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The victory at Kokura Castle allowed Zheng Zhilong to lose nearly a dozen small boats, but the main warships were not damaged. However, Putmans suffered greater losses. Not only did he lose two warships, but only less than 30,000 people were able to escape.
Such heavy losses can be said to have seriously damaged the vitality of Zheng Zhilong and Putmans. It is impossible for them to cause trouble to Tang Tong again in a short time. The Dutch commander-in-chief in the Nanyang area, Leijoz, also suffered considerable losses.
Although Heipi was born into a small gang in Changzhou, he was actually quite intelligent. After joining Tang Tong in the past two years, he also read some books. Tang Tong asked him to lead a team to Southeast Asia, and he did not disappoint Tang Tong.
Hei Pi led the fleet and avoided the Dutch fleet along the way and arrived at Guinea Island. When Hei Pi and his people saw how big the island was, they thought they had arrived at the Australia that Tang Tong had mentioned. Later they found out that this place was still some distance away from Australia. The natives on the island were not very friendly to Hei Pi and his people, so Hei Pi, based on Tang Tong's teachings, killed a group of these monkey-like natives without hesitation. Then Hei Pi planted the flag of the Tang Family Army in the area he occupied and announced that the island belonged to Da Pi.
However, this island has actually been colonized by colonists from several countries a long time ago. Recently, the Dutch and the Spanish have been fighting for this place, and there have been armed conflicts between the two sides from time to time. When Heipi and his group occupied an area, the Dutch and the Spanish each sent people to contact Heipi and his group.
Hei Pi heard from Tang Tong that the enemy of his enemy is his ally. Since the Tang army was now an enemy of the Dutch, Hei Pi wisely made friendly contact with the Spaniards and the two sides signed an alliance to jointly deal with the Dutch.
Although the fleet led by Hei Pi was not very powerful at sea, Hei Pi had 1,300 men equipped with breech-loading rifles and 80,000 Japanese auxiliary troops equipped with muzzle-loading matchlock rifles. In terms of combat effectiveness on land, it was very powerful. You must know that in addition to the 1,000 people outside Taiwan, the Dutch army, including mercenaries, had only about 4,000 people scattered in the Nanyang area. Of course, including the auxiliary troops of the local indigenous people, there were still about 10,000 people.
After Black Pi made an alliance with the Spanish, he cooperated with the Spanish in a large-scale battle with the Dutch. The Dutch left behind more than 7,000 corpses and withdrew from the island of Guinea. However, Black Pi did not give up. He chased the Spanish to Australia, forcing the Dutch to give up the areas they had occupied in Australia and look for opportunities to compete with Black Pi's fleet at sea.
Although the Dutch are known as the Coachmen of the Sea, the Spanish are also a maritime power. The fleet under Black Pi combined with the Spanish fleet is not weaker than the Dutch in strength. Later, Black Pi used trade as bait and ceded part of the South Seas in exchange for establishing relations with the Portuguese. The three parties organized a temporary fleet to fight a decisive battle with the Dutch.
The reason why Heipi knew to do this was, of course, because of what Tang Tong had taught him. At that time, the most rampant people at sea in China were the Dutch, so the main target of attack was of course the Dutch. So a naval battle broke out near the Strait of Marrakech.
The Malaysian territory was a place that Comrade Tang had always wanted to obtain, but at this time it was temporarily in the hands of the Dutch. The Spanish and Portuguese also wanted to obtain this place, but because of the land combat capabilities demonstrated by Blackie's men, the Spanish and Portuguese saw the strength of the Dutch. In the end, the three-party agreement was that Sumatra Island belonged to the Spanish and Portuguese, and the Portuguese were the weakest among the three parties, so they only got a small piece of the territory.
The Dutchman's Leioz naturally didn't know about the agreement signed by Heipi and his men, but he had to resist when the other side attacked his lair. All ten warships were dispatched, and he also sent people to transfer Putmans's army. Unfortunately, what Leioz didn't know was that Putmans had already taken his men to attack Kokura Castle at this time.
Hei Pi was very confident about the battles on land, but he had never fought a decent battle at sea. Tang Tong handed over such a large team to him, and Hei Pi didn't dare to let the team suffer too much casualties. On the one hand, only when he had an army under his command could he have strength (of course, Hei Pi had witnessed Tang Tong's rise step by step from the very beginning, and Hei Pi didn't dare to have any thoughts of rebellion in his heart). On the other hand, if Hei Pi lost too many people, it would be difficult for him to be reused by Tang Tong in the future. It was precisely because of this pressure that when the battle at sea really came, Hei Pi couldn't help but feel a little nervous.
This time, Tang Chaosan and Liu Yiming also came out with Hei Pi. These two people assisted Hei Pi in this voyage. Another task was to let them monitor Hei Pi to prevent him from having any bad intentions.
Liu Yiming put down the telescope, turned to Tang Chaosan and smiled, "Chaosan, that Lei Yuezi guy has invested a lot of money. Gosh, ten warships! He's really going all out."
"Of course. We have fought along the way and killed at least a thousand of his men. I guess these are the only people left on the Dutch side. But it seems that our strength is weaker." Tang Chaosan curled his lips. After all, he was from an orthodox military family and his psychological quality was stronger than Hei Pi. However, when it comes to diplomatic skills, he and Liu Yiming are far inferior to Hei Pi. This is why Tang Tong asked Hei Pi to be the envoy.
"In terms of the number of artillery pieces we have, we are about the same as the Dutch, but we are a coalition army, and we are definitely not united, so our combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced. However, when we first came out, Lord Tang only told us to inflict heavy damage on the Dutch. When the battle starts later, we will bite them if we can. If not, it is better for us to retreat. Preserving our strength is the most important thing, Mr. Luo (Heipi's last name), don't you think?" Liu Yiming was more thoughtful in combat than Tang Chaosan, so he could naturally better understand Tang Tong's strategic intentions.
"Yeah, damn, these Western devils, Lord Tang has long said that they are not good people. Our current strength is not strong, and we can't let them dominate. We must weaken their respective strengths when we have the chance." Heipi spread out his clenched hands, breathed a sigh of relief, turned around and smiled at Liu Yiming.
Although Hei Pi had learned a lot of knowledge about the battlefield after following Tang Tong, he was still not as good as people like Liu Yiming who came from a peasant family. Although the position of peasant householder among military households was hereditary, it had to be approved by the court. To be more or less, he knew more about fighting than ordinary people. Hei Pi was aware of this. What's more, from Liu Yiming and the others' perspective, Hei Pi seemed to be Tang Tong's subordinates, so Hei Pi was still very polite to Liu Yiming and Tang Chaosan.
While Heipi and his men were observing the Dutch through a telescope, Rejoz was also observing Heipi and his men's three-nation coalition through the telescope. Among the three-nation coalition, the Spanish had the strongest naval power, with seven warships, while the Portuguese had only three warships. The Spanish had been beaten to the point where they had almost no power to fight back, and the Portuguese were so beaten that they were ready to seize the interests of the South Seas. Unexpectedly, a huge army suddenly appeared and defeated Rejoz on land, causing him to lose all his armor and suffer heavy losses, and even lost a large number of colonies.
"General, the enemy is only seven nautical miles away from us." One of Reyoz's men reported to Reyoz.
"Form your formation and prepare to meet the enemy. Tell Mondel and the others that we have no way out. If we lose this battle, all our interests here will be lost. Not only will our empire suffer huge losses, but our navy will also lose its position as the overlord of the sea. This is absolutely something we cannot afford." Reyoz said calmly. Although there was no expression on his face, the twitching of his eyes showed the heaviness in his heart.
The subordinate responded and passed on Rejoice's order. Ten warships began to turn around and formed an attack array. Rejoice continued to observe with a telescope and found that the ships of the three fleets that were originally mixed together began to separate and formed their own camps. The Spanish fleet was in the center, the Italian fleet was on the left, and the Portuguese fleet was on the right.
"Hmph, hmph, on the sea, we Dutch are the real strong ones. Today, let me, Rejoice, tell you bastards what the strong ones on the sea are..." Rejoice put down the telescope and muttered to himself.
The distance between the two sides was getting closer and closer, and they could see each other without a telescope. The Spanish fleet attacked the Dutch fleet from the middle, while the Dutch fleet and the Portuguese fleet on both sides came in diagonally from both sides.
With a loud bang, a cannonball fell into the sea about tens of meters away from Leioz's ship. Leioz's eyes twitched even more violently, but his eyes seemed to brighten.
A naval battle began after the sound of the cannon.
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