The retreat of the Dutch in East Asia is inevitable, but how to maximize the interests of the Dutch in East Asia is the next issue for Wen Bangliang to consider.

Wen Bangliang convened a meeting, at which the staff officers of the detachment and the officers of the ships participated.

The result of the meeting was to exchange the captives in exchange for the Dutch colonies in Taiwan and the Indonesian archipelago. The number of Dutch prisoners of war amounted to more than 7,000.

With the addition of the Dutch captured in the previous naval battles, the number of prisoners has reached tens of thousands.

Even if the Netherlands were a maritime power, they could not bear the loss of tens of thousands of people, but these people were experienced sailors and a valuable resource.

As a country that relies on the sea for food, it is absolutely unbearable to lose tens of thousands of sailors in East Asia, and if it can be redeemed, it will definitely be at any cost.

Previously, Shandong also offered redemption conditions to the Dutch, but the conditions were too high for the Batavia company to bear.

Batavia is a private company and does not represent the Netherlands. But the company's shareholders were powerful in the Netherlands, so Batavia could easily get support from the Dutch navy.

The warships of the Batavia Company were all composed of the Dutch Navy, but they were not nominally the Dutch Navy, but the private maritime force of the Batavia Company.

This was because once it was the Dutch navy, it could not attack the Spanish and Portuguese colonies everywhere in East Asia, and this was an agreement between the European maritime powers.

Having lost some sailors before, the Batavia company was not distressed, and the Dutch Navy was not too distressed, after all, the number did not reach that much.

And the redemption price is so high, who can afford it?

But after this battle, the Dutch tax revenue captured by the Shandong Navy has exceeded 10,000 people, which is definitely a figure that makes people want to vomit blood.

These people were all the forces that the Dutch Navy had sent to East Asia to assist the Batavia Company in defending against the Shandong Navy.

This is definitely an incomparably huge blow to the Dutch Navy.

For a maritime power, good warships, as well as experienced sailors, are indispensable. Unless, like the Shandong Navy, it has artillery technology that can surpass too much, so as to make up for the lack of sailors.

The biggest problem faced by the Shandong Navy is that there is too little experienced sailors, and it takes a certain amount of time to train them themselves.

And ready-made, which can only be recruited from Fujian and Guangdong.

Fujian and Guangdong are the two provinces in the Ming Dynasty that have large-scale seafaring groups, and apart from these two provinces, there are almost no groups engaged in large-scale ocean-going trade activities in other provinces.

At this point, the Dutch had no choice. Using the colony of the Batavia Company, plus a ransom in exchange for their sailors, was their only option.

If you don't agree, Shandong will not let people go, and you will be pulled to open a mine. It's a big deal, if you attack Taiwan and the Indonesian archipelago in a few years, you just have to spend some more energy.

However, for the Nanyang detachment, the most important thing at present is to get back the spoils of the war for most of the year, and how to negotiate with the Dutch is also a matter for the military department.

The fleet, which was supposed to depart in early October, was delayed until mid-October.

The fleet was very large, consisting of seven warships, plus more than 170 large and small merchant ships, of which 73 were more than 800 tons of displacement, and 106 were under 800 tons.

In addition, 11 crippled warships were towed, eight of which were captured, and the other three were salvaged, all of which had to be towed back to Shandong to be repaired.

The other 10 better repaired warships remained in Palembang for rearmament.

With such a large fleet, most of the sailors were Dutch, and the Nanyang detachment simply did not have enough manpower to drive such a large fleet back.

In addition to the more than seven thousand Dutch soldiers captured, almost five thousand Dutchmen, all sailors on merchant ships, were captured.

Some of these sailors belonged to the Batavia Company, and most of them were ships organized by other Dutch merchants, and they were also involved in the East Asian trade.

The plundering of the Shandong Navy is different from that of ordinary pirates, who ask for money and not people, but the Shandong Navy wants money and people.

Hijacking these people, first, can be used to carry the schooner back to Shandong, and second, it can also be pulled to mine, which is really beneficial.

The Dutch drove the boats, and the marines watched the people, always letting the ships follow the leading ships. The warships were guarding the surroundings, so naturally there was no problem.

The Dutch lost their maritime power in East Asia, and the Spanish and Portuguese were also half-dead, and the Dutch did not dare to take their heads everywhere.

The Zheng Group's maritime power is in a state where it does not have a large-scale ocean, and although the pirate ships have sent a lot of them outside, their combat effectiveness is weaker, and there will be no danger if they encounter it.

Therefore, Wen Bangliang went directly north this time and swaggered through the Taiwan Strait. Along the way, the Portuguese and Spaniards gasped when they saw such a large fleet.

There are so many merchant ships, at first glance, they are all robbed, all in the style of Dutch merchant ships.

What made them even more stunned was the eleven Dutch warships towed behind, these are all warships! The Spaniards had only about 20 warships in East Asia, and the Portuguese were about the same.

Zheng Zhilong naturally received the news, after all, the fleet was dragging eleven Dutch warships, and the speed of action was not very fast.

His general Gan Hui came to report and reported what he saw, which frightened Zheng Zhilong, who once thought that Gan Hui was lying about the military situation.

"Are there really that many merchant ships?" Zheng Zhilong asked several times, and got a very positive answer from Gan Hui, and Zheng Zhilong had to believe this fact.

"The Shandong Navy has a bigger appetite than when the Dutch came to the southeast!" Zheng Zhilong was shocked and said that as a small pirate who cooperated with the Dutch at the beginning, Zheng Zhilong also participated in the looting of the Ming merchant ships.

That time, the Dutch swallowed more than 200 Ming merchant ships, and Zheng Zhilong also made a fortune in them, and then Li Dan died suddenly, and Zheng Zhilong seized Taiwan's industry to get ahead and become the boss of the southeast.

And became the overlord of the southeast, or because Zheng Zhilong rebelled in Fujian, the Ming Dynasty could not suppress it for a while, and after recruiting him, Zheng Zhilong got the manpower and material resources of the Ming Dynasty, and then he rose to become the overlord of the southeast.

After Zheng Zhilong became the overlord of the southeast, the Dutch's plundering of the Ming merchant ships was somewhat restrained, because several naval battles ended in the defeat of the Dutch.

"Big brother, why don't we rob them, I can see clearly, there are only seven Western ships, and the rest are merchant ships, and they can't run fast." Gan Hui's eyes lit up and he suggested, "The things on the ship are worth at least 20 million taels. ”

"Not so much, most of the Dutch's goods are the goods of the Ming Dynasty, as well as the goods of the Nanyang Dynasty, many of which are worthless things." Zheng Zhilong said and snorted coldly, "Do you think these ships are so easy to grab?" Don't look at the fact that they only have seven large Western ships, but if we don't dispatch one or two hundred warships, don't think about eating this batch of goods, and by the time our ships arrive, they will have already left. ”

"Besides, if we rob their ships, within a few months, the Shandong army will have to fight to Fujian, and then we will have no place to spend any amount of silver." Zheng Zhilong reprimanded: "You'd better take care of the little rabbits under your command, don't provoke the ships in Shandong, you can't give the Shandong army any excuse to send troops at this time." ”

Gan Hui listened to the reprimand and couldn't help but smile awkwardly.

For Zheng Zhilong, the things that the Nanyang detachment grabbed this time were indeed not very valuable. Most of the goods in the merchant ships of the Dutch were the goods of the Ming Dynasty, and the goods of the Ming Dynasty were expensive to sell, and they were cheap to snatch back. At the same time, most of the Dutch goods were spices, deerskins, rattans, rice and other things produced in the colonies, and there was no market in Daming.

As for swallowing these ships, Zheng Zhilong didn't dare to do it.

Not only is he afraid of the powerful army in Zhao Yan's hands, but his sailor also has problems. Zheng Zhilong's sailors have always used group fighting tactics in naval battles, and the ships are generally small and not fast.

Although it is known as 100,000 sailors, doesn't it take time to mobilize these 100,000 sailors?

By the time the mobilization was complete, the people would have already gone away. The boat is less than bumping into it, and it is almost like looking for death, which Zheng Zhilong still sees very clearly.

Before those large Western ships are built, it is not appropriate to have any conflict with the Shandong Navy. At the same time, Zheng Zhilong is still actively contacting Chongzhen, striving to be a shield for land routes.

But Zheng Zhilong didn't pin all his hopes on Chongzhen, it turned out that Chongzhen was not a fart in Zhao Yan's eyes, saying that the Qingjun side was the Qingjun side, and he directly returned the government to the people, which was tantamount to abdication in disguise.

How it will develop in the future, Zheng Zhilong can't predict accurately, but Zhao Yan's disobedience has been undoubted. According to Zheng Zhilong's speculation, the reason why Zhao Yan did not replace him was entirely because the troops were too tight.

Before the Qing monarch's side, Zhao Yan sent troops to fight Jianjiao, and sent troops to recruit Yueben, and even personally went west to recruit thieves, and there was no longer enough troops and energy to carry out the Ding Revolution.

Zheng Zhilong's speculation is indeed very correct.

Before Zhao Yan eliminated the Manchu Qing Dynasty, he was not willing to fall into the quagmire of civil war, the civil war was not so easy to fight, there were too many problems to be considered in fighting a civil war, and after the territory expanded, it was necessary to spend more energy on management, but the management personnel were not so sufficient.

The indiscriminate expansion of personnel will only allow [***] to breed within the collective.

In line with the principle of preferring shortage to excess, Zhao Yan has always been very cautious about the expansion of officials.

…… Wen Bangliang swaggered through Fujian along the way, and after more than a month of sailing, he finally returned to Qingdao, Shandong Province in late November.

Zhao Yan received a report from the clipper ship as early as when Wen Bangliang was halfway through.

Opening the report, Zhao Yan was stunned for a long time.

The warships of the Dutch East India Company turned out to have lost another forty-two? Combined with the ten Dutch warships annihilated in Yueben before, the number of warships lost by the East India Company reached fifty-two? Fifteen more warships had been lost before, and the total number of warships lost by the Dutch East India Company replied sixty-seven!

(To be continued)