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The Obi is a 45o-ton small commercial galen, named after the Obi Islands in the Spice Islands, and is one of the very few 15o merchant ships under the command of the United Dutch East India Company to bear the colonial name. Although the tonnage of the [Obi] is not large, it is equipped with 18 guns, including 4 12-pounder guns and 4 9-pounder guns, which is unique among armed merchant ships of the same class or even larger, so it is natural that it was selected by the United East India Company's Spice Islands fleet as a part of the patrol detachment to monitor the possible Chinese naval divisions in the northern seas.

However, this arrangement put the [Obi] in an embarrassing situation, you must know that the [Obi] is only an armed merchant ship no matter how powerful its firepower is, and there is no way to compare it with a regular warship. No, at this moment, two first-class letter ships of the Xia Army were sandwiching them one on the left and one on the right, and the fierce artillery fire was not inferior to the confrontation between the capital ships.

Although compared with the [Obi], the freeboard of the Xia Army's first-class letter ship is lower, but the Xia Army's first-class letter ship is a clipper type, and the extremely fast and clumsy [Obi] cannot get rid of the pursuit of the Xia army at all, and the Xia Army's first-class letter ship is also equipped with eighteen guns, and even has a larger caliber, so when one enemy is two, the [Obi] is in a bitter battle.

Fortunately, this time the God of the Dutch blessed the [Obi] in the dark - at the critical moment when more than half of the guns of the [Obi] were destroyed by the Xia army, a chain bullet with divine help broke the main mast of the Xia Jun letter ship on the left, and the Xia army letter ship was lost suddenly, in the dangerous sea, loss means becoming a lamb to the slaughter, in order to ensure the safety of the friendly ship, the Xia army letter ship on the right had to give up the pursuit, and the [Obi] was able to escape.

The fact of the attack on the Obi announced the beginning of the Xia-Dutch War, and in order to prevent its own side from being blocked in the harbor, the Dutch Spice Islands fleet sailed out of the harbor and took the initiative to find the Xia fleet with the intention of decisive battle.

The Dutch Spice Islands fleet consisted mainly of fourteen warships with more than 4o guns and thirty armed merchant ships, the largest of which was the 6o gun Veere and the 52 gun Staden Lande. Speaking of which, the Spice Islands fleet with a total of more than 1ooo guns is also second to none in the whole of Southeast Asia.

The mighty Dutch fleet had planned to cross the Maluku Strait into the Sulawesi Sea after leaving Denadi. It was only when it sailed to the vicinity of the Sanchi Islands that a 5O-ton unarmed announcement ship brought the news that the Xia Army was shelling Manado. Although they knew that this might be a ploy by the Xia army to lure the enemy, the Dutch, who felt that they had no way out, still chose to face the battle head-on.

On April 13 of the 16th year of Wucheng in China (1714 in the Western calendar), the naval battle of the Sulawesi Sea broke out, and the war officially began in Xiahe.

"Banner," looking at the white sails in the distance, the founding uncle, the Jiayi doctor (Zheng Sanpin), the prince of the inspection school (the fourth honor), the first class lieutenant (Zheng Sanpin), the commander of the Sulu Sea Division and the chief officer of the 6 soldiers and horses of Zhanghai Waterproof (from the second rank) Wei Fang's expression was stern. "Each fleet follows its own officers in turn, and must not disrupt the formation at will." Don't blame Wei Fang for being cautious, after all, this is the first time that the Huaxia Navy Division has fought against a European naval power, and it can be said to be the biggest test of the Huaxia Navy in the past 30 years, so he can't take it lightly. "I'm informing the ships that they should sink as much as possible, and we must not let Hongyi make a comeback??????"

"Your Excellency, the Chinese warships have been lined up in a single column." At the same time as Wei Fang gave the order, the captain of the Dutch flagship [Weil], Captain Ward reported to the Dutch Rear Admiral Baron Tantin-d-Agourien. "The first few ships should be battleline gunboats with more than sixty guns."

"There are so many gunboats on the battle line of the Chinese," Rear Admiral Agorion sighed, looking at the shadows of the ships in the monoculars. "It is true that they are the most powerful empires in the East, but are they really capable of maneuvering battleline gunboats when they were still using those slow junk ships decades ago?" The Major General ordered coldly. "Sue the Dutch seamen, please use artillery to teach these Chinese a good lesson, so that they understand who is the strongest on the sea."

Major General Yagurian's self-confidence is justified. First, the Dutch army was relatively numerous, with a total of 44 ships participating in the battle, while the Xia army had only about 36 or 7 warships; The second and most crucial is that the Dutch army is currently in a tailwind position, and the Xia army must turn in front of the formation to achieve mutual fire with the Dutch army. Of course, Rear Admiral Yagurian also consciously ignored some key issues, such as the small number of ships in the Xia army, but the number of guns on board was relatively large; For example, the Xia army was a strictly trained warship, while the main force of the Dutch army was armed merchant ships with poor discipline, and so on??????

After three quarters of an hour (1.5 hours), the two sides were already close to each other, and at this time Rear Admiral Agourian carefully observed the unusual shape of the gunboats of the Xia army battle line - the Xia cruisers also used flying clippers, without bow and stern, so the hull was longer at the same tonnage, and the length-to-width ratio reached an astonishing level of 4.5 to 1, because of the bow and stern masts, so there were more sails, but it seemed that there were not too many sailors who carried the sails, which made His Excellency the general very confused.

However, before the rear admiral could come to a conclusion, the hull of the [Veil] shook, and a huge roar sounded, and the first shot of the naval battle in the Sea of Sulawesi was fired. I saw that countless flames also erupted from the side of the Xia warship on the opposite side, and immediately, the rushing sea water baptized each other like a torrential rain.

As they were moving in opposite directions, they were staggered after a round of artillery fire, but the sailors of the two armies did not let up, for the second enemy ship soon appeared in each other's field of view.

More than 40 warships are connected at the tail and are several nautical miles long, and it takes nearly half an hour to move relative to each other at four knots, but at this time the gap between warships and merchant ships is evident -- although the hit rate of each other is not too high because of the relative movement, it is not a big problem for a warship with a thick hull to be hit by multiple shells, and a merchant ship with a thin hull will have many problems such as water leakage if it is hit by one or two shells.

In fact, this phenomenon is also related to the artillery equipment of both sides. The guns of the Dutch warships were mainly 12-pounder long guns and 18-pounder short guns, and the number of guns above 24 pounder was very small, and the armed merchant ships were mainly 9-pounder guns, with a small number of 12-pounder guns and 18-pounder guns; The third- and fourth-class cruisers of the Xia army were equipped with fifteen-minute (28-pound) long guns and eighteen-and-a-half short guns (32-pounds) short guns, and the larger number of cruisers were also equipped with thirteen and a half (18-pound) long guns and fifteen-minute short guns, which were not an order of magnitude higher than those of the Dutch army; Therefore, after the shooting, the Dutch deserved to suffer a big loss, at least 4 armed merchant ships were directly exploded, another 5 were heavily damaged, and only 4 cruisers on the Xia side were besieged by Dutch artillery fire because of broken masts, but they still relied on the struggle of the watertight cabin on the water, so that the gap between the two sides in the number of ships has been narrowed.

When the Xia army began to turn around, the Dutch armed merchant ships at the tail of the column were even more flanked from the left and right.

At this time, Rear Admiral Yagurion saw that the cruisers of the Xia army were actually faster than all the warships in his fleet, which meant that his fleet could not escape the pursuit of the Xia army at all, and it could not turn around and go against the wind.

The fact that Rear Admiral Yagurion was able to appear was also revealed by some of the sharp-eyed captains of armed merchant ships, and these panicked captains immediately abandoned their comrades and began to flee in all directions, with the result that the single column of the Dutch army shrank rapidly, and soon less than 2o ships remained.

Wei Fang did not order his own side to pursue these fleeing armed merchant ships, but led the home team to continue to approach in the desperate eyes of Major General Yagurion, and then the two sides truly entered the sea artillery battle of the era of sail warships. It's just that this time, Xia Jun has taken the absolute initiative??????

An hour later, six more Dutch warships and armed merchant ships sank to the bottom of the sea, and five more collapsed like dead fish. Rear Admiral Argourian was also seriously wounded by a bullet and was unable to continue his command, and the entire [Weil] was hit by a hundred bullets and began to roll sideways, and the captain of the ship, Colonel Ward, had no choice but to raise the white flag.

Seeing that the flagship surrendered, those armed merchant ships that could not escape also rose up and surrendered, only a few Dutch warships such as the [Chengxiang] were still resisting, but under the shelling of the Xia army, 6 continued to capsize, so far, the naval battle of Sulawesi came to an end.

Of course, the cannon fire on the main battlefield is over, but the nightmare of those fleeing Dutch armed merchant ships is not over, a cruiser fleet and two patrol fleets of the Xia army participating in the war have twenty-two first-class and second-class letter ships, these letter ships were originally cruising outside the main battlefield, seeing a number of Dutch armed merchant ships scattered and fleeing, they immediately bit it tightly like a hungry wolf with fat meat, and only a few lucky as the [Obi] could flee to Batavia.

"My lord, five ships of our army, including the [Lijiang], [Xinzhuoshuixi], and [Jiangchuan], were sunk, and four ships, including the [Xinnanhu] and [Jinghai], were severely damaged." Sima Ning Dakui, the sailor's marcher, reported to Wei Fang, who had been bruised by broken sawdust in the naval battle. "The rest of the ships have losses of different degrees, but they can be repaired on the spot, and the number of wounded and fallen officers is still being counted."

"Immediately order the Fourth Detachment of the Fifth Patrol Fleet to escort the four ships [Xinnanhu] and [Jinghai] and the wounded officers and men back to Labuan Town." Wei Fang, who was wearing a bandage, ordered. In addition, the Third Squadron of the Second Cruiser Fleet and the Third Squadron of the Eighth Cruiser Fleet were ordered to escort the captured ships back to Pingtung. The Fifth and Sixth Fleets were to be informed that they could escort the Seventh and Second Fleets to the Spice Islands. ”

After Wei Fang's orders were conveyed one by one, Ding Dakui then asked, "My lord, are we going to Batavia now?" ”

"There are four cruisers and more than thirty cruisers over there, how can you hope that we will fight for merit again." Wei Fang shook his head. "Let's stay honest in the Spice Islands."

"Using our eighteen-point cannon against the Dutch fortress is a knife killing."

"Don't you think that's enough?" Wei Fang raised his eyebrows. "Isn't the imperial court ready to explore the South China Sea? I'm in charge, you personally take two detachments of letter ships to the south, as long as you find the abbot Oshima mentioned by the Holy Lord, you will be indispensable ??????"