The rest of the matter is very simple.

Zeng Guoquan because of Rong Weishan's contribution to saving the families of the miners left behind, he was promoted to the commander of the main battalion, leading the special forces battalion to open the way in front, he led more than 3,000 troops, all the way to Benkaying, and successfully persuaded the more than 2,000 Chinese workers here to submit to the Chinese Empire, took a few Lanfang grassroots leaders, followed the troops, and rushed to the Lanfang headquarters Dongwanlu.

Four days later, when he arrived at Lan Fang's headquarters, Dong Wanlu, he found that Dong Wanlu had already been occupied by the captives led by Tan Tiyuan.

Tan Tiyuan: On the third day after their separation, they arrived at the mouth of the Wanla River outside Pontianak early in the morning. Just collided with two merchant ships and a small gunboat that were about to go out of the estuary, the merchant ship also wanted to run out of the estuary, and was forced to stop on the river by a frigate, the gunboat did not make a senseless resistance, and raised a white flag alone, however, when a Dutch naval major was escorted to Tan Tiyuan, he desperately protested that he belonged to the Dutch Navy, and Tan Tiyuan would cause the Netherlands and even the whole of Europe to start a war against the East, and asked Tan Tiyuan to release him immediately and apologize.

Tan Tiyuan suddenly became angry, he was actually in his early twenties, and his blood was strong, thinking that the red-haired foreign devil was so rude, plus he had listened to those Chinese miners along the way how the Dutch ghosts bullied the Chinese in Borneo and used the indigenous people to suppress the Chinese history, especially the Hongxi tragedy that occurred in Batavia, Java more than a hundred years ago, was so angry that he directly asked the Dutch Navy Lieutenant to tie up the Dutch Navy Major, drop it off the edge of the boat with a rope, and say that it was going to sink the river.

The main thing is that the Hongxi tragedy told by those Chinese miners really touched Tan Tiyuan too much. It was still the Qianlong period of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, when the Dutch East India Company was afraid that there would be too many Chinese in Batavia, and was ready to move the Chinese to Ceylon, and it was inevitable that there was a suspicion that the rebellion would endanger their colonial rule. The whole 7 days of massacre, the overseas Chinese in the city were killed nearly 10,000 people, only 100 people escaped by luck, at that time the sensation of the whole Nanyang and Europe, after the news reached Guangzhou, the Manchu court thought that those Chinese who were killed were all abandoned Wanghua, willing to degenerate, it is no different from the people, without pretense, let alone Xingshi to ask the guilt.

Now that Tan Tiyuan is shouldering the Chinese Empire to subdue Nanyang, how can he not be angry when he hears that his compatriots are being bullied?

Unexpectedly, the Dutch naval lieutenant was also a soft egg, and before he was put down on the side of the ship, he cried and begged for mercy loudly, saying that he was willing to become Tan Tiyuan's servant and serve him. Tan Tiyuan thought that he also wanted to know about the power of the Dutch, so he spared the naval lieutenant named Van Basten.

In order to be courteous, Van Basten took the initiative to confess that there were only about 200 Dutch European soldiers in Pontianak City, and the rest hired less than 300 local indigenous Dayats as guards, but these people were all wall-to-wall grass and had little combat power.

Tan Tiyuan asked how many armed people there were in the entire Dutch East Indies colony, and he asked casually, but he didn't expect this Van Buss to be as timid as a mouse, so he just begged not to kill him, and he couldn't wait to take out all his knowledge.

The entire Dutch East India colonial authorities took over the original Dutch East India Company, but because the Netherlands was defeated and dragged down by the British through three Anglo-Dutch wars, and was occupied by France forty years ago, although it is now independent from France, Belgium and Luxembourg are separated from the Netherlands, and the country's strength is declining more and more. After losing its monopoly position in trade and colonization, although the Netherlands still had considerable economic strength, the Dutch government paid too much attention to commerce and neglected industry and military, and even the colonies in the East Indies because of the agreement with the British, even reduced military investment, and its original land area was small, the population was not large, and the colonization of the East Indies was only used as a raw material production area and trade transit place, and it was not fully developed, so there were not too many troops.

The Dutch East Indies had a naval fleet with 1 3,000-ton battle cruiser, 2 cruisers of more than 2,000 tons, 3 frigates of 1,000-ton upper and lower displacement, 4 small gunboats, 6 armed steamships, and more than a dozen troop transports. The navy of the Dutch East Indies was still the original home of the Dutch East India Company, but because of the agreement signed with the British, the Dutch felt that they had no enemies in the East Indies, so they concentrated on business and did not pay much attention to military development.

In addition to the navy, nearly 4,000 European troops, mainly Dutch, were stationed in the colonial garrisons, of which more than 2,000 were captured in Batavia alone, and there were probably more than 5,000 local mercenaries in the entire Dutch East Indies.

Tan Tiyuan was taken aback, he originally thought that the Western countries, that is, Britain, France, Prussia and other countries are very powerful, even if the United States is the United States, although it can manufacture large warships, but the current strength is not strong, as for this Netherlands I heard that it is a small country with a big palm, it is already a greedy fortune to occupy these East Indies, not a European power, but I didn't expect that there is such a fleet, it seems that the strength is not low.

Fortunately, the soldiers on land are relatively scattered, and although the fleet at sea has a relatively large number of warships, they are all relatively old and small warships, and the tonnage is not large. And Tan Tiyuan thought that the overall strength of his fleet was much stronger than that of the Dutch fleet, whether it was from the displacement of the warship, or the number and caliber of the guns, of course, what made Tan Tiyuan most confident was actually the range and accuracy of the Krupp rifled guns, which were not comparable to the smoothbore guns of the Dutch warships in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Tan Tiyuan began to think about how to defeat this Dutch East Indies, although the emperor only asked him to send troops to Nanyang for the Shilongmen incident of the Bullock Dynasty's massacre of Chinese miners, and only hinted at taking the opportunity to occupy Borneo, but the last sentence in the secret decree is intriguing and full of charm: "Tan Tiyuan Nanyang acted cheaply." From this sentence alone, Tan Tiyuan felt that he had comprehended the emperor's intentions. And now, the Dutch meddled in the massacre of Chinese workers in Shilongmen, and learned about the Dutch military situation, he carefully analyzed it and came to a result that could be completely defeated, do you really want to act cheaply? He couldn't help but feel his heart pounding. However, let's settle the matter in Borneo first. At least, with this base, it is necessary to have a firm foothold.

Tan Tiyuan directly led the warships of the First Squadron into the river, and saw from a distance that not far from the shore of Pontianak Port stood a European-style strong military fortress.

Tan Tiyuan ordered a Dutch merchant on the captured merchant ship who had a hostage in hand to threaten him, and asked him to send a letter to the Pontianak fortress, demanding that the Dutch garrison in the fortress lead the Dutch soldiers to surrender unconditionally within two hours, otherwise the artillery attack on the city would begin.

The supreme commander of the Dutch forces in the Pontianak fortress was the Dutch East Indies garrison officer in Borneo. The Dutch East Indies had one garrison and two assistant garrisons throughout Borneo. There are also two assistant garrison officers, one in Mazen in South Borneo and the other in Samarinda in East Borneo.

Because the era of spice trade has passed, the earliest Dutch occupation of Machen and Sammarinda has declined, and Pontianak is located in West Borneo, because of the discovery and mining of a large number of gold mines, has become hot for a while, and because Pontianak is located not far from the Strait of Malacca, pirates, merchant ships, etc., therefore, there will be a warship here, if the ports of Machen and Samarinda are in the Dutch colony, there is no need to arrange warships.

The Pontianak Fortress is located on the south side of Pontianak Castle, and it may have been built to prevent warships from breaking into the river from the open sea and landing on this river beach. Later, the Chinese laborers and natives who were digging for gold in the surrounding area slowly built houses and bazaars behind the fortress, and slowly formed the so-called Pontianak Castle. Actually, there are no city walls, except for this Pontianak fortress.

When the Pontianak fortress was built, it may be that the original Dutch colonists in order to defend against the attack of foreign naval ships, the fortress was located at the confluence of the two estuaries of the Wanla River and the Lanta River, and the farthest distance from the inland river was more than three miles. It's a pity that when this fortress was first built, it was aimed at the front-loading smoothbore guns of the warships of the Sail Era, but now, this ancient fortress meets the Nanyang Fleet led by Tan Tiyuan, and the warships are equipped with not only smoothbore guns, but also Krupp rifled guns, and its tragedy begins.

Sure enough, the garrison officer sent by the city of Batavia in the fortress sneered and refused, and ordered the merchant to be whipped, and if it weren't for the fact that he was Dutch, he might have been sentenced to be a spy and imprisoned.

It seems that the garrison officer of this fortress is very confident. Tan Tiyuan didn't say anything more, and directly ordered the three main warships of the First Fleet, "Nanyang No. 1", "Nanyang No. 4" and "Nanyang No. 7" to form a Sichuan-shaped lineup, followed by a frigate to tour in front of the three main warships, and another frigate let it be on guard at the mouth of the river, after all, there were many troop carriers behind him, and he had to be prepared in case there were Dutch warships suddenly attacking from behind in the open sea, although this possibility was almost zero, although Tan Tiyuan was a little anxious, but he was extremely cautious and cautious in marching and fighting.

With Van Basten's treacherous presence, things are much easier. According to the information provided by him, the best firing distance of the Pontianak fortress shore defense cannon is about two and a half miles, and although the effective range is about three and a half miles, the accuracy is already very low, therefore, generally speaking, the fortress will open its guns only when the enemy warships enter the inland river channel and are three miles away from the battery, and when the distance from the battery is about to be 15 degrees is only two and a half miles, all the artillery will be fully opened, and the attacking enemy ships will be destroyed within this distance.

Although he knew the range of the guns on the fortress, Tan Tiyuan still ordered the frigate to go forward to investigate, and finally determined that it was indeed as Van Basten said, and it was almost three miles before the battery opened fire, but the frigate propelled by the steamer slurry was quite fast, and it was out of the range area without danger.

After everything was in order, the three main warships directly changed their formation into a line-shape, and the "Nanyang No. 1" took the lead, slowed down steadily, and stopped at a distance of four and a half miles from the Pontianak fortress.