Don't look for people who build roads, dig ditches, and transport earth and stones, the third battalion of Tang Dianfeng of the Jinhua Righteous Army has 3,000 captive soldiers and 3,000 militiamen, these people may not be able to fight, but they are still very cheerful and efficient in doing this, because when they have nothing to do, they do these things.

The Jinhua Righteous Army overhauled roads, dredged rivers, excavated silt, cleared wasteland, built water conservancy facilities, diverted water for irrigation, planted trees, built bridges and paved roads, built houses, built ships, and fished.

Where did the militia come from, half of the militia were converted from captives, some were recruited from refugees, and only a small part of them were recruited from the local people.

Captives are consumables.

This is a common understanding shared by Zhang Qiang's group.

However, this time I came here to fight for the Zheng army, of course, I would not use my own troops in vain, Zhang Qiangpan knocked on the side and asked Zheng Tai and Liu Guoxuan to contribute some of their manpower.

The two of them didn't think much about it, they came to cooperate with Zhang Qiang's Jinhua Righteous Army to liberate the treasure island for them, and it was impossible not to pay, so they quickly transferred 10,000 people and put them on the construction site in batches.

Inside the city, Captain John de Boer, a Dutchman, with silver hair, high boots, white trousers, gray-brown military uniform, a waist knife, a cowboy hat, and a copper monocular in his hand, was carefully observing the Ming army outside the city.

His heart was anxious, frightened, and worried, but for the sake of his further promotion and to save his life, he tried his best to pretend to be calm, and he didn't even speak with a trill, word by word, as if nothing could move him and make him feel panicked.

What is the Ming army doing?

He wasn't really worried, he was worried about the Governor and his fleet.

The fleet had not returned since the night a month and a half before, and since that night and until the day of the day, when they woke up, they found that countless Ming troops had landed on the coast, destroyed the docks, and controlled the ships on the docks, and since then the city has been surrounded by the Ming army.

In the first half of the month, because the Ming army did not form an effective encirclement, he could still reorganize his troops and horses and attack, but the strength of the Ming army was too much, even if they could kill the Ming army of more than 2,000 people with the advanced tactics of platoon guns, and led to the rout of the Ming army of tens of thousands of people, but the strong style of the Ming army still caused some damage to his defenders, several two-pound and three-pounder cannons were destroyed or captured, more than 100 ********** were killed, and 50 sailors were captured or missing.

This is already more than one-eighth of his strength, and his total is only more than 800 soldiers, plus more than 200 stranded sailors, a total of just over 1,000 troops.

And the Ming army almost reached more than 30,000 people.

In the first few days, he also sent people to contact the city of Geranza and the expeditions and settlements that went deep into the interior of the treasure island, and withdrew those expeditions and settlements into the city, and even collected the men and their families of some tribes who had good relations with them on the treasure island, as well as the original officials and soldiers of the Ming army, the people of the Ming Dynasty, merchants and squires, and landlords who had good relations with them.

As a result, the population of Chichicheng skyrocketed from a mere 2,000 to 10,000, and the number of soldiers in battle reached more than 3,000.

One hundred and fifty gunners were equipped with 750 coolies of various nationalities, factions, tribes, and countries to be assisted, and even people with experience in warfare, sailors, and gunners were drawn from the original inhabitants to form a second cold weapon unit of 800 people, stationed in various important places in the city, and was responsible for patrolling the city and maintaining law and order.

As the battle progressed, he armed the more than 700 militiamen, issued them spears and broadswords, and sent them out of the city to resist the Ming army on the breastwork with a regular army of 200 musketeers and 15 artillerymen.

And the Ming army did not disappoint them, a weekly attack, the first time with eight thousand men, bulldozing all their obstacles outside the city walls, although they suffered heavy losses, about a thousand people were killed by artillery fire, more than five hundred were killed by the militia units and artillery auxiliaries who went out of the city to attack, about two thousand people were wounded, the corpses and wounded lay on the ground outside the castle, and the wailing made some of the militia on the city walls feel unbearable.

At night, the Ming army snatched back the wounded and corpses, and the militiamen's hearts felt better.

The following week, the Ming army launched another attack, this time attacking the castle from three directions, successfully toppling the line of the moat, clearing all obstacles and filling in some sections of the moat.

This time the casualties were still more than 2,000.

The second time the militia in the castle was not as much of the mood as the first time, the first time was the artillery bombing the enemy, the second time was a short encounter with the enemy, the militia who attacked left 300 corpses, more than 200 wounded, the cannon was destroyed two three-pounder guns, three four-pounder guns, and one six-pounder cannon, which can be described as a loss of considerable loss, the pain of hitting their own skin, the militiamen did not pity others, but felt angry, and vowed to kill more enemies next time and avenge the dead and wounded.

The third time, the Ming army dispatched more than 3,000 people, in the frontal onslaught, two consecutive waves of attacks, so that the attacking militia fell into a bitter battle for the first time, the Ming army knocked down the 50-meter breastwork, killed more than 500 militiamen, killed more than 30 gunners, and almost set up a ladder under the city wall.

This time, the Ming army lost more than 2,000 people.

But John de Boer's mood became heavier and heavier, the enemy advanced again and again, and was about to attack the city, the breastwork was useless, and only the cavalry of the regular army in the city could still go out of the city to sneak attack the enemy's troops attacking the city, and the militia could only go to the city wall to guard.

Because of the two sorties, the militia lost most of it, and the militia of more than 2,000 people is now only 1,000 people left.

John de Boer had to mobilize all the active people in the city again, the women went to cook, clean the streets, tidy up the stables, feed the horses, the children went to work as heralds, sentry, the old people went to the blacksmiths and arsenals to help, the middle-aged people went to the streets to maintain order, as porters, responsible for carrying weapons, supplies, young people organized for training, firing guns, firing cannons, replacing the militia to guard the walls, and the regular army was responsible for training and taking care of the defense of key areas.

This time, his troops were resurrected with full blood, but his combat effectiveness dropped so much, maybe if he was given another year, he would be able to make 3,000 regular troops, but would the Ming army give him so much time?

The only thing that made him feel at ease was that Westerners guarding castles generally paid attention to the storage of grain and food, a castle generally had food or food that could be eaten for a year, and the materials could even be used for three years, and the gunpowder and shells of the cannons were sufficient, even if they fought for half a year, there was no problem, and the warehouses were piled up.

In previous battles, he found that the Ming army did not have many artillery, and most of them were cannons under twelve pounder cannons, such cannons did not want to break the city wall for a year, and attacked the castle, and before they reached the edge of the castle, they would be destroyed by the condescending cannons of their own side on the city wall.

Their range and power, and even the quality of their cannons, are too inferior.

Just in a recent attack, the enemy concentrated their so-called Hongyi cannons, which were copied from the twelve-pounder cannons captured by the Portuguese, but their quality was not good, and the range was not as far as the cannons made by the Dutch themselves, not to mention that the cannons on their own side were condescending, and the range of each cannon was unreasonably increased by one or two hundred meters.

Although the range of the cannon at this time is far away, the power is insufficient, especially the helpless hit rate, which makes people want to hit the wall, but in the face of an army like the Ming army that relies on crowd tactics, such a cannon is still useful.

As long as the cannons on the city wall are fired together, whether they hit the enemy or not, the enemy will generally be in a commotion, running all over the mountains, in this case, do not hit the rate, be lucky, you can achieve results, even if you hit one enemy, it will make the remaining enemies retreat in a hurry, and then rush up again under the supervision of the officer to die.

After repeating this three times, the Ming army's attack was yellow, and no one dared to rush up again.

But after a long time, the enemy seems to have found some rules, they rush to the front and fight you hand-to-hand is ferocious, not fatal, once the fight is smooth, morale is very high, even if the cannon hits them at this time, it will not cause much morale blow to them.

There should not be many such situations, as long as there were only two of the ten attacks of the Ming army, the Dutch colonial army, with its small number of troops, would suffer heavy losses. Any sortie would have caused him to lose a lot of troops, and he only had a total of 800 regular troops and more than 2,600 militia auxiliary troops.

The loss of 1,300 people in a month and a half is a heavy blow to the Chichicheng City, which has a population of only 10,000.

There is no shortage of time for the Ming army, but he lacks it.

I don't know when the Governor's reinforcements will arrive, how is the battle between them and the Ming army, what is the Jinhua Righteous Army, why haven't they returned now, is it that the whole army has been wiped out?

Because the battle of the Dutch attack on the Jinhua Righteous Army began that night, after the fleet left, Zheng Chenggong landed, and surrounded the city of Chichi and Geranza in a few days, so most of the defenders of the two cities did not know the exact battle situation, and all they could do was to wait for reinforcements.

"Five hundred meters, fortunately, it is within the effective range of the defenders' artillery, and the accuracy is still okay,"

John DeBoer didn't know why the Ming army had changed its mind and suddenly began to dig trenches, but he didn't think so, the Dutch didn't have many others, but the cannons, there were many, and on the front wall alone, there were six eighteen-pounder cannons, an average of one for four hundred meters.

Twelve cannons of twelve-pounder guns, with an average of two guns of 400 meters.

Three cannons form a cannon group and attack long-range enemies.

In the middle of every 400 meters, there are four 9-pounder guns, a total of twenty-four cannons, which can provide long-range fire at a distance of 500 meters and effectively kill and damage the enemy at a distance of 300 meters.

Thirty-six six-pounder guns, evenly distributed, six guns every 400 meters, could cover an area from 350 to 200 meters, and formed a fire belt with 9-pounder guns, and the enemy must not rush to the front and attack the city wall unless he broke through with extremely heavy casualties.

Such a defense is an iron barrel, and the castle cannot be broken without strong firepower.