Chapter 370: Draining Batavia Dry

"Get out of the way!"

Shimazu Hisaryu roared, and in the next instant the cannon mouths flashed—a whole line of ronin near the trench burst into scattered pulp. On the walls of Batavia, the flickering light of cannon and musket fire illuminated Van der Meer's face, which grew uglier by the moment. The gunfire lasted a full half hour before gradually dying down. By moonlight, one could dimly make out corpses lying every which way in the sugarcane fields. And at the foot of Batavia's walls, the ronin were already howling and wailing for the gates to be opened.

Royce's expression was awkward as he cursed under his breath: "A pack of cowards!" Then he quietly ordered his men to open the gates.

Van der Meer said nothing more and walked down from the wall.

Early the next morning, the garrison soldiers were horrified to see the ronin corpses spread across a stretch of over a hundred meters, every one of them having died a miserable death.

Great Xia soldiers were still in the trenches, scattering caltrops outward; the density of caltrops on the ground was astonishing, like wild grass.

Farther off, other Great Xia soldiers were clearing away the shredded flesh and broken remains near the trench as if dumping trash.

There were still many ronin mercenaries in Batavia, and Royce quickly raised another ronin army—but after that night raid, no one dared to sally out and attack the camp again.

As the Great Xia approach trench drew closer and closer to the city walls, Van der Meer grew more and more anxious, even suffering sleepless nights. Unfortunately, he had no military talent, and racking his brains produced no idea for how to defend the city.

All he could do was fall back on old methods: build simple trebuchets, collect the excrement of men and beasts in the city, and lob it onto the Great Xia positions.

Disease ran rampant on the island of Java—malaria, dysentery, cholera, and typhoid all had high incidence rates, and filth was an effective vector for spreading illness.

During the second siege of Batavia, Lucaszoon had used this very trick, successfully sparking a plague in the Mataram camp.

Later, the Mataram even gave Batavia a nickname: "City of Filth."

The Great Xia army had a sound epidemic-prevention system. The Dutch hurled filth for four or five days straight, and not only did it fail to spark plague outside the walls—the southeast monsoon winds blew the stench straight back into the city.

Still, though the tactic caused no physical harm, it took a real toll on the Great Xia soldiers' morale.

Soldiers were often unlucky enough to get hit, shit raining down on their heads, forcing them to pull back from the front line in a hurry and head to the Ciliwung River with tea-oil soap to wash themselves, scrubbing until they nearly rubbed their skin raw before climbing out of the water.

And unfortunately for them, the Great Xia army was camped upstream on the Ciliwung, while all of Batavia's domestic water came from that same river—so in a sense, it was self-produced and self-consumed.

Seeing that the filth-throwing tactic was ineffective, Van der Meer was completely at his wit's end. He could only post a reward notice in the city, declaring that whoever could hold Batavia would receive a bounty of one hundred thousand Dutch guilders.

It was a desperate, panicked move—but to his surprise, someone actually took up the offer.

In the Governor-General's office, Van der Meer stared in shock at the man who had accepted the bounty: "Mister Van Dijk?"

The newcomer was around forty, wearing a loose, sloppy workman's outfit. He was short, slightly stout, with a badly receding hairline. Not daring to meet Van der Meer's eyes, he kept his head down and said, "Hello, Councilor… Governor-General! I mean, Your Excellency the Governor-General!"

Van Dijk clutched seven or eight paper tubes under his arms, looking quite ill at ease.

Van der Meer confirmed: "You're the one who took that bounty?"

In Van der Meer's mind, the sort of person who could help defend Batavia should have been a cold-blooded soldier like Lucaszoon, or a burly brute of a warrior like Royce.

Van Dijk, however, was nothing more than a public works engineer.

A public works engineer, as the term suggested, was a craftsman responsible for city wall construction, canal maintenance, street lighting, and the like.

Batavia was in Southeast Asia, extremely far from the Netherlands. Even with public works engineers earning three times what they would at home, few came. And those who did come were all adventure-seekers with tough personalities—a cautious, timid middle-aged Dutchman like Van Dijk was almost never seen in Batavia, which was why Van der Meer could recognize him at a glance.

Hearing the Governor-General's words, Van Dijk immediately stammered, "It was me, I took it! All my own idea, yes, yes." Van der Meer said sternly, "I have no time for your jokes."

Van Dijk shrank his neck, said nothing, and stood there fidgeting uneasily.

"Tell me your idea." Van der Meer said. He knew that the more timid and cautious a man was, the less likely he was to casually promise something he couldn't deliver, so he decided to give Van Dijk a chance.

Hearing this, Van Dijk hurried to the desk and opened the paper tubes one by one, revealing a large number of blueprints, which he spread out one after another. "This is the design for the intake sluice at the southern end of the moat… and this is the design for the tidal sluices on the north wall. As you can see, there are fifteen tidal sluices on the north wall in total—God above, that's more than enough!

This one is an overview of the moat. You see, it functions as a surge tank—yes, yes…"

Van der Meer frowned deeply: "What exactly are you trying to say?"

Van Dijk spoke at a rapid clip: "Water! Respected Council—Governor-General, Your Excellency! Water is the Dutchman's dearest companion—our finest weapon!

You see, by opening and closing these regulating valves, we can control the water level… Batavia is much like Holland—flat terrain, close to both river and sea. We can use the same methods we used against the Spanish against the gentlemen outside the walls.

The canals and the moat all have regulating valves. Close these two, and we can control the area of flooding—neither too deep nor too shallow."

Van der Meer's brow gradually relaxed. He looked at Van Dijk in disbelief. This somewhat comical middle-aged man now seemed to him like a savior.

"You're saying you can control the water levels of the canals and moat, enough to flood the enemy's trenches?"

Van Dijk kept rubbing his hands together, smiling nervously: "Yes, yes! Respected Council—no, Governor-Gener…"

"Forget the damned titles!"

Van der Meer paced excitedly before the desk, then stopped abruptly and asked, "How long? How many men?"

"All we need to do is open and close the valves—the winches are all inside the city. Storing water until it overflows takes one to two days, and reaching the right level outside the city takes another one to two days.

But judging by the quality of those gentlemen's earthworks outside, they can't withstand soaking. In just a day or two, their works will collapse under the erosion of the water—yes, yes, one or two days.

I mean, one to two days, plus another one to two days, which comes to…"

"Two to four days!" Van der Meer understood. He did the mental math—four days was nowhere near enough time for the enemy to dig up to the walls—then asked, "What if the enemy digs tunnels?"

Van Dijk shook his head: "No, no. The water table here is too high. Dig too deep and water wells up; dig too shallow and surface water seeps in. To ensure the quality of the works, we could do this… sink a vertical…"

As he spoke, Van Dijk took a pencil and notebook from his belt and sketched a simple diagram.

"Pour water into the wells to raise the water table. If the enemy's tunnels come anywhere near, they'll seep. We can put them here, and here… a total of fifteen to twenty-five vertical wells encircling the city. Of course, I'll need to recalculate the exact figures—yes, recalculate…"

Van der Meer couldn't hide the smile on his face—this plan actually seemed feasible!

"And what if the enemy dams the river—say, building a barrage upstream to block the flow?"

Van Dijk said: "The lower course of the Ciliwung has a channel width of twenty to twenty-five meters, plus the floodplains on both sides for a total width of about thirty to thirty-five meters. The channel is straight, the banks gently sloped, the riverbed sandy—the foundation is too soft and the channel too wide, making construction very difficult.

If the gentlemen outside want to cut off the river, they'd need to build a masonry dam, drive timber pile foundations, and construct pumping windmills. There isn't that much stone on Java… and with all due respect, I don't believe there's an engineer among the gentlemen outside capable of overseeing the closure of the final gap… Even in Amsterdam, only a master-level engineer could manage the closure."

"Right! Well said!" Van der Meer said joyfully.

In his haste, he had forgotten to consult the experience of the previous two sieges.

When the Mataram had besieged the city, they too had tried to cut off the river, but failed—in the end, they could only throw corpses into the water to spread plague within the city. Besides Mataram, Banten, Sunda, and even Aceh—their hydraulic engineering all remained at the level of paddy irrigation, at most piling up earthen weirs to lower the water level by thirty percent. That was the ceiling of Eastern hydraulic civilization.

Great Xia was also a rice-growing nation; their hydraulic capability might be somewhat better than Mataram's, but at best it just meant thicker earthworks.

Van der Meer laughed at himself. It seemed the pressure had been getting to him lately—he was even having fantasies.

He ran through the entire plan in his mind once more, confirmed there was not a single flaw, and said to Van Dijk: "Then let's do it!"

"Yes, yes." Van Dijk said as he gathered up his blueprints, then added hesitantly, "So… um… the bounty… you know…" Van der Meer paused slightly, then asked, "Did Madame Van Dijk send you?"

Van Dijk's face flushed bright red in an instant. He lowered his head and said quickly, "I came on my own, yes, yes."

Van der Meer smiled slightly and instructed his secretary to give half the bounty to Van Tey. This public engineer's fear of his wife was famous throughout Batavia. Had it not been for a wife who was extremely ambitious and possessed an insatiable appetite for consumption, Van Tey probably would never have moved from Amsterdam to Batavia. Soon, the secretary brought a banker's draft payable at the Amsterdam Bank and handed it to Van Tey. Amid the intricate patterns, the numerals "50,000.00" were written in Arabic digits.

"This is the deposit. Upon completion, you'll receive the other half," said Van der Meer. Though a great enemy loomed before them, business rules could not be abandoned — such bounties had no custom of full payment in advance.

Van Tey thanked him repeatedly and made to leave.

Van der Meer said: "No need to go home. Begin the engineering work now."

Early the next morning, Ge Hong emerged from his tent, stretched, and yawned as he inspected the progress of the approach trenches.

The lower reaches of the Ciliwung River were extremely flat terrain. Even though the Great Xia army camp stood upstream at the southeastern corner of Batavia, it was not much higher, so the army had built several watchtowers.

Ge Hong climbed up a watchtower and saw Li Yu already up there. Ge Hong paused in surprise, then said: "General Li rises very early."

Li Yu laughed: "Old habit. If I don't practice at the appointed hour, my body starts itching."

It was a rule of the Red Boat Opera Troupe that martial roles had to practice their morning drills — rising at the first crow of the rooster, with apprentices having to get up even earlier. Though Li Yu had joined the army, he had kept this habit.

"Has General Li noticed anything unusual?"

As Ge Hong spoke, he raised his telescope and looked toward Batavia. The city was shrouded in a thin pale-blue mist, and across the surrounding fields, dozens of approach trenches spread toward the city like cracks in the earth.

Li Yu said: "Nothing unusual. But these trenches are being dug remarkably fast. At this rate, in another six or seven days, we can strike straight into their lair." Ge Hong chatted and laughed for a moment, then suddenly said: "Hiss—"

Li Yu looked around with slight tension: "Is something wrong?"

Ge Hong's brows knit tightly as he said slowly: "The water in the moat... seems to have risen somewhat?"

Li Yu raised his telescope and looked for a long while. The Dutch moat was full of water, connected to the canals within the city — but what had the original water level been? Had the level risen?

Ge Hong lowered his telescope and said to Li Yu: "Come, let's go to the central command tent."

Moments later, inside the central command tent, Wang Ruzhong slammed his fist on the table: "The Dutch want to flood us with water?"

Ge Hong frowned and said: "They're downstream — backing up water to overflow is easy. The land around Batavia is all humus and fill soil, which can't withstand soaking. And the surrounding terrain is flat, so once the water spreads, it can easily flood a marshland of one or two li in every direction."

Li Yu cursed: "We hold back from poisoning the water out of concern for civilian lives, but they have no such scruples!"

Wang Ruzhong looked at Ge Hong and said: "Grand Master Ge, what do we do?"

If the zigzag approach trenches could not be dug, then even the Great Xia army had no way to take the city. No matter how many cannons they had, it would be useless — they could only besiege. And the longer the siege dragged on, the more complications would arise; the fleet might not outlast the Dutch.

If they were truly forced to retreat, then this great naval victory would be wasted — all their efforts lost at the final step.

Li Yu urgently slammed his fist on the table: "Let's build sand dikes around the approach trenches!"

Ge Hong frowned and shook his head: "That won't hold. The soil layer is too soft — water will seep down, and the trenches will collapse the moment they're dug."

Li Yu paced in place, spinning in circles with anxiety: "This is truly maddening!"

Wang Ruzhong said: "Stop interrupting. Listen to Grand Master Ge."

After thinking for a long while, Ge Hong said: "We build a dam and divert the flow!"

Wang Ruzhong said: "Can that be done?"

"Worth a try." As Ge Hong spoke, he went outside the tent, picked up a stick, and drew a map of the Ciliwung River's course on the ground.

"... The Ciliwung generally flows from south to north. Before reaching Batavia city, the river bends westward for over ten li, then turns north again to the sea... Since our army is upstream, we can build a dam at that bend, divert the water to the northeast, and drain it into the more distant marshes."

Li Yu said in shock: "You want to reroute the river? How much manpower would that take?"

"We're not digging a new river course — we're building a dam to divert the flow. And we don't care about the fate of those downstream, so it'll be fast! Only three days, eight hundred men." Ge Hong kept drawing diagrams in the sand as he spoke without pause.

"First, we dig a diversion channel east of the dam site. This is to release the river's force when we close the gap. It doesn't need deep digging — the river will scour the channel open itself. A diversion channel of a hundred zhang can be dug in two days.

"At the same time, we drive double rows of dense pilings at the dam heads on both banks, fixed with crossbeams and riveted together to form the dam body. Inside, we lay palm fiber matting to block water, then fill with clay, and finally tamp it down to form the dam foundation. Upstream, we build spur dikes to deflect erosion.

"Once the dam heads are in place, both banks build out toward the river's center layer by layer with fascine mats, until the final closure is made with the closing fascine.

"The Ciliwung carries heavy sediment, which makes it perfect for this 'sequential fascine closure method.'

"The closing fascine (sào) will trap the sediment, which builds up thicker and thicker until it naturally forms a dam."

When Ge Hong finished speaking, he looked up. Wang Ruzhong's eyes were wide round, blank and unfocused; Li Yu's soul seemed to have left his body, his mouth hanging wide open.

"What do the two generals think?" Ge Hong asked again.

Wang Ruzhong snapped back to himself and smiled bitterly: "What could I possibly think? Of all that talk, the only word I understood was 'diversion channel' — not a single other character made sense to me..." Li Yu nodded: "Same for me."

Ge Hong explained: "'Bamboo cage stones' are cages woven from bamboo, filled with cobblestones, used to weigh down fascines and provide ballast.

"'Fascine' refers to materials for blocking water. Multiple fascine sections joined together form a dam.

"'Closure' is the final step of dam construction — sealing the middle of the dam body to completely block the water.

"'Spur dike' is..."

"Hold on..." Wang Ruzhong raised his hand in surrender, "Grand Master Ge, you'd better go explain this to His Majesty aboard the Candle Dragon. This blockhead of mine simply cannot understand."

Ge Hong nodded: "Very well."

Ever since the Dutch fleet had been completely annihilated, the Great Xia fleet had anchored with extreme audacity. Apart from the waters within range of the shore defense cannons, nearly the entire sea surface was filled with Great Xia ships.

Shuttle boats plied back and forth ceaselessly between the siege camp and the Candle Dragon every day.

Ge Hong casually boarded a shuttle boat, and in less than an hour, he had climbed aboard the Candle Dragon.

It was noon. Geng Wu stood guard before the captain's cabin door and said to him: "His Majesty is eating lunch. Unless it's urgent, you might wait a moment." Ge Hong said: "Very well."

But Lin Qian's voice came from within the captain's cabin: "Come in. Geng Wu, go fetch another portion of food."

Upon hearing this, Geng Wu invited Ge Hong inside, where Lin Qian, Bai Qing, Zheng Zhilong, and others were eating around the conference table.

Lin Qian waved him over to sit: "You came in such a hurry — you haven't eaten yet, have you? Join us."

Before long, Geng Wu brought in a portion of lunch.

After defeating the Dutch fleet, the Great Xia fleet could resupply without restraint along the shore and at Palembang. There was a wide variety of foodstuffs, and drinking water was no longer rationed. Today's staple was indica rice from Palembang, topped with a braised fresh mackerel in sauce — the fish was tender, and the sauce had soaked into the grains.

There was also a small bowl of garlic-scented water spinach, a small dish of pickled radish cubes, and a bowl of dried-shrimp winter melon soup.

Thanks to the convenience of sea transport, even on an expedition nearly five thousand li from home, the navy ate better than the army.

Ge Hong ate as he explained the plan to build a dam and divert the river's flow.

Bai Qing asked in confusion: "If the Dutch raise the water level downstream... wouldn't they flood Batavia itself first?"

Ge Hong wore a contemplative expression: "Perhaps the Dutch have a way to cut off the canal and moat water system... or perhaps their inner city dikes are higher than the outer city... On reflection, the red barbarians' hydraulic engineering does have its refinements."

Lin Qian tilted his head back and drained the shrimp-skin winter melon soup in one gulp, handed the empty bowl to Geng Wu, then said: "In the red barbarians' language, 'Holland' means lowlands. Their country is built on a stretch of coastal lowland—if they didn't build waterworks, the sea would flood most of their territory."

"That's why their skill at regulating water levels, draining, and building dams is extremely strong. Batavia's terrain shares similarities with the Dutch homeland, so it's only reasonable that they'd apply their native techniques here."

Bai Qing praised: "Who'd have thought the red barbarians had such abilities."

Ge Hong said: "I was the one looking at the sky from the bottom of a well."

As they spoke, Geng Wu brought in another bowl of winter melon soup and handed it to Lin Qian.

Lin Qian took it and blew on the steam, saying: "Saying you were looking at the sky from a well is a bit much—it's just that we're so far apart, neither side knows the other well.

My guess is, since the Dutch dared to use water storage and flooding, they must not have expected us to have the skill to cut off their water."

Lu Ruoteng wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and said: "During the previous two sieges, the Mataram people also tried to build dams to cut off the water, but neither attempt succeeded."

Ge Hong smiled proudly: "Ever since Yu the Great tamed the floods, we've been taming the Yellow River and building canals, fighting against water for thousands of years. The Dutch taking us for the same kind of barbarians as the Mataram—they must be blind!"

Lin Qian set down his bowl and chopsticks and said: "How sure of this are you?"

Ge Hong answered honestly: "Closing the gap with a joint levee—in Daxia this is just an ordinary flood-control method, something even a county could do. But I've never tried it myself, so I'm only seventy percent sure."

Seventy percent was enough. Time was tight, and Lin Qian had no time to ship in a water-conservancy expert from Daxia.

Besides, in this era, the division of labor wasn't clearly defined. A master craftsman like Ge Hong was someone who did a bit of everything, and building dams was well within his scope of work.

So Lin Qian said: "Then it's settled—we'll drain Batavia dry!"

With Lin Qian's permission, Ge Hong immediately finished his meal, even picking up the grains of rice that had fallen on the table and eating them clean, then drained his shrimp-skin winter melon soup in one gulp. Geng Wu asked: "Want another bowl?"

Ge Hong wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said: "No need. There's no time to waste—I must break ground and start work immediately!"

Back at the siege camp, Ge Hong pulled a hundred engineers off the front line and mustered seven hundred soldiers, dividing them into two groups—one group to dig the diversion channel, the other to build the river embankment.

The materials for the embankment—hardwood, bamboo, palm fiber, clay, cobblestones, and the like—were all things found right by the river, without using a single bit of cement or quarried stone. Ge Hong's method of building dams to divert water was originally used for flood control in Fujian and Guangdong, prized for its low cost and quick results—perfect for a time-critical siege like this.

The eight hundred men were split into two shifts, alternating day and night, working without rest.

Two days later, the diversion channel was dug on schedule, and the dams on both sides of the channel, along with the upstream spur dikes for deflecting water, were all completed.

Between the main sections of the dam was a gap roughly three zhang long, where the water converged and rushed through at tremendous speed—that was where the closing levee would be placed. At midnight, the area by the dam was brightly lit with torches, and everyone was busy around three enormous bundles of grass and earth.

Each bundle was over three zhang long and six or seven chi high, with several thick hauling ropes extending symmetrically from both sides, the whole thing stout and heavy.

These were the closing levees, made of palm leaves, coconut coir, abaca, and rattan, stuffed inside with cobblestones and gravel.

The front looked like a rolled pancake, the cross-section like a spiral bun, and with the hauling ropes on both sides, the whole thing resembled a giant centipede.

Ge Hong moved through the worksite, torch in hand.

"Tie those ropes tighter! Yours are too loose—they'll snap the moment they're pulled!"

"There's a tear over there—twist up some abaca rope and patch it, or else once the water hits it, all the filling will leak out!"

"Midnight snack's here, everyone eat up—tomorrow no holding back, put in everything you've got!"

The soldiers let out a cheer and ran off to eat.

Ge Hong had no appetite; he kept inspecting the closing levees over and over.

Over these two days, the water level in Batavia's moat had risen higher and higher, and just before dark, moat water had already begun spilling over, flowing onto the positions on the east and west sides.

Both the east and west sides of Batavia were sugarcane fields, flat and low-lying—they were the feint directions anyway, so getting flooded didn't matter.

But at this rate, before tomorrow night, the water would spread to the main assault position on the southeast side. Once the main attack direction got flooded, attacking Batavia would become difficult.

So tomorrow, the water had to be cut off.

And for dam-building, closing the gap was the hardest step—everything hinged on it. Ge Hong pulled out all the stops, making three closing levees in a row, each of a different design—even if it took sheer quantity, he was determined to seal that gap!

After finishing their midnight snack, the soldiers returned to the closing levees to make repairs and adjustments.

The night passed in the blink of an eye. The next day, at first light, Wang Ruzhong and Li Yuquan both arrived at the dam site.

The eyes of all the craftsmen and soldiers fell on Ge Hong.

His expression was solemn. First he lit incense, then bowed three times to heaven and earth and three times toward the Ciliwung River—this was to honor heaven, earth, and the river god.

On the riverbank, he had also set up a simple incense altar for the river god, bearing offerings of bananas, sea fish, coconuts, and the like.

After the simple ceremony concluded, Ge Hong announced in a clear voice: "Breach the levee!"

Yahei

Fenyuan

Pen