The sky began to darken, and the surrounding forest gradually began to hear the chirping of various birds. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info Accompanied by the sound of birds, the wake-up call in the fortress area of Zhenyuan Port also sounded, and then the entire port area came to life again. The sound of trumpets, whistles, and even the crackling of the whip in the air rang out.

Yang Chaodong got up in the midst of this noise, and one of his black slaves brought him hot water to wash his face. Nowadays, Zhenyuan Port is much stronger than when it was first built. This is now an important transit for struvite from the south to Taiwan and Fujian. With the promotion of struvite in Taiwan and Fujian, the effect of struvite has been widely recognized, and now even people in the Xiajiang area know a sentence: "Without struvite, how to grow crops." "So now, almost all the Chinese ships that come to the South Seas to trade with the Taisi will bring a boatload of struvite with them when they go back. This mode of trading also broke the previous pattern of ships leaving Chinese ports loaded with all kinds of fine porcelain, silk, and tea, and returning with nothing but ballast stones and silver from the sale.

In fact, in trade with China, whether it was the Spaniards or the Dutch or the Portuguese, they were troubled by one thing, that is, they could not find what the Chinese needed in large quantities. When their ships returned to Europe loaded with all sorts of luxuries, they had to sail to China almost empty. In their view, such trade is a complete waste of the ship's capacity. Now these Europeans are overjoyed to discover that there is a huge demand for struvite in China. So they began to search for this kind of stuff on nearby islands to trade with the Chinese.

The Zheng family took control of some of the best struvite-producing desert islands and hired Dutch slaves to mine them. The struvite is first sent to Zhenyuan Port, then graded and stored in the warehouse of Zhenyuan Port. It was then sold to Chinese maritime merchants. As a result, the port soon became one of the most important ports for struvite trading. Ships come in and out of the port almost every day. Those Europeans even called it "Guano Harbor" outright.

After washing his face leisurely, Yang Chaodong walked out of his small villa and came to the terrace in front of the villa. As the manager of the port, his cottage was built on a hill near the pier, from which he could overlook the entire port. However, although the sky has brightened a lot by this time, and the eastern sky has turned red, the fog on the sea has not yet dissipated. Looking down from the terrace, I saw a blue-white sea mist covering the entire Zhenyuan Harbor, and only the mountains on both sides and the lonely, steep island at the exit of the harbor could be seen.

More than half a month ago, the port arrived with an early warning about war. The entire port is in a state of readiness. Yang Chaodong knew that Zhenyuangang's position in this battle was very important. This port is closer to Manila, and the fleet is based here, which is better able to blockade Manila. However, he knew this, and it was naturally impossible for the Spaniards not to know this. Yang Chaodong felt that if he was a Spanish commander, he would definitely strike at this port before the Zheng family's fleet went south, and destroy it as much as possible to reduce its ability to support the Zheng family's fleet. Yang Chaodong believes that the Spaniards will not be dumber than himself, they will not fail to see this, and they will definitely kill them.

Previously, in order not to provoke the Spaniards and Dutch too much, the Zheng family only deployed two two-masted fast frigates in Zhenyuan Port. With a displacement of only two hundred tons and only four six-pounder guns, this kind of firepower is not enough even to fight pirates. Fortunately, this kind of ship runs fast enough, and its speed is almost no less than that of a fast traffic ship like the "Feiyan". It's good for patrols.

Although the sea power of Zhenyuan Port was so weak, Yang Chaodong was not particularly worried about the defense of this port. Because the port's special topography and well-placed artillery batteries provided it with excellent defense.

There was a steep island at the exit of the port, and on this island the Model Army had built a battery, which, together with the other two batteries built on either side of the port exit, formed a network of crossfire sufficient to block the waterway in and out of the port. Although the guns used in these batteries are all older guns retired from the navy, because of the higher position of the batteries, the range of these guns is also guaranteed, especially the central battery built on the hill of the central island, the height of hundreds of meters makes its range frightening.

Of course, the Spaniards could also land their troops on a nearby beach and then attack the batteries on both sides, taking them first and then breaking into the harbor. Just like the Japanese army later attacked Weihaiwei, the base of the Beiyang Fleet in the First Sino-Japanese War.

However, it was only pure light infantry that could land on the beach in small boats, because artillery, even a 3-pounder regimental gun, could not be landed on a small sampan. The two forts on either side of the harbor were sturdy bastions made of volcanic rock. As long as there is no civil strife, and there is no incident where the defenders of the fort like our Daqing Dynasty flee when they see the enemy, such a fort cannot be taken down by the Spaniards with light infantry.

But even so, Yang Chaodong knows that Zhenyuan Port is still not completely safe. If he had been the commander of the Spanish fleet, he would have had the means to break into the port. That is to find a moonless night and take advantage of the cover of night to break into the harbor. Then carry out a devastating attack on the port. On such a night, the battery was very difficult to shoot at the warship, and it was almost impossible to hit effectively. And once the crossfire of the batteries was broken, there was a considerable amount of sea between the entrance to the harbor and those docks in the harbor, which was enough for the fleet to move calmly. The Spanish fleet could have calmly launched a shelling attack on the pier and then ran out before dawn.

Fortunately, this trick is not impossible to crack, and the Zheng family has a very traditional method that is particularly suitable for dealing with Spaniards who dare to take such risks, that is, fireboats. In a bay with limited space, the threat of fireships cannot be ignored. After Yang Chaodong received the early warning of the war, he changed many small boats in the port into fire ships in one go.

After these attempts, he was even somewhat anticipating the arrival of the Spanish fleet.

By this time, the sun had risen and the sea fog began to dissipate gradually. The blue sea appeared in front of Yang Chaodong's eyes again. A Filipino monkey-eating eagle spreads its wings and circles over the bay. A puff of white smoke suddenly rose from the central battery in the distance, and after a while, a dull sound of cannon came from the morning wind.

"Are the Spaniards coming?" Yang Chaodong thought. And his black slave also noticed the white smoke and the sound of cannons, and immediately ran into the house, and in a short time came out with a telescope.

"Actually, black people should still be people, not orangutans or something. They can speak human language, and unlike parrots that can speak human words or something, they really understand what others are saying. Although, they still seem a little stupid, however, there are still people who are as stupid as them, and there are quite a few. Therefore, blacks should still be counted as a kind of people. Looking at the very "humane" black slave, Yang Chaodong somehow suddenly remembered such a boring question.

Taking the binoculars from the black slave, Yang Chaodong looked in the direction of the central battery, and he saw that a small boat had left the dock below the central battery and rowed towards this side.

"It seems that the Spaniards are indeed coming." Yang Chaodong thought.

……

The Spaniards did come, and now the Spanish fleet had appeared outside the harbor of Zhenyuan. The situation in Zhenyuan Port was actually known to the Spaniards, and Spanish merchants and Spanish merchant ships had visited the port more than once and traded struvite with the Chinese here. The basic state of defense of this port is also known to the fleet commander, Rear Admiral Marquez. Because both the central forts and the forts on the two wings were behemoths that could not be hidden, and any passing merchant ship could see them. After the last war, the Spaniards already knew that the cannons cast by the Chinese were not much worse than the Spanish cannons in terms of level (for the sake of self-esteem). Considering the extra range brought about by the height of the batteries, as well as the advantages of the batteries themselves over the warships in terms of stability and resistance to strikes, Rear Admiral Márquez did not feel that it was a good idea to fight these batteries. As for the idea of breaking into the port area at night, he also had it, but after someone more familiar with the East mentioned to him the Zheng family's traditional fireship tactics, he gave up this unrealistic idea.

Fortunately, there is more to an effective way to deal with a port than just shelling the dock. In the fleet of the Spaniards, in addition to regular combat ships, there were a dozen or so converted merchant ships. In the face of this battle, both Zheng Sen and the Spaniards played the merchant ship refit, but the refit ships chosen by the two sides were very different. When the Zheng family converted civilian ships for war, they were always recruited by relatively new merchant ships; The Spaniards, on the other hand, chose merchant ships that were close to being scrapped because of their long service life or poor storage. The direction of the two sides was also very different, the Zheng family tried their best to convert civilian ships into warships, while the Spaniards removed all the original artillery on these merchant ships, which can be regarded as completely disarming them. These ships were not used to transport the army, their real purpose was to block the shipping lanes by self-sinking.