On the way to meet Cornley, Du Huai asked curiously.
"President, do you know that Julian Hoyle?"
Zhao Xuening nodded.
"Well, there was a time when he and his fleet were under my command and he was very organized and professionally trained. I admired him very much. Later, Pierre interfered and transferred him. One of my subordinates, I asked him if he would like to continue fighting with me, but he refused, so I didn’t force him to stay.”
"Then now..."
"He's a smart guy, very smart."
Zhao Xuening whispered: "He will do what I ask him to do, if he wants to live well."
"Understood."
Du Huai nodded and didn't ask any more questions.
Soon, the two came to the cabin where Cornley was being held.
Cornley was obviously not honest, so he was tied tightly to a chair in the cabin and could not move. As soon as Zhao Xuening came in, Cornley immediately became excited.
"Your Majesty the President! What is going on? Why is this happening? Why did Julian betray me? Didn't we sign an agreement? Why did you do such a thing?!"
Cornley looked like he knew nothing.
Zhao Xuening had no choice but to pick up a chair and sit in front of Cornley as before. He smiled and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Cornley. It's not that I am unwilling to implement our agreement. The main reason is that the conditions given by the British are too high." Well, I really can’t refuse, so I can only choose to sell Batavia for a good price.”
"What? You cooperated with the British?"
Cornley was shocked: "How can you cooperate with the British?"
"Why not?"
Zhao Xuening spread his hands: "I will cooperate with whoever offers better conditions and is more in line with Lan Fang's interests. Isn't this obvious? If you want to say something about the despicable British, then Needless to say, I have seen many despicable and shameless people, not just the British."
"you……"
"I came to see you, mainly to make you feel at ease."
Zhao Xuening smiled and said: "Don't worry, Mr. Cornley, you won't die. I will send you back to the Netherlands at a suitable time. Of course, even if you go back, you may not be able to retaliate against me. After all, you won't be able to die." At some point, the Netherlands will lose its sense of existence. There are too many powerful countries in Europe, and the Netherlands is too weak."
"…………"
Cornley was speechless.
Zhao Xuening lost interest in continuing to talk to him, so he stood up and left, asking his subordinates to send troops to keep a close eye on him, provide him with good food and drink, and don't let him die.
In addition to these prisoners of war who voluntarily surrendered, there were also a group of die-hards in Batavia who were unwilling to surrender. They were all defeated by Julian's troops, a few were killed, and most were captured. They are now being guarded in prison. , are not eligible to enter prisoner of war camps.
For this group of diehards, Zhao Xuening had no other ideas but one plan.
Kill them to commemorate the compatriots who died in the Hongxi Massacre.
He can be very tolerant towards those who are willing to cooperate with him, and can also be very ruthless towards those who oppose him to the end.
Subsequently, Zhao Xuening followed the established strategy and invited the leaders of the various forces in the East Indies that did not belong to him to send invitations, asking them to come to Batavia for a gathering as soon as possible. There were some interesting things for them to see.
After watching it, they will probably have a new understanding of life.
Previously, taking into account the thoughts of Batavia and other parties, although Zhao Xuening had the strength to control the entire East Indies, he did not take corresponding actions. Now, having reached an agreement with the British, he has nothing to do Worried.
The East Indies were his, he was their master.
Zhao Xuening is preparing to kill people and establish his highest prestige in the East Indies. On the other side, Lanfang's army and navy, led by several generals, are flexing their muscles in the commercial and military strongholds and colonies in the Netherlands. A killing spree.
When Zhao Xuening first started training the army, he did not intend to learn from the Netherlands, but to benchmark against the British. In his opinion, the British had their own advantages in the army and navy. The navy had great advantages, but the British army did not Weak, but also a European powerhouse.
Later, after a series of war baptisms, Zhao Xuening himself began to study the formation and training and command methods of modern musketeers.
After several years of hard fighting, and with the blessing of some European military books he translated himself, he guided the construction of his army in a more scientific way.
To put it simply, the laws of war in the period of alternation of hot and cold weapons are completely different from those in the period of cold weapons.
Moreover, gunners and gunners with different weapons at different stages have completely different combat methods. There is no completely effective one-size-fits-all tactic. The main thing is to see whether it is suitable for your own army and the local climate and terrain conditions.
Combining the performance and characteristics of Lanfang's first-type guns, Zhao Xuening and his generals formulated tactics that were most suitable for Lanfang's army, allowing the trained Lanfang elite to completely surpass the Dutch armed forces who lacked the will to fight in terms of combat effectiveness.
On the way to the Indian colonies, the Lanfang army and navy launched attacks on every Dutch stronghold and achieved complete victory.
Of course, because the Dutch East India Company's troops stationed in these places have few armed forces, poor weapons, and little training, it is fine to scare the local indigenous people, but if they really want to go to war, they will collapse at the first touch.
Lanfang's army stepped forward to fight them, without even entering the bayonet fight. When the salvo entered the third round and before free fire began, the Dutch armed forces collapsed and began to flee.
As a result, Lanfang's only fully-organized cavalry team roared forward and launched a harvesting operation, catching them all in one fell swoop.
In this way, all the Dutch commercial strongholds east of Bengal were captured and taken over by Lanfang in a short period of time.
In early May, the Lanfang Army and Navy Expeditionary Force successfully arrived at the Island of Ceylon. At this moment, the Island of Ceylon had not yet received any relevant military news. They had no idea that Lanfang had reached a fatal agreement with the United Kingdom.
Li Chuang didn't care about that. He led the Navy's First Fleet and Second Fleet in a rampage and directly launched an indiscriminate attack on the Dutch ships parked in the port, catching them off guard.
Lanfang's navy was derived from the navy of the Dutch East India Company. The quality of the ships was quite good. However, due to the shallow water offshore the Netherlands, most of their ships were medium-sized light ships. They were flexible and maneuverable, but lacked weight and firepower. not enough.
The British offshore waters are deep, so British warships tend to be large in tonnage, have deep drafts, and carry a large number of artillery pieces. They can often reach 60, 70 or even 80 artillery pieces, and have very strong combat effectiveness.
In this case, the Netherlands could initially rely on flexible warships to achieve a battle method of multiple ships besieging one ship to compete with the British navy.
However, the British Navy quickly changed its tactics and began to adopt battle line tactics. The large ships lined up in a long snake formation, and the artillery on the sides formed a great wall of firepower to counter the Dutch small boat tactics.
Relying on this one-word long snake formation tactic, Britain gradually gained the upper hand in the naval battle against the Netherlands.
Zhao Xuening was always frustrated when facing British warships at first. This was also due to this reason. The ship was not big enough, had not enough cannons, and the firepower was not strong enough, so he quickly came up with the idea of improving the warships.
However, the conservative Dutch people who were unwilling to make changes did not appreciate Zhao Xuening's opinions. The conservatives headed by Pierre even attacked Zhao Xuening as a British spy and asked Petrus to deal with Zhao Xuening.
After spending so much money to improve warships, wouldn't they be able to embezzle and line their own pockets as much as they want?
Zhao Xuening then took the wife route, relying on Anne to follow Petrus's path, and got Petrus to agree to Zhao Xuening's founding of Lanfang Company, an independent development route, and even received angel investment to build his own warships.
This resulted in Lanfang's warships being generally larger than the original warships of the Dutch East India Company.
Up to now, the main warships of Lanfang Navy are double-decker battleships carrying 70 to 80 guns.
This kind of battleship is fifty-two meters long, fifteen meters wide, and generally has a tonnage of more than 1,500 tons. There are two rows of gun ports on the side of the battleship, one on the upper and lower gun decks.
Each side of the lower deck carries about three tons of naval battle general cannon, and each side of the upper deck carries about one to two tons of naval battle cavalry general cannon.
Then the deck is usually equipped with artillery such as light cannons or mortars, and the crew members with a total number of more than 500 are also equipped with muskets and have certain combat capabilities.
Because of the large scale and high cost of such warships, a small emerging country like Lanfang does not have the capital to equip a large amount of equipment. Therefore, the Lanfang Navy only has five double-decker battleships of this strength.
What remains are slightly smaller single-tier battleships and smaller cruisers.
The number of these ships is relatively large. For example, there are more than 20 single-layer battleships and hundreds of cruise gunboats, which are the largest. However, the number of artillery they carry is between forty and fifty, and their firepower is not considered. They are very strong, but not all of them can attack.
This is also one of the reasons why Zhao Xuening wants to introduce carron cannons.
On the premise that the own ships do not have a tonnage advantage, if the firepower can be increased by reducing the weight of the artillery and increasing the number of artillery, it will undoubtedly be a major benefit for the light navy, which will buy time for the further development of the navy.
Fortunately, high-tonnage ships are a luxury for any country.
Even Britain, the current largest maritime power, cannot say that it can use such large battleships as small gunboats. This kind of battleship is also a well-known capital ship in Britain.
The Netherlands was once the largest maritime power, but currently, there are only 20 battleships available in the country, and not all of them are heavy battleships. In addition to the 20 battleships in the mainland, there are no battleships in the East Indies. .
To be precise, there used to be some, but now these battleships belong to Lanfang and no longer belong to the Netherlands' order of battle.
Therefore, facing the strong battleship deterrence of Lanfang Navy, the Netherlands Navy in the three southern colonies of India appears to be very vulnerable.
