The Second Fleet's Fourth Fleet and the Luzon Fleet together have two cruisers, five frigates, and four patrol ships, in addition to three armed transports.

However, it is impossible to say that these ships will all be put into the Luzon operation, and warships are needed to defend Minlao Island, and warships are needed to maintain the safety of the shipping routes in the waters around Luzon, so the number of battleships that are finally put into the Luzon operation will not be too large, only one cruiser, three frigates, and three armed transport ships.

But don't look at the fact that there are not many ships, but there are a lot of troops on board.

The Luzon garrison dispatched 800 men, all heavily armed ground combatants.

In addition, the navy basically carries marines on all warships, and the sailors of each ship can also organize themselves to carry out landing operations when necessary, so the navy alone can dispatch at least 500 landing troops.

Eight hundred plus five hundred, there will be at least one thousand three hundred ground forces capable of carrying out landing operations.

The ground troops, which were 1,300 men armed with flintlock pistols and artillery, could defeat at least 10,000 local natives in Luzon according to the estimation of Rear Admiral Chen Pengming, who commanded the Fourth Detachment of the landing operation!

If it's just defense, then there will be more natives to fight against!

According to this estimate, Rear Admiral Chen Pengming did not choose a too cautious combat plan, and he was ready to go straight to Huanglong.

According to the plan, the fleet will land in a bay in central Luzon, and this bay is the Mani *** land after the land to go straight to the local indigenous towns, decisively and quickly defeat them, and then establish a colonial port and fortress in the local area.

As for the complete control of Luzon, it is estimated that this time and a half will not be possible.

There is no way, there are too few troops, and there are too many natives, and it is difficult to actually control the fighting, killing, and killing.

Just like Mian Lao Island, the Tang Dynasty has occupied this island for more than a year, although there is no large-scale enemy army and administrative statistics center on the island, but there are many scattered indigenous armed forces, and the area actually controlled by the Tang Dynasty is only more than ten kilometers away from the landing port, and if it is far away, it is impossible to guarantee security.

When the fleet went to Luzon, the fleet of the Tang Western Company also arrived in Banten!

In fact, they would have arrived in Banten earlier, but they encountered a massive storm along the way, and in order to avoid losses, they had to find a safe haven near the coast of the island near the route, which was to hide for several days.

By the time they set sail again and arrived in Banten, it was already several days later than scheduled.

However, a few days is nothing in the age of sailing!

When this huge fleet of more than 20 ships arrived in Banten, it caused a sensation, or more simply, caused panic among the local natives.

Can you not panic, although most of these more than 20 ships are merchant ships, but the merchant ships of this year are all armed merchant ships!

And there are also two frigates specially used to escort ships!

These two frigates are the latest warships commissioned by Datang Western Company in the past year, and they are specially used for escort operations.

In fact, the panic of these natives was completely justified, because on the first day of the arrival of this huge fleet, they launched a landing campaign!

Put down your arms and do business with peace in port?

Just kidding, that's just a helpless choice when the strength is insufficient, when there is a strong armed force, why should I do business with you, it can't be more straightforward to grab it directly!

What's more, Datang Western Company also made a deal with the official, and the official entrusted them to completely take down Banten and control the surrounding area, for which the official will pay 200,000 taels of silver.

Is 200,000 taels of silver too much? It is indeed a lot for ordinary people, but for the official, is it too much for Datang Western Company? Not much, for sure.

But for Datang Western Company, it is completely a convenient business, on the way to India, you can do this vote easily, you can have an extra net profit of 200,000 taels of silver, why not do it.

Therefore, on the first day of the arrival of the fleet of the Datang Western Company in Banten, it launched a landing operation!

The bombardment of the harbor by the huge fleet of the Banten natives was to a smithereens, followed by a very unnutritious landing operation.

It took a full 3,000 company fighters to land and fight, and then it took half a day to defeat the native defenders of the port, and another day to defeat the local king, or the prince of the native ruler of some mess.

There is no need to elaborate on the battle process, after all, in the face of the guns of the modern army, these natives are almost vulnerable, and the only thing worth mentioning is that after completely occupying the port city of Banten and taking the palace, the Tang Western Company has captured a lot!

The gold and silver in it were piled up, which made the high-level executives of the wealthy Datang Western Company a little shocked.

These places, how rich they are?

After a simple count, excluding other messy goods and the like, gold and silver alone are worth at least a million taels of silver!

This made a vote of the senior management of Datang Western Company laugh for a whole day, and this vote made a lot of money!

What kind of business is this, it is good to directly destroy its country and take its wealth, it is simple and simple, and it makes a lot of money.

This money even made the officials of the Imperial Tax Department who came with the fleet look red, shouting that these are imperial property, and you Datang Western Company can't monopolize it, so you have to keep a part of it.

It's a pity that the Datang Western Company took out the power of attorney signed with the empire, and the power of attorney clearly stated that after the Datang Western Company conquered Bandan, the spoils obtained belonged to the Datang Western Company.

Strictly speaking, the entire Banten is now the property of Datang Western Company!

Ports, cities, and land are all trophies that belong to the Tang Western Company.

Of course, according to the agreement between the Datang Western Company and the Empire, as well as the relevant provisions in the Western Trade License, although the Datang Western Company owns these properties, the financial and administrative powers, as well as the military powers, must be transferred to the Imperial authorities.

After Datang Western Company seized the port of Banten in a cleaner way, they didn't care much about the rest of the matter, anyway, the official will send officials and garrisons over in the future. Strategy

They themselves are preparing for India, which is the territory that really belongs to their Tang Western Company, where they will have exclusive trade rights, administrative power to assist and military power.

West of the Strait of Malacca, that's the territory of their Datang Western Company!

Therefore, after the huge fleet of Datang Western Company took Banten, it soon sent a huge fleet to India!

The first fleet to India, with a total of eight ships, including one frigate and seven armed merchant ships, had a major strategic task in addition to going to India for trade, which was to take over and consolidate the supply ports established by Ying Zihua when he went to India, as for the expansion of the colony, this is not the most important goal now.

Last winter, one of the merchant ships in Ying Zihua's fleet had already returned to Banten from India, bringing back a lot of special goods from India and news of Ying Zihua's fleet.

After these special goods from India were shipped back to Guangzhou, they were sold out directly, and the profits directly increased by more than ten times!

This made the Datang Western Company even more determined that it must quickly carry out trade with India, and then obtain huge profits, and only after having huge profits can it carry out subsequent scale expansion and occupy more supply ports and colonies.

This is also why, after Ying Zihua's fleet, the fleet that went to India for the first time was full of cargo in addition to a large number of armed men.

Those armed men are still used to consolidate the supply port and prevent attacks by pirates, Portuguese or local natives, and at present, Datang Western Company has no plans to start a large-scale war with local natives or Portuguese.

Now they are still very peaceful, ready to do business with the natives of India in a serious way, war or something, the impact is too bad, they want river crabs!

As for saying that they had just wiped out Banten on the front foot, alas, what, that was part of the business, but the means of doing business were a little tougher, besides, they also paid the price, there were a lot of shells and bullets wasted, and in this battle, they still had more than 20 casualties, and the pension was a lot.

After the second fleet sent to India by Datang Western Company set sail, they did not stop their pace, but quickly organized the third fleet!

However, they did not stop expanding in the Indonesian archipelago, and they were preparing to establish a new colony in the western part of the island of Java, and at the same time go to Australia accurately.

This year, the Tang Western Company is destined to be very busy, busy waging wars everywhere, conducting trade, establishing colonies, and supplying ports!

If they don't get busy, they won't have enough income, not enough income, let alone expand, and it's hard to even maintain.

Today's Datang Western Company is spending a huge amount of money every day, and it is casually spending hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

Moreover, the Imperial Assets Division no longer injected funds into the company, and now all expenses have to be maintained by their own operating income, so it is not surprising why they want to help the army and navy fight Banten, not for money.

This is also the reason why they do not plan to start a large-scale war in India, because it costs money to fight!