It's not that the Dutch can't imagine the consequences of doing so, but even if they know clearly that this is a disguised effort to help their rivals, there is no better way to change the balance of power between the two sides in the Fujian Strait. Haihan's foothold on the island of Taiwan was unstoppable, and the only thing the Dutch could do now was to find a way to protect their Dayuan port from being attacked by their opponents.

When Li Dou returned to the living room, his confidence was much more substantial than before. Now that Qian Tiandun has made it clear that he supports such negotiations, Li Dou no longer needs to worry about what responsibility he will bear for this.

"We can consider retaining the East India Company's right to govern the Port area, but there is a premise for that. After Li Dou came back, he immediately put forward the conditions that he had just discussed with Qian Tiandun: "Send us at least 1,000 immigrants of the type specified by us every month, if you can do this, then we can talk about the details of the next transaction." ”

Philip shook his head again and again: "Dayuan Port originally belonged to the East India Company, and this 'reservation' is not acceptable to contemptible people. In addition, as for the designation of the type of immigration, the conditions should not be too detailed, otherwise even if the contemptible people search the Far East, they may not be able to get the person you want. ”

"The conditions of immigration require that we negotiate slowly, and there is no need to rush this. After talking to Qian Tiandun, Li Dou had already made the priorities of this matter very clear: "Since you have any objections to the arrangement of Dayuangang, let's talk about the matter of Dayuangang first." ”

In such a negotiation of vital interest to both sides, it is not possible for two negotiators to sit down and reach a final agreement in a few sentences, and both sides must pay a certain compromise in exchange for an agreement. Compared with the Netherlands, Haihan does have a relatively obvious military advantage in this area, but if it really wants to use force, it does not mean that

This kind of grinding work, Li Dou has been relatively proficient in the past few years. From the very beginning of his transfer to Wanshan Port to engage in port management, he has been dealing with people from all walks of life, and he has a lot of contact with all kinds of people, and he is no stranger to negotiations. In (8) dǐng (8) diǎn (8) small (8) said, .≈.▽os_ (); At present, among the staffing of the Penghu base, Li Dou should be the most suitable person to undertake the work of negotiation.

At the same time as the Dutch envoy Philip was negotiating, Qian Tiandun was also arranging for the navy stationed in the local area to prepare for an armed march near Dayuan Port in the near future. Qian Tiandun knew that the reason why the Dutch took the initiative to come to negotiate was that they felt the pressure brought by the nearby Penghu base, but this pressure was obviously not strong enough, so that the Dutch thought that they still had room for bargaining. And what Qian Tiandun had to do was to put the muzzle of the cannon directly into the throat of the Dutch, so that they could recognize the fact that they were strong and weak now.

Due to financial problems, the establishment of the Navy's Fourth Fleet, which was supposed to be deployed at the Penghu base, has been missing the addition of the flagship, and at present, four "Exploration-class" and four "Expedition-class" warships constitute the main combat strength of the local garrison navy, in addition to three supply ships, two troop carriers, and two fast reconnaissance boats. Although the flagship is still missing from the lineup, the actual combat effectiveness should have far exceeded that of the Dutch armed fleet in Dayuangang.

If it is a large-scale combat operation, then the preparation period will definitely be relatively long, but Dayuan Port is only a few dozen nautical miles away from Penghu Magong Port, and with the speed of the Haihan fleet, it is enough to run back and forth in one day. Coupled with the fact that it was only a demonstration rather than a fight, the corresponding preparations were much simplified. Of course, in the military's internal records, the operation certainly does not mention its true purpose, and is simply an ordinary daily training trip for the Fourth Fleet.

On 5 November, the negotiations came to an end, and Philip, who had not made much progress on the Haihan side, returned to Dayuan Port by boat. Except for Haihan's agreement to trade with people in exchange for retaining the East India Company's right to govern Dayuan Port, almost all other conditions were stubborn. This was a cut short of the bottom line that the Dutch expected to accept, and Philip did not dare to make a decision, so he could only go back and inform Hans, the commander, and let him make the corresponding decision.

As soon as Philip left, the Fourth Fleet set out from Magong Harbor early the next morning. All but two troop carriers and one supply ship remained in the harbor, all other ships were involved in the operation. Qian Tiandun personally led the command of the team and sailed to Dayuan Port in the southeast direction with the fleet.

Compared with the central region of Taiwan where Qian Tiandun set foot with his special operations troops last time, the natural conditions of Dayuangang are obviously much superior. The width of the entrance channel here is only more than 100 meters, and the land on the left and right sides of the channel is like a pair of pincers of crabs tightly guarding the key point of entering the harbor, and the dock built by the Dutch is located at the northeast end of the harbor. As long as enough shore forts were built in these two places, it would be enough to defend against invaders from the sea.

The Spaniards also tried to challenge the Dutch in their early years, but when they realized the difficulty of attacking the place at the cost of two sailing ships, they wisely chose to retreat and went to the north of the island of Taiwan to find another foothold. If they really want to fight hard and don't sink ten or eight ships in Dayuan Port, it is estimated that they will not even have the opportunity to touch the shore, and such a price is absolutely unwilling to pay by the Spaniards.

The Haihan fleet set out early in the morning and arrived off the coast of Dayuan Port in the afternoon. And this large, well-marked fleet was already attracting the attention of Dutch ships patrolling the seas a few nautical miles from the coast.

"Look at these Dutchmen so nervous!" Takahashi Minami couldn't help but complain when he saw the fireworks warning signal rising into the sky from the Dutch sailboat.

"These guys are quite alert, and they will record the situation and go back and think about it to see if there is a way to get rid of their patrol boat in advance. "Qian Tiandun's concern diǎn is clearly different.

If the Dutch had warned the land earlier, it would have been much more difficult to launch an offensive from the sea, and this was exactly what Qian Tiandun wanted to avoid as a commander. But there are no long-range weapons in this day and age that have a very high hit rate and are lethal enough to sink a small or medium-sized sailing ship at visual range in a fraction of the time. Unless the opposing patrol boat is far enough away from the coast, it will be difficult to subdue or sink it before it sends a warning signal.

The few small boats on the surface of the sea immediately turned around and sailed towards the entrance of the harbor like frightened small animals. The purpose of the Haihan side was to deter, and they had no intention of pursuing these ships, so they watched them flee back to the harbor from afar.

About half an hour later, in addition to the Haihan fleet, there were only seagulls passing by from a low altitude on the sea outside Dayuan Port. However, the Haihan fleet did not get too close to the entrance to the harbor and kept a relatively safe distance - from the binoculars, you can see that there are several shore defense batteries on each side of the coast on both sides of the entrance channel. Qian Tiandun didn't want his subordinates to risk testing the other party's range, because this kind of information only needed to be bought from Dayuangang for money, and there was no need to risk himself. Moreover, Qian Tiandun did not intend to give the Dutch the pretext of breaking the armistice agreement first, after all, this operation was to coerce the Dutch to agree to the terms of the trade, not to really attack Dayuan Port.

"Inform the ships to keep a distance of two kilometers from the coastline and not to get too close. Qian Tiandun ordered: "Let the two reconnaissance boats go in the north and south directions, reconnoiter the nearby coastline, limit it to ten nautical miles, and withdraw immediately if there is any situation." ”

The signal flag on the flagship quickly transmitted Qian Tiandun's order to the other warships, and the two light reconnaissance boats immediately turned around and sailed in the north and south directions respectively.

This kind of reconnaissance boat, named the "Dragonfly class", can be simply regarded as a miniature version of the "exploration class", the hull shape and sails are copied from the design of the large ship, but the tonnage is less than 50 tons, only about a quarter of the larger "exploration class" warship. Each "Dragonfly-class" reconnaissance boat has a crew of only 10 people, and the wooden hull does not have any superfluous equipment and supplies, nor is it equipped with artillery, and almost all hull components that can reduce weight and drag have been eliminated. The steel keel and mast core used on large warships have also been abandoned for installation on this kind of reconnaissance boat. Due to its light hull and shallow draft, it can also travel from the mouth of the sea to deep into the inland river to carry out tasks. Although the speed was not quite a dozen knots as the two catamarans of the Flying Speed and Bliksem, the average speed of more than eight knots was enough for this brisk little sailing ship to leave its contemporaries far behind at sea.

Of course, superior performance must also be sacrificed, and the price paid for this by the "Dragonfly-class" reconnaissance boat is that there is almost no comfort in the living space of the crew on board, and in addition to the cabin for supplies, there are only a few hammocks for the crew to rest on shift, and there is not even a stove to provide hot food. If the time to go to sea is more than five days, the reconnaissance craft must be resupplied en route in order to maintain its operation.

However, for the current Haihan Navy, these drawbacks are relatively easy to overcome, after all, when the Haihan Navy really carries out combat missions, it will ensure relatively stable supply operations, and the area of activity is often not too far away from the mainland.

In the first half of this year, the Shengli Port Shipyard built four of them at the same time, and after completing various tests after being launched, they were assigned to the Third Fleet stationed in Cam Ranh Port in Annam and the Fourth Fleet stationed in Fujian, replacing the previous practice of using "Exploration-class" warships as reconnaissance ships. It has been less than two months since this kind of reconnaissance boat came to Penghu to enter service, and it was not even allowed to make a dispatch in the previous landing in Muddy Water Creek, and this time the Fourth Fleet went south to demonstrate outside Dayuan Port, which can be regarded as the first time that this kind of reconnaissance boat has carried out a mission.

On the one hand, he used force to deter the Dutch who were undecided, and on the other hand, he was also to test the daily training situation of various units of the navy. There is also a secret purpose, that is, to reconnoiter the coastal area near Dayuan Port by the way, and even if you don't land, you must at least find out the situation of the nearby coastline, and if you really want to solve Dayuan Port by force one day, at least there is no need to temporarily cram.

The Haihan fleet calmly conducted various sailing training in the sea off Dayuan Harbor, but the Dutch in Geranza Fort could not keep calm at this time. When the news of the appearance of the Haihan fleet flying the red and blue flags outside the port of Dayuan reached the castle of Geranza, Hans immediately ordered all local personnel and institutions to enter a state of war. The first reaction of the East India Company's chief officer was that the Haihan people had lost all their patience and were about to storm Dayuan Port. Although Hans had thought more than once about what to do if such a situation occurred, and had made an emergency plan accordingly, when the moment came, Hans sadly found that the area under his jurisdiction was still a mess.

With the exception of a very small number of soldiers who rushed to combat posts as soon as they received orders, the first thing the vast majority of people did was to go home and pack up their fines and prepare to flee. Although it is said that the Haihan people have blocked the only way to enter and exit the port, these people still have no sense of resisting the invasion of the enemy. Although there were very few of them who had seen the Haihan militia, they generally believed that the local armed forces were not enough to stop the attack of the Haihan people - after all, the eighteen Zhi with tens of thousands of troops had already been defeated by the Haihan people's guns, so what could Dayuangang, who only had less than a thousand troops, use to stop the Haihan people?

There are a lot of coastal defense batteries built near Dayuangang, but these guns have not been fired for several years, and whether they can continue to be used safely is another matter, the key is that the local gunners who know how to fire artillery have long been unskilled, and it is difficult to say whether they can withstand the assault of the Haihan fleet in a fight.

Once the port was breached, the only defense the Dutch could rely on was Fort Geranza, which had only completed the first phase of the project. The castle was built in 1624 and took nearly 30 years of construction to be completed.