c_t;“ All gunners, get into battle positions at once!" watched the Matara Blue Army in the distance slowly advance southward, Bart loudly gave the order to prepare for battle. Read the full text of the latest chapter

The Mata Blues stopped about a mile from Batavia City and slowly pushed their huge trebuchets to the front line of the array. Bart took the time to calculate the size of the opponent's troops, just on the northern front, the Mata Blue Army currently lined up outside the city was about 10,000 people. And large and small trebuchets, there are more than 30 of them seen so far.

Although there has been no news from the east and west yet, Bart believes that the Mata Blue Army will probably not concentrate all their forces in one direction to attack the city, and will inevitably maintain enough pressure in the other two directions to make it impossible for the defenders in the city to gather in one place for defense.

Then a large number of flatbed carts began to transport the prepared stone bullets to the front line and pile them up, and Barth's face became even more ugly after confirming the size of the stone bullets used by the other party in the telescope.

Judging from the size, the individual weight of these stone projectiles is probably at least about 100 catties, and if they can really be thrown near the city wall with a trebuchet, their power will not be much different from that of artillery bombardment. Although the speed of the cannonball is faster, the weight is far less than that of this stone projectile, so the lethality will only be between the two and the middle.

The Mata Blues were not without artillery, and before the war began, the British sold a lot of artillery to Raden Langsan, hoping that the Matar Blues would be able to break through the Dutch-entrenched city of Batavia in one fell swoop. However, the Mata Blues are not proficient in the use of artillery, and they are also well aware that artillery is a weapon that needs to consume a large amount of valuable and inconvenient ammunition in war, and the firing life of the artillery itself is relatively limited, so in the battle against Batavia, Raden Langsang did not show his hole cards at the beginning, but first used a more primitive but less difficult and costly trebuchet as a long-range firepower output means for siege warfare.

Although the speed of this trebuchet is slow and the accuracy is very limited, no matter how primitive the means are, it cannot hold up the large number, and if such dozens of trebuchets concentrate on throwing stone projectiles at a few points, the power is still quite terrifying. Barth's cousin was killed in 1629 when a stone bullet fell from the sky during the siege of the city by the Matar Blue Army, and Bart was not far from him at the time, witnessing his cousin's transformation from a living person into a pile of minced meat in a second, and the horrific sight is still repeated in Barth's mind despite the fact that three years have passed. And now the scene outside the city reminded Bart of the fear of being dominated by trebuchets.

With the sound of bull horns echoing on the plains outside the city, the siege of the Matara Blue Army finally began. Bart was a professional soldier after all, and although he still had an indelible fear in his heart, he quickly reined in his mind and directed the artillerymen to start loading ammunition.

While the trebuchet slowly reloaded, the Matar infantry began to push forward. However, the advance speed was much faster than before, and the soldiers with swords, guns and shields in their hands trotted all the way to Batavia, followed by many sappers carrying ladders, planks and other tools. [See the latest chapter of the book]

Although the opponent's troops were quickly within range of the artillery, Bart was in no hurry to open fire. He knew that the commander on the opposite side was waiting for the city fire cannon to fire, so that the other party could accurately determine the location of the city fire prevention point, and then use the trebuchet to carry out a concentrated attack. Bart had to keep the enemy closer, so that when the fight began, the artillery could fire at least two more rounds before the enemy retreated.

It was not until the troops of the Mata Blues had already entered a distance of three hundred meters in large numbers that Bart gave the order to open fire. The artillery fire on the city walls and the small strongholds outside the city rang out one after another, and about twenty artillery pieces were involved in the round of shelling. The smoke from the burning gunpowder enveloped the city, making it difficult for Bart to see the results of the bombardment for a moment.

However, by the time the smoke cleared, the stone projectiles thrown by the trebuchets had already flown from outside the city to the main forts at the head of the city. What Bart had feared before became a reality, these tall trebuchets did have a terrible range, and several heavy stone projectiles smashed the city, although they did not directly hit the defenders on the city wall, but seeing stones the size of marching drums falling from the sky, the terrifying feeling still made everyone scream and lower their bodies, and subconsciously dodge.

A stone bullet struck the wall near Barth, and the splattered rammed earth covered Barth's head and face. Bart spat out the scum in his mouth, and the blood of the Norsemen was aroused at once, and he stood up and cursed fiercely, and then shouted at the artillerymen to immediately continue to reload and shoot outside the city.

"Aim at those damn trebuchets and blast them off!" Bart commanded loudly.

After the Blues' trebuchets showed their might, Bart had to temporarily abandon the artillery fire on the advancing infantry units and instead target the more threatening trebuchets from a distance.

The infantry of the Matara Blue Army seized the gap and quickly advanced beyond the moat. Among the various siege equipment they carried, there was a combination of tools specifically designed to break through this obstacle. The panting sappers erected the long ladder in their hands on the edge of the trench and had it fall to the opposite bank, long enough to form a passage through the trench, which was about six meters wide.

However, if it was just such a narrow and rudimentary passage, it would obviously take a lot of time for the siege troops to go down the lì to Guò trench, so the ladders were built in pairs of two, and then someone followed the prefabricated planks laid on the ladder. There were also sappers who jumped into the trench with sticks as thick as their arms, trying to prop up the bridge in the middle with sticks in their hands. Two days ago, the Mataran vanguard had measured the depth and velocity of the water in the trenches to ensure the feasibility of this bridging tactic.

Seven or eight such improvised bridges were erected at the same time, and the main way to stop them was the fire of Dutch muskets on the defensive line. From time to time, Mataran soldiers, who were shot at each other, tumbled into the water from the side of the trench and on the ladder bridge, becoming floating corpses. The Matars also had their own means of returning fire at this distance, with bows and arrows and throwing short spears in addition to a small number of arquebuses. Although these cold weapons may not even be as accurate as arquebuses, hundreds of sharp blades were fired at the same time, and the covering effect of the fire made it inevitable that the defenders would begin to suffer casualties.

Thankfully, the city's artillery fire had paid off, and the two trebuchets were easily shredded by the shells that bounced off the ground, which gave the Dutch artillerymen more confidence. After all, the opponent's firing speed is much slower than artillery, and there are no cover facilities, so the side with artillery must have the advantage in this way.

The small number of Mataran soldiers who had already crossed the trenches from the ladder bridge began to attack the small forts outside the city, but they probably forgot that they were all within the range of the city's firepower, and the hundreds of muskets sticking out of the battlements of the walls quickly taught them the principles of human life. The firepower advantage of the fortress in design only began to be reflected at this moment, due to the existence of the fortress outside the city, there were no shooting dead spots near the city wall, and the inner and outer defense lines of the inner and outer high and low inside and outside naturally formed a three-dimensional fire output, which put the enemy who tried to attack the fortress or climb the city wall into a dilemma.

Beyond the northern gates of Batavia were two adjacent wedge-shaped fortresses, each with two hundred soldiers, and the fire cover at the head of the city would make any attempt to attack the gate directly come to naught. The Mataran army, who had crossed the moat, left nearly 200 corpses near the fort, but they had not even touched the edge of the gate.

The tactics of the Matar Blues crossing the moat were undoubtedly successful, but they were unable to overcome the special line of defense of the bastion, which was covered in thorns. The Mataran soldiers had almost no protection, which meant that their casualty rate during the battle was much higher than that of the Dutch defenders. After losing about 1,200 or 300 men, the Mata Blues gave a signal to retreat, and the survivors quickly retreated from the way they came.

The Dutch defenders did not rush to attack, after all, their only combat advantage was the strong fortress, and without this environment, even if they could fight with muskets, they were not necessarily better than the Matarans who fought with scimitars and spears. In face-to-face combat, they can have at most two or three rounds of shooting opportunities within the range of muskets, and the opponent's strength advantage is more than two or three times, and the tactics of using a sea of people are enough to kill all the Dutch in Batavia. Therefore, from the very beginning, the Dutch army implemented the concept of fighting to the death, with strong fortifications to drag down the opponent's offensive.

Taking advantage of the cessation of fighting, the defenders of the fortress outside the city hurried to the edge of the trench to clear the ladder bridge built by the Matarans. It was only then that they discovered that the Mataran had driven the ground with an iron hoop and firmly fastened both ends of the bridge to the shore. After the hoop was pulled out of the ground, it was seen that the whole picture was in the shape of a horseshoe, about a foot long, and the two ends were sharpened so that they could enter the ground, and it was obviously a specially made instrument. This also shows that the opponent's tactics are not improvised, but have been fully prepared and rehearsed.

Although the timing of the outbreak of this war was very sudden, both warring sides made a lot of preparations for it. The Dutch strengthened the fortifications, expanded the size of the garrison, and improved the management and dispatch measures in the city during wartime. The Mataran people have optimized the means of siege, whether it is a large trebuchet or the tactics of crossing the trench on this ladder bridge, it is something new that did not appear in the last encounter.

Bart didn't care to rest, and ordered to immediately begin counting the battle damage and attrition in this engagement. In terms of personnel, the battle losses were mainly concentrated in the fort outside the city, and the bow and arrow and spear throwing tactics of the Mada Blue Army at close range were really powerful, plus a few stone bullets that smashed directly into the fortress, causing a total of more than 20 dead to the defenders and more than 30 wounded who needed to retreat from the front line to recuperate. Thankfully, the defenders at the head of the city were not killed, only a dozen people were injured by the fragments of stone bullets, and none of the artillery or batteries were damaged, which greatly relieved Bart to breathe a sigh of relief. Although there were still spare artillery in the city, it was also time-consuming and laborious to carry the spare artillery onto the city wall and re-erect and calibrate.

As for the attrition, it was mainly in terms of weapons and ammunition, and in the time of an hour and seventeen minutes of engagement, the defenders fired a total of one hundred and forty shells, with a frequency of nearly two rounds per minute. It is difficult to count the number of shots of muskets, but there are more than 30 guns that need to be repaired due to malfunction after the war alone. At present, the speed at which the military workshops in Batavia City make muskets is only about two or three a day. If you are going to engage in high-intensity combat for days, then the speed of gun building may not be able to keep up with the speed of gun wear.

Van Diemen also came to the front line at this time, asking Commander Ba Ting about the situation of the battle. Bart had just finished speaking when he was interrupted by Van Dimen: "Lieutenant Barth, please inform me of the results of the battle, and the situation in terms of battle damage can be talked about later." ”

Bart was a little confused, and was stunned and did not immediately respond to Van Dimen.

Van Dimen sighed and explained, "Now the council needs to know the results immediately, Lieutenant Bart, I must let those stupid shareholders know that the city defense force is far more reliable than they think!

Bart came back to his senses: "General, please give me a little time, and I will let people count the results!"

Compared to the state of battle damage, the results of this battle are really worthy of the pride of the defenders. The Matara Blue Army suffered more than 1,000 casualties in this battle, and more than 600 corpses were left near the trench alone, and some of the wounded soldiers who escaped by luck may not survive until the time of recovery. Due to the hot temperature, the defenders could not afford to allow the corpses to rot and stink near the forts and walls, as that would most likely bring plague. Van Dimen organized thousands of people to dig a large pit outside the city to bury the corpses.

The Matara army on the opposite side also tacitly did not launch another attack at this time period, and it was not until the afternoon that the battlefield was cleared and the people retreated to the city, and the horn sounded again in the wilderness, and the Mata Lans army marched out of the camp and marched towards the city of Batavia.

Bart was very depressed to find out through the telescope that the number of trebuchets in the opponent's array had not decreased compared to the morning, but had increased by about a quarter, and it could be seen that the Mada Blues had indeed made careful preparations for this siege battle. Perhaps after a tentative attack in the morning, the opponent had already made some kind of adjustment to the offensive strategy.

"These damned infidels!" Bart put down his binoculars and ordered in a frustrated voice, "Order everyone to get into battle positions and get ready to fire!"