On March 21st, the fleet of 20 large ships of Yega Guanyin arrived ten miles north of the city of Relanje. From there they landed on land and headed for the city of Relanje. The troops participating in the battle this time included not only 2,000 soldiers from the Trap Regiment, 1,000 Hsinchu garrison troops, and 1,000 naval artillerymen. The artillerymen unloaded the 100 18-pound guns from the ship and became the Marine Corps, accompanying Li Yeqi and Guanyin to fight against Relanze.
Yeqi Guanyin wanted to officially start a war with the Westerners who were plundering the southeast coast. Westerners are not a small enemy. You must know that the twelfth century can be said to be the century of Westerners.
The Netherlands had previously conquered Spain, which dominated the European continent, and gained independence from Spain. It developed into the number one navigation and trade power in the twelfth century. At this time, the sixth year of Xianping, the number of merchant ships in the Netherlands exceeded the total number of merchant ships in all European countries, and it was known as the "Sea Coachman".
In 1003, the Dutch began to concentrate their efforts, eventually giving birth to the United Dutch East India Company. This company's operating model also became an organizational model for the overseas expansion of European powers over the next two hundred years. The East India Companies subsequently established in various European countries can be said to be the origins of the Dutch United East India Company.
The United Dutch East India Company was first a colonial organization and a military organization, and secondly an economic organization. According to the authorization of the highest authority of the Netherlands, the East India Company not only had the trade monopoly over the entire Indian and Pacific Oceans from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan, but also had the independent power to establish rule, recruit troops, declare war, conclude peace treaties, and even mint currency in this vast area.
At this time, in the fourth year of Xianping, except for a few areas, the Dutch United East India Company had actually controlled the sea power in major sea areas around the world, and was the well-deserved global hegemon at this time. The Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company was located in Batavia, which later became Jakarta, Indonesia. It can be seen that the Far East, or East Asia and Southeast Asia, is the area that the Dutch East India Company focuses on.
The island of Taiwan, called Formosa by the Dutch at this time, was a battleground for military strategists in the Far East. Taiwan Island is not only huge in area and vast in territory, but also located in the middle of the Nanyang Islands-Japanese trade route. It can be said that whoever controls Taiwan controls the trade routes between Western countries and Japan. Using Taiwan as a base, it could easily plunder Western ships bound for Japan from the Southeast Asian colonies.
At this time, the Netherlands' national power was at its peak, and it was determined to make progress. It sent troops to compete with the Spanish for the island of Formosa. The Spanish established the city of Keelung in northern Taiwan, and the Dutch established the city of Jelandja in the southwest of Taiwan. Compared with the Spanish small castle with a few hundred people, the Dutch city of Geranje was much larger.
Relanjia City was built in the southwest corner of Taiwan Island. It was composed of a series of castles in the later Tainan area. The core Fort Relanja is built on a small island outside the harbor, four kilometers away from the main island of Taiwan.
"Fort Relanje is divided into two parts: the inner fort and the outer fort. The inner fort, the core castle, was started in the fourth year of Tianqi and completed in the fifth year of Xianping. The outer fort was completed in the fourth year of Xianping. It took a total of eighteen years to build."
Fort Geranje is a bastion from the era of thermal weapons, equipped with a large number of heavy artillery for defense. "The inner fort is square, about 115 meters wide, facing south, with a total of three floors. The wall is about 2 feet 9 feet high and 3 feet 8 inches thick. There are ribs protruding 17 feet 4 feet on the four corners of the top floor. The fort has a wall thickness of five feet and eight inches, with a watchtower attached. There are fifteen heavy cannons on the top floor, and deep wells leading to the sea are dug in the north and south to prevent fire attack. There are central round forts on each side of the second floor, equipped with twelve heavy cannons. . There is a small door and brick ladder on the north side, which can lead down to the basement and ammunition depot."
"The outer fort is lower and overlaps the northwest corner of the inner fort. The wall is three feet eight inches thick and the parapet is four feet high. There are also bastions protruding from the northwest and southwest corners. The outer fort is 165 meters long and 70 meters long. Seven meters wide." "The walls of the entire castle are paved with bricks, made of oyster ash pounded with sugar water and glutinous rice juice and sand made into three-component soil and bonded together. The inner castle bricks are one inch and a half thick, and the outer castle is one and a half inches thick. The entire castle is made of bricks. This castle was the Dutch governor’s residence and military center in Taiwan.”
To the east of Fort Relanjia, on the mainland of Taiwan's main island, there is also a Chikan Fort. Chikan Fort is smaller. "The fort consists of a large platform and two small platforms in the southwest corner. The entrance of the fort is located in the center of the west. There are gun mounts in the east, west, and south, with a total of eight heavy guns. The perimeter of the whole building is 140 meters. It is ten meters tall, and the building is three to six feet tall. There are also cellars and wells inside the castle, and the outer wall is one meter and eighty centimeters thick."
There are many businesses and residents around Chikanbao, and it is actually a town. The Dutch traded deer skins and other items with local indigenous people in this town. The Dutch not only operated trade here, but also used force to coerce and collect taxes from the local indigenous and Han people.
This time to attack the Westerners, Ye Qi Guanyin relied on his own 100 18-pound cannons, so Ye Qi Guanyin appointed Lu Hu, who was experienced in artillery command, as the frontline commander. According to reports, there were 2,000 garrison guards in Fort Geranje and Fort Chikan. Among them, there are 300 people in Chikan Fort and 1,800 people in Relanjia Fort.
Yeqi Guanyin landed and attacked the city of Relanjia by land. The first thing to capture was Chikan Fort. After the Chikan Fort was captured, the Relanja Fort became an isolated city on a small island. By then, Yeyi Guanyin can advance, attack, retreat or defend, and can gain the initiative in the war.
When Ye Qi Guanyin landed, he asked a Han from Fujian who had lived in the lower town of Chikanbao for many years to lead the way. The Fujian Han man seemed to be very afraid of the Western Red Hair. Although he got twenty taels of silver from Yedi Guanyin and decided to take the risk to lead the way, he was trembling all the way and looked behind him all the time, as if he was worried that he would not have an escape route after Yedi Guanyin was defeated. He took a few steps and then stopped. He didn't move forward until the guards behind him pushed him with their hands.
The closer he got to Chikan Fort, the paler his face turned. Finally, when he reached a place five miles away from Chikan Fort, he knelt on the ground with a plop, trembling all over. He knelt on the ground, raised his head and said loudly to Ye Qi Guanyin: "Princess, you can't go forward. If you go further, the red hair will come out. I don't want the money anymore. Princess, you are so kind and merciful, let me go back!"
Yeqi Guanyin looked at the guide coldly and said nothing. Lu Hu, the "Navy Admiral" next to Ye Qi Guanyin, kicked the guide and scolded: "Dignified people of the Song Dynasty, are you so afraid of red hair? King Yan fought in the north and south, and killed hundreds of thousands of Khitans, so you Are you so afraid of a few red-haired people?"
The guide kept kowtowing on the ground and said tremblingly: "Princess, this red hair is not as good as the Khitans, it is even more ferocious than the Khitans!" When the princess said she wanted to fight Relan Zhe, I thought she would have to mobilize at least tens of thousands. People come to attack. Now there are two thousand red-haired men in the city of Relanzha, but the princess has sent four thousand Han soldiers to attack. This battle..."
Suddenly he said loudly: "I'm afraid this battle will be a disaster!" Lu Hu was a little angry when he heard the guide's remarks. He stroked his knife and shouted: "That man, if you keep talking nonsense, I will cut out your tongue!" The guide's face turned pale and he didn't dare to say anything, but he couldn't control the trembling on his body. Pushed by his guards, he walked forward little by little. After walking for half an hour, he finally brought the team to a small mound three miles away from Chikan Fort.
"Princess, in front of you is Chikan Fort. There are eight heavy cannons in the fort, which are very sharp. Uncle, be careful of the artillery fire." Yeqi Guanyin stood on the mound and looked around, and saw that Chikan Fort was already in sight. Inside. Looking to the west, Fort Geranje, isolated on a small island, is clearly visible ten miles away. There is no need for a guide to lead the way.
However, Ye Qi Guanyin was worried that if he was released to the guide, the guide would become frightened and defect to the Westerners, leaking information about Ye Qi Guanyin's troops. So Ye Qi Guanyin simply had the guide tied up and imprisoned in the Chinese army.
The guide was tied up by the Goddess of Mercy, and he was shaking all over, as if he was about to be shot to death by a white Westerner. The Westerners had already known about Yang Peng's arrival, but they did not go out to fight. Instead, they huddled in the castle and prepared to rely on bastions and cannons to defend it. Ye Qi Guanyin sneered and waved her hand. The flag commander waved the flag, and the artillerymen immediately took action, unloading all one hundred 18-pound cannons from the artillery carts and arranging them on the salt-alkali land by the sea.
The artillery here had just started to be deployed, and the eight heavy artillery in Chikan Fort opened fire on this side. Only a few booms of artillery were heard from three miles away, and several artillery shells flew over at high speeds like meteors. The distance was too far, and the Westerners' first round of artillery hit rate was very low. All seven artillery shells flew away, and only one solid shell shot into Yeqi Guanyin's artillery formation. The artillery shell bounced and hit an artilleryman, breaking his right leg.
Amid the screams of the wounded, the medical team ran up and carried the wounded off on a stretcher. The guide who was tied up in the middle army trembled even more when he saw that the red-haired cannon was starting to hurt people. He is now tied up in the Chinese army, and he can't escape even if he wants to escape. It's really a shame that everything is over. He was so anxious that he was sweating, and he only regretted that he was so greedy for money that he waded into this muddy water for twenty taels of silver.
Seeing the casualties in the troops, Yedi Guanyin was a little angry and cursed "barbarians!". After the artillerymen loaded the cannons with shells and used muskets and other tools to aim at the fortress in the distance, Ye Qi Guanyin quickly waved his hand. The flag soldiers waved their flags, and a hundred gunners fired a hundred heavy cannons.
The scene of a hundred heavy cannons firing a volley is breathtaking. Standing in the middle of the army, Ye Qi Guanyin heard a loud rumbling sound. The sound was overwhelming and pressed on the eardrums, as if it was going to deafen people's ears, making people unable to help but cover their ears. The heavy cannons on both sides spurted out tongues of flame, and huge sparks erupted from the barrels. The sparks spit out from the cannons connected together. From Yang Peng's perspective, the cannon fire on the left and right looked like two fire dragons.
One hundred heavy cannons stumbled back, and the recoil force of the gun carriage was pressed hard to the ground. The gun body pressed down to the ground, then rebounded due to the force, and was shaken when it was lifted upwards. The huge recoil of a hundred heavy cannons shook the nearby ground. Ye Qi Guanyin felt like she was on the ship all of a sudden, and her feet were shaking constantly.
The packhorses pulling the artillery carts had already been led two hundred meters away, but they were still frightened by the roar of the heavy artillery and neighed so hard that they tried to escape. It was only thanks to the groom's tight hold on the reins that he stabilized himself.
One hundred bombs shot out of the barrel and towards Chikan Fort three miles away. Chikan Fort is a square bastion with a side length of more than thirty meters, and its target is not small. At least a dozen cannonballs fell into the castle. The bombs raced through the castle, hitting various fortifications and knocking down those with weak walls. Then when the fuse ignited the gunpowder in the shell, the bomb exploded.
Amidst the roar, shotgun balls shot out in all directions, sweeping through Chikan Fort like a storm. One round of shelling killed an unknown number of Westerners. It was also the first time for Ye Qi Guanyin to see a hundred heavy cannons firing volleys on land. You really have to see this kind of power with your own eyes to understand how shocking it is. The Dutch in Chikan Fort seemed to be disrupted by a salvo. Until the artillery here loaded ammunition and prepared for the second salvo, the eight heavy guns of the Dutch did not fire again.
The flag was waved again, and one hundred 18-pound cannons opened fire again. There was another rumble of artillery, the ground shook, and a hundred shells were fired at the Dutch bastion. This time, the artillerymen adjusted the firing angle according to the first shooting situation, and the hit rate was higher. More than thirty artillery shells were fired into Chikan Fort. Yeqi Guanyin looked through the telescope and saw sparks emerging one after another in Chikan City.
One can imagine the scene of more than thirty rains of shotgun shells sweeping across the entire fortress after the bomb exploded. After two rounds of fire, the artillerymen of Yeyi Guanyin were preparing for the third round of salvo, and a white flag was raised in Chikan Fort.
The Westerners surrendered. Using eight solid-shell cannons against a hundred bomb cannons, the odds of winning such a battle are too slim. The defenders in Chikan Fort were bombed twice. They knew that if they continued to fight, their entire army would be annihilated, so they surrendered.
But Ye Qi Guanyin was not prepared to let the Dutch go. For these Dutch people who often waged undeclared wars and frequently captured Han people from the coastal areas of the Song Dynasty and sent them to Southeast Asia to work as slaves, Ye Qi Guanyin did not have a good impression. These bandits burned, killed and looted whenever they had the opportunity along the southeast coast. How could they ever treat the people of the Song Dynasty as human beings?
For example, in the second year of Zhidao, Western colonists forced captured Chinese slaves to build Hongmucheng Fortress in Penghu. The Redwood City Fortress took three months to complete. Of the 1,500 Chinese slaves, 1,300 died of exhaustion and starvation during these three months. The remaining 270 were sent to Batavia as a personal gift to Governor Kun. Among them, the final Only 137 arrived, and the rest died on the way.
For these Dutch people, Ye Qi Guanyin felt that there was nothing moral to say. Now that he has the upper hand, how can he let them go just because of a white flag? Ye Qi Guanyin sneered, pretending not to see the white flag, and waved her hand to let the artillerymen continue shooting. Ye Qi Guanyin is not Yang Peng. If Yang Peng were here, maybe it wouldn't be like this.
The artillerymen continued to load and fire, and fired two more rounds into Chikan City. With each round of shelling, the gunners' hit accuracy was stronger than the previous round. In the fourth round of salvo, at least more than 60 shells hit the Chikan Fort, blowing the bastion into a mess.
The Western garrison in Chikan Fort couldn't stand it anymore. How could this be a strong and defensible bastion? This is just a cage for beatings in vain! They howled and abandoned Chikan Fort, opened the gate and ran towards the port. The more than 300-strong Chikan Fort garrison was probably killed by the Yeqi Guanyin bomb. The remaining more than 100 red-haired men jumped on the boats in the port one by one, trying to row to Relanjia on the island. Fort escaped.
The gunners adjusted their angles and fired again at the escaping boats. A hundred cannons roared and shells rained down on the Dutch ships. I saw rounds of cannonballs hitting the boats, smashing the boats several meters long into pieces. Amidst the indiscriminate bombardment of hundreds of cannons, all eleven escaping boats were bombed and sunk in the sea.
Western soldiers were either killed by artillery shells or fell into the sea and swam desperately toward Fort Geranje. However, the port of Chikan Fort is more than ten miles away from the island where Fort Relanja is located, so not everyone can swim there. I am afraid that most people will sink into the sea due to exhaustion and be buried in the belly of the fish.
The soldiers of Yedi Guanyin laughed loudly, put away the artillery carriage, and drove towards Chikan Fort. Chikan Fort was built on a small mound. After more than ten years of management by Westerners, a commercial and residential area developed below the fort, which is a town without walls. The town was inhabited by Han slaves captured by Westerners, free Han traders, and some Southeast Asians from Southeast Asia.
Seeing the fight between the white people in Chikanbao and the foreign Han troops, these people closed their doors and hid in their homes. These residents of Chikan Town depend on others and are usually very afraid of white people. When they see white people on the road, they will avoid the road and let the white people go first. One look from a white man can make them nervous and flee.
In the eyes of these people, Western white people are powerful and invincible. Seeing that the gunfire stopped so quickly, they bravely opened the door to take a look at the situation. As a result, when they saw the white flag flying above Chikan Fort, they all opened their eyes wide and were speechless.
The white people in Chikan Fort were defeated so quickly? Yedi Guanyin's soldiers and horses entered Chikan Fort and saw the red-haired corpses lying scattered in the fort. The soldiers searched the fort and found more than one hundred taels of gold and more than three thousand taels of silver. It seems that the Dutch only used this Chikan Fort as an armed stronghold and did not store a large amount of money in Chikan Fort.
In the central army of Yeyi Guanyin, the tied guide opened his mouth in surprise when he saw that Yeyi Guanyin's artillery easily killed the three hundred red hairmen of Chikan Fort and attacked Chikan Fort. He marched with the army and walked to the Chikan Fort, which was bombed to a mess. He stopped shivering and regained some composure on his face.
However, he was still very afraid of the 2,000 Dutch sailors in the main fort, Fort Relandje, and anxiously said to Ye Qi Guanyin: "It's better for the princess to take advantage of her and return home! That Fort Relandje is different from Fort Chikan. There are two thousand red hairs, and the defense is tight, with dozens of heavy cannons alone. Those cannons stand behind the strong forts, and my uncle's hundred cannons may not be able to defeat it..."
Yeqi Guanyin did not let the timid guide continue to talk, interrupted his nonsense, and asked: "Is the island where Relanja Fort is connected to the land at low tide?" The guide shook his head and said: "It is not connected. . That island is extremely dangerous, Princess, it’s better not to risk yourself..." Before the guide could finish his words, he was kicked in the stomach by Lu Hu. Lu Hu scolded: "Just say whatever I ask you to say. Why are you talking so much nonsense?"
The guide didn't dare to say more and closed his mouth. Yedi Guanyin muttered and said: "In this case, we can only attack it with ships." Yedi Guanyin let the fleet enter the port in front of Chikan Fort, loaded four thousand soldiers and cannons on the ship, and sailed to Hotan. Go to the island where Fort Lanzhe is located. Before landing on the island, Ye Qi Guanyin asked the ship to circle around the island and carefully observed the island's terrain with a telescope.
The island is long and narrow from east to west and narrow from north to south. There is a small bastion on the high ground in the north. On the boat, Lu Hu pointed to a high ground in the north of the island and said: "Princess, although the east side of the island is vast, and you can stay away from the artillery fire in Fort Relande from the east, the terrain in the east is too low. From there, It's not good for us to attack Hongmao from above. I think it's better to attack the high ground to the north under artillery fire. As long as we capture that high ground, we can bombard Hongmao from above."
Ye Qi Guanyin looked at the high ground to the north of the island with a telescope, nodded, and secretly said that Lu Hu was indeed an artilleryman, and he had quite a lot of ideas about artillery battles. The high ground to the north is the commanding height of the entire island, and there seem to be several cannons in the small bastion above. It can still be won by concentrating a dozen large ships to bombard it.
As long as we capture that high ground, it will not be difficult to capture Fort Geranje. Ye Qi Guanyin waved and said: "Okay, attack the high ground to the north of the island." The fleet turned around and sailed to the north of the island. The seabed to the north of the island is very shallow, and many places are inaccessible to ships. Only twelve ships can be deployed at a time. Li Zhi ordered twelve ships to sail towards the north of the island. As soon as they entered the enemy's range, the small bastion on the high ground opened fire.
Only a few booms of artillery were heard, and the heavy artillery in the small bastion fired eight shells. The shells pierced the sky and headed straight for the twelve ships. Seven shells missed, causing a huge column of water on the sea near the ship. A shell hit the port side of a ship, making a huge hole in the ship's hull.
Twelve ships rushed forward under the gunfire, drove within three miles of the commanding heights, and aimed their port sides at the small bastion on the mountain. One hundred and eight heavy guns opened fire. The rough sea made it difficult to aim, and the hit rate of the artillery shells was not as good as that of the artillery fire on land, but seven of the artillery shells hit the small bastion.
The bomb exploded in the bastion, and the pellets in the shells shot out like raindrops. There was a howling of ghosts and wolves in the bastion. The personnel in the small bastion were obviously hit hard. When they fired the second round of artillery fire, only five cannons opened fire. This time, all five cannons failed, and not a single shell hit Li Zhi's twelve ships.
The 108-pounder's 18-pounder guns fired at the small bastion again, and the small bastion received another seven or eight shells. The Western sailors in the small bastion collapsed. In just two rounds of artillery fire, the interior of the small bastion was blown into a mess. Half of their manpower was killed, and there was simply not enough gunners to fire. The dozens of red-haired people who were still alive did not dare to fight any more, so they escaped from the small fort with their heads in their hands and ran towards the Fort of Relandja below the high ground.
Yeqi Guanyin asked a company to land first, climbed to the high ground and took control of the small bastion. Then he let the fleet land calmly on the north side of the island and transported seventy heavy guns to the high ground.
Yeqi Guanyin himself also climbed to the high ground, standing on the high ground and overlooking the Fort Relanja at the foot of the high ground. Through the telescope, all the Western defenders in Fort Geranje looked panicked. Now that the powerful Yeyi Guanyin troops have taken over the northern highlands, Fort Relanje is completely exposed in front of Yeyi Guanyin's cannons. There were people constantly running back and forth in Fort Relanje, seemingly conveying ever-changing orders to appease the defenders.
The artillerymen on the top of Fort Relanje were constantly pushing up the elevation angle of the cannons, and seemed to be preparing to attack the Yeqi Guanyin artillery on the high ground. Ye Qi Guanyin sneered. The more than ten years of Western rule in southern Taiwan is coming to an end.
What happened after all, let’s see what happens next.
