Watching the sailboat slowly sail away from the port, Qian Tiandun waved his hand to Luo Wudan on the deck for the last time, and when he turned his head, there was no smile on his face: "Pass my order, from now on, all personnel will stop taking turns to arrange rest." Naval patrols maintain a 10-nautical-mile radius, and when they find a suspicious vessel, they immediately drive away, and the captain has the right to open fire. All the materials on the wharf were transported into Nanri Village, and the Ming army was notified to let them send people to help, so that these lazy people would not get sick in idle!"

According to Qian Tiandun's request, Fujian officials should send at least one month's supplies to the garrison on the island before the start of the war. The consumption of 2,000 people in a month is really not a number, and all kinds of materials are piled up on the docks. The defending side of the island deliberately did not build fortifications near the wharf, and now that the war was about to start, it was natural that they had to transport all these materials into the treasury of Nanri Village and store them. Of course, Qian Tiandun didn't really think that Eighteen Zhi was capable of confronting him on Nanri Island for a month—even if their combat strength was enough to compete with Haihan, it would be difficult to organize an effective sea supply line to maintain the combat needs of the combatants. If Eighteen Zhi really planned to try it, then Qian Tiandun would not be stingy to let his eight warships teach the pirates a lesson and teach them what real maritime guerrilla warfare is.

The day after the order was given, the navy's patrol ships had a brief exchange of fire with Eighteen Shiba's ship at sea. However, when the opponent found that the earthen cannon on his ship was less than one-fifth of the opponent's range, he decisively turned the bow of the ship and ran east. The patrol ships had no intention of pursuing, and they were ordered to drive away, so that the pirate ships would not easily approach the vicinity of Nanri Island for reconnaissance.

Five days later, the Haihan warships cruising the open sea discovered that the pirate ships belonging to the Eighteen Zhi had begun to assemble near Meizhou Island in the south, as if intent on cutting off the sea passage between Nanri Island and Quanzhou. Qian Tiandun believed that this was a signal that Shibazhi was about to launch an attack, so he ordered the navy's combat ships to recover all their range of activities within five nautical miles of Nanri Island, while the other logistics ships retreated north to the line of Pingtan Island, more than 10 nautical miles away, to hide temporarily.

On 3 August, more than 50 sailing ships had gathered in the waters near Meizhou Island, but the other side did not seem to have any intention of immediately going north to start a war, but continued to stay on Meizhou Island.

"Fifty ships, there should be thousands of people, but this strength is definitely not enough for me 8888, m.↑.c√omstyle_tt; We eat. Qian Tiandun lay on the table and complained while studying the charts: "If they want to attack Nanri Island, they must at least gather more than double the number of troops." ”

"The subordinates thought that they had not been launched, not only because they did not have enough troops, but also because they were probably waiting for the Dutch. Takahashi interjected.

Qian Tiandun glanced up at him, and said, "Yours also makes sense, if the Dutch really appear in this sea area, then it will probably be the time for them to make a move." ”

Takahashi Minami rubbed his hands and said with a look of eagerness: "I've always listened to these Dutch people who are fierce and good at fighting, and this time I finally have a chance to have a fight with them!"

After another three days, the Dutchman's unique sailing ship finally appeared in the waters of Meizhou Island. According to the reconnaissance, the Dutch sent six sailing ships this time, and judging from the tonnage and the number of gun windows on the side of the side, their firepower level should be close to that of the "Exploration class" warships of the Haihan Navy, and slightly inferior to the "Expedition class". This also reassured Qian Tiandun and others stationed on the island, such a few ships are probably barely enough to deal with the Fujian Navy, but if they want to fight with the Haihan Navy, I am afraid that there is still a big difference.

However, Qian Tiandun was not in a hurry to put the navy's warships on the frontal battlefield, and after confirming the enemy's situation, except for leaving two "exploration-class" warships to continue to reconnoiter the enemy's situation on the periphery, all the other ships also retreated to Pingtan Island to vacate the landing site on Nanri Island.

Qian Tiandun's battle plan was very simple, that is, to let the enemy go to the island, and then use the flesh and blood grinding plate of Nanrizhai to consume the enemy's troops. When they find that there is no hope of victory, the Haihan Navy will intercept their evacuation route from the sea and give them a second blow. However, the appearance of the Dutch may become a variable in this battle plan, after all, six armed sailing ships are already a force to be reckoned with, and there are only eight ships on the Haihan side, and they want to intercept the ships of the Eighteen Zhi while fighting with them, unless all the Haihan navy has learned the doppelganger technique.

On 8 August, the flotilla that had been entrenched near Meizhou Island for many days finally moved and headed north. At this time, nearly three months have passed since the Haihan militia conquered Nanri Island.

Although the two places were only about twenty nautical miles apart, due to the size of the fleet, it was already late afternoon when the attacker's large force reached the harbor north of Nanri Island. Zheng Zhilong himself did not personally go to the front line to direct the operation, but led the team by Zheng Zhihu, who was bent on taking this opportunity to make amends for his previous shame, and the fleet sent by the Dutch East India Company to help was commanded by an officer named Van der Wegen.

In addition to his military position, Van der Wegen also had an identity as a distant nephew of the commander Hans, and had fought in the European theater before coming to the Far East. Hans also had the mentality of taking care of his own people when he gave him the task of taking care of his own people, and if Vanderwegen could make some achievements in this engagement, then he could recommend this young and promising officer to the company headquarters in return. Of course, Hans also considered the risk of fighting with the Haihan people, but being a soldier and eating food was originally a matter of wealth and danger, so where did the credit come from without risk? And Vanderwegen was also very active in this matter, and he also wanted to see how capable this mysterious force that had been hiding behind Xu Xinsu was in the military aspect.

However, as in the agreement with the Eighteen Chi, the Dutch did not undertake the task of landing on the island, but only on the sea guard. If the Haihan tried to fight a naval battle, the Dutch fleet would be the main force in the engagement. In the field of naval warfare, the Dutch were not afraid of anyone, not even a rising star like Haihan.

Van der Wegen still had a slight regret about this arrangement, because he had heard that the Haihan army had taken the island with heavy artillery fire. Van der Wegen didn't really believe in the fierce artillery fire described by Eighteen Zhi, how could these bun pirates who had never seen the market know what the real fierce artillery fire looked like! Of course, from their descriptions, Van der Wegen could be sure that the number of artillery guns equipped by the Haihan army was indeed quite a lot, and it was reasonable for Eighteen Zhi to suffer losses against them.

This time, Shibazhi spent a lot of money and temporarily bought twenty artillery pieces from Dayuangang to participate in the war, because of his own gunners, Shibazhi also hired about thirty people from Dayuangang who could operate artillery. Van der Wegen thought that these weapons should be enough to give the Eighteen Zhi an advantage in firepower in the engagement, and if they still couldn't defeat the Haihan, then they should have disbanded and returned home as farmers to farm.

On the fourth day of the afternoon, after confirming that there were no ships in the harbor, the fleet of the eighteen-shiba finally poured into the harbor north of Nanri Island and occupied the only pier on the island without firing a single shot. This easy victory gave the pirates a boost of confidence, and some even wondered if the garrison on the island had already withdrawn due to too much pressure.

"There are no defenses even on the docks, and the Haihan people are just that!" Van der Wegen's ship did not enter the port, but the news quickly reached him under the guò banner, which lowered his expectations for the battle.

Zheng Zhihu was beaten by the Haihan militia last time, and this time he was particularly careful to go to Nanri Island, and first sent a group of people to land on the island, and only after making sure that there was no ambush near the wharf, he let the fleet enter the port and dock, and the scout horse in charge of reconnaissance went out to the vicinity of Nanri Village to observe the movements of the defenders.

Eighteen Zhi dispatched a total of more than 80 galleons this time, more than 2,000 people participated in the battle, although the scale seems to be not as good as the past several large-scale battles against the left of the center, but this time the personnel and ships are all screened, the ships are all short age and fast speed good ships, people are all old fur seals who have been fighting in Fujian waters for many years, can be regarded as the elite of the Eighteen Zhi.

Of course, the more troops, the greater the grasp of the truth, it is not that Zheng Zhilong does not understand, but he is really powerless and unable to do it. There are still tens of thousands of members in Eighteen Zhi, but even if so many people stay in Penghu, the daily consumption is an extremely staggering number, let alone fighting. In the past two or three years, Shibazhi has been defeated repeatedly, but instead of benefiting from the war, it has spent huge amounts of money and cannot make ends meet. If it weren't for the support of several smuggling routes in Northeast Asia, maybe Eighteen Zhi would have gone bankrupt and broken up a long time ago.

The same was true for this attack on Nanri Island, although there were people, but it was difficult for Eighteen Zhi to provide sufficient combat supplies. The number of troops sent is inversely proportional to the time they can continue to fight, the more troops they send, the shorter the time they can fight on the battlefield, if Eighteen Zhi comes out, then they can probably only take a day trip to Nanri Island and then have to hurry home. After weighing all sides, it was finally decided to send troops - at least logistically sufficient to support them in more than ten days of operations on Nanri Island.

After all, Eighteen Zhi was just a group of pirates, and the constraints such as combat discipline were very lax, and it took more than an hour just for these people to land and assemble. When this stall was finished, the sky slowly darkened. Although Zheng Zhihu was also extremely dissatisfied with this situation, the only thing he was glad about was that his opponent did not seize this opportunity to attack from Nanri Village, otherwise with such a messy situation on the dock, it was basically impossible to organize an effective counterattack quickly.

Seeing that the sky was getting dark, Zheng Zhilong also knew that he could not organize an offensive today, so he could only order to be stationed on the spot, and at the same time, he did not forget to send some secret posts to garrison on the periphery.

Then this qiē did not escape the surveillance of Nanri Village. When Shi Diwen was still stationed here, he personally designed and supervised the construction of a wooden structure lookout, which is located in Nanri Village, with a height of 17 meters, and the height of Nanri Village itself, as long as you use a good telescope, you can basically have an unobstructed view of the northern part of Nanri Island, including the harbor.

Qian Tiandun had been watching the situation of the port from the lookout since the afternoon, and the scattered chaos during the landing of Eighteen Zhi naturally did not escape his eyes. Seeing that the opponent gave up his plan to launch an offensive today because the time dragged on too late, Qian Tiandun was actually still a little disappointed.

After coming down from the lookout, Qian Tiandun handed the telescope to Gao Qiao Nan: "You go and prepare, and we will go out of the village at night." ”

"Night attack?" Takahashi Minami was immediately excited. This subject was practiced a lot when Annan was stationed, but it was not used almost once in actual combat, and Takahashi Minami has always looked forward to such an opportunity to test the results of training on the battlefield.

Qian Tiandun nodded and said, "You go and inform the special operations company directly under the battalion headquarters to gather at midnight." ”

"This operation is led by a subordinate?" asked Takahashi Minami with a tentative look of anticipation.

"Normal operations allow you to lead the team, but I'll lead the team myself in this night attack. Qian Tiandun patted Gao Qiao Nan on the shoulder and said, "Don't be disappointed, when you have enough ability, I will naturally give you the task." ”

There are still some reasons why Qian Tiandun is so confident in night attack tactics. First of all, it is naturally because all the candidates for this special operations company were selected by him from among the soldiers of the entire Annam Military Region, and the individual soldiers were generally good, and none of them suffered from night blindness. Secondly, these people have received relatively systematic night raid combat training in Annan, and they have also been issued with several domestically produced night vision devices - of course, they can only be used during the operation, after all, the battery life of the supporting equipment is limited. Although these are not high-end goods, they are completely black technology that is enough to beat opponents on the battlefield of this era.

When Shi Diwen left a few days ago, he specially left a set of American-style night vision equipment for Qian Tiandun, which was the most used ANVIS-9 type by pilots of the Chinese and American Air Forces. Military products are worth what you pay for, which is ten times more expensive than domestic products, and imported products do have more advantages in imaging quality. After Qian Tiandun tried it, he had already moved his mind to find an opportunity to wear this thing to the battlefield to fight.

Qian Tiandun specially notified his subordinates a few hours in advance, the purpose of which was to allow them to have sufficient rest time to recharge their energy before the dispatch. Half a year before the operation, Qian Tiandun gathered all the officers above the squad leader level of the special operations company to explain to them the general battle plan and combat intentions, and distributed some special equipment that needed to be used to them.