Although Wang Qiang still had a little regret that Zheng Chenggong could not participate in the battle to recover Taiwan, the return of Zheng Chenggong and the main force of the naval fleet was still far away, and they could not be counted on in the battle to recover Taiwan.

The Dutch are now becoming more and more arrogant, more and more Chinese are being expelled from the island of Taiwan by the Dutch, and even some merchant ships to Southeast Asia have begun to intercept, and more than a dozen merchant ships have been detained by the Dutch in Taiwan.

Luo Jian did not expect that after China presented an ultimatum to the Dutch to take back Taiwan, the Dutch would make so many excessive moves.

In the history of their own time and space, although the Dutch occupied Taiwan, they did not take more provocative actions against the Ming Dynasty, which was already extremely weak at that time, of course, it is possible that they still took many actions, because the Ming Dynasty at that time was already too busy to take care of itself, let alone maintain these merchants who went to sea to do business.

What is it that causes the Dutch to dare to provoke China so unscrupulously when China has basically completed reunification and national strength is gradually increasing?

Luo Jian's doubts did not last long, I have to say that Zheng Zhilong still has deep roots in the coastal areas of Fujian and even in Taiwan, these foundations were used by him to make money in the past, but now these foundations are only used to collect Taiwan intelligence, and the efficiency is of course extremely high.

According to Zheng Zhilong's report, there are three reasons why the Dutch dare to do this, and the first two of the three points are something that Luo Jian didn't expect at all before, and even felt a little unbelievable.

The first point is because the Governor of the Dutch East India Company in Batavia (Jakarta) sent to Taiwan the commander Lieutenant Colonel van der Laan, nicknamed "Stubborn John", and from this man's nickname, he must have been a very stubborn person. He doesn't have some intuitive understanding of China like Yu Yi. And he has not seen a single warship of the Chinese Navy. He was not transferred from Holland to Batavia, Indonesia by the East India Company for a short time, but he was very stubborn.

Although Van der Laan reminded that the current China is not the Ming Dynasty a few years ago, Van der Laan does not think that China will make as much progress as he said in just a few years, at best, it is just to build a few more warships, since China has more warships, then Van der Laan's solution to the problem is to apply to Batavia to transfer more warships.

The second point made Luo Jian a little strange, a key figure who contributed to the Dutch's decision to defend Taiwan was actually the difficult description of coming to China to "pay tribute" this time.

It is said that it is difficult to describe that he arrived in Nanjing, and he also stayed in front of Nanjing for more than ten days. Although he has not come into contact with the Chinese army, it is not difficult to see China's military strength from the economic and social development, but he believes that Nanjing has just gone through a bloody battle with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and now its vitality has been greatly damaged.

It is not groundless to draw this conclusion, he has found at least 100 people on the streets of Nanjing to conduct so-called research, and he and the Chinese people found by the Dutch mission almost unanimously expressed their hope for peace forever and no longer wish to fight.

According to the analysis of the strength of the Dutch on the island of Taiwan, it is believed that China's attempt to conquer Taiwan will not be achieved in a day. Then a protracted war will inevitably make the Chinese government unable to withstand the pressure of the people and be forced to abandon military action.

Luo Jian really didn't know how he could have such an idea in this era, maybe the Chinese government now has no emperor to make him make a wrong judgment on China's political situation. Luo Jian can only understand it this way.

The third point, of course, is that it is necessary to have economic interests.

According to Zheng Zhilong, the Dutch are not prepared to fight to the death with China in Taiwan, and their fundamental principle is to let China retreat in the face of difficulties.

Luo Jian knew that this idea of the Dutch was also determined by interests. Although the Dutch East India Company had a strong military strength, its essence was still to make money, and its military strength was only to ensure its smooth money-making, and it was certainly not in their fundamental interests to lose both.

Compared with the previous Ming Dynasty's policy of banning the sea, the Nanjing government's open policy has allowed the Dutch to taste the great sweetness of trade with China in recent years, especially the emergence of some new products in China, which has made the Dutch make a lot of money in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.

Taiwan, as an important trade transit point, is also more prominent than in the history of another time and space, and correspondingly, the Dutch East India Company also invested more money and energy in Taiwan than at that time to engage in construction.

In terms of the scale of Taiwan City and Chiji City on the island now, it is also much larger than in another time and space, which Luo Jian analyzed based on Zheng Zhilong's report, and the Dutch people living in these two larger towns on Taiwan Island are far more than in the history of another time and space.

Some things could be moved, but some permanent facilities and castle construction could not be moved, and once Taiwan was returned to China, the Dutch East India Company would suffer huge economic losses, and they knew that the Chinese government would not be able to make up for these losses.

Luo Jian knew that this was caused by the butterfly effect, and now the real situation is that the Dutch have more economic interests on the island of Taiwan, which is the most fundamental reason why they are unwilling to give up Taiwan in the face of China's strong military deterrence.

In fact, Luo Jian is most worried that the Dutch have made a major breakthrough in technology, in that case, it will be much more troublesome to solve the Taiwan issue, and it will also pay more price.

However, military preparations have not been relaxed at all, and "killing chickens with a knife" is Luo Jian's consistent proposition, not to mention that the naval strength of the Wehrmacht is indeed somewhat weak.

Luo Jian has always believed that war is a contest of comprehensive strength between the two sides, and the final embodiment is often the duel between soldiers on the battlefield.

Zheng Chenggong and the main force of the naval fleet are all there, Luo Jian must think that China's strength at sea is far superior to that of the Dutch, but now that they are not there, then the judgment of the strength of the two sides must be cautious.

Like all Chinese, Luo Jian did not want to make any unlucky predictions about Zheng Chenggong's long-distance fleet, but the small number of warships in the ocean-going fleet and the extremely complicated and difficult sea conditions on this route made Luo Jian also plan for the worst in the deepest part of his heart.

Perhaps it was this subconscious thing that made Luo Jian make the decision to recover Taiwan without waiting for the return of the expeditionary fleet.

Luo Jian's decision was strongly supported by Zheng Zhilong, who always thought that the Dutch could be solved with the "Qi Jiguang" and "Huo Quai", but when the General Staff conducted a deduction, Zheng Zhilong was a little dumbfounded.

The General Staff Headquarters' deduction shows that if only these two warships are used to attack the island of Taiwan, the best result will be that the two warships will retreat in their entirety, but the island of Taiwan will still not be captured, and the ships transporting the landing force will lose at least one-third. The worst outcome was that the two warships were heavily damaged by the Dutch using ant tactics, and there was even a possibility of being sunk.

The use of a small number of advanced warships to escort an escort and an attack on a relatively well-defended place are completely two different concepts, and this is the conclusion reached by the General Staff after deduction.

At present, China's merchant ships going to sea are basically steamships, and the vast majority of these steamships still have sails, which determines that the merchant ships themselves have strong maneuverability and speed, and the warships only need to make other warships unable to approach the merchant ships when escorting, and the speed advantage is fully reflected at this time.

The attacking side must fight in the sea area demarcated or familiar by the other side, which makes the advanced warship basically lose its speed advantage, to put it simply, you are going to hit someone, and they are waiting there, no matter how fast you run, it will not be of much effect.

In fact, in the final analysis, the firepower on the two warships is not enough, and some people propose that there are also artillery on merchant ships, but these guns are all artillery that uses black medicine, and the advantage is not great compared with the ships of the Dutch, but the Dutch warships are numerous, which is why Zheng Zhilong was a little dumbfounded after the deduction.

Judging from the current development of the situation in Taiwan, it is obviously unrealistic to build new ships, and besides, the Naval Research Institute has long stopped paying attention to wooden warships and has begun to turn to the study of ironclad ships.

It seems that it is necessary to wait until the return of the Voyage Fleet before it can be started, which has almost become a consensus among everyone, after all, the Voyage Fleet has been out for a few months and should return during this time, but the problem is surprisingly quickly resolved.

If you have to give meritorious service to the person who solved this problem, then Wang Qiang should be the first merit, because he moved the artillery of the artillery regiment to the ship.

Wang Qiang, who was carrying the Seventh Division in the coastal area for adaptation training, did not know about the general staff's ongoing exercise, but when he was organizing the Seventh Division to conduct combat training on crossing the sea and landing the island, he found that without artillery support, the landing force would have suffered heavy casualties under the blows of the Dutch muskets.

The original plan was to have artillery support, that is, the guns on the two battleships, but after Wang Qiang knew that the Dutch had concentrated a large number of ships in Taiwan, he began not to expect these two warships to be free to provide him with fire support.

With this idea, Wang Qiang began to solve the problem based on himself, found two large transport ships, and Wang Qiang began to try. Some craftsmen were found to add some fixtures to the ship, and the artillery of the artillery regiment was installed on the two transport ships.

After several live firings, Wang Qiangfa phenomenon This kind of transport ship was basically converted into a gunboat with six guns each, and the simultaneous firing of three guns did not have much impact on the stability of the ship, which made Wang Qiang extremely happy.

Just after Wang Qiang reported the situation, Luo Jian felt that he was really a little confused, in his time and space, didn't his predecessors do this a long time ago? Having studied the history of war, I didn't even think of this at all.

With the current shipbuilding capacity of the Nanjing Government, in less than two weeks, all 64 guns of the Artillery Regiment of the Seventh Division were installed on the transport ships, and what was missing now was the adaptability training of the artillery to combat at sea.

Chinese like to choose a day and be auspicious when doing big things, and this battle to recover Taiwan was set on April 16, this date was set by Shi Kefa after reading the old yellow calendar, anyway, the time is not bad, Luo Jian did not calculate.

For every "bone gnawing battle" to let the Seventh Division go, Shi Kefa felt a little reluctant in his heart, and after handing over the affairs of the government to Yuan Jixian, Shi Kefa took Luo Jian and rushed to the temporary military port in Shanghai accompanied by Zheng Zhilong, where the Seventh Division was training. (To be continued.) )