"When I get back here, I'm going to catch this damn guy and hang him on the docks!" Spikes was still angry when he boarded the ship, but he couldn't take revenge on the island's natives right now, so he could only curse a few words to vent his anger.

Just before boarding and leaving, his men reported to him that two tents had been lost in the morning—just after the crew had packed up and returned to the ship for breakfast, and that the tents that had been camped on the shore the previous night were missing. There was only one group of natives on the island, and there was no doubt that this was a good thing they did, but it was unlikely that the fleet of ships in a hurry to set off would stop for two tents to find out the truth. No matter how angry Spikes is, he can only take care of the overall situation and leave the island with a stomach full of unhappiness.

"Alright Mr. Spikes, these monkeys are not the goal of our trip, let's focus on our mission!" Brouwer's tone was still cold and emotionless, but it was clear from the frown on his brow that he was equally unhappy with the state of the island. If it weren't for the mission, perhaps he would have had a more terrifying attack than Spikes' methods.

Only Fan Man felt a little relaxed, he just wanted to leave this place quickly and go to the Natuna Islands, at least there were Dutch-owned taverns on that island, and there was a basic social order to speak of, and this place was completely similar to a primitive society, chaotic and disorderly.

About 2 nautical miles north of the Tamelan Islands, there is the only port on the main island of Ambuna. There are also a number of islands on either side of this route, and there have been signs of pirates in previous years, so the crew must take their spirits, because no one knows if the missing Dutch merchant ships have happened in this area.

After a tumultuous three-day voyage, the outline of the Ambuna Islands finally appeared in the fleet's field of vision, which made every member of the fleet secretly breathe a sigh of relief. Arriving here means that this mission is nearly half complete. Judging from the voyage, it was only about a third of the way from Batavia to Dayuangang, but there was little chance of seeing a large land stock during the next two-thirds of the voyage, and the next supply would probably have to wait about twenty days later.

However, remembering that they had heard Captain Jonk from Belitung Island mention that a shore defense battery was being built here, the commanders still did not dare to take it lightly before sailing into the port. Perhaps there were pirates in the vicinity to force the elder Janssen, who had never been active in infrastructure construction, to organize the construction of fortifications on the island.

About ten nautical miles from the port, the crew spotted two fishing boats at sea, but the two boats quickly turned around and headed for the harbor when they saw the fleet.

"It looks like two Ming style sailboats. This discovery made Fan Man a little confused: "Did Old Janssen recruit a group of Daming fishermen to settle down?"

Spikes and Brauvaux also noticed the rapidly departing sailing ship in the distance on their respective ships, but they were also unalarmed, believing that this should just be the normal reaction of the newly arrived Ming immigrants when they saw a large fleet, after all, these immigrants had probably rarely had the opportunity to see such a fleet of Western-style sailing ships along the Ming coast before.

The harbor on the island of Ambuna does not have a semi-enclosed bay that sits deep into the land, but only a bay that slightly reces into the land, so that you can see the harbor at a glance from several nautical miles away.

The first thing Fan Man noticed was that there were three sailing ships docked side by side on the pier on the south side of the port, refusing to be far away, but he still recognized them at a glance as three merchant ships belonging to the East India Company - the voc (vereenigdeoostindischepagnie) symbol representing the company on the side of the ship was also visible from a distance. This made him breathe a sigh of relief, who said that the merchant ship was missing? Isn't it a good stop here? Maybe it was just a storm on the way, and the ship was damaged, so it was stranded here for repairs. Of course, it is probably difficult to provide perfect repair conditions for these merchant ships due to local conditions, but this explains why these ships disappeared for so long on the way.

"Old Janssen is probably going to be out of luck. Fan Man's thoughts quickly dispersed. According to the procedures of the East India Company, such a situation should have been informed of the company's headquarters a month in advance, and since the non-arrival of the merchant ships returning from the port of Oyuan had not arrived on time, the Batavian side had so far received no news from Natuna, and this dereliction of duty was clearly the responsibility of the elder Janssen. Fan Man had even made up the scene of Browvo reprimanding Old Janssen with a straight face after docking, after all, it also cost a lot of money for the military department to send personnel to the sea to carry out this search and rescue mission, and this laborious action and the corresponding expenses were unnecessary.

"However, the forts in this port are well built...... Fan Man also quickly noticed the more than a dozen shore defense batteries erected all over the port, which blocked all the ship docking points and landing areas in the harbor in a staggered manner, apparently carefully designed. The last time he passed through here, there must have been no such fortifications on the shore, apparently new in recent months, and thus confirmed that the information provided by Jonk was indeed true—perhaps something had happened here that the elder Janssen had to brace himself up and strengthen the island's defenses.

In addition to the three East India Company merchant ships, Fan Man also noticed that several Cantonese sailing ships with pointed and narrow bodies were docked in the harbor. These boats were not equipped with the large stiff sails that were customary for the Ming Dynasty, but rather a fabric soft sail that resembled a Western-style soft sail. Fan Man knew that this new type of soft sail was invented and popularized by the Haihan people, and it was said that this kind of sail was more flexible than the Chinese hard sail, easier to handle than the Western soft sail, and that the ships equipped with this soft sail had a greater increase in speed. This was the first time he had seen this kind of sail rope system in kind, and he planned to wait a while to get off the ship to see what was unique about this so-called Haihan sail.

Fan Man was just a businessman after all, and his attention was almost all on the various sailing ships docked in the harbor, but he didn't notice the strange atmosphere here. Spikes and Browwart, however, were semi-professional soldiers, and their vigilance was apparently much higher than that of Van Man, and they noticed something was wrong with them on their respective ships as they approached the harbor.

First of all, there is not even a single offshore boat in the harbor in broad daylight, all the boats as far as the eye can see are leaning against the shore, and there is not even a small fishing sampan on the sea, which is a bit unusual for a port town. Secondly, they did not see a single figure on the shore or on the ships parked at the docks, there were no laborers carrying goods on the docks, no drunken sailors, not even a wild dog wandering.

"Raise the flag, stop the fleet, and don't go any closer to the dock!" Brower ordered on the spot.

At the same time, Spikes, on another troop carrier, was giving orders to the soldiers on board: "Drop your luggage, pick up your weapons, and get ready for battle!"

"What's going on?" Fan Man saw the flags on the two troop transport ships, and he didn't come back to his senses for a while.

At the same time, in a fort on the shore, Mu Shabai held a telescope to observe the shape of the sea, and muttered: "They still found out!"

Due to the relatively flat terrain of the local area, it is difficult to establish an effective early warning observation point near the port, and in order to disguise his identity, he cannot send fast Haihan warships to patrol the nearby waters. At the time of receiving the alarm, Mushaber also knew that the moment he had been waiting for had finally come - the Dutch finally noticed that something was wrong and sent a fleet of ships along the way to find it.

The garrison had been alerted an hour and a half before, and all Mushabai could do during that time was to organize the fighters to the front line and then empty the people near the dock. It was not that Mushaber did not think that this might arouse the vigilance of the other party, but it might be okay for the Portuguese on the island to deceive the Daming maritime merchants, but it would be too difficult to deceive the eyes of the Dutch. Rather than let them be spotted by the Dutch, it is better to empty the docklands and have a good fight with the Dutch.

"It's time to show real combat effectiveness!" Muchaber ordered: "Raise the flag, all batteries are ready to fire!" he said

Of course, the other flotilla also noticed the flag, and then the two armed ships immediately slowed down and opened the gun windows on the side of the ship. Apparently, the other party has noticed the unusual situation on the dock and has begun to be on guard. At this point, this battle is ready to be fought.

At this time, Fan Man had already sensed that the situation on the shore was wrong, and ordered to stop docking and prepare to turn, when he saw a flag raised on the top of the warehouse on the dock on the shore. This flag was not the tricolor of the East India Company, but a gray flag embroidered with a large white Chinese character.

"What the hell is that?" Fan Man hurriedly asked a Chinese steward on the ship to come out and identify him.

"Captain, that's a 'Ruan' word. After the Chinese steward finished speaking, he saw that Fan Man still looked confused, and knew that he still didn't understand, so he further explained: "This is a surname, but it is rare in the Ming Dynasty, but it is more common in Annan." ”

"Annan?" Fan Man suddenly came back to his senses -- Isn't the Ruan family in charge of the southern regime in Annam, which was destroyed two years ago? Among the various pirate rumors that have been circulating before, one is that the Ruan clan who escaped from Annam has gathered and organized an armed force in the South China Sea and has started piracy. Judging from the situation on the dock, this organization under the banner of "Ruan" should have taken control of the port, could it be that they are the legendary remnants of the south?

"All personnel enter the combat position!" Fan Man gave a cold shudder, and immediately ordered the whole ship to prepare for battle after coming back to his senses - since the other party was able to take this port quietly, it was obviously not a good thing. And the recklessness of his own fleet is tantamount to throwing himself into the net. At this time, looking at the forts on the shore, Fan Man felt that there seemed to be a lot of black holes with cannon muzzles aimed at him.

However, this hunch was not an illusion, and before the Dutch fleet could figure out how to deal with the strange situation on the shore, the batteries on the shore opened fire first. They targeted the two Dutch troop carriers that were the first to respond, and more than a dozen shore defense guns were the first to fire on Spikes's "Victorious". At a distance of less than three hundred meters, the ship was nothing more than a motionless live target, and at least half of the shells hit the twenty-seven-meter-long sailing ship in the first round of concentrated fire, and immediately caused double-digit crew casualties.

"These bastards! fire, all fire!" Brower, who had narrowly escaped the first round of shelling, gave the order in horror. However, at this distance, the naval guns equipped with his "water chamber" can play a very limited role, because the flat range of these guns is generally about 200 meters, not to mention hitting the target, even hitting the shore is a luxury. After all, these guns were originally designed to be used for naval battles, not to launch artillery attacks from sea to land, and compete with long-range and high-precision coastal defense artillery. The shells fired by the "water chamber" were all missed, unsurprisingly, and only caused a splash on the surface of the sea.

Fan Man also ordered his ships to open fire at this time, but similar to the "water chamber", the guns equipped with his ships were not much better. After all, these are only armed merchant ships, not professional warships, and it is enough to deal with those pirates who do not have thermal weapons at sea, but it is indeed a big gap in performance to fight this kind of amphibious assault warfare.

Thus the battle also became a spectacle, and the Dutch had much more artillery, and fought vigorously but with little effect. The batteries on the shore, however, were unhurriedly aiming and firing, and began to point out the two nearest Dutch troop carriers. During the third round of shelling, a shell cut off the mainmast of the Victorious, which almost declared its incapability.

Noting this detail, Mushaber immediately turned to the batteries to concentrate on the other "waterchamber" - he did not need to sink the Dutch ships immediately, as long as he could incapacitate them, he could slowly clean up the mess in the following time.

Of course, Brouwer on the "water chamber" also noticed the fatal blow suffered by his colleagues, and at the same time he realized that his ship was very poor in terms of artillery range, and that he would either get closer to his opponent or retreat quickly to protect himself, and there was no third option.