The navy has long had the intention of exterminating Li Dan, a pair of pirates who were rampant on the sea in the past and had no law and discipline, but Li Dan slipped away too fast, and according to the information obtained by the navy, Li Dan had already gone to Jawa Island and took refuge with the Dutch.

Because Li Dan's pirates were swept away by the navy in Taiwan's base area, these pirates naturally had no choice but to go to the South Seas.

When pirates are popular in an area, they must need a place to hide, so that they can be supplied, stolen and stayed. The Zhoushan Islands further north are obviously untenable, and there are no good offshore islands in the further north of the Zhoushan Islands, and those places on Changshan Island are military zones for the activities of the Dongjiang Army, and the north did not have much maritime interests to feed them before.

Just like the famous Pirates of the Caribbean, it is relying on the Caribbean that is full of islands.

Penghu and Taiwan were the hiding places of these pirates before, and if they lost this hiding place, they naturally had to go to the South Seas.

There are many islands in the South Seas, which are very complex.

Of course, these pirates are obviously not easy to mix in the South Seas! You have to send people to the Dutch and the Spaniards, after all, it's not their home turf.

Moreover, the Dutch and the Spaniards were very wary of these pirates, especially the Spaniards, when the pirate Lin Feng entangled 30,000 people to attack the Philippines, but the Spaniards suffered a lot. Because of this, when Li Dan started his business, he was almost killed by the troupe.

Therefore, it was impossible for Li Dan to take refuge in the Spaniards, but there was a split within the pirate group because of the loss of the base in Taiwan, and the pirates led by Liu Xiang took refuge in the Spaniards, and Li Dan took refuge in the Dutch.

Liu Xiang hung up as soon as he appeared, this guy had the audacity to go to Taiwan to make trouble, and he was directly destroyed by the imperial court.

Li Dan was smarter and went to Hainan to make trouble. The imperial court did not have much defense in Hainan. Instead, these pirates slaughtered several fishing villages.

When those maritime merchants contacted Li Dan, it happened that the Dutch were preparing to make trouble.

In the fourth year of the Apocalypse, in order to ensure trade in the East, the Dutch transferred 20 thousand-ton gunboats from the mainland in one go, and with the cooperation of Li Dan, decided to invade the coast of Fujian again.

This time, Li Dan has an internal response, as long as he logs in to Fujian, he can make waves.

It's a life-and-death struggle. If the government insisted on cracking down on piracy and imposing high tariffs, then Li Dan would not have been able to give in to the government.

If the Dutch were unable to trade with the Ming Dynasty, the East India Company's trade profits would also be greatly reduced. And now it is not a simple question of trade with the Ming Dynasty, but trade with Japan has been cut off by the Ming Dynasty. It had already had an extremely serious impact on the East India Company's trading profits.

Let's just say that the Dutch colonized Java Island, how much profit could be generated? At most, it was the output of sugar and rice and cotton, and they could not trade gold and silver, nor could they trade in porcelain, tea, raw silk and silk, and other commodities produced by the Ming Dynasty.

Then it was on the occasion of the arrival of the southeast monsoon in the fourth year of the apocalypse. Song Ke, commander of the East India Company's fleet, once again led a fleet of 25 warships north to the Taiwan Strait.

"Ming's colonization of Taiwan is so rapid, if our East India Company can snatch Taiwan over, it will create a lot of considerable benefits." Song Ke saw that there were many ships coming and going in the Taiwan Strait at this time, and many of them were going to Taiwan, and he immediately coveted Taiwan. So he immediately changed his original plan and decided to attack Taiwan.

Compared with Fujian, attacking Taiwan is obviously more reliable.

Fujian is located on the mainland, and the power that the Ming Dynasty can call on can be endless. Not at all a place that the Dutch were able to occupy. If the harassment of Fujian was only to force the Ming Dynasty to submit and agree to trade with the Dutch. If they could capture Taiwan, then the Netherlands would be able to occupy Taiwan for a long time with their strong naval power, and they could continue to force the Ming Dynasty to trade with them, and even reopen trade routes with Japan.

This attack on Song Ke was well prepared, and I had to deal with the 29-pounder cannon owned by the Ming Dynasty. This time, Song Ke felt that the 25 gunboats in his hand could completely cope with it, because the gunboats of the Ming Dynasty were all from the Netherlands, and there were only 6 at most.

Even if the Ming Dynasty dispatched all the gunboats this time, the East India Company's side would be able to form a huge fourfold advantage over the gunboats of the Ming Dynasty, and there was no reason to fail again.

And Song Ke did not think that the Ming would be able to make more gunboats. Because the ships of the Ming people were not suitable for use as gunboats, their ships were not so strong because of the design of watertight compartments, and the ship type was not suitable at all.

European ships do not have watertight compartments, but they can be built stronger, although they are less secure, either unknown leaks, or large leaks are not saved. However, in the course of naval battles, a stronger hull was more durable and suitable for artillery deployment.

Obviously, Song Ke's contempt for the Ming Dynasty made him pay a heavy price next.

Because Song Ke had no fear, he did not attack other strongholds in Taiwan, but ran to attack Anping Fort. The result was naturally that the old birthday star was afraid of eating arsenic, and as soon as he arrived at the outer port of Anpingbao, he was discovered by the Ming army. Immediately after that, the batteries in the harbor bombarded the Dutch gunboats.

Under the salvo of hundreds of heavy guns, several Dutch warships were hit on the spot, and they were bombarded by the 30-pound guns in the harbor to create large holes.

A warship was unable to plug the leak and slowly sank into the harbor on the spot.

"Oh God! How did these Orientals have so many heavy artillery! ”

"Sir, let's retreat quickly! We simply can't get through here. ”

Suddenly the fleet was full of ghosts and wolves, and in the face of such a heavy artillery hit, the Dutch were unprepared in advance, and did not even have information about this.

The ignorant are fearless, and if the Dutch weren't too arrogant, they wouldn't have come here. But this arrogance did not happen overnight. Since the Dutch began to expand everywhere on the sea, even the Spaniards, who claimed to be the invincible armada, could not do anything with them, and in the process of bullying weak and small nations around the world, they did not find any nation that could confront them on the sea, so naturally they developed a kind of arrogance.

So much so that these Dutchmen didn't even know the intelligence of Taiwan, so they rushed over directly and were beaten all over the place.

"Retreat. Retreat quickly. Song Ke gave the order to retreat in embarrassment.

But at this time, suddenly a few Shui Shu shouted in panic, and following their gaze, they saw more than a dozen Ming warships flying the dragon flag outside the harbor.

What a shut-off and hit the dog!

The fleet of the East India Company, which was retreating in disarray, was scattered, and in the face of the sudden Ming Royal Fleet, it was stunned on the spot.

The Ming Royal Fleet leaned directly up. Shelling was carried out when there were still 500 meters left. The Dutch were beaten to the point where they were simply defenseless.

At this distance, the Dutch's 10-pounder guns were poorly lethal and inaccurate. However, the 29-pounder guns of the Ming Royal Fleet are different, the lethality is very good at this distance, it is very easy to deal with this kind of thousand-ton gunboat, and the accuracy is also okay.

Song Ke almost spurted out a mouthful of old blood on the spot, it was too bullying.

"Look, that warship of the Ming people, God! He's too big. ”

"I've never seen such a big warship......"

A group of Dutch sailors exclaimed again at this time. I saw a warship with a displacement of 1,500 tons heading towards them.

When all the Dutch saw this warship, their hearts were chilled.

Song Ke finally realized how stupid he was, and Ming Guo clearly had the technology to build gunboats, and he also built bigger gunboats.

At this time, there was a wolf in front and a tiger in the back, and Song Ke felt terrible.

The morale of a group of Dutch sailors dropped even more, and after a round of artillery bombardment, two Dutch warships were severely damaged and floated at sea. A group of sailors began to frantically plug and drain the water. It can barely keep the warship unsinkable, but the speed of the ship has become turtle speed.

The Ming Royal Fleet continued to come over. The distance between the two sides is still getting closer.

A powerful oppressive force came to the face, and many Dutch sailors turned pale in the face. The habit of bullying the weak has also made them lose enough courage in the face of powerful forces.

They just want to make money, and they don't feel like losing their lives, and they don't have any faith.

Obviously, the Ming royal fleet could not let these Dutch people go because they were afraid, but leaned in ruthlessly. Then launch a salvo.

Boom Boom Boom Boom ......

Smoke rose and shells whistled out, piercing the hull of the Dutch warship. The Dutch also fought back, and a frenzy arose in despair.

The shells of both sides whizzed incessantly, and they were all frantically pouring on each other's hulls.

It's a pity that the shells of the Dutch are not very lethal. Before they could sink the warships of the Ming Royal Fleet, their warships had already been beaten into honeycombs and sunk into the sea one after another.

The Imperial Power rushed into the fray and fired a close-range salvo at a Dutch warship.

Dozens of broadside guns fired hot shells, and the Dutch warship a hundred meters away was punched dozens of holes on the spot, and then the hull began to flood in large quantities, and then slowly sank.

The naval battle was like a massacre, and if the only thing that could make the Dutch happy, it was that all the warships of the Ming Royal Navy were not present.

The Ming royal fleet already had twenty-two gunboats, and only twelve were present this time, and ten more were going to trouble the Spaniards.

Obviously, the Dutch came to Taiwan to look for trouble, which was a bit unexpected by the top echelons of the Navy. Before the Dutch fleet reached the Taiwan Strait, it was discovered by the Navy's speedboats. When the navy received the news, it immediately set out from Penghu and rushed to the Tainan area, originally thinking that the Dutch would harass the southernmost area of Taiwan, because the land had just begun to be cleared and the port fort had not yet been completed.

As a result, the Dutch ran to Anpingbao to make trouble, and the passing navy directly blocked the Dutch in the port.

And even better, these Dutch warships were in oddly poor formation. And on the side is a group of pirate ships that are even worse than their formation, these pirate ships are naturally Li Dan's own, these ships are not gunboats, but things used for broadside warfare.

As a result, the naval battle turned into a slaughtering battle, and the Dutch were so poor in formation that fighting turned into a refueling tactic.

Although the number of warships was twice that of the Ming Royal Navy, they did not exert any numerical superiority, and under the disparity in artillery power, these Dutch warships were sunk one after another. (To be continued.) )