The Dutch people's guesses and worries were indeed correct, because some of the top leaders of the Chu Empire really thought so, especially the supreme ruler of the Chu Empire: Luo Zhixue.
From the very beginning, he regarded Nanyang as his own backyard!
Controlling the Nanyang Peninsula and the Strait of Malacca is just the beginning. Sooner or later, the Chu Empire will take over the entire Nanyang region, including the entire peninsula and many islands.
Not only the Nanyang region, but also Australia and New Zealand further south. This virgin land that had not been discovered and controlled during the colonial era was also regarded by Luo Zhixue as a potential territory for the Chu Empire.
Although Australia was discovered and landed by the Duinfgen led by the Dutchman William Janes decades ago, at this time people still mistakenly thought this place was the Antarctic...
In addition, northern Australia was extremely desolate and was not a place that important routes passed through. Therefore, it could not attract the attention of colonists such as the Dutch East India Company or the Portuguese East India Company.
This place was in a state where no Western colonists set foot during the entire seventeenth century and even the early part of the eighteenth century. It was not until the late eighteenth century, that is, after 1770, that the British discovered the east coast of Australia and declared This place belongs to Britain.
From this time on, the huge Australian region really came into the sight of the civilized world. The British began to use this place as a place to exile prisoners, and this continued for many years.
It was not until this land was valued and developed that Australia entered a period of explosive population growth after the discovery of gold mines in the 1850s and the influx of a large number of gold diggers.
Since this area had not been discovered by Western colonists, Luo Zhixue naturally wanted to capture it first.
After all, the terrain in the southwest of Australia is quite good, with large tracts of arable land. More importantly, Australia is rich in various minerals. A large number of various ores imported by the Chinese region in later generations came from Australia.
Luo Zhixue had no reason to let go of such a good place.
However, due to the situation in Nanyang, the Chu Empire was unable to send people to find and immigrate to Australia for a while.
Before solving the Nanyang issue, Luo Zhixue does not intend to engage in any Australian development issues.
This Nanyang issue does not mean to conquer all, but to gain major control in the Nanyang region, such as controlling the Strait of Malacca and killing the Dutch.
At least, after the threat of the Dutch is eliminated, the Chu Empire can safely send ships to migrate south.
Otherwise, there would be Batavia controlled by the Dutch stuck in the middle, which would be disgusting.
Therefore, when it comes to the entire Nanyang and Australian issues, Luo Zhixue prefers to take a step-by-step approach!
First control the Nanyang Peninsula area, directly occupy the Malay Peninsula, control the Strait of Malacca, and then find a way to squeeze the Dutch out, such as capturing Batavia.
As for the remaining indigenous countries, they can be dealt with slowly. Anyway, these indigenous countries are unlikely to pose any practical threat to the Chu Empire.
Faced with the strong rise of the Chu Empire in Nanyang and its unabashed ambitions, the Dutch looked sad every day, but they found that they could do nothing.
They had neither the courage nor the ability to start a direct war with the Chu Empire. They could only watch the Kingdom of Aceh being destroyed first, and then sit back and watch the Kingdom of Johor retreat steadily.
Apart from selling some guns and artillery to the two indigenous countries at a reasonable price and sending sporadic military advisors to assist them in their resistance, the Dutch were unable to do more.
In this way, in early July of the 15th year of Chengshun, the northern and southern armies of the Fifth Division of the Great Chu Empire were overwhelmingly powerful, and the southern army directly reached the city of Malacca controlled by the Portuguese.
Then in the panic of the Portuguese, they directly launched a siege on the city of Malacca.
Of course, it was just a siege on the periphery, and there was no real attack on Malacca City. After many years of repairs by the Portuguese, Malacca City has evolved into a large fortress. It would be difficult to fight with just some field artillery and infantry. .
It's not that it can't be defeated, but the casualties will be relatively high.
So Bai Zhen is ready to wait for the arrival of a large number of medium and large-caliber artillery from the rear. There are also a lot of 150mm light howitzers and even 170mm short-barreled howitzers on the way. These things are used for Siege is quite useful.
In order to capture the city of Malacca, the Chu army prepared a large number of large-caliber artillery from the beginning.
In addition to howitzers, a large number of cannons can also be moved directly from navy warships to attack cities when necessary.
Therefore, with the large-caliber artillery in place, Bai Zhen did not intend to use the lives of his soldiers to attack.
After Brigadier General Bai Zhen led his army to form a strategic siege of the city of Malacca, the Portuguese in the city were panicked... Originally they thought that this war had nothing to do with them, and was a war between the Chu Empire and two indigenous countries. But he didn't expect that damn Chu Manzi to come directly and beat him.
Moreover, when they sent envoys out of the city to the Chu army's camp several times to try to get the Chu army to retreat, the Chu army gave them the same reply.
The Kingdom of Malacca was a vassal state of the Great Chu Empire. Two hundred years ago, the Kingdom of Malacca had established a vassal relationship with the Ming Dynasty, and the Great Chu Empire inherited the suzerainty of the Ming Dynasty.
According to the shameless rhetoric of the Chu Empire in recent years, the Kingdom of Malacca is the undisputed territory of the Chu Empire.
What is this shameless argument?
That is to say, 'The vassal state of the previous dynasty is my vassal state; the vassal state of the previous vassal state is also the vassal state of the vassal state; the vassal state of the vassal state is my vassal state; the territory of the vassal state is my territory'
These few sentences are a bit convoluted. To put it simply, they are infinite matryoshka dolls...
According to this theory, the territory of the Chu Empire can extend to any corner of the world...
The Great Chu Empire had previously sent troops to the Western Regions based on this principle and recovered the Hami region from Jungar. Because the Yarkand Khanate was a vassal state of the Great Chu Empire, the territory of the Yarkand Khanate was also the Great Chu Empire. territory.
The subsequent attacks on Myanmar and Siam, and the occupation of a series of colonies in Southeast Asia such as Dagon, Pekka area and Bangkok area, also used this caliber...
Of course, only the Da Chu people themselves said so, and only a part of the Da Chu people, namely those in the Department of Domain Affairs of the Ministry of Rites and Education, said so.
Even normal Dachu people would be speechless when hearing this argument... Occasionally they would say: As expected of someone who is engaged in vassal affairs, such a thick-skinned person...
When outsiders hear this, they will basically say: Shameless Chu barbarian!
In short, based on this principle, the Dachu Empire put a layer of skin on its aggression, and then shamelessly said that it was not invading, but recovering territory!
For example, this is the case in Malacca City!
You Portuguese brutally attacked the Kingdom of Malacca more than a hundred years ago and have occupied the city of Malacca to this day. This is tantamount to robbing the territory of our Chu Empire. We have waited until more than a hundred years to regain the territory. We have already given you a lot. Save face.
If you have any sense, get out now. As long as you withdraw from Malacca City and hand over the city to us intact, we will allow you to get out by boat empty-handed...
Otherwise, we will take back the city of Malacca in our own way.
The Portuguese were dumbfounded when they heard it. The Kingdom of Malacca is your vassal state? The territory of the Kingdom of Malacca is also your territory?
Moreover, the Kingdom of Malacca has been dead for more than a hundred years... Now you come out and say that the Kingdom of Malacca is your vassal state, this is your territory, how shameless are you!
Naturally, the Portuguese would not give in easily to such ridiculous claims and demands. It’s not like they had never experienced war. The triangular war in the Strait of Malacca had lasted for hundreds of years. The Portuguese had fought with the Kingdom of Aceh or the Kingdom of Johor in just three days. fight.
In the next few decades, a Dutchman will be added.
In recent years, conflicts between the Dutch and the Portuguese have resulted in the Portuguese being trapped in Malacca, but they still did not give up.
Therefore, the Portuguese did not hesitate to reject the Chu army's request to get out, and then focused on strengthening the city's defenses in preparation for war.
Today, there are more than 500 Portuguese troops stationed in Malacca, as well as a thousand-strong Portuguese militia that can be armed, and more than a thousand indigenous servants recruited by the Portuguese.
In total, they have more than 2,000 troops at their disposal.
Moreover, the city of Malacca has been facing the threat of war for a long time, and in recent years it has continued to be besieged by the Dutch. Therefore, the Portuguese replenished a large amount of various supplies to the city whenever they had the opportunity, slowly piling up the warehouses.
Even if they were completely blocked, they could rely on the supplies in the city to hold on for more than a year. Otherwise, how could they have resisted the siege of the Dutch and the Kingdom of Johor.
Speaking of which, this was an evil done by the Chu Empire itself. After the Portuguese in Malacca City were blocked by the Dutch, the reason why these Portuguese could still maintain their existence and hoard a large amount of weapons, equipment and various supplies, then It was because various trading companies in the Dachu Empire supplied them with supplies.
In particular, the Nanyang Trading Company has provided the Portuguese with most of all kinds of supplies in the past two or three years, from artillery to cloth...
At the beginning, it was purely for business, and by the way, I also wanted to let the Portuguese and Dutch continue to fight, so except for the materials that restricted exports, the supply was basically open.
For this reason, a trading company represented by Nanyang Trading Company made a huge profit.
Unexpectedly, only a few years later, the Chu Empire itself would have to bite this hard nut.
The situation changed so fast that the Chu Empire felt like it had shot itself in the foot!
However, it’s not a big problem!
In Bai Zhen's view, Malacca City seemed to be a solid fortress, but this so-called fortress was of no use in the face of large-caliber howitzers.
Now, he only needs to wait for the large-caliber howitzers from the rear to arrive, and then wait for the Navy to temporarily transport a batch of cannons ashore.
He is not in a hurry to storm the city of Malacca!
While Bai Zhen was lying down and sleeping outside the city of Malacca, the other two troops of the Fifth Division did not stop, but continued to attack eastward.
On July 23, the 19th Infantry Regiment of the Fifth Division reached Batu Sawar, the capital of the Kingdom of Johor. The Kingdom of Johor had already lost its troops in a series of resistances and could not mobilize many troops to defend their capital.
Although they also put up tenacious resistance and voluntarily gave up the battle on the outskirts of the city and on top of the city, they retreated into the city, trying to use the complex environment in the city to carry out constant resistance and fight a seventeenth-century street battle.
But the Chu army was not stupid. When they saw that the enemy did not dare to resist directly, but hid in the building and fired cold shots, they immediately set fire to the enemy on a large scale.
As for going up to fight with the natives in street fights...the Chu army generals would do this if they were out of their minds.
As a result, the capital of the Kingdom of Johor was completely turned into ruins due to the continuous fire...
The remaining forces of the Kingdom of Johor also tried to cross the small strait to the Lion City and even the Li Nei Islands to continue their stubborn resistance, but they were strongly intercepted by the navy of the Dachu Empire.
The Twelfth Squadron ventured into this narrow strait many times to blockade and bombard the maritime power of the Kingdom of Johor. In the process, despite the efforts of the Twelfth Squadron, two frigates were burned and a cruiser hit a reef and was forced to The loss of the ship was abandoned, but the loss of personnel was not much.
The most important thing is that the Twelfth Squadron firmly controlled this small strait, preventing the remaining forces of the Kingdom of Johor from escaping across the sea.
At the same time, the Dachu Imperial Navy finally dispatched the long-awaited third marine regiment to land in Lion City, completely cutting off the Kingdom of Johor's retreat!
On July 29, the fifteenth year of Chengshun, the Chu Empire fled to the remaining forces of the Kingdom of Johor, including the royal family, officials, generals and Their family records, as well as the army and other miscellaneous things, a total of more than 30,000 people were wiped out.
The Kingdom of Johor is officially declared destroyed!
There was not even a branch that could escape and continue to organize forces to resist elsewhere, because this time the Chu Empire directly defeated the Kingdom of Johor.
Not only the personnel, but also their former capital was reduced to ruins!
The former little overlord of the Straits of Malacca, a corner of the Triangular War, only lasted for more than a month under the strong attack of the Chu Empire!
For more than a month, most of the time was still the time for the Chu army to march!
As for the actual military resistance, the resistance on land was basically negligible, and they did not cause any actual obstacles to the Chu Army's Fifth Division.
Even the Kingdom of Aceh is not as good as... Although the Kingdom of Aceh also lost, and lost miserably, the Kingdom of Aceh organized several city defense operations and fought until the last moment.
As for the Kingdom of Johor, they actually failed to organize a large-scale resistance. The only thing worthy of praise was that they tried to engage in street fighting in their own capital. As a result, the Chu army did not engage in street fighting with them at all, and directly set a fire...
However, the maritime power of the Kingdom of Johor resisted relatively well. It can be said that they used a large number of sailboats to risk their lives to break through the fire interception network of the Chu fleet. They set fire to two frigates of the Chu fleet and forced a cruiser of the Chu fleet to panic. Hit a rock and sank.
This is what the Kingdom of Johor is all about.
And with the destruction of the Kingdom of Johor, the Kingdom of Aceh finally became afraid after hearing about it, and quickly sent people to the Dachu Empire to try to sue for peace.
As for the idea of taking back the territory on the Malay Peninsula... Just kidding, that is not the territory of us Acehnese people, but the territory of the Chu Empire. We only temporarily took it away from the Chu Empire for safekeeping, but now it is returned to its original owner.
The Dachu Empire did not think too much about the Aceh Kingdom. Since the other party took the initiative to surrender, and the Dachu Empire had no plans to land on Sumatra in the short term, it did not continue to threaten, but sent people to negotiate with them.
After the negotiations between the Kingdom of Aceh and the Da Chu Empire, except for the Portuguese who were still stubbornly resisting in Malacca, the rest of the Malay Peninsula and even the Li Nei Islands at the east end of the strait have all belonged to Da Chu. empire!
This series of good news was also sent back to the country one after another. However, after this series of battle reports were sent back to Jinling City, the army found another opportunity to laugh at the navy!
The reason was the unlucky cruiser that hit the rocks and became silent. This was the newest first-class cruiser in the Chu Empire's navy, and it directly belonged to the fourth ship Fuzhou in the Liaoyang-class first-class cruiser.
This loss directly made people in the Army who didn't understand ships laugh loudly at the Navy, saying that the Navy wasted countless money and food, and the warships built with a lot of money were all made of paper lakes, and they would sink if they hit any rocks.
Such a fragile battleship would be even more ruined if it encountered a fierce enemy bombardment!
Then the Army couldn't help but ask, what does the Navy do with so much military spending every year? You might as well free up the money and give it to our army, and then you can just fold a few paper boats yourself...
In response to the Army's sarcastic remarks, the Navy, while heartbroken over its own losses, argued with the Army: You Army bumpkins don't know anything. If the artillery shells can sink our Liaoyang-class first-class cruisers, I will eat these cruisers. Go down...
Reefs are not cannonballs, do you understand?
Then he was afraid that Luo Zhixue would feel bad about the Navy after hearing the Army's nonsense, so he had to explain it to Luo Zhixue.
In this regard, the Navy has filtered it out. Luo Zhixue does not have to compete with the Army for military expenditures, and then someone comes and says that he is blind...
He, Luo Zhixue, knew very well that in this era, it would be extremely difficult to use artillery to fire solid shells and then directly sink a warship.
But hitting the rocks...it will be over in minutes!
In terms of lethality alone, the comparison between cannonballs and rocks is the comparison between ants and elephants!
You know, it is normal for wooden warships these days to be hit below the waterline by enemy shells during normal battles, causing a large amount of water to enter!
However, some damage from bullet holes is nothing to a wooden warship... It's not like a rock, which will have a big hole when it hits it.
If it hit a rock sideways, it would be even worse. This is how the Titanic was hit and sunk by an iceberg.
But the artillery shells... such solid artillery shells with a diameter of just over a hundred millimeters, even if they penetrated the hull below the waterline, would only make a small hole at most... The damage control personnel directly took wooden boards and hammers, plus Iron nails will be temporarily repaired for you in minutes.
What you want is that in the long era of sailing battleships in human history, few sailing battleships were directly sunk by enemy shells...
Battleship losses in naval battles often occur when they are burned or in collision accidents, and more often than not they are captured due to failed gang-hopping operations.
For example, in the Battle of Kaye Bay that broke out between Sweden and Denmark, sixty or seventy warships from both sides fought each other, but none of them was directly sunk. Only one warship was set on fire and ignited the ammunition depot and sank. Two hit the rocks and sank.
In the more famous Battle of Trafalgar, only one of the 70 or 80 warships on both sides was sunk, and 17 were captured at the same time.
Therefore, in naval battles these days, the artillery equipped on battleships is not actually used to damage the battleships until they are damaged, flooded, and sunk. They are mainly used to destroy the masts, ropes, and sails of the enemy battleships. As long as the enemy battleships are destroyed, The battleship's mast is broken, and after losing power, the battleship will directly turn into a dead fish floating on the sea...
By the way, another major function of artillery is to cause casualties to the enemy fleet.
So you can see that in addition to solid bullets, the shells attached to the navy's naval guns also have a lot of messy chain bullets, grape bullets, cross bullets, arson bombs and the like.
However, although the navy knew the situation and knew that the threat from solid shells was not great, the fact that the Fuzhou hit a reef and sank still made them somewhat worried about the hull's anti-sinkability.
To this end, they are planning to carry out certain hull reinforcements on the subsequent battleships under construction of the Liaoyang-class first-class cruiser to increase their sinking resistance.
At the same time, we are preparing to introduce better anti-sinking designs into the design of new warships.
However, the general direction has basically not changed. They are just trying to increase the strength of the ribs to resist external impacts, rather than directly building things like watertight cabins.
Just because one battleship sank, we cannot deny that the entire tactical system was not successful.
Although warships can resist sinking by adding watertight cabins, etc., the reason why the new warships of the Chu Empire did not continue to use watertight cabins like the Fu Ship is because the gains outweigh the losses!
Using watertight cabins will make it impossible to deploy artillery on the full deck, and the rib strength will be seriously insufficient to withstand more weight of the superstructure. The large number of transverse frames used in watertight cabins will increase the tonnage. The most important thing is that the effect is not very good. land……
You have to know that the lower deck where the heavy guns are located is usually only a little more than one meter away from the waterline...it is easy for water to enter if the wind and waves are slightly stronger.
Finally, wooden ships are different from iron ships. Wooden ships are flooded all the time. This is determined by the characteristics of wood. Even in the 21st century, this problem cannot be solved...
Therefore, wooden ships need to continuously drain water, otherwise they will sink due to water seepage without doing anything.
Many factors have led to it. In the era of sailing battleships, watertight cabins were basically useless, or the gain outweighed the losses... You can also use them, that is, big ships resist small cannons. What is actually produced in this way are traditional Chinese ships such as fortune ships and bird ships. Battleship.
Watertight cabins will have practical application value only after the advent of the ironclad era and the upgrade of shipbuilding technology and artillery.
Prior to this, sailing battleships engaged in line bombardment did not use watertight compartments. This was a basic principle.
Well, it's limited to sailing battleships that can perform line bombardment, and not others.
However, battleships have actual anti-sinking requirements, so what should we do?
The solution for the Da Chu Empire Navy was to further strengthen the strength of the ribs and increase the thickness of the ship plates below the waterline.
This is also the reason why the Chu Empire has recently been looking for high-quality shipbuilding wood all over the world. The wood used to build warships often needs to be very old in order to maintain strength, so that thick enough ship plates or ribs can be made.
However, the Ship Administration Department of the Dachu Empire Navy did not put all its attention on wood, but also on other materials, such as steel!
The strength of steel is far greater than that of wood. If steel materials can be used to replace part of the wood and serve as part of the main load-bearing structure to build ships, then the strength of the built ships will definitely be better.
With better strength, ships can be built larger and carry more and heavier artillery.
As a result, it is even possible for the Da Chu Empire Navy to build super large warships of more than 3,000 tons in batches.
The idea of the Ship Administration Department was quickly submitted to the top brass of the Navy, and then the design plan for the new warship was handed over to Luo Zhixue.
Luo Zhixue took a look and said, "Oh, the ship administration department has some ideas. If this goes one step further, wouldn't it be an iron-ribbed wooden hull ship?"
And if this goes one step further, it will become an iron-clad ship!
However, there is no steam engine available for ships yet, and I don’t know if sails alone can drive such an iron-clad ship...
