The Otter and Browwer at least had a choice as to how to deal with the current unfavorable situation, but the Victor and Spikes, whose mainmast had been broken, had no second way to go - in the current situation, it was almost impossible to escape from the fire of the shore defense guns.

However, Spikes is also an officer who has served in the East India Company for many years, and he has seen a lot of winds and waves after so many years of traveling from south to north, and although the current situation is critical, he has not lost his mind because of this. He had participated in the great battle with the Ming army in Penghu seven years earlier, and the scene in front of him was not so terrible compared to the siege he suffered at that time. At that time, they were besieged by a Ming army ten times their size, and the Dutch stationed in Magong Port in Penghu once thought that they had no chance to escape again. Although the current battle situation was passive, Spikes noticed that the opponent's offensive was only limited to more than a dozen batteries on the shore, and there was no matching outflanking at sea. Moreover, apart from the fire of the battery, there was no other movement of the opponent on the shore.

Spikes thinks that there are two possibilities, one is that the opponent thinks that the enemy can defeat the fleet with the advantage of artillery fire alone, and disdains to use other means to fight, but this probability should be very low, as long as the opponent's commander is not having a brain convulsion, he should not use such a stupid trick. And the other 5555, m.∧.co≌m is a possibility, that is, the opponent's strength is limited, and there is no further means of attack except for the fire of the battery, which seems to be seen from the fact that the opponent's artillery fire broke the main mast of the "Victor" immediately turned to the fire "Otter".

"Release the ship and let the soldiers land!" Spikes made a very bold decision at this juncture: "Give the Otter a signal and let them force the landing!" He did not choose to retreat, but ordered to abandon the ship and land, instead of retreating.

Brouwer, who was on the other boat, soon saw the flag on his companion's boat, and he immediately understood the other party's intentions, and gave a loud order to the crew: "Don't stop, keep going! Prepare the infantry for landing! Signal Van Longen behind him to the side to attract fire!"

Several of Van Longen's armed merchant ships had fallen slightly behind, and the cannon fire fired from the harbor batteries was not aimed at his ships, and after the battle his ships fired a few symbolic shots, and they were still in a state of soy sauce. But at this time, the troop carrier sent an order to let him advance, which really made Van Longen's heart feel like 10,000 grass and mud horses galloping by--big brother, this is a merchant ship, not a warship!

Resentment is resentment, Van Longen did not dare to just order his ship to escape first, if he did that, he would have to go to court martial when he returned to Batavia, and it was likely to affect his family's interests in the Far East, and Van Longen could not carry this cauldron. Therefore, he could only follow Blauvau's instructions and order the fleet to cut through the north side of the two troop carriers, so as to create an obstacle between the coastal fire and the troop carriers -- in vain, to serve as a shield for the two troop carriers, so that they could have a chance to land.

The consequences of this are not difficult to foresee, the firepower and the thickness of the ship's planks are not as thick as the warship, when facing this ferocious shore defense artillery fire, the damage to the ships and personnel will be more severe, but the military order is like a mountain, when the battlefield needs these ships to become cannon fodder, the sailors can only desperately move forward.

Before the Otter was crippled by shore defense fire, the merchant fleet finally intervened in time to provide a mobile protective wall for the warships. Van Longen watched with a knife as he watched as the ship at the front of the line was smashed by shells, the ship was still his old companion when he came to the Far East from the Netherlands more than ten years ago, and it had always been very well maintained, and Van Longen thought that it could at least let it run at sea for more than ten years, but after this battle, the ship would have to undergo a complete overhaul, if not outright scrapped.

Van Longen was in a hurry, but in fact, the commander of the Haihan militia on the shore, Mu Xiabai, was more anxious than him. He had to react to the Dutch slightly beyond his expectations, he originally thought that under such heavy artillery fire, the Dutch fleet, which was obviously inferior in firepower, would choose to retreat to preserve its strength, after all, the situation on the shore was still a mystery to the Dutch, and they should be more cautious before finding out who the opponent was and what strength he had. But they never expected that the Dutch were so brave that instead of being frustrated by the artillery fire, they rushed to the shore.

Such a reaction greatly disrupted Mushabai's tactical arrangement, and he could vaguely feel that he had made a mistake in the previous preparations, perhaps it was true that the port area should not be cleared in advance, but that the Dutch fleet should first dock and then attack while it was unprepared, and it would not be so easy for the fleet that had already lowered its sails and anchored to organize an effective resistance.

But at this point, Mushabai did not expect to have regret pills, and now the Dutch had made it clear that they were trying to land for battle, and what the Haihan militia army, which was not superior in strength, could do now was to inflict as much damage on the landing as much as possible.

"Order! As soon as you get to the No. 6 battery, aim at those ships, and attack the No. 6 to 12 battery!" Mu Shabai immediately made a decision, and immediately began to change the tactics of the coastal defense battery.

But by this time the ships that were struggling to get to the shore had turned into several boats, and with the existing artillery accuracy and firing speed of the defenders, it was mainly a matter of luck to hit such a moving target. And this time luck did not seem to continue to be on the side of Haihan, and all the shells smashed into the water.

The distance from the paralyzed "Victor" to the shore was only more than 200 meters, and it took the Dutch a short time to complete this thrilling voyage through artillery fire, the first boat carrying nineteen Dutch soldiers to the shore, they climbed the trestle with all their hands and feet, and then rushed to the nearest battery with arquebuses and long knives.

Of course, Mushaber was not stupid enough to deploy only artillery at each battery without arranging the infantry responsible for covering, in fact he still arranged three platoons of troops in advance, and scattered them to the positions of each battery as a guard, with an average of one squad at each battery.

Such a deployment of troops would have been understandable, because in Mushabai's plan, the opponent probably would not have a good chance of landing, and even if there were, it would only be sporadic personnel, and it was unlikely that they would take advantage of the firepower of the militia at the squad and platoon level. But the Dutch's way of fighting did make him stunned as soon as he came up, and not only did the other side not retreat in the face of artillery fire, but soon someone successfully landed ashore.

The Dutch landed less than fifty meters from the nearest battery, and since there were only a dozen or so Haihan infantry guarding it, there was no rotational line to shoot in formation, leaving them only one round of time to shoot. Fortunately, the squad leader who led the troops did not panic, but just asked his subordinates to line up in advance according to the usual training, raised their guns and aimed, and let the Dutch who rushed over enter the 30-meter area before giving the order to shoot.

As a volley of bullets fired, four or five people fell in the Dutch ranks, and the rest did not stop, these soldiers were not rookies, they had served in the East India Company for many years, and many of them had participated in many armed conflicts such as the Battle of Penghu, the Battle of Batavia, and the many armed conflicts with the Portuguese for colonies in Southeast Asia. In addition to weapons, their individual combat strength is actually not much worse than that of the Haihan militia.

Although they were surprised that their seemingly pirate opponents could have so many muskets, they were well aware that if they hesitated to charge forward, they would leave their opponents with a chance to reload, and they would be the unlucky ones instead. And after directly rushing over, the musket is actually similar to a burning stick in a face-to-face fight, and the chance of killing the opponent is much greater.

After completing the shooting, the Haihan officer immediately ordered everyone to put on their bayonets and keep their formation ready to fight. The six gunners on this battery also suspended their firing from the sea, and turned back to assist the infantry in dealing with the wave of enemies who rushed ashore.

The individual weapon used by the gunners was a two-foot-long wooden iron spear, which was also a standard weapon, and was specially used for close defense after the artillery fire was broken. The reason why muskets were not issued to the artillerymen was, first, in view of the fact that more resources were needed to train the artillery in corresponding tactics, and that the cost would be an impossible to ignore figure, and second, the staff believed that the enemy troops who could break through the artillery fire were most likely cavalry units, and that spears were far easier to deal with the enemy on horseback at close range than rifles with bayonets. Although the tide of battle on Ambuna Island was not envisioned by the General Staff, the melee combination of rifle bayonets and spears did work.

The Dutch's arquebuses fired a round at a distance of twenty meters, but only three Haihan soldiers were hit, and although the results were not satisfactory, they had no choice but to continue to rush forward. At this time, the Haihan soldiers told them with facts, what is called an inch long and an inch strong. The Dutchman's swords were at a loss in front of Haihan's bayonets and spears, and they had no chance to rush to their opponents to fight. Moreover, the infantry of the Haihan militia regiment have been systematically trained in bayonet fighting, and the cooperation of two or three people in this kind of chaotic battle is obviously much more effective than fighting alone, although the Dutch, who are tall and tall, have an absolute advantage in physical condition, they still cannot prevent this group of enemies with an average height of only more than one meter and six meters from stabbing them into their bodies with weapons in their hands.

Just as the first Dutch soldiers to land were fighting with the Haihan soldiers, the next few boats that had been lowered from the "Victorious" also arrived at the coast with more Dutch. Seeing this, Mushabai had to send out a reserve company lurking behind the first line of fire.

However, by this time, the Dutch had already formed a superior force on the first besieged fort, and the defenders of the fort, which had only a dozen men, could only retreat back to the fort first, and use the terrain to resist the siege of the enemy, who had already outnumbered their own strength. And when the gap in strength widened to a certain point, the superiority of the Haihan militia in weapons and tactics had been leveled, and soldiers continued to fall to the ground injured under the strong attack of the Dutch.

At this time, another Dutch troop carrier, the Otter, stumbled to the shore under the cover of several merchant ships. Two basin-sized holes had been punched by shells near the starboard waterline of the ship, and the hull had been tilted significantly under the continuous influx of seawater. Brower drew his sword and shouted as he commanded his men to jump from the side of the ship directly into waist-deep water, and then wade ashore to fight.

The fort where Mushaber was located was the farthest away from the Dutch landing, and it was just enough to have a panoramic view of the entire battlefield, which is why he set up his headquarters here. Watching the Dutch continue to pour ashore, Mushaber knew that his tactics had failed, and the only option now was to abandon the shore fortifications and retreat to the second line of defense.

Although the two nearby batteries to the left and right had turned their muzzles in an attempt to provide fire support to the besieged battery, they soon discovered that more and more Dutch were present on the shore and had already made the adjacent gun emplacements their next target.

At the beginning, for the sake of fire coverage and firing angles, the 12 batteries were arranged along the coastline of the harbor, and the distance from north to south was about one kilometer, and the strength of the troops defending the island was not enough to defend the whole line of fire for such a long line, so they had to disperse their forces. And the consequences of this are undoubtedly quite a failure in today's battle situation, and the enemy only needs to land and break through one of the batteries, which is almost equivalent to breaking through the entire line of defense.

This kind of strict mistake in tactical arrangement is not Mu Xiabai's responsibility alone, because the initial defensive arrangement is not his personal intention, but the staff department decided after considering the local geographical environment and conducting tactical deductions, and the design and tactical arrangements of the fort were all arranged before the attack on this place, and Mu Xiabai only acted in accordance with military orders. However, this was undoubtedly a serious mistake by the military, and the scattered batteries that cost life and money not only failed to prevent the enemy from landing, but also made the already thin force defending the island even more thin.

"Send the signal, retreat on all fronts, move to the second line of defense, and the second company will be in charge of the rear of the palace!" Muchaper paused and continued: "Dispose of all weapons and ammunition when the artillery evacues!"

The artillery, which weighed hundreds of pounds, obviously could not be withdrawn with the troops, and these things must not fall into the hands of the Dutch, otherwise they would immediately become the opponent's weapons, so Mushaber ordered the artillery to dispose of the equipment before retreating.