The Dutch fleet consisted of one hundred and one ships, one four-masted three-layer gun-armored one-hundred-and-four-gun battleship, ten four-masted double-decked seventy-four-gun battleships, ten fifty-gun armed merchant ships, thirty twenty-gun brigs, and fifty ten-gun sloops.

The fleet had 2,444 guns, 4,070 seamen, 1,853 marines, and 6,193 men.

It was a large fleet, even more so than the Spanish Armada and the English fleet at the Battle of Calais. After a few decades, the sea power of various countries has become stronger, the warships have become larger and the artillery has become stronger. In the Taiwan Strait of the East Indies, the Dutch unexpectedly amassed such a large maritime force.

However, this is indeed a bit unexpected, the Ming army captured the chicken coop, the news of the surrender of the Spaniards came, and the Dutch immediately mobilized, and at this time it happened that the combined fleet composed of the Dutch and the British was nearby, they were carrying out the task of blockading the China Sea, and the Ming army was about to attack the Dayuan, they immediately rushed to the Dayuan, and the Dutch formed a powerful fleet with the Dayuan, coming across the sea.

The Dutch divided the fleet into three sub-fleets, the Elizabethan fleet, commanded by Sir George of England, consisting of five British four-masted 74-gun battleships and ten twenty-gun brigs plus ten ten-gun dhows.

The Batavia fleet, commanded by Sir Van Buronn, consisted of a three-deck four-masted sail battleship flagship of one hundred and four guns, five seventy-four-gun battleships, and ten twenty-gun brigs plus ten ten-gun dhows.

The Grand Fleet, by Paul. Commanded by Duradinius, ten fifty-gun armed merchant ships and ten twenty-gun brigs, plus thirty ten-gun sloops.

At this time, Liu Jun was surprised that when the Dutch fleet was strong, he was also quickly mobilizing his fleet.

After he and Zheng Zhilong discussed. The fleet was divided into four sub-fleets.

The Beiyang Fleet, which was personally commanded by Liu Jun, took the 84-gun four-masted double-deck Fubo as its flagship, and four four-masted armed merchant ships with 50 guns, and two eight-gun and three-masted gunboats.

Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Zhibao respectively commanded the East China Sea Fleet and the South China Sea Fleet, each of which had five three-masted gunboats, and each had 10 Qingtou and 10 ships. In addition, there are several tribute gunboats, fortune boats, sand boats, speedboats, etc.

The Yangtze River Fleet had the fewest main warships, and this fleet commanded by Xiong Wencan was actually a supply fleet and a reserve.

In addition to these four fleets, there were also shore artillery units on Penghu Island, as well as horse infantry soldiers.

A huge naval battle is about to begin, and Zheng Zhilong once again awards the fleet with a heavy reward as he did before the Battle of Liaoluo Bay.

Each of the participants in the war was given two taels of silver, if the war was prolonged. An additional five taels were given. Each fireship was 16 men, and if the Dutch ship was burned, six were to be given two hundred taels of silver, and one Dutchman head was given fifty taels of silver.

As the commander-in-chief of this naval battle. Liu Jun also did not hesitate to reward.

He announced to the four fleets and the men on the shore that he would kill one Hongyi soldier and advance to the next level. The battleship sank one of the enemy's capital ships, and the officers and men were promoted to one rank and rewarded with fifty taels of silver.

November 9, the twelfth year of Chongzhen. Liu Jun led the fleet out of the port.

Xiong Wencan persuaded Liu Jun not to leave the port, so he stopped in the port. However, Liu Jun and Zheng Zhilong both decided to go out of port to meet them, although the Anglo-Dutch combined fleet was stronger. But it is precisely because their warships are powerful and have more than 2,000 cannons, if they stay in the port, then the biggest result is that they are blocked and then directly sunk in the port.

After all, the Anglo-Dutch coalition army is a giant ship cannon, and it is not an ordinary Ming army sailor. If the Ming army had hundreds of ships crowded into the harbor, it would not be possible to carry out the side bombardment, while the enemy ships had a wide sea surface outside that could line up a formation of miles long and bombard the harbor with shells as much as they wanted, and the Ming army did not even have a place to move and dodge.

Especially in the case of the lack of sufficient shore defense artillery in Penghu, even more so, staying in the port, you can only sit and wait for death.

That morning, the Anglo-Dutch Combined Fleet in the strait was also greatly surprised when it heard that the military fleet had sailed out of Penghu and was approaching it. They did not expect that the Ming fleet would not flee back to the coast of Fujian in fright, but would dare to meet it.

"Anchor!"

The commander of the Batavian fleet, and the commander of the entire combined fleet, Van Buron, stood on the one hundred and four-gun battleship and gave the order. He ordered to drop anchor immediately, and the three detachments were placed in battle formation.

When they set up their formation, the Ming fleet led by Liu Jun had already appeared.

Then Van Bronn was surprised to find that the Ming fleet had quickly seized the upper hand. His fleet was actually in a headwind position, but at this time it was no longer possible to change the formation.

Van Bronn ordered the raising of the East India Company's red and white blue flag with the three-letter VOC logo as a signal of full-scale war readiness.

The warships of the Ming army took advantage of the light enemy of the Dutch and successfully grabbed the downwind position, so that they could go downwind and the enemy against the wind, which could gain the initiative and facilitate maneuvering, and at the beginning of the artillery battle, the cannon smoke would also blow along the enemy's wind, which was enough to block the enemy's sight.

According to the discussion between Liu Jun and Zheng Zhilong before the war, the fleet of the Ming Dynasty was lined up in a battle line, which is also a conventional method of warfare in naval warfare today, so that the guns on the side can better shoot at the enemy ships.

The two fleets were separated by no more than a few miles.

They first passed the right flank and downwind of the Anglo-Dutch fleet, and while driving, they began to fire from a long distance.

At this time, the Anglo-Dutch fleet also began to spread out its formation and fired cannons at the Ming fleet.

Hundreds of warships of the two fleets began to fire from a distance, and the cannons rumbled, and white waves splashed on the sea from time to time, but they were far away, and no shells had hit the enemy ships at first.

Although there were many Ming ships, they were generally smaller, and there was less artillery fire. The Anglo-Dutch coalition had many ships and artillery, and for a time the Ming army did not have any advantage.

Seeing this scene, Van Bronn's face was overjoyed, the firepower of the ships of the Ming army was too weak, and the ships were small. With the exception of a few warships and merchant ships, which were apparently acquired from the Spaniards, the rest of the Ming army had not developed much in recent years. And this time they have eleven warships, as well as ten armed merchant ships, each of which has dozens of cannons.

"Let them come over when they are three hundred yards. Smash them again! Van Bronn laughed, although the ship's cannons could shoot miles away, but the hit rate was very low when it was too far away. Relying on the large number of cannons on his ship, he deliberately put the Ming army's fleet closer to fight.

He believed that when the Ming army reached a close distance of three or four hundred yards, a salvo from the side of hundreds of their warships would smash all the small wooden boats of the Ming army.

"Beware of Akito's fireships!" Someone reminded.

"Don't worry, this time we brought dozens of fast sailing boats, and we can definitely intercept their small fireboats as soon as possible. No matter how many of their fireships come, we can smash them to slag. Van Bron shouted triumphantly.

In the Battle of Liaoluo Bay a few years ago. At that time, they were overshadowed by Zheng Zhilong's fireships, and a hundred fireships suddenly went down with the wind, burning several of their large warships at once, causing the naval battle to fail. This time, he had already prepared, and in order to guard against fireships, he brought fifty sloops and thirty brigs to protect the main warships, and to concoct some fireships in the same way.

These two-masted, single-masted clippers. The speed was extremely fast, and there were ten and twenty pieces of artillery, even if the Ming army got a hundred more fireships, they could intercept them.

The huge ship group of the Ming army was constantly approaching downwind. The artillery fire on both sides intensified, and ships began to be shot.

The sound of cannons whistled overhead, thick smoke billowed out, and Liu Jun stood on the bow deck of Fubotou. Unwavering.

Naval warfare is simply more ferocious than land warfare, more testing of people's courage, a big war. Tens of thousands of horses and horses were strangled on the wide sea, and more than 4,000 cannons on both sides were constantly bombarding each other, so many cannons were simply unimaginable.

Advancing under such artillery fire is as simple and cruel as a battle in line to be shot, no one knows when they will be unlucky, and once the battleship is shot, it is often impossible to escape the fate of sinking.

Especially for the Ming army, the British and Dutch battleships were too strong, they not only had more guns, but also had a longer range, and the shells were more ruthless, the Ming army's guns were mostly thousand-pound Franc machines, a small number of three-thousand-pound Hongyi cannons, while the artillery of the Anglo-Dutch coalition army was much larger, especially there were twenty-four pounds and thirty-two pounds, and one cannon weighed six or seven thousand pounds.

Moreover, these cannons were still installed on the lower gun deck, and these cannons were fired at the waterline of the ship, and once shot, the ship often had to be flooded and then sunk.

However, although the artillery fire was fierce, Liu Jun always stood there like a sculpture.

If the Ming army is not easy to kill out unprepared, and seize the upper hand, it is impossible to be afraid and afraid, and in the face of fierce tigers, wolves can only attack in groups.

The distance between the two sides was less than a thousand paces, but dozens of ships of the Ming army had been sunk, and three of the main three-masted gunboats were sunk by bullets.

The fleet kept firing its guns, and it was still approaching.

"Set fire to the boat!" Zheng Zhilong roared loudly.

At such a high price, it was necessary to bring the distance closer, so that the fireships could rush into the enemy fleet. For this, he endured great losses, and now the time has finally come.

One after another, speedboats rushed out of the Ming warship group, a full 300 speedboats, loaded with sulfur, fire oil, firewood and grass and other flammable materials.

The speedboat quickly sailed into the coalition ship group with the wind.

"Fireship!"

"Akito's fireboats, these damn guys, why are there so many fireships."

Van Bron was also a little shocked, he was just immersed in the pleasure of constantly smashing the Ming army's ships, but he didn't expect that so many fireships suddenly rushed to the Ming army.

Not one or two, not even a hundred, but hundreds, at least about three.

This number scared the hell out of him.

"Quick, intercept these fireships and sink them!"

"The capital ship retreats!"

Dozens of speedboats came up against the wind, wanting to intercept these dense fireships, but Liu Jun and Zheng Zhilong followed behind the fireships with their warships, and the guns were aimed at those speedboats.

From time to time, fireships were sunk by clippers, but the speedboats of the Dutch were also hit by fireboats from time to time, or were hit by the main battleships of the Ming army behind.

The sea cannon rumbled, and the sea was littered with burning ship debris.

In order to intercept these fireships, Van Bronn had to send all the two- and one-masted clippers on board, and watched as they were constantly set on fire and hit.

Fan Broon wanted to withdraw, but Zheng Zhilong and Liu Jun refused to let them go.

The Anglo-Dutch ships were fast, but the Ming army was downwind, and the two fleets were biting tightly together, firing fiercely back and forth. From time to time, battleships were shot, and the fireships of the Ming army lost most of them. There are still more than a hundred of them, and these fireships are charging as bravely as death squads.

By the end of the evening, the Dutch and British ships had almost lost their two-masted ships, and the armed merchant ships had lost half of them because they were not agile. The deck ship battleship was also burned by two fireships, and one was sunk by naval guns.

In the end, taking advantage of the darkness, only eight Dutch warships, five armed merchant ships, and six brigs were able to escape and sail all the way back to Dacheng.

The four fleets of the Ming army also suffered heavy losses. The three hundred fireships were almost gone, and only about twenty remained. The three-masted gunboats also lost six, the Daqingtou was sunk fifteen, and the chaser, fortune, and sand ships were sunk many more.

The large fleet, which was more than 500 ships at the time of the port, was reduced to less than eighty ships at this time.

Liu Jun's Beiyang Fleet also suffered heavy losses, and the newly established fleet only had one battleship Fubo, one Zhenhai three-masted gunboat, and four Frut merchant ships, although they were all shot. It was damaged to varying degrees, but it didn't sink anyway. In addition, there are two rushing ships left, Liu Jun's 57 large and small ships in the Beiyang Fleet before the war, and after the war. Only eight ships remained, and more than eighty percent of them were lost.

However, compared with Zheng Zhilong's fleet, several of Liu Jun's capital ships are still there, which is good news. In particular, the Fubo was well preserved, which made Liu Jun even more happy.

The ships lost hundreds, and the soldiers suffered many casualties.

Liu Jun ordered the pursuit to be stopped. Torches were lit and the crews of the sea were salvaged and the guns were salvaged.

During the battle, Liu Jun was really impressed by the thirty-two-pounder guns on the Dutch's flagship. The Dutch and the British also sank three capital warships and five armed merchant ships here, as well as twenty-four twenty-gun brigs and fifty ten-gun sloops, which they sank dozens of ships and lost more than fifteen hundred cannons.

"Can you dive down here and retrieve the guns from the sunken ship?" Liu Jun asked Zheng Zhilong, although he had won, Zheng Zhilong was not very happy, in this naval battle, he did not expect the Dutch and the British to unite, let alone that they had so many warships and so strong guns.

"This place is close to the birds of Penghu, and the water depth is about three or four zhang, and you can send a good diver to dive."

As soon as he heard that he could dive to catch the artillery, Liu Jun was very happy, "Okay, hurry up and organize people to fish up all the cannons." There are more than a thousand guns down there, and dozens of sunken ships, and maybe some of them can be repaired and still useful. ”

When Zheng Zhilong heard this, he was also a little happy.

"When the cannon is scooped up, we will divide half of us, half of each person, and we will not let you suffer." Liu Jun said to Zheng Zhilong.

"One and a half." Zheng Zhilong originally wanted to order more, but in the end he nodded, "Okay, one and a half." ”

"Actually, Brother Zheng doesn't have to be reluctant, the old ones don't go, the new ones don't come, and the losses are only small boats."

"My three-masted gunboat and the big green head and the reins are all capital ships." Zheng Zhilong said distressedly.

Liu Jun comforted him and said, "Don't you still have many ships in Fujian, besides, your ships are also a little outdated, and you can also see today how huge and powerful these Hongyi ships are." In the future, let's just build these ships as well. ”

"But we don't have that technology!"

"It's not simple, if you hire money, you will naturally have technology. And if we go back and capture the big man, we will definitely be able to catch some craftsmen, I heard that there is a Dutch ship repair yard there. At that time, we will also build this three-deck gun deck giant ship with 100 cannons, and build those galleons to arm merchant ships, which can not only do war but also trade, killing two birds with one stone. ”

"I'm worried that the big guys won't be able to fight."

Liu Jun waved his hand, "I don't think there's anything to worry about." The Dutch, together with the British, brought together such a large fleet, but you see, they left most of their ships behind, and fled with only nineteen ships with their tails between their legs.

Next, they will not be able to reinforce the big men from Batavia for less than half a year. And we will soon be able to transfer a new fleet from Fujian, and when we have crossed the sea, we will directly take his castle fortress and land site, and we will have more generals. ”

Liu Jun has a very accurate grasp of one point, that is, the Dutch base camp in the East Indies is in Batavia, which is Jakarta, Java, where it is really 108,000 miles away from Taiwan, how can reinforcements be rushed in a few months, not to mention that it takes more time to transmit messages back and forth.

"And what about after that?"

"What do you have to say to the Dutch, among the Hongyi, only the Dutch harass me the most along the coast of the Ming Dynasty, often raiding the coast, taking the people as slaves, robbing villages and towns, and also blocking the South China Sea, robbing our merchant ships, this kind of person does not hurt him, even if you want to trade with him, it is impossible. Let's fight first, and then we'll talk to them about trade and other things. Until then, there is nothing to talk about. ”

"Besides, if we don't take back the big guys, how can we monopolize trade with Japan in the future?"

Saying a thousand things and ten thousand is not as direct as benefits. Liu Jun's monopoly on trade with Japan immediately strengthened Zheng Zhilong's will. As long as he can really monopolize trade with Japan, then in the future, he will occupy Taiwan and start entrepot trade, and it will really be a lot of money, and the loss he has paid today will definitely be worth it. (To be continued......)