Kou can go, and I can go.

The landing force's unexpected occupation of Sanmarinda was a clever move to turn passivity into initiative, and it practiced the combat strategy of "you fight yours, I fight mine" with practical actions, and the results were surprisingly good, and it really hit the Dutch colonists off guard.

For the Red River Valley side, it is a good deal to pay a practical benefit of a samarinda to gain a foothold in Borneo.

Most of the plantations in Samarinda belonged to the Dutch colonists, and the Red River Valley was using the Dutch plantations to make a favor and introduce a consortium with a British aristocratic background to complicate the originally simple problem.

Among them, there are standard chartered banks and HSBC bank, which are old British consortia, behind which there are a large number of British aristocratic investors, who have held shares in the above banks for decades and have great influence in China.

The wealth is moving, and these British-funded consortia still dare to do it knowing that they are being used, and they really have a good tooth.

The Dutch could never have dreamed that the Earl of Queensland didn't care about a single marinda, let alone these plantations, and that his real target was Balepapan, more than 70 kilometres away, which was rich in oil resources, a strategically important area that would be acquired as soon as possible.

In the original history

Balikpapan's rich oil resources will not be discovered by the Dutch colonists in a few years, and the Earl of Queensland is now going to take possession of this treasure land.

Just when everyone's eyes were focused on Sammarinda, He Fang, the commander-in-chief of the combined fleet, led all the warships out of the nest and headed towards the port of Surabaya.

A few days later

Surabaya Strait

On the wide sea, more than a dozen warships slowly advanced in a zigzag, and the tall steel triangular masts on the ships hunted and fluttered the giant dragon flag of the Red Mountain, challenging the Royal Dutch Task Force huddled in the harbor of Surabaya.

On the shore artillery position in the port of Surabaya

Vice Admiral Jan Kork-Burhoff, commander of the Royal Dutch Navy Task Force, lowered his binoculars with a gloomy face, and he was almost mad at the rampant behavior of Queenslanders slapping their faces.

However, reason tells Lieutenant General Jan Kork-Bulkhov that now is not the best time for a decisive battle.

"Damn Queensland mad dogs, when the Holstein fleet returns, I'll swear I'm going to blast you all to the bottom with naval guns. Lieutenant General Jan Kok Bulkhov couldn't help but curse, turned his face and asked; Let's find out, where has the reinforcement fleet from Europe arrived? ”

"Report to Your Excellency Commander, the "Ichstein" fleet arrived at the Suez Canal on May 5, left the Suez Canal on May 7 and continued southward, and according to the plan it should arrive at the port of Banda Aceh on the island of Sumatra on May 14 for coal and water replenishment, today is already May 10, and the reinforcement fleet should be somewhere off the coast of the port of Cochin in the Indian Ocean. The duty officer replied.

"The speed is too slow, immediately send a telegram to the port of Banda Aceh, ordering Holstein" to "immediately go south after the replenishment of coal and water, without delay, and must arrive at the port of Surabaya no later than May 19." "For the glory of the Royal Navy, Vice Admiral Jan Kork-Bulkhov could not stand the open slap in the face from the enemy.

He now couldn't wait to lead the fleet to fight the Queenslanders to the death, to fight back the enemy's provocations with naval guns, and every minute of waiting was torment.

"Yes, Your Excellency, Commander." The duty officer went to send a telegram on a run.

The Queensland Fleet, which was encircled outside the port of Surabaya, was a great humiliation for the officers and men of the entire Royal Navy Task Force.

The officers and men of the fleet were so eager to fight that many captains even rushed to the office of His Excellency the Commander to express their thoughts of not sparing a fight, but they were all repulsed by Vice Admiral Jan Kork-Bulkhov, and even cursed such fierce words as "idiots, stupid pigs......".

The facts of the battle of Malacca with iron have proved that the sail warships can no longer adapt to the new situation of maritime hegemony in the steam age, and even if they are new naval guns, they cannot recover the fate of withdrawing from the stage of history.

Vice Admiral Jan Kork-Bulhoff now has a strong distrust of the sail fleet under his hands, not because of the Royal Navy officers and men, but because of the damned old sail ships.

The sail warships that were generally retired from active service in the British, French, and German naval powers turned out to be the main force of the Royal Netherlands Navy, which clearly reflected the loneliness and helplessness of this former maritime power, and the glory of yesterday was no more.

The Dutch East Indies had six steam ironclad warships, and in addition to the "Seven Provinces" and "Lypever", they were also equipped with four shallow-water heavy gunboats, which were commonly known as "mosquito gunboats".

The four shallow-water heavy gunboats imported from the British, with a displacement of 440 tons, armed with an 11-inch (280 mm) cannon and two 12-pounder secondary guns, were so powerful on paper that they could only be used as mobile batteries in port.

The most distinctive feature of the Rendale gunboat was that it abandoned the traditional way of arranging the guns on both sides of the hull, and installed a 280 mm breech gun in the bow.

In peacetime, the cannon was hidden in the deck.

When using it, it is necessary to first drop anchor (in case the hull of the ship tilts and sinks into the sea due to too much recoil during the cannon's attack), and then the cannon is raised within 6 minutes through the hydraulic system, and after firing a cannonball, it will be slowly lowered under the huge recoil push, and the soldier reloads the cannonball below deck for the next attack.

These gunboats were introduced in 1867, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands purchased four in 1871 to equip the Dutch East Indies fleet.

This kind of cheap boat carrying a huge cannon will capsize if the sea is a little rougher, and it will not be able to participate in the battle for supremacy in the sea, Vice Admiral Jan-Kork-Bulkhov can only attack with the old sail warship, saying that it is false to say that he is not aggrieved in his heart.

It is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice

As a senior member of the army, Vice Admiral Jan Kork-Burkhov knew that the Kingdom of the Netherlands was in financial distress today, that His Majesty's coffers were empty, that the poor could run rats, and that they could not afford to buy cutting-edge warships.

In this day and age

The world's naval powers, including the United Kingdom, are exploring new ways of naval warfare for steam ironclad warships, so various experimental warships have appeared, and the British Randolph shallow-water heavy gunboat is one of them.

In addition to customers such as the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Austria-Hungary, the Manchu government was also one of the big customers.

In 1874, Fusang sent troops to invade Taiwan, known as the "Taiwan Incident".

The Manchu opposition was shocked and immediately took countermeasures, one of which was to buy ships from the British.

The hypothetical enemy was Fuso, and what kind of ships to purchase to consolidate coastal defense and resist foreign aggression became the most important issue for the government and the opposition at that time.

As a well-known minister of foreign affairs, Li Hongzhang knew that what the imperial court needed most was a powerful first-class ironclad ship, but he also knew that the imperial treasury had been tossed by the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion, and he could not afford to purchase a first-class ironclad ship.

When Li Hongzhang was very worried, the Englishman Hurd (the British General Excise Department in the Qing Dynasty) brought good news, a new type of warship was launched, it was a cheap and large ironclad nemesis, its name was the Randolph gunboat......

The Manchu Qing Dynasty ordered four improved Randal gunboats from the British Arstrong Company, which were named four ships: Zhendong, Zhenxi, Zhennan, and Zhenbei.

The class of ships was built in 1879 and sailed to Dagu on November 30 of that year, and was left by Li Hongzhang to be assigned to the Beiyang Navy, and the four ships of Longxiang, Huwei, Feiting, and Cedian, which had been used in Beiyang for several years, were sent to Shanghai for overhaul, and then allocated to Nanyang for use.

Seeing that these four shallow-water gunboats were cheap and easy to use, Lu Province entrusted Li Hongzhang to buy two on his behalf, naming them Zhenzhong and Zhenbian Second Ships.

These two ships were built in 1881 and arrived in China on August 22 of the same year, but they were cut off by Li Hongzhang in the name of "joint exercises" and assigned to the Beiyang sequence.

It can be seen from this

The Rendall gunboats belonged to the existential fleet on paper, and could not play a role in the naval supremacy with the combined Queensland fleet, and when the sea was stormy, it sank on its own, and could only be used as a mobile battery to defend the port of Surabaya.

For four days

The Combined Queensland Fleet challenged off the port of Surabaya, and the Royal Dutch Navy task force cowered in the harbor and made up its mind not to fight.

May 14th

Noon

Captain's room of the flagship of the United Fleet "Albatross".

"Wow......" There were a few knocks on the door, and He Fang put down the documents in his hand and said casually; In. ”

Coming in from outside the door was the confidential officer of the fleet, who raised his hand in a solemn salute and presented a document with both hands; "Your Excellency Commander-in-Chief, this is an urgent military information sent by the black-clothed guards by speedboat, it is a special encrypted document, please read it."

"Okay, I'll see right away." He Fang replied, watched the confidential officer turn away, and took the hatch with him.

He Fang solemnly opened the special encryption piece, which was full of numbers and symbols, and he took out a hardcover copy of the Arabic story "One Thousand and One Nights", and recorded it on the paper against the number symbols.

Moments later, an important piece of information was presented;

At 9:20 a.m. on May 14, a mixed flotilla consisting of the 2,650-ton steamer "Ichstein" from Europe, accompanied by two 1,470-ton light cruisers "Fury" and "Courage", two coal carriers and two German-flagged munitions ships, arrived at the port of Banda Aceh.

The port crew, who had been prepared for the long time, immediately replenished the small fleet with coal water and fresh vegetables, and according to the port replenishment schedule, the entire replenishment was expected to be completed within 12 hours.

Well, great! Finally grabbed your tail.

He Fang slammed the table excitedly, this important information came too timely, allowing his various strategies to be implemented.

If the Combined Fleet can achieve the final victory in the battle at sea, this important information will be of great merit.

The telegram was sent by the black-clad agents in Banda Aceh and sent directly to the port of Surabaya through the Dutch cable telegraph office, which then arrived at the fleet by speedboat by Surabaya port agent with little delay.

Looking at the wall clock, it was 12:45 p.m. on May 14, and the important military information from Banda Aceh had been delivered to the Combined Fleet in just three hours and 25 minutes, with an astonishing efficiency.

The black-clothed guard agent bought time for the combined fleet, and He Fang Huo Ran stood up and rushed to the bow bridge with a trot and commanded loudly; "The fleet is all turned, the target is the Strait of Malacca, and the attack is at full speed."