On April 3, 1636, because of the tight defense of Guangzhou, Macao, and Hong Kong, the commander of the Dutch fleet, Putmans, decided to divide the Grand Fleet of 43 ships into two parts.

Ships with weak combat effectiveness and old hulls should be left on Tai'ao Island between Hong Kong and Macao, the outlet of the Pearl River to the sea should be blocked, and the foreign trade of Guangzhou and Macao should be cut off.

And the remaining ships went north along the coastline, sequentially attacking valuable targets off the coast of China. The first target chosen by Putmans was Nan'ao Island, located at the junction of Fujian and Guangdong, at the southwest mouth of the Taiwan Strait, and outside the mouth of the Hanjiang River.

Nan'ao Island is about 12-13 nautical miles away from the mainland, nearly 150 nautical miles away from Taiwan's Dayuan Port in the east, about 100 nautical miles away from Xiamen in the north, and more than 180 nautical miles away from Hong Kong in the southwest. Since the Song Dynasty, Nanao is a must berth and transit point for trade along the southeast coast, and there is also a Ming Dynasty General Military Office on the island.

However, like other coastal guards in the Ming Dynasty, the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty on Nanao Island have long lost their role as an army, and their work on weekdays is either to go to the sea to fish, or to maintain the security of the port according to the orders of the commander. The military restructuring of the Ming Dynasty has not yet spread to Nanao Island.

Therefore, even though the South Australian General Army had received the news of the Dutch attack on the Pearl River Estuary in Guangzhou, the Chief Soldier was only on guard for half a month, and then he opened the port again and allowed his subordinates to go to the sea to carry out fishing activities. After all, in the general's view, every day the port is closed means that a lot of money is being lost.

So Putmans's fleet soon caught the Nanao officers and soldiers who went out to sea to fish in the waters of Nanao Island, and learned from them about the reality of the island. After hearing of the deeds of the chief soldier, Putmans personally broke into the harbor on the island of Nanao with three ships flying Portuguese flags, seized the harbor two batteries while the harbor defenders were unprepared, and shelled the guards in the harbor.

The South Australian General Army had to flee with some of the residents and officers and soldiers into the Golden Mountain in the south, and defended itself according to the mountain temple on the island. Most of the residents and merchants of the port of Nanao chose to surrender to the Dutch, and the port's supplies replenished the Dutch fleet and gave Putmans more confidence in the next battle.

Putmans then ordered four speedboats to attack Shashan in the west, and these four speedboats followed the Han River into the interior for dozens of miles, plundering more than a dozen villages along the way before turning around and returning to Nan'ao Island.

After three days of repairs in South Australia, Putmans decided to continue his fleet north, but he used Nanao Island as a logistics base for the fleet off the coast of China, so he left three speedboats and 300 soldiers here to defend Nanao Island.

After two divisions, Putmans's northbound fleet consisted of only 31 ships, including 9 plywood boats, 12 speedboats, 7 flat-bottomed boats, and 3 Chinese-style junk ships, with a total tonnage of more than 13,000 tons.

On 17 April, the Dutch fleet led by Putmans arrived at Xiamen Bay. When the huge fleet of the Dutch appeared off the coast of Xiamen, the vice admiral Shi Fu stationed on Xiamen Island was suddenly a little dumbfounded, although he already knew the news of the Dutch fleet going north, but he did not expect the Dutch fleet to be so large.

At this time, there were only more than 30 Chinese warships and 5 or 60 arsonist ships in Xiamen Port, and the rest were merchant ships with no combat effectiveness. And his boss Zheng Zhilong is leading the main fleet of the Taiwan Strait Inspection Department to defend Beigang and Dayuan Port, and he doesn't know when he will be able to return.

Shi Fu had to shrink his defensive line and withdraw the defenders of the Kinmen Islands to Xiamen Island and Gulangyu Island. He also sent people to question the intention of the Dutch to come to Xiamen, trying to delay some time.

Putmans told the envoys that they had come to protest to the Ming government and that the Ming army had come to attack the city of Geranza and seize the port of Dayuan, and that if the Fujian officials did not listen to their protests, they would take equal revenge on Xiamen.

After three days of negotiations, Shi Fu reluctantly agreed that Putmans could enter the port of Xiamen with no more than five speedboats to meet and talk with him. Shi Fu thought that if only five speedboats entered the port of Xiamen, it would be him who had the advantage, so he thought that the Dutch should not provoke his men and drag on for another day or two.

In the early morning of 21 April, Putmans led five speedboats into the Xiamen Harbor and stayed until he reached the middle of the Xiamen fleet before anchoring. The strange actions of the Dutch immediately attracted Shi Fu's attention, and he was about to order his men to steer their ships away from the Dutch ships, when he saw the other party's ships open their gun doors and launch artillery bombardment on the Ming ships around them.

Under this surprise, the Ming ships that were not very vigilant suddenly suffered heavy losses, and the Dutch speedboats that were moored down had extremely fast artillery fire, and the Ming ships moored around them quickly lost their combat effectiveness. Many soldiers of the Ming army had to jump into the sea to escape. After the Ming ships around them began to sink, the Dutch raised the red battle flag and officially declared war on the Ming army.

This surprise attack by the Dutch not only destroyed half of the Xiamen fleet, but also sank five or six merchant ships. It was not until the Ming army stopped caring about their own ships and used the harbor batteries to shoot at the Dutch ships in the center of the battlefield that Putmans ordered the anchor to be withdrawn.

In this raid, the Dutch had only two speedboats seriously damaged by the Ming battery, but they almost destroyed the large ships that could make a sortie on Xiamen Island.

After the war, Shi Fu was extremely remorseful, he knew that he had fallen for the Dutch, and after losing so many ships, Xiamen had lost the strength to attack, and now he could only guard the port of Xiamen, waiting for the coming of the Northern Combined Fleet, or the return of Zheng Zhilong's fleet from Taiwan.

Although Putmans launched several more attacks on Xiamen Island, the Dutch were unable to achieve any effective results under Shi Fu's tactics of using land batteries and small arsonboats on Gulangyu Island and the port to block the shipping lanes.

At this time, Putmans learned from the captured Ming captives that the governor of Zhejiang and Fujian of the Ming Dynasty was stationed in Fuzhou in the north, and his status was similar to that of the emperor's important ministers, so he decided to attack Fuzhou in the north, forcing the governor to ask the emperor for help in order to complete the purpose of this military dispatch.

On the side of the Combined Fleet, Zhang Xie listened to the opinions of his subordinate Yang Wancheng and decided to use the lunar distance method to locate and sail directly from Jeju Island to Keelung Port in Taiwan. However, for the sake of safety, he divided his fleet into two, and followed the old route all the way to Qingdao and then south to the mouth of the Yangtze River. He himself took 12 capital warships and took this new route.

On the morning of 1 May, a lookout on Dongting Lake saw the eastern tip of the northern tip of Taiwan Island, and from here turned to Keelung Harbor in the west, which was less than 9 nautical miles. This voyage proved that the lunar distance method positioning is still desirable, but there are still some problems in practical use, of course, it is enough to use it offshore.

On the afternoon of 1 May, when the fleet arrived at Keelung Harbor, Zhang Xie also received the news that the Dutch fleet had gone north from the mouth of the Pearl River, successively attacked Nan'ao Island and Xiamen Island, and now continued to go north.

On May 3, Keelung again received a pigeon letter from Fuzhou, saying that the Dutch fleet had appeared at the mouth of the Min River and was trying to attack Mawei Harbor. Zhang Xie immediately decided to set off early the next morning, cross the Taiwan Strait, and go directly to the sea off Fuzhou.

April and May are the most suitable seasons for navigation in the Taiwan Strait, and it took less than three days for the Combined Fleet to reach the waters off Fuzhou.

At around 10 a.m. on 6 May, the Combined Fleet, sailing southeast of Higashi-Inu Island, encountered three Dutch speedboats intercepting Chinese merchant ships there. This sudden encounter caught both sides off guard.

However, the main force of the First Detachment of the Combined Fleet was here, especially the huge figures of the Dongting Lake and the Qiantang River, which made the three Dutch ships choose to flee at the first time, so that the First Detachment finally left only one Dutch speedboat.

Although he won the first battle, Zhang Xie and the naval officers around him did not have any joyful expressions on their faces. Because this encounter undoubtedly alerted the Dutch, their plan to surprise the Dutch fleet had obviously failed.

After thinking about it for a while, Zhang Xie decided to give up the plan of the raid. He ordered the First Squadron to repair for an hour and a half near East Inujima, and after having lunch and inspecting the sails and cannons, he marched north to meet the Dutch fleet head-on.

Zhang Xie learned from the captured captives that three ships of the Dutch fleet had returned to Nan'ao Island due to the loss of rigging and the problem of running aground in the process of going north, and with the speedboat captured by them, there were now only 27 Dutch ships moored outside the mouth of the Min River.

That is, the total tonnage of the opposing fleet is about 12,000 tons, and the total tonnage of the first detachment is also more than 8,000 tons. Although the number of opponents is more than double that of the First Squadron, the tonnage ratio is not so terrible.

After referring to today's wind direction and the composition of the ships of the Dutch fleet, Zhang Xie formulated a battle plan for this naval battle.

The First Squadron set up a single column and attacked from the White Dog Islands to the mouth of the Min River in the northwest, making a gesture of wanting to rush into the Min River and join the defenders of Mawei Harbor. The Dutch would inevitably divide their forces from the north channel of Langqi Island into the mouth of the Min River to intercept it, and then flank the First Squadron in the south channel of Langqi Island.

The Dutchman's boat is better suited to maneuvering in narrow passages, so you won't miss this great opportunity.

However, the First Fleet, approaching the southern channel of Langqi Island, turned around and sailed in the direction of the Mazu Islands to the northeast in order to disrupt the operational disposition of the Dutch. After that, the whole fleet adopted the tactic of lining up for artillery bombardment, and was not allowed to slow down and entangle with the enemy ships, so as to give full play to the superiority of the First Squadron in artillery firepower.

At about 2 p.m. that day, the Dutch fleet, arrayed in the eastern sea of Langqi Island, finally saw the traces of the long-awaited Combined Fleet. Near noon, Putmans received a signal of the escape back to the ship, and he immediately gathered the ships in formation, interrupting the crew's ongoing lunch, fearing that the Combined Fleet would surprise at any moment.

But unexpectedly, this combined fleet did not take the opportunity to surprise attack, but made the Dutch delay the time to eat. The suspicious Putmans naturally did not dare to go south to take the initiative to fight, and he was about to send two speedboats to reconnoiter the movements of the Southern Fleet, but finally found the traces of the other party.

Looking at the posture of the ships on the opposite side advancing towards the Minjiang River estuary at full speed, Puttmans, who was already familiar with the hydrological data and topography of the Minjiang River estuary, subconsciously came up with a tactic to intercept the other party in the southern channel of the Minjiang River estuary and eliminate it.

As Zhang Xie had envisioned, Putmans ordered the last seven ships in the rear of the fleet to detour through the Northern Passage to intercept the opposing fleet's entry into the Minjiang River. Then he divided the remaining ships into two groups, one of which went directly south, preparing to cut off the tail of the first fleet. The other team stopped where it was, waited for the opponent's lead ship to enter the South Passage, and then stepped forward to block the exit of the South Passage and encircled the fleet in the South Passage.

Putmans's calculations fell completely into Zhang Xie's imagination, although the Dutchman's ship skills were far better than those of the Ming army's crews, but the first squadron in the upwind position, against the Dutch ships parked in place and against the wind, was undoubtedly shooting at the target.

Robert Blake, a new method of naval warfare developed with the staff officers of the Ming Navy, won a big victory in his first appearance. Of the twelve ships that were left in place by Putmans, 3 were sunk by the Ming army, 3 were heavily damaged, and two were also slightly damaged.

Putmans, who rushed towards the tail of the Ming fleet, finally managed to turn the ship, but just happened to see the tail of the Ming fleet heading northeast. After much thought, he finally decided to save his own ships first, rather than chasing the Ming fleet and continuing the battle. In view of the sky, Zhang Xie also chose to leave the battlefield and wait for tomorrow to fight again.

However, on the second day, there was no wind at sea, and the two sides faced off without a fight. On the afternoon of the third day, a strong wind blew, but the wind and waves were too strong, and the two sides could only hide in the harbor and still did not fight. Putmans found that the fleet had little food left, and that he could not go ashore to plunder at this moment, so he led the fleet south in the afternoon when the wind became small, and decided to return to South Australia to replenish the fleet's supplies.