that the opponent's combat level did not seem to have improved much compared to before, and his fleet could take advantage of the victory to pursue and deal a further blow to the Ming army.

As for the company's high-level worries about fighting with the Ming Dynasty, Vanderweigen didn't particularly care about it - with the combat effectiveness of the Ming sailors now, it would be difficult to cause any trouble for the East India Company even if they turned their faces, so it was better to seize this opportunity to deal a severe blow to the arrogance of the Fujian sailors, and maybe they would consciously retreat when they encountered Dutch sailing ships at sea in the future.

Zheng Zhihu was still gloating at first as he watched the Dutch fleet pursue the Fujian Navy Division at sea, but soon the smile on his face froze - another fleet suddenly appeared on the sea east of Nanri Island, the scale of this fleet was not large, and it was about ten ships from a distance, but what made Zheng Zhihu chill was that the people who made up this fleet were all Haihan warships.

Obviously, the Haihan people had been quietly waiting for the opportunity to attack, although they had not yet figured out what their purpose of battle was, Zheng Zhihu had already had a bad premonition in his heart.

"Pass on my order, and the sailors will immediately board the ship and leave the port, and give the red-haired people a flag to tell them not to continue chasing west!" Zheng Zhihu reacted decisively and immediately issued a combat order.

But one of the biggest problems with the civilian armed forces is the efficiency of command, and when Zheng Zhihu's order was conveyed to the dock a few minutes later, the warships here were ready for battle, and even the sailors did not know where they were. It was just dawn, and although the pirates had already left their tents to watch the battle at sea, most of them were still disheveled, and few of them realized that they might be involved in the battle at sea.

By the time the captains of each ship gathered their subordinates and organized them to board the ship, a long time had passed since Zheng Zhilong gave the order. At this time, the fleet of the Haihan people also approached the north coastline of Nanri Island from the east, and the sailing ships of the Eighteen Zhi were facing the dilemma of being blocked in the harbor by the Haihan people before they could leave the port.

The Dutch had also noticed the Haihan fleet that had suddenly appeared behind them, and began to slowly turn back. Van der Wegen also reacted that the offensive of the Fujian sailors was only a feint, and the real killing move was the fleet of Haihan people ambushed nearby. However, he was not as flustered as Zheng Zhihu, although Haihan's surface troops were said to be quite powerful, but that was only compared to the Eighteen Zhi and the Ming army, Vanderweigen would not be so easily affected by some rumors. Which is stronger or weaker, it still has to be a trick to see the difference.

At the same time, Xie Li also issued an order on the "Tiger Shark," the flagship of the Haihan fleet: "Raise the cannon window, the six small boats will stay to block the harbor, and the other ships will follow the flagship to intercept the Dutch fleet! The target can be fired when it enters the firing range, and there is no need to ask for other instructions!"

The so-called "six small ships" are the smallest tonnage of the six Haihan-style warships, and two of them are still exported goods sold by Haihan to Fujian sailors. Of course, this kind of small is only a relative statement, the tonnage of nearly 300 tons is already considered a large block in the fleet of Eighteen Zhi, and each ship is equipped with about ten guns, and the armament level is more than one grade higher than those sailing ships of Eighteen Zhi. A few years ago, at the mouth of the Pearl River, the Haihan Navy used this kind of warship as the main force to defeat the outnumbered Liu Xiang fleet and win the actual control of the waters of the Pearl River Estuary in one fell swoop.

And the four expedition-class warships with a larger tonnage were the main force used against the Dutch. Not only did the ships of this class have more than twice as many guns on board as the Explorer, but the guns also differed in size, with a larger hull allowing them to carry larger and heavier guns, with an advantage over the Explorer in caliber and barrel length. Of course, the most important thing is that the Haihan Military Commission can confirm that the naval guns on its own warships greatly surpass their contemporaries in all aspects of their naval competitors, and the Dutch are no exception. This was enough for Xie Li to have full confidence in the face of the Dutch armed fleet, and to deal with the Dutch with only four warships.

While the pirates were still in chaos at the docks of Nanri Island, the fleets of the Dutch and Haihan had already encountered the sea on the north side of Nanri Island. Both sides turned ahead of time, trying to grab the T-position to take the lead, but under the influence of the wind direction and ocean currents, neither of them was able to take advantage of this link, and the result became two columns running parallel to the north.

"Pull in!" Xie Li ordered without fear. Before the war, Qian Tiandun had privately instructed Xie Li that as long as he achieved results in this battle, Qian Tiandun would write to the Military Commission to ask for merit for him, and Xie Li was also expected to become the first naturalized officer among the naval officers to be promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

The adjustment of the opponent's course naturally fell into the eyes of the Dutch fleet commander Van der Wegen, for the Dutch, who made the sea their home, there was no such option as "fear" in naval warfare, and he also gave the order to adjust the course and let the fleet stay on the opponent's route.

The distance between the two flotillas quickly shortened from five or six hundred meters to within two hundred meters, and the Haihan side opened fire first, and the guns of the "Tiger Shark" fired one after another, and the shells whistled and smashed into the Dutch sailboat.

One of the shells swept a few meters above Van der Wegen's head, tore a two-foot hole in the sail and plunged into the sea from the other side of the ship. Although the shell did not cause substantial damage, Van der Wegen was shocked, because it showed that his fleet was within range of the opponent's naval guns, but at this distance it seemed that his own naval guns could not play 100% of the role.

With a jolt beneath his feet, the cannonballs fired from his own sailboat immediately confirmed Vanderwegen's fears. These shells had already fallen into the water more than a dozen meters away from the opponent's sailboat, and they could not cause damage to the opponent at all.

"Very well, keep this distance and keep shooting!" Xie Li of course observed this detail, and this was exactly the scene he was waiting for. The performance advantage of the Haihan artillery was enough to allow the fleet to maintain a relatively safe distance and carry out long-range strikes against enemy ships without being damaged by enemy weapons.

Van der Wegen's response was the opposite of Xie Li's, and he chose a simple and crude solution to change this passive status quo: "Get up and get close to their boats! Let them know that our shells are not made of flour!"

In terms of the sturdiness of the hull, the Dutch sailing ships were not inferior to the warships built by the Haihan, and some Dutch sailing ships even had certain advantages in the thickness of the outer decks. But Dutch galleons, like all other Western ships, had a very fatal shortcoming, and that was the lack of watertight compartments.

The watertight compartment was invented in the Tang Dynasty, and after the Song Dynasty, it was widely used in the construction of sea vessels, and even some inland river ships also adopted this structure. When Zheng He's fleet went to the West, all the ships adopted a watertight compartment structure.

This kind of compartment has three very significant advantages in function, one is to improve the sinking resistance of the hull by dividing the sealed compartment, the second is to use the watertight partition to enhance the transverse strength of the hull, and the third is to improve the efficiency of loading and unloading, which is convenient for the storage and custody of goods during transportation.

From the perspective of shipbuilding technology, the watertight bulkhead has another advantage that has to be mentioned, that is, the watertight bulkhead replaces the process of adding ribs to the hull, so that the shipbuilding process is greatly simplified, and the construction period can be shortened a lot.

Although this advanced shipbuilding technology had already spread overseas when Zheng He went to the West, it was only at the end of the 18th century that Western countries actually introduced this technology into their own shipbuilding industry and promoted it, that is, about a century and a half after the current point in time. In 1795, the Englishman Bentham shot six new warships for the British Royal Navy, and it was the first time that the watertight cabin structure of a Chinese sailing ship was applied to the construction of Western-style warships.

This difference in hull structure was trained by each member of the Haihan Navy during their training, and they also understood how this difference would affect the ships of both sides in naval artillery battles. Therefore, for the combat method of naval artillery warfare, the soldiers of the Haihan side have a natural psychological advantage.

As the distance between the two fleets was further reduced, shells finally began to hit the Dutch galleons, and at this distance the oak hull alone could not withstand the huge kinetic energy of the shells, and it was easy to tear a large hole in the hull of the ship, and by the way, clear a qiē obstacle in the path.

Dutch galleons, known as fluyts, were an improvement on earlier Spanish galleons that reduced the hull and the number of armed men and sailors, and enlarged the cargo hold below the waterline. This change allowed Dutch sailing ships to achieve the goals of high speed, light weight, low cost, high cargo capacity, and ease of construction, and was one of the important reasons why the Netherlands rose to become a maritime empire in a short period of time. However, the disadvantages of this sailing ship are also very deadly, the draft is very deep, the hull is relatively thin, and although it is relatively agitated and flexible, it lacks the ability to resist hits and the intensity of firepower.

In the middle of the 17th century, about a decade later, during the Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch navy and armed merchant ships were inflicted heavy losses by cannons in the face of the heavy battleships of the British navy.

This disadvantage has not been fully exposed at present, because there are only a handful of maritime forces that can compete with it head-on, and whether it is the Spaniards or the Portuguese, and even the Ming Naval Division, it is difficult to compare with the Dutch in terms of the number of armed ships, and the Dutch must have the advantage in large-scale naval battles. But at present, the conditions for such a six-on-four skirmish naval battle are small, and the disadvantages of the Dutch sailing ships are undoubtedly exposed under the fire of the Haihan.

First of all, under the premise that the total number of naval guns between the two sides was not much different, the hit rate was more than doubled, and the Haihan warships took the lead in destroying more than one-third of the gun positions on the Dutch sailing ship with the support of a relatively high hit rate, which led to a rapid decline in the intensity of Dutch firepower, and the hit rate fell to a miserable point.

Secondly, the lethality and lethality of the Haihan naval guns were much stronger than those of the opponent, and the Dutch sailing ship was pierced by shells near the waterline, and almost in a very short period of time, because of a large amount of water entering the hull, the performance of the ship was affected, and even obvious roll occurred - which was almost equivalent to the ship's gunwald guns lost their combat capability. However, because the Haihan warship has a watertight compartment structure, even if it is penetrated into the water, it will not have a big impact on the performance of the ship in a short time.

The naval artillery battle between the two sides lasted less than half an hour, and three sailing ships in the Dutch fleet were successively incapacitated under artillery fire. On the other hand, on the Haihan side, although all four ships were shot, none of them withdrew from the battle due to injuries and were still able to continue to launch artillery attacks against the opponent. The firepower output capabilities of the two sides, which were originally not very different, quickly changed in proportion during the engagement. The Dutch sailors, after braving heavy artillery fire to approach their rivals' sailboats, were desperate to find that their sailors were all armed with flintlock pistols, and they now had to withstand the double blow of guns and muskets.