As soon as Sanada and Mori Katsuie set foot on the land of Ambon Port, looking at the lush mountains surrounding the bay and listening to the sound of seagulls, Mori Katsuya couldn't help but say to Sanada Yukimasa beside him, "This place is really like Japan." ”

Sanada Yukimasa looked at the Dutch-style buildings at the port of Ambon, and couldn't help but subconsciously reply, "I don't want Japan to be like this in the future." ”

The Mori Katsuya followed Sanada Yukimasa's gaze and found that the natives in the port town not only did not show any hostility when they saw the arrival of the Ming army, but welcomed the arrival of the Ming army with songs and dances. Perhaps the natives felt that the arrival of the Ming army had helped them drive out the Dutch, but they knew very well that the island had just changed owners.

The Mori Katsuya retracted the smile on his face and said, "Japan will not be what they are now, because Japan still has us." As long as we demonstrate Japan's power in this war, His Majesty the Emperor will naturally realize where Japan can be used. Instructors often say: The law of the jungle is the law of this world, so we soldiers should strive not to make Japan a weakling, and this is not the responsibility of our generation. ”

Sanada Yukimasa did not continue to answer, but took a serious look at the island. The hilly island of Ambon is the smaller of the Moluccas, with two huge bays on the east and west sides of the island that nearly split the island in two. Ambon Bay to the west is the deepest part of the island, making it a natural harbor, and Ambon in the south of the island is a trading port for the entire Moluccas.

Since ancient times, large ships from China and India have sailed to this port for spice trade, and the natives of the archipelago have transported spices to this large port in small boats, and then transported cotton cloth and other daily necessities back to their small islands.

When the Dutch came here, they took a fancy to the excellent port conditions of Ambon Port, and there was only one land passage of less than 2 kilometers in the south and north of Ambon Island, which made the geographical environment of Ambon Port difficult to defend, so the Dutch forcibly occupied this place, and then controlled the spice trade of the entire Moluccas.

Since the arrival of the Dutch, merchants from other countries have gradually disappeared, so there are more and more Dutch buildings in the port towns, and the center of the town has shifted to the Dutch residential area centered on the Dutch merchant houses. However, during this expedition to the Ming Dynasty, Batavia also transferred Dutch ships and some troops stationed in Ambon Port, which led to the news of the defeat of the Putmans fleet, and the defense of Ambon Port also showed holes.

In order to prevent the ASEAN fleet from encroaching on each step, Batavia simply withdrew the Dutch from Ambon to Batavia. Therefore, when Sanada Yukimasa and Mori Katsuie arrived at the port of Ambon with the Ming ships, the port immediately surrendered to the Tokyo fleet.

This was also the beginning of the spice trade in Ambon, and the strong smell of spices could be smelled in the port towns, and the escape of the Dutch made the natives smile and think that they would no longer have to pay heavy taxes to the Dutch this year. Of course, they were happy too soon.

When the Spanish representatives in the fleet saw that the entire Spice Islands had fallen into the hands of the ASEAN without resistance, they immediately called for the convening of the Fleet Council and the establishment of an escrow committee for the Spice Islands to avoid the loss of tax revenue from the spice trade this year.

The European captains, whose goal had been the Spice Islands, immediately responded to the Spanish representative's suggestion, and lost interest in continuing their southward attack on Batavia.

The Ming admirals, represented by He Changqi, naturally did not agree with this short-sighted proposition, and the two sides quarreled from early September to mid-September. It was not until Zhang Xie, Li Chenfang, Xu Xinsu and others arrived on Ambon Island with the huge Japanese fleet that the controversy came to an end.

After Zhang Xie arrived at Ambon Island and heard about the controversy, he put aside the Spanish delegates and held secret discussions with the British and Portuguese representatives, and then the representatives of the three countries revised the escrow committee proposal put forward by the Spanish delegates at the council, vetoed the Spanish representatives' proposal to divide the Spice Islands, and held that the Spice Islands should be regarded as an indivisible subject, and that the trade, taxation and other interests of the entire Spice Islands should be submitted to the ASEAN Council for discussion after the end of the war, according to the contributions of each country in the war. Rather than being distributed by the escrow committee.

The proposal put forward by the representative of Spain was ultimately only a proposal for the establishment of an escrow committee for the Spice Islands, whose powers were far removed from what the Spanish representative had envisioned, and whose first chairmanship fell to the Portuguese.

On 20 September, the controversy over the distribution of interests in the Spice Islands came to an end, and with the help of representatives of China, Britain, and Portugal, who clearly had the upper hand, the Spanish delegates finally gave in and approved the military plan to attack Batavia southward.

Japanese cadets such as Sanada Yukimasa and Mori Katsuie, who had been leisurely on Ambon Island for more than half a month, boarded the ship again and prepared to cross the sea to attack Batavia. However, this time they were not mixed in the ranks of the Ming army, but were transferred to the Osaka Second Division under Li Chenfang and resumed their position as wing commanders.

Although it was enough for Chongzhen to ask Li Chenfang to mobilize the strength of a division this time, the Edo shogunate also earnestly requested Ye Yuxuan after hearing about it, hoping to participate in this war. This action of the Edo shogunate was not only to show goodwill to the Damei, but also to use this war to make the new army trained by the Edo shogunate see the market, and understand the gap between the new army of the shogunate and the Ming army in actual combat.

As a result, the Japanese army strength reached nearly 4,000 men, two wings sent by the Edo shogunate, plus the Osaka 2nd Division sent by the Osaka shogunate. As for the Ming army, it was only an army regiment drawn from Taiwan, with a strength of nearly 2,500 troops, but the officer disposition and firearms equipment of this army regiment far exceeded that of the one and a half divisions sent by Japan.

The leader of the Ming Army was Qi Zuguang, the commander of the former Jeju First Infantry Corps, and as an officer who went out of the Sihai Battalion, he had no unfamiliarity with the Taiwan Third Infantry Regiment, which was mainly composed of soldiers from the Sihai Battalion. And his military rank has also been promoted to lieutenant colonel at this time, and he can be regarded as a leader from the Four Seas Battalion.

But even so, in front of Li Chenfang, Qi Zuguang also maintained a respectful posture enough. If the naval fleet had the final say in the previous operations, then the command of the next war returned to the army. As a fortified port operated by the Dutch in Southeast Asia for more than a decade, it was obviously not a good idea to attack from the sea, which is why Batavia insisted on not surrendering.

The only person in the ASEAN fleet who could command this land battle was Li Chenfang, the highest-ranking army colonel and deputy governor of Osaka, Japan. In addition to the two formed army units of the Japanese Army and the Ming Army, there were also four battalions cobbled together by Britain, Spain, and Portugal, each with about 500 people.

After Li Chenfang reviewed all the army units, he excluded the two battalions of the British and Portuguese from the sequence of attacking Batavia, and in his eyes these two battalions of the army were just some militia that had not been systematically trained, and it was difficult to use them on the battlefield of attacking fortresses.

On 28 September, the Mori Katsuya took his wing on a ship to Makassar, an important port to occupy Sulawesi, and on the same day, Sanada Yukimasa's squadron went to Surabaya, East Java. A day later, a Spanish battalion sailed to the important port of Marzen, south of the island of Borneo.

On October 3, the main force of the ASEAN fleet appeared in the sea off Semarang. By 17 October, Batavia had been cut off from the outside world. The Sunda Strait on the west side of Java Island and the Lombok Strait on the east side of the island have also been controlled by the ASEAN fleet.

On 20 October, Sultan Agung* Lonsan of the Mataram Sultanate, who was vacillating between the Dutch and ASEAN, heard that the ships of the ASEAN fleet were flooding the sea from Surabaya to Semarang, and finally made up his mind to take refuge in the ASEAN side and expelled the Batavian envoys who had come to win him together against the ASEAN.

The Mataran Sultanate, which originated in the interior of Central Java, was not a feudal centralized state at this time, but more like a society ruled by feudal lords. Although the kingdom possessed a part of the lands of Central and East Java and West Java. However, the core of the country was dominated by the hereditary domains of Sultan, such as Krapayak, Mataram, Pajang and Katu, while the rest of the country was ruled by princes and nobles as lords.

After two more unsuccessful attacks on Batavia, Langsan lost confidence in retaking the West Java area occupied by the Dutch. At this time, the arrival of the ASEAN fleet, which seemed to be more powerful than the Dutch, especially the arrival of China, the former suzerainty of Java, made him reluctant to join the war.

Although Langsan had fallen to the ASEAN, he was only responsible for the logistics of supporting the fleet, and refused to send troops to the war against Batavia, and it was clear that the sultan was no less defensive than the Dutch.

However, for the ASEAN fleet, it was enough for the Sultan to be able to afford the logistics of the fleet. The fertile land and abundant products of the island of Java undoubtedly reduced the burden on the fleet to obtain supplies from the local area.

With the help of the locals, Li Chenfang soon led his army to Bandung, the central town of West Java, which was famous for producing excellent Bryanan swords. Bandung is also a mountain basin, surrounded by various peaks and volcanoes, because of the high terrain, the climate here is more than 20 degrees all year round, lush vegetation, beautiful environment, can be regarded as a rare summer resort on the island of Java.

The Dutch also built a number of villas here, using it as a Batavian backyard. But now, these villas have also become trophies of the ASEAN army.

The war had reached this point, and there was only one Batavia city left in front of the ASEAN army. It's just that the location of Batavia City is really good, the surrounding swamps, mountains and forests are dense, and in addition to the passage by sea, it can only be attacked from the east and west roads.

The port of Tarahan to the west was also under the control of the Dutch, so there was only one road to the east if attacking by land. The Dutch built more than 20 forts along this road, which is why *Langsan made two unsuccessful attacks on Batavia.

In a villa in Bandung, Li Chenfang and other army officers and fleet captains decided to divide the army into two ways to attack after some discussion. Qi Zuguang led the Taiwanese infantry regiment to attack the port of Talahan west of Batavia from overseas, while Li Chenfang led the rest of the army to attack the Dutch fortress head-on from the east.

For the Osaka 2nd Division, the 100-mile journey from Karawang, Sikarang, and Bekasi to the outside of Jakarta was a road paved with flesh and blood. In the initial battle, the Dutch soldiers who were trapped and fought would rather light the barrels and die with the Japanese soldiers who stormed the fortress than surrender to the Japanese soldiers.

In the battle of Sicarang, after the Dutch detonated the * library, which blew up an entire infantry squadron of the Osaka Division, Li Chenfang, who was standing in the rear and watching the battle, finally couldn't stand it anymore, he called the Maori winner who commanded the operation, and slapped him more than 20 times mercilessly in front of a cadre, and his face was red and swollen, so he was let go.

After that, Li Chenfang personally took over the command of the front-line troops, ordered to start repairing in the same place, and unloaded 2 24-kilogram guns and 4 12-kilogram guns from the fleet and transported them to the front line, which can be regarded as completely suppressing the resistance of the Dutch relying on strong fortresses. The war quickly turned into a war of the power of the shells and the fort fortification, and the casualty rate of the Japanese soldiers finally dropped.

However, even so, the Osaka 2nd Division, which reached the city of Jakarta, lost nearly one and a half wings in the battle, but the morale of the remaining troops was even higher. As for the new army of the Edo shogunate, although it only lost half of its wing, it was completely frightened by such a brutal battle, and Li Chenfang had to transfer them to the rear and let them take charge of logistics and defense.

The sacrifices of these Japanese were finally recognized by the ASEAN members who watched the battle, and after seeing the tragic battlefield, they finally agreed with the Chinese delegates and asked Japan to send representatives to participate in the ASEAN and become the observer countries of the ASEAN.