"Are there any of you guys here?"

Luo Zhang looked at the fishermen who were brought onto the deck in amazement. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

"Lord General, this is the ancestral residence of the villain, which is given by Lord Xuande, and will never be endowed with Ambuna Island!"

The fishermen protested.

Well, the location of the expeditionary force at this time was the Anbuna Islands, but it was still forty or fifty miles away from the Great Anbuna Island, and the fisherman was fishing at sea with his fishing boat and a few companions, and then accidentally encountered the fleet.

"No one is looking for you to collect taxes, how many people do you have here?"

Luo Zhang said speechlessly.

"Thousands, we are all the descendants of the boatmen left behind when the Three Treasures went to the West, and there were a lot of Tartars in the past few years!"

The fisherman said.

"Well, you should be familiar with the sea situation in the South Seas, right? Since I am a citizen of the Ming Dynasty, I have the obligation to serve the country, scatter all your fishing boats, search the sea from the east and west sides of here until between Boni and Longyamen, and find the fleet of red-haired ghosts to come back immediately and report, each participant will be rewarded with 100 dragon yuan, and the finder will be rewarded with 10,000! ”

Luo Zhang said.

It had already begun to enter the Dutch defenses, and they needed to attack in two directions, one was to attack the Dragon's Tooth Gate, which is Singapore, and then through the Strait to attack Malacca, one of the most important bases of the Dutch in Asia. Another option was to attack Batavia and then move south to the Spice Islands, the most important source of spices, the Maluku Islands, to sweep the Dutch trading posts there, and the Portuguese island of Timor to clear the route to the Golden State.

You can choose either of these two first.

The naval strength of the Dutch has no advantage over the expeditionary force, and if they are separated, they will not be able to fight a decisive battle with the expeditionary force, and if they want to concentrate their forces, they will not be able to defend two bases more than 2,000 miles apart, and the only way is to go forward to meet the battle, and Ambuna Island is stuck at the intersection of two roads, and there are many islands in this area suitable for hiding.

So Luo Zhang concluded that the Dutch were waiting for him in this area.

"Our court is going to war with the red-haired ghost?"

The fisherman asked cautiously.

"Nonsense, is General Ben here with such a large fleet?"

Luo Zhang said.

"Then give me the bounty."

The fisherman laughed and said, "They're on the island." ”

"What you said is true?"

Luo Zhang's face changed and said.

"General, do villains dare to lie to you about this kind of thing? These red-haired ghosts have given orders to the villain and the villagers on the island, and found that the army of the imperial court immediately reported to them, the villain's ancestors also followed the Three Treasures to the Western Ocean, and they were also the people of the Ming Dynasty, how could they do this kind of thing, and besides, our court does not collect taxes from us, but after the red-haired ghosts occupy the South Seas, they collect the poll tax, which side do you think we will go to? If you don't believe you, the villains can show you the way, but be careful, their patrol boats are nearby! ”

As soon as the fisherman finished speaking, the observer on the mast suddenly shouted: "Enemy ship found!" ”

Luo Zhang climbed the mast dozens of meters high at great speed, held the telescope and looked in the direction pointed by the observer, and could vaguely see a faint shadow looming in the waves, he immediately adjusted the telescope, and soon a Dutch flag was faintly recognizable, but because there was a large difference in the height of the main mast between the two sides, the Dutch patrol ship obviously had not found the Ming fleet.

"Lead the way, get around it, and go straight to Ambuna Island!"

Luo Zhang quickly climbed down and said to the fisherman.

In the bay southwest of Ambuna Island, Bol, the commander of the fleet of the Dutch East India Company, was sitting on his flagship and sipping coffee leisurely, unaware that he had chosen the wrong place for the battle, and that disaster was about to come.

The former captain of a Dutch naval battleship commanded eight battleships, the largest of which had more than fifty guns, the smallest with forty guns, and the remaining twenty armed merchant ships, all with twenty to thirty guns, and sixteen guns. This is all the naval combat forces that the Dutch East India Company can mobilize at present, including two Portuguese warships and six armed merchant ships, which should be said to be weaker than the Ming fleet, after all, the Ming army has three large battleships with 80 guns.

But there's no way around it.

Originally, they wanted to buy the battleships built by the British in Bombay for Yang Feng, which contained two second-class ships and two third-class ships with the same eighty guns, and if he had those four battleships in hand, he was confident that he could win the battle, but unfortunately those filthy British refused to sell them on the pretext that they had not yet completed their current alliance in Europe, and everyone knew that the four battleships had already been completed.

"These zaar species!"

Thinking of this, Pol couldn't help but curse.

Obviously, for the British East India Company, it is not good for the Dutch and the Ming to have an overwhelming advantage, it is best for the two to be evenly matched, and then fight each other to lose, they take advantage of the fisherman, in fact, the news of the Ming expeditionary force was also notified to them by the British, and even they have a batch of flowering bombs purchased from the British at a high price.

Alliance?

The alliance is a fart, before the rise of Yang Feng, the Netherlands and the British were the main opponents in this sea area, right!

It's just that now the three have become opponents of each other, and now that the Ming and the Netherlands are at war, the British are probably opening champagne to celebrate, in fact, the news of the Ming expeditionary force was also notified to them by the British, and even they have a batch of flowering bombs purchased from the British at a high price

"These zaar species!"

Pol repeated it again.

Almost at the same time, the alarm bell rang suddenly, and he hurriedly put down his cup and rushed out as fast as he could.

"What's going on?"

Looking at the chaotic deck, he immediately asked the captain, who raised his hand directly, and Pol hurriedly looked up, and saw an observation post on the island of Ambuna, and the smoke was rising from the alarm.

"Quick, anchor! Raise the mainsail! ”

Pol yelled without hesitation.

This means that the Ming army has arrived.

"Damn, why didn't the patrol ship find out?"

Looking at the huge fleet that soon appeared in the north, His Excellency the Commander roared angrily.

He not only sent six armed merchant ships to patrol outside, but also hired dozens of fishing boats on the island to be scattered out as reconnaissance ships, confident that as long as the Ming army entered this sea area, it would definitely be able to find out in time, he really didn't understand, why such a strict reconnaissance, can still be touched by the Ming army, and more importantly, how did the Ming army know that he was hiding on this island?

Obviously, after more than half a century of rule, the Dutch have forgotten that the inhabitants of this island are all Ming people.

However, at this time, there was no point in studying these problems, with the help of the northeast wind blowing from the side and rear, under the leadership of the local fisherman, the eight battleships and six cruisers of the Ming army were coming straight from the north of Ambuna Island at full speed, and all the Dutch warships, those sailors were desperately busy with panic, raising the mainsail as fast as possible, so that the fleet that was originally in a resting state could start as fast as possible.

But it's not a battle.

"Heading north, into the shallows!"

Pol roared.

At this time, the Ming army had the upper hand, those Zong fireships could not be used, and they had to seize the upper hand, and the shallows and reefs near Anbuna Island were densely packed, and he who was familiar with this sea area could take advantage of the terrain to avoid the first round of attacks of the Ming fleet and at the same time use the latter to be unable to contain the wind, the two sides staggered and then turned to the rear to release the fireboats, and rushed through the Ming fleet formation and then fought a decisive battle.

"The enemy is going into the shallows!"

The observer on the Weihai shouted.

"How deep is the water there? Is there a two-foot? ”

Luo Zhang asked the fisherman.

"It's hard to say, but the water between the two islands is so deep that the ship doesn't have a mast when it sinks."

The fisherman said, pointing to the two small islands in front of him.

"The three ships of Weihai, Zhenhai, and Pinghai cut over to grab the horizontal position, and the rest of the ships use Ninghai as the flagship to block the enemy's rear road!"

Luo Zhang immediately ordered.

His flagship Weihai and two other eighty-gun battleships immediately cut into the middle of the two small islands, the Dutch fleet was passing through the strait between a small island more than ten miles long and the main island, and in front of them was a shallow reef group composed of a series of small islands, if under normal circumstances, Luo Zhang would never dare to enter this sea area, after all, the draft of the three Weihai ships far exceeded that of the Dutch warships.

But since there is a passage in between, it's fine.

Just as the three ships of the Weihai turned to sail into the seemingly dangerous sea area and blocked the exit of the Dutch fleet, the rest of the small battleships and cruisers led by the Ninghai went directly southward according to the original plan, and staggered with the Dutch fleet across the small island that was more than ten miles long, and then directly blocked the back road of the Dutch.

"Damn, how do they know it's deep?"

Pol looked at the three giant ships and said dumbfounded.

But at this time, there is also no time to study this problem, if the Ming army is allowed to complete the encirclement, then he will only have a dead end, he is getting into a pocket by himself, and he must rush out before the Ming army completes the encirclement.

"Turn left and sail close to the coast!"

He immediately yelled.

The huge fleet turned quickly, but they were still a step too late, and just as his flagship was about to circle the island, the three ships of the Weihai also cut cross-cutting less than 1.5 kilometers to him.

"Fire!"

Luo Zhang roared without hesitation.

"Fire!"

On the artillery deck, the gunner shouted into the intercom tube.

At the three-tiered cannon door that had been opened on the starboard side of the Weihai, the flames suddenly shone brightly, and the forty cannons on the three tiers roared with extreme speed, from front to back, and forty shells of different calibers swept across the sea with a piercing whistling sound, and the gunpowder smoke sprayed from the muzzles was filled.

Before Bol could react, three pointed-nosed armor-piercing shells hit the port side of his flagship almost simultaneously, and the huge force of the impact instantly shattered the thick planks, carrying countless broken pieces of wood across the interior of the battleship like scattered bullets, knocking the inside into a mess. One of the shells even threw a cannon into the air, smashing all the sailors in the vicinity like a terrifying monster, and the shell, which had rebounded, smashed upwards into the upper deck, but instead of penetrating, it was bounced back.

The deformed shells, in a stunned gaze, rolled on the deck.

The gunner subconsciously wiped a cold sweat.

But at this moment, a terrifying flame suddenly exploded. (To be continued.) )