As soon as the sky was light, Culton led 800 troops out of the warship and marched east along the North Harbor Creek.

Eight hundred Dutch troops, all musketeers, in order to enhance the attack, accompanied by five light guns, each mounted on a gun carriage, dragged forward by more than a dozen soldiers.

Each Dutch soldier wore a blue uniform and a tall military hat with feathers of various colors, while Caron, as the governor, had the tallest hat and the brightest colored feathers.

In addition to the musket in his hand, each soldier carried a leather belt containing twelve wooden barrels containing gunpowder, as well as a leather bag containing lead projectiles and a powder canister.

As for muskets, except for a small number of flintlock pistols, most of them are arquebuses, after all, flintlock pistols in this era are expensive, not to mention that they often fail to ignite, and their performance is not very good, and they have not been popularized.

However, some of the muskets in the Caron army were state-of-the-art rifled guns, with very good range and accuracy.

Because they were colonized on the islands, they rarely encountered cavalry, and the Dutch soldiers did not have cavalry and pikemen among the standing troops, and they were all musketeers for the sake of firepower.

Eight hundred musketeers, already a very powerful army! Caron was arrogant and confident that he was largely invincible in the far east. The Ming army in Beigang was only a few thousand people, and could withstand a few rounds of musket fire?

Relying on strong ships and sharp musketeers, the Dutch occupied vast colonies in the New World, Africa, and Asia, and it was common for hundreds of Dutch soldiers to annihilate a country, so Caron had absolute confidence in the combat power of his men.

However, as he moved deeper into the interior of the island, Cuarón's pride faded and was replaced by increased caution.

Harassment, endless harassment, seriously affected the course of the Dutch's advance.

At first, the Dutch army walked very fast, but after penetrating more than ten miles inland, they were attacked by the Ming army.

There is a Ming army of more than 100 people hidden in the dense forest on both sides of the road, when the Dutch army passed by suddenly rushed out to attack with a bow and arrow, the Dutch army was caught off guard by the bow and arrow shot a dozen people, and when the Dutch were angry and counterattacked, this Ming army fled far away like a rabbit.

A subordinate asked for orders to pursue this hateful Ming army, but Caron thought about it but refused, he knew that this might be a ploy of the Ming people, trying to lure his own side to chase and protect Beigang.

"Advance, the whole army will attack Beigang directly, and completely destroy the main force of the Ming people there!" Cuaron commanded with a long bayonet sword in his hand, pointing to the east. As long as they reach Beigang Town, the Akito will have to fight a decisive battle with themselves, and there is no need to pay attention to these hateful flies!

However, due to the harassment of the Ming army, the Dutch army had to march carefully and be vigilant at all times, which seriously affected the speed of the march.

In the dense forest on the north side of Beigang Creek, through the dense branches, Li Yi carefully observed the Dutch army that was advancing along the stream. The sharpness of the opponent's firearm made him feel uneasy.

Except for the first wave of surprise attacks by his subordinates, which achieved some effect because of their suddenness, the subsequent attacks had little effect, except for delaying the speed of the Dutch army, they did not inflict much damage on them, and they were shot dozens of people instead.

Of course, this is also related to Chen Yue's order that firearms are not allowed to be used, and only crossbow arrows can be used.

The bow and crossbow have a range, and you must shoot arrows within a hundred steps of the Dutch to cause casualties to the other party, and what shocked Li Yi was that the range of the Dutch musket was farther than his own crossbow arrows, and when the soldiers who attacked him were not a hundred steps close to the other side, they were fired by the opponent's dense musket rounds, and the running crossbow archers fell to the ground one after another, so that he had to order a retreat.

Under normal circumstances, the range of the firebolt is about the same as that of the bow and arrow, the long-range bow and arrow are more powerful, and the close-range firearm is more armor-piercing, but the bow and arrow have a faster rate of fire, and the archer is difficult to train, which is why the firebolt is gradually replaced.

Because of the late formation of the Zhoushan army, there are not many real archers, and only crossbows are used, and the rate of fire of crossbows is worse than that of firebolts, but because of the difficulty of making firebolts, coupled with the fact that a large number of bows and arrows have been captured in previous battles against the Qing army, in order not to waste them, the foot bow was changed to a crossbow bow, which is convenient for soldiers who do not know how to shoot arrows, and there are a certain number of crossbow archers in the Zhoushan army.

Li Yi was shocked to find that his crossbow archers were completely inferior when shooting at the Dutch army, and because of the range, they were fired by the Dutch muskets before they ran to the range of the crossbow arrows. Unbeknownst to him, a considerable part of the Dutch muskets were rifled guns, which had a much longer range and higher accuracy than ordinary muskets.

The attack failed and his soldiers suffered heavy casualties, which made Li Yi very depressed, but he still remembered Chen Yue's order and did not use firearms, but only sent crossbowmen to carry out harassing attacks, just to delay the opponent's speed and exhaust the enemy.

His 1,000 men were divided into ten teams to harass in turn, and when it was a turn, Li Yi looked at the sky, it was past noon, so he ordered to stop harassing, and let the Dutch army pass, but he led his troops out of the dense forest, and lined up behind the Dutch along Beigang Creek, blocking the back road of the Dutch.

Although the Dutch have sharp firearms, Li Yi has no doubt about the victory in this battle, because his own number is six times that of the opponent, and the number of firearms and artillery on his side is not below that of the other party.

Therefore, this battle is not only to be won, but also to be completely annihilated. Li Yi's mission was to prevent the defeated Dutch from escaping back to the sea.

The annoying harassment of flies was gone, and the speed of the Dutchman's march increased dramatically.

"Aketo is so stupid, it's a dream to stop us with this kind of harassment." Lieutenant Armand said to Governor Caron.

Caron nodded self-consciously: "What age is it, these Oriental pigs still use backward weapons such as bows and crossbows, and they still want to compete with the East India Company for Dongfan Island, which is really beyond their means." ”

In his dealings with the Ming people, he looked down on the backward Caron of the Ming army. The army of the first officer is still in the era when cold weapons are commonly used, although there are some muskets and artillery, the quality is very poor.

Caron is confident that if he has 10,000 troops, it will be enough to conquer the entire Ming Empire!

"The whole army accelerates forward, defeats the Ming army in Beigang, and strives to have lunch in Beigang!" Caron commanded loudly.

As a result, the Dutch army walked faster, calculated the distance, and it didn't take much time to reach the town of North Port.

However, when it was only ten miles away from Beigang Town, several low walls suddenly appeared in front of him and blocked the way forward. Looking at the low wall in front of him, Caron couldn't help but frown.