Eight Yulin-class frigates, relying on their loaded steam engines to drive propellers, emitted thin white smoke as they sailed forward in formation.
Although they still had sails hanging, their speed far exceeded the speed brought by the wind force on their course at this time.
Because although they were not sailing against the wind, they were still semi-headwind. Logically speaking, even if the sail could use part of the power of the headwind, the speed would definitely not be that fast.
But...the speed of these eight Yulin-class frigates has reached at least ten knots, which is almost the speed that can only be achieved when the wind is smooth.
This is not normal!
This made the Dutch people on the opposite side puzzled. The course and speed of the Chu boats on the opposite side did not match the wind direction at this time!
Of course they didn't know that the steam engines of these eight Yulin-class frigates were already running at full speed, driving the underwater single-shaft propellers continuously forward.
They could only see the faint white smoke that was also incomprehensible to them!
Only a few Dutch people on the shore who have been to the mainland ports of the Dachu Empire for trade in the past year or two can tell what the white smoke is: "That's a steam engine... This is their steam warship, but why don't these steam ships wheel?"
The Dutch who have been to the Chu Empire in the past year or two, especially those who have been to Guangzhou, will more or less see the steamships sailing on the Pearl River, but all they have seen are the paddle steamers sailing on the Pearl River. Nothing more.
Therefore, in their limited knowledge, they believe that steam ships should have huge wheels on both sides of the ship or may not be propelled.
But they didn't know that the Chu Empire's steam ships also used propellers for propulsion.
Steamships have only just developed in the past year or two. Now the steam engine propulsion technology in the Dachu Empire uses both paddle wheels and propellers.
Civilian ships generally use the paddle wheel propulsion method with more mature technology and lower cost. Anyway, civilian ships do not have to worry about the huge paddle wheel blocking the artillery firing range.
However, in the Navy, because huge paddle wheels are easily damaged and can also block shooting, in addition to the small number of experimental ships at the beginning that used paddle wheels, later batch-built and modified ships generally used underwater propeller propulsion. , even if it costs more.
Well, with today's smelting technology and processing technology, it is still very difficult to process large propellers for ships, and the cost is also very high.
But the navy is rich!
A battleship can cost hundreds of thousands of Chu Yuan to destroy, so getting a propeller is not unacceptable.
The Yulin-class frigates and several modified warships exhibited this time are all propelled by propellers... but there are many types of propellers.
At present, the Ship Administration Department of the Da Chu Empire is still exploring the new propulsion method of propellers, so there are all kinds of messy propellers. It is looking for better propeller designs in the process of continuous improvement, testing and use.
The eight Yulin-class frigates, driven by their propellers, sailed semi-headwind at an astonishing speed, and quickly appeared on the left side that a group of Dutch galleys did not expect.
Before these Dutch galleys could react, the eight Yulin-class frigates had already turned around, aiming at the Dutch galleys with their sides exposed!
Immediately, a large number of 130mm naval guns that had been prepared, whether medium-barreled or short-barreled, opened fire in unison, and they all fired grenade bombs!
The Da Chu Empire Navy, like the army, has a special liking for grenades!
The use of grenades in naval battles can easily destroy the superstructure of enemy ships, destroy their sails and even cause fires, causing a large number of casualties to the enemy.
This attack can quickly disintegrate the enemy's combat effectiveness.
When all the sails are destroyed, for a pure sail warship, it is no different than waiting for death.
In the Age of Sail, the best way to destroy enemy warships was to directly destroy their sails instead of trying to sink them...
Because it is actually very difficult to sink an opponent by firing solid cannonballs. If they stand still and let you fire a hundred and eighty solid cannonballs, you will only be able to make a few small holes in their hulls, and they will follow the ship. The carpenter repaired it in minutes with a wooden board and a hammer.
As for the grenade that penetrates the thick wooden armor and explodes inside the cabin, the current spherical grenade is not that interesting. Although it can penetrate the wooden armor by thickening the shell and increasing the terminal kinetic energy, the amount of charge inside the shell will be very small. .
For example, the diameter of the 130mm artillery shell is strictly less than 13 centimeters, which is about the same width as your palm. However, this thing is not cylindrical like the later artillery shells, but spherical.
The overall size is actually not that big.
If it is made into a thin-skinned grenade, the amount of powder will not be much. If it is made into an armor-piercing grenade, the amount of powder will only make a sound.
Therefore, the current Yulin-class frigates use grenades to directly bombard the opposite superstructure, trying to severely damage enemy warships by destroying their sails and killing a large number of personnel.
In addition to the Yulin-class frigates, many of the main battleships and cruisers of the Chu Empire Navy behind them were also carrying out covering bombardment from a relatively long distance. Although the hit rate was very impressive at a distance, they could not hold up hundreds of artillery pieces. If we cover the shelling together, we can still hit a few hits.
And once the 150mm or even 170mm main guns of battleships and cruisers hit, it will be a fatal blow to these galleys, which are only a few dozen tons.
Soon, a Dutch galley suffered heavy losses due to being hit by multiple cannonballs, and finally stopped on the sea.
There was even a ship that was supposed to be an arsonist. It was directly hit by the Chu army's artillery fire and ignited their arsonist oil, causing them to ignite a fire while they were still on the road.
One Dutch galley after another was concentrated, and many of them were severely damaged and lost their combat effectiveness. Several of them were even sunk.
Under such circumstances, the Dutch finally knew that this raid would only be in vain, so when night fell completely, they left behind many damaged ships that were still burning and were forced to turn around and return. port.
The battleship fleet of the Chu Empire's Nanyang Fleet once tried to pursue them closely, using fierce naval gunfire to directly smash the Batavia Port to pieces. However, they were intensively bombarded by the Dutch coastal defense batteries. In order to avoid unnecessary losses, Nanyang The fleet chose to retreat voluntarily.
This evening naval battle ended with the Dutch losing eight galleys and more than 200 casualties. The Chu army's two Yulin-class frigates were slightly damaged, and eight other soldiers were injured.
After this battle, it was even less possible for the Dutch to attack from the port or escape.
Even galleys with excellent maneuverability can't get out of the offshore sea, let alone those large-tonnage Galen-type armed merchant ships. These large-tonnage armed merchant ships are slow to get out of the port. They probably just left. They would be beaten to pieces by the main warships of the Nanyang Fleet squatting outside the port.
You know, the Nanyang Fleet has eight third-class battleships, four first-class cruisers, six second-class cruisers and twenty-six frigates outside the port of Batavia.
However, although the Dutch East India Company is powerful, it is only a commercial company after all. Although they also have warships, they are not many in number. The total number is only more than forty. There are only a dozen or so deployed in Batavia, and the rest It also needs to be deployed in colonies in peninsula India and Africa.
After all, the Dutch East India Company had a large territory, and there was more than just one Batavia port.
Even among these more than 40 warships, most of them are actually only a few hundred tons. In the Da Chu Empire Navy, they can only be regarded as small and medium-sized warships. There are actually only a few warships with over a thousand tons.
Most of them are various armed merchant ships, with more than 150 ships in total.
However, in the Dachu Empire's navy, the main fleet of the Nanyang Fleet dispatched to Batavia Port now has eight battleships and four first-class cruisers of more than 1,200 tons.
There are as many as twelve thousand-ton ships.
There are as many as thirty-two frigates and cruisers ranging from 500 tons to 1,000 tons.
This only counts ocean-going professional warships. It does not include the large number of communication ships, shallow water steamers, gunboats, supply ships, troop carriers, hospital ships, coal ships and other auxiliary ships that came with the fleet. There are also three auxiliary ships. There are more than ten ships.
There are more than seventy ships in the entire fleet!
With such a powerful naval force blocking the port of Batavia, it's a wonder that the Dutch East India Company's fleet can break out.
The Dutch could not withstand the firepower coverage of eight battleships alone!
It is worth noting that the Nanyang Fleet here is only part of the main force of the Nanyang Fleet. To be precise, it is the First Task Force of the Nanyang Fleet.
Task fleets, task squadrons, any fleet with the term task force, in the Da Chu Empire Navy, are fleets specially formed for war, and do not belong to the usual administrative fleets.
The usual administrative fleet is composed of the three ocean fleets and various local fleets as the main body, and the subordinate units are such-and-such battleship fleet, such-and-such cruiser fleet, and such-and-such frigate fleet.
These are all fixed administrative establishments.
However, the Navy will never use a certain administrative fleet to perform combat missions. After all, you cannot just send a battle fleet or a cruise fleet to perform combat missions.
When performing combat missions, battleships, cruisers and cruisers are often mixed together with a vote of auxiliary warships.
Therefore, the Navy only uses some standing combat fleets to carry out daily patrols and training tasks in normal times. For example, the 11th Squadron under the Nanyang Fleet belongs to this type, and operates in the Maldives Strait and the western Bay of Bengal all year round.
The same goes for the Twelfth Squadron, the Thirteenth Squadron, etc.
In addition, there are task forces or other fleets specially formed temporarily for a certain war. This time the First Task Force falls into this category.
Whether it is a standing combat squadron or a temporary task force, these fleet models are all typical combat fleets. They do not have fixed warships under their jurisdiction. They are all dispatched at any time according to combat needs.
The two battleship fleets, two cruiser fleets and multiple frigate fleets under the First Task Force were dispatched in this way.
After this combat mission is over and the First Task Force completes its mission, these warships will be assigned to other combat fleets or rest.
The navy's combat model is still very different from that of the army, from establishment to organizational structure.
The navy's warships are frequently mobilized based on schedules such as combat needs, maintenance and repairs, and long-distance voyages.
A battleship may still be fighting the Dutch in the Nanyang Fleet this year, but next year the battleship may go to serve in the Pacific Fleet and play house with the daimyo of Fuso.
It will return to the mainland the year after next and be incorporated into the reserve fleet. At the same time, it will undergo maintenance or modification, and the replacement of old and new sailors on board will be completed.
When the maintenance, modification, and personnel replacement are completed and the aircraft can continue to perform combat missions, it may be dispatched to the Indian Ocean Fleet for duty.
Even if it is a warship, it is very mobile. It is rarely said that it will be fixed in a certain place or serve in a certain fleet, unlike the army where the organization is basically fixed.
There is no way, this is because the Chu Empire's navy has a very wide range of activities. From the west coast of North America to the east coast of Africa, it is the scope of the Chu Empire's navy.
However, no matter how large the number of warships is, it is still limited. It is impossible to say that a large number of warships are dispatched to every place. We can only adopt a rotational garrison and cruise model to show our presence and protect local merchant ships and expatriates along the way.
After a few years of service and sailing, a warship will basically need to undergo a relatively long-term maintenance. At the same time, the sailors of the warship cannot always serve overseas and need to be constantly replaced.
Under such many restrictions, the Da Chu Empire Navy adopted this separation of administrative and combat personnel, and adopted a model of dispatching warships on demand.
One more thing, this is a global navy. No matter how bad it is, it must be a model that only the navies of big countries can use. For the navies of small countries, this is not necessary!
Just those few battleships, you can count them clearly with your eyes closed, there is no need to go to such trouble.
But as for the Da Chu Empire Navy, they have more than 80 battleships, 120 cruisers, and more than 300 frigates!
The above-mentioned more than 500 warships are only professional ocean-going warships. They do not include shallow-water gunboats, offshore patrol ships and other sub-class warships, nor do they include various transport ships and other auxiliary warships.
Counting them all together, that's a lot.
The First Task Force arriving outside the port of Batavia is only a small part of the naval strength of the Da Chu Empire.
At the same time, on the other side of the Sunda Strait, there is also a naval fleet of equally large size, the Second Task Force, which is protecting thousands of army soldiers to cross the Sunda Strait and land in Banten.
At the rear, there are several smaller fleets escorting numerous transport ships to and from the mainland and between Singapore and Java.
In other sea areas, there are also a large number of warships of the Great Chu Empire Navy operating.
The war against the Dutch East India Company was actually just a small- to medium-sized battle for the Chu Empire Navy. Only a part of the troops mobilized for this purpose was far from mobilizing a large number of main forces.
Under the escort of the navy, more than 8,000 soldiers from the 14th Division of the Army's 22nd Army successfully landed in the Banten area and headed towards the Batavia Port.
Leading these more than 8,000 army soldiers was Major General Wan Binglin, commander of the 14th Division. He originally led the 14th Division to be stationed in the central and western regions of Sumatra. This time, in order to attack the Batavia Port and capture The whole island of Java.
He was ordered to lead his army to land on Java Island. The more than 8,000 people in front of him were only part of his 14th Division, including the entire 52nd Infantry Regiment, two battalions of the 53rd Infantry Regiment, and the 14th Artillery. Three artillery battalions and two supply battalions.
There are still more than 7,000 troops who will arrive across the sea on the second batch of transport ships.
After all, long-distance transportation across the sea requires, in addition to personnel and mules and horses, all weapons and equipment, especially dozens of various artillery pieces to cross the sea for landing, and enough grain, grass and ammunition to last for several months. The required transportation capacity Still very big.
It is impossible for the military of the Da Chu Empire to delay for several months waiting for the ships to arrive just for an operation. They can only divide the transportation into two batches.
In this way, many ordinary merchant ships from the Chu Empire operating in the nearby waters were mobilized and requisitioned, including those from the Western Trading Company and a large number of ordinary shipping company ships.
After Wan Binglin led his army to land in Wandan, he left a battalion to garrison at the temporary dock to handle the second batch of troops, and then personally led the main force of 7,000 people to continue advancing.
However, the place where they landed was more than thirty kilometers away from the Port of Batavia. At the same time, the infrastructure in this poor place was very backward, and many places did not even have formed roads.
It has always been very troublesome to conduct long-distance maneuvers on such a tropical island with poor transportation facilities, not to mention that they also bring a large number of artillery.
Those 115-meter-millimeter field guns and 150-millimeter howitzers, even though they are lightweight artillery designed specifically for combat on complex terrain, are not light and are not easy to maneuver.
Not to mention that they also brought a batch of 170mm short-barreled howitzers specially used for siege, which are even more difficult to maneuver.
Along the way, they could be said to have forcibly opened a road to fight their way over. There were more than 20 temporary bridges erected along the way.
It took them five days to reach the outside of Batavia, a mere 30 kilometers away.
But even so, Wan Binglin did not regret the original choice of long-distance landing... In order to prevent the Dutch from discovering their own landing and running out to intercept the landing on the beach, the Army chose a more cautious long-distance landing. .
It's just a waste of a few days.
If we just want to save a few days and land under the eyes of the Dutch, wouldn't they suffer unnecessary losses if they pull out artillery and bombard us while they are landing?
The Army's caution allowed them to reach Batavia City, while the Navy's First Task Force had been waiting idle for five days.
The Navy complained about this... A group of Army bumpkins had to go to the barren mountains 20 to 30 kilometers away to land when they could land directly near the Batavia port.
It's okay to find fault on your own, and let us navy wait with you. It's boring...
Except for an unsuccessful attack by the Dutch in the evening of the first day, the Dutch stayed in the port city for the rest of the day.
They may have also realized that it was impossible to break through the sea blockade. In order to strengthen the defense on land, they also moved some of the artillery on the ships in the port to the land and transferred the sailors to the land.
It seems that they are planning to give up sea operations completely and rely on the city to hold on.
In response, Major General Wan Binglin showed a sneer on his lips.
These red-haired barbarians have never really seen the siege method of the Great Chu Empire Army. Do they think that they can withstand their own indiscriminate bombardment just by relying on these backward artillery, matchlock guns and flesh and blood?
These natives never shed tears before seeing the coffin!
"Give me the order to build a defensive position first to prevent these red-haired barbarians from coming out of the city to attack and seek death!"
"Then all units will be stationed and rest!"
"I have been tired for several days. Let the soldiers rest first!"
"It can't escape this city anyway!"
After you've rested, eaten and drank enough, then pull those cannons up and fuck them!
While the Chu army outside the city was resting and making various preparations, many people in Batavia City were observing the Chu army, and most of them looked very bad.
Several high-ranking colonial officials and generals looked at the Chu army outside the city, all with sad expressions on their faces.
The Chu people finally came and killed them. What should we do?
Can their city really stop the Chu people's attack?
While the upper echelons of the Dutch looked worried, Lawrence, as an ordinary soldier, was thinking about how to save his life in the subsequent battles.
Unlike those high-ranking elders who had never seen how the Chu people besieged the city, Lawrence had personally seen the Chu people besieging the city of Malacca. At that time, he happened to be passing through the Strait of Malacca with a company's merchant ship and saw it from a distance. The Chu army violently bombarded the city of Malacca.
Although many years had passed, the rumbling sound of cannons and one after another explosions, and the image of the entire city of Malacca shrouded in gunpowder smoke, still often appeared in his mind.
He didn't know how the Chu people managed such a fierce bombardment, but he knew that no soldier, no matter how heroic, could withstand such a fierce bombardment.
After all, flesh and blood cannot stop the cannonballs.
Those big shots were unwilling to surrender for various reasons, but he, Lawrence, came to the Far East just to earn a salary and get some trophies during the adventure.
If there were huge benefits, he would be willing to risk his life with the natives.
But... the premise is that there is interest and the other party is an indigenous person.
It definitely doesn’t include doing it when there is little benefit, and it definitely doesn’t include risking one’s life with the Chu people.
Just like it is now!
Only a fool would resist and fight with the Chu people in the city of Batavia!
With such thoughts, Lawrence was already thinking about how to save his life in this battle!
After thinking for a long time, Lawrence still felt that he could not continue to stay stupidly in the city wall, let alone appear in front of his boss. He had to disappear early.
Otherwise, after the Chu army begins to attack, it will be difficult for him to escape before the battle, and it will be over if he is really sent to the city wall to die.
So, while a group of big shots were still observing the Chu army outside the city, Lawrence quietly retreated, ran into the alley while the left and right were not paying attention, and then disappeared into the buildings in the city.
That's right... Lawrence shamelessly deserted before the battle officially broke out.
This was the only way he could think of to save his life.
Coincidentally, there are many Dutch people who have the same knowledge and thoughts as Lawrence!
