Chapter 275: 273【A Pyrrhic Victory at Sea】(For Dual Supreme Patron

Zheng Zhilong had lied to Zhao Han — he was purely bragging. He did not have more than twenty great-bird ships.

He had only two!

The main issue was the extreme demands on timber. In Fujian and Guangdong there was hardly any oak to be found, and the even finer ironwood had been felled to near extinction. If you mounted Hongyi cannons at the bow and stern and improved Folangji cannons along the broadside, using a wood like fir would likely blow the ship apart the moment you opened fire.

In a pure gunnery duel, Zheng Zhilong's warships were utterly incapable of defeating Dutch warships.

First, the hulls were too brittle; second, the firepower was insufficient.

The first problem was the main structural design — a layout of bulkhead plates plus bottom planking, lacking a large number of ribs for reinforcement. The second was that the timber simply could not keep up; sturdy woods like oak were nowhere to be found. These two factors made the hulls brittle as could be, so even if you had large-caliber cannon, you dared not mount them on board.

Given this situation, Zheng Zhilong later imitated Western hull designs, building with a keel-and-rib structure. It was a very peculiar kind of ship — seen and sketched by an Englishman — with a Western-style hull and Chinese-style sails.

At this very moment, Zheng Zhilong had his shipwrights building such hybrid Chinese-Western warships, but it would probably be another year or two before they could be launched.

Be that as it may, Zheng Zhilong did not fear the Dutch, because he won every naval battle he fought.

Historically, in another half year, the Dutch would go to war with Zheng Zhilong once more. Nine Dutch warships, including three-masted capital ships, would be driven back to Batavia by Zheng Zhilong, too afraid to come out again.

That would also be the final battle between the two sides. From then on, the Dutch obediently paid protection money, and this standoff was not broken until Zheng Chenggong attacked Fort Zeelandia.

Just as the Dutch soldiers were landing at Macau, Zheng Zhilong personally led his fleet, racing over at top speed from the Guanghai Guard station.

Through a telescope, the Great Unity soldiers on the Macau side spotted the situation from the watchtower and immediately sent a signal ordering the beacon fires lit.

Wan Bangyan's Guangzhou naval force, lying hidden over at Tuen Mun, saw the beacon smoke rising in the direction of Macau and hurriedly led three Xinhui ships and more than ten black-sail ships to join the fight.

The fifteen Dutch warships and twelve armed merchantmen, seeing Zheng Zhilong's fleet appear, immediately chose to pull away from the coast to avoid being bombarded from two sides by the Macau fort batteries and Zheng Zhilong.

The Dutch capital ship was the Middelburg, displacing around 500 tons — the only "great ship" the Dutch East Indies fleet possessed.

This great ship had taken part in the Battle of Liaoluo Bay, but had withdrawn early before the fighting even began.

The reason for its withdrawal was that its hull was too large and too cumbersome; it was at too great a disadvantage in coastal combat and easily subjected to fire attacks using large numbers of small Ming boats.

At this moment, Zheng Zhilong was leading over 270 vessels of various sizes, the vast majority being coastal oar-and-sail ships, closing in on the Dutch fleet at high speed with their advantage in swiftness.

Boom-boom-boom-boom!

The two sides began firing at each other, though the intensity of firepower could not remotely compare to a European naval battle.

The largest and most heavily armed vessel on the battlefield, the Middelburg, was merely a 500-ton displacement galleon. It carried only 251 soldiers, 125 sailors, and a little over thirty cannon.

The vast majority of Dutch warships displaced only around two to three hundred tons. By comparison, the largest warships of Zhao Han's Jiangxi fleet already displaced 150 tons.

Of course, seagoing warships and riverine warships certainly cannot be compared simply by displacement.

If the improved Folangji cannon aboard Zheng Zhilong's flagship were mounted on a Jiangxi fleet warship, just a few shots would shatter the vessel's own hull from the recoil.

Zheng Zhilong's fleet could be seen approaching from the west and south, fanning out to encircle the Dutch fleet.

The shells fired by the Zheng family warships clattered against the enemy, yet it was as if they were merely tickling the Dutch vessels. Although the improved Folangji cannon had a high rate of fire and good accuracy, their power was simply too feeble; even sustained bombardment caused only minor damage.

The Dutch warships' cannon fell into two types: one was heavy guns with an extremely low hit rate; the other was light guns whose power was hardly any different from the Folangji cannon.

The consequences they produced, however, were not the same.

Quite a few Zheng family warships, when struck, had a gaping hole punched through them — the fir hulls were simply far too fragile.

During the approach, two Zheng family warships were sunk, and another four were already taking on heavy water.

As for the Dutch warships, only three were heavily damaged, and that had nothing to do with the Zheng family — it was the achievement of Macau's shore defense batteries.

The wind direction favored a Dutch breakout. It was already late autumn, and a sudden northwesterly wind blew the Dutch warships swiftly toward the southeast, precisely where the gap in the three-sided encirclement lay.

Boom!

Wan Bangyan was just then leading the Guangzhou naval force to seal off the approach from due east. Struck by only a single shell, one black-sail ship began taking on water heavily, and the sailors hurriedly steered it out of the battle — a moment slower and it would likely have sunk.

The combined fleet of Zheng Zhilong and the Guangzhou naval force, nearly three hundred warships, had lain in ambush to jointly attack twenty-seven Dutch warships. Once battle was joined, they had achieved nothing, and instead had seven ships sunk or heavily damaged.

At last, more than ten Zheng family warships caught up with three Dutch vessels — the very three that had been heavily damaged by the shore batteries.

Surrounded on all sides, grappling and boarding, capturing the targets was only a matter of time.

The remaining twenty-four Dutch warships, driven by the northwesterly wind, barely managed to break out of the encirclement. But several galleons of over 300 tons, being too slow, were still doggedly clung to.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Over ten broadside guns fired in rapid succession at close range, instantly riddling one pursuing Zheng family warship like a sieve.

Over forty Zheng family warships surrounded the Dutch flagship, the Middelburg.

And then, they could not crack it.

The Zheng family warships were far too low and small, and only those few could actually engage. They attempted boarding over a dozen times but simply could not clamber up. The occasional sailor who succeeded in boarding was shot dead by Dutch muskets.

Boom-boom-boom!

In the close-range exchange of fire, the Zheng family warships suffered grievous losses, while the Dutch flagship sustained only minor damage.

It was merely a 500-ton displacement three-masted galleon — what the Dutch themselves called a third-rate ship of the line, though in Europe it would not even rank. Yet this thing alone left Zheng Zhilong's warships utterly helpless, able to overcome it only by throwing numbers and lives at it.

Whiz-whiz-whiz!

Zheng Zhilong's flagship surged forward, its bamboo rocket-propelled incendiaries launching burning material at the Dutch flagship.

Several volleys were fired in succession, and every single one failed to ignite.

It must be said that compared to the Battle of Liaoluo Bay, the quality of Zheng Zhilong's warships had greatly improved. Yet Zheng Zhilong himself had also grown more hesitant. He clearly had two great-bird ships, but was unwilling to commit them to fierce combat, afraid his two treasures would be sunk.

The reason was simple: Zheng Zhilong was a pirate, internally riven by countless factions, many of them in a semi-independent state.

He had to preserve his two great-bird ships; otherwise, he could not keep the other pirates under his command in check.

The two great ships built specifically to deal with the Dutch thus long delayed entering the fray personally, leaving the great Dutch ship unsubdued at the front after a long and fruitless assault.

Boom!

The heavy bow chaser cannon of the Middelburg, after firing six times in succession, directly sank the Zheng family warship blocking its path. Seeing their comrade's ship slowly sinking, the other pirates actually dared not plug the gap, each afraid of becoming the next target of that heavy cannon.

The Dutch flagship thus broke out of the encirclement, while the pirates simply steered clear of this great beast, using their speed advantage to race off and attack other enemy ships.

The two sides fought as they fled, the naval battle lasting three hours. Once they entered deep waters, Zheng Zhilong finally gave the order to cease pursuit.

Bleeeergh!

Wan Bangyan, commander of the Guangzhou naval force, once the sea battle was over, actually began to get seasick and vomit.

After returning to tally the battle results, Zheng Zhilong was extremely excited: "We captured six pirate ships, sank one pirate ship (an exploration vessel), and another pirate ship struck a reef and sank. Our forces only lost thirty-four large and small warships. For three to five years, the red-haired foreign devils won't dare stir up trouble again."

What was there to be happy about?

Wan Bangyan found it incomprehensible. Their allied fleet had nearly three hundred ships, and they had laid an ambush for the enemy's twenty-seven ships.

They had lost over thirty of their own, captured only six enemy ships, and one enemy ship had struck a reef and sunk. Three of the captured enemy ships had even been damaged by Macau's coastal defense batteries.

It was a downright disgraceful fight!

Zheng Zhilong laughed and said, "Brother Wan, sea battles are different from river battles, and even more different from the land battles your Great Unity Army fights. The red-haired devils' warships are sturdy and their cannons are ferocious. Achieving this much is already quite good. Moreover, the red-haired devils only have thirty-some warships in total. Losing seven this time means losing nearly a quarter. Six years ago, the red-haired devils lost a third of their warships, and they've only just recovered now."

Wan Bangyan immediately put on a smile, cupped his hands, and said, "All thanks to General Zheng's masterful command!"

"Haha, with the red-haired devils crippled, no pirate in the Southern Seas will dare cause trouble. Come, let's go to Guangzhou for a few drinks. We can leave things here to our subordinates." Zheng Zhilong was in high spirits.

Wan Bangyan made some arrangements, then accompanied Zheng Zhilong to drink. That evening, upon returning to his quarters, he immediately wrote a letter.

In the letter, he told Zhao Han that Zheng Zhilong, this overlord of the seas, was utterly unworthy of the title and had no ambition whatsoever.

Additionally, Wan Bangyan requested that Zhao Han issue an order to plant more oak trees in Guangdong. He had inquired with the Portuguese and learned that in Europe, warships were often built using oak trees over eighty years old, which then required more than ten years of timber treatment. The resulting warships far surpassed those made of Chinese fir.

A hundred-year navy — the shipbuilding materials alone take a hundred years.

Oak and teak are both top-grade shipbuilding materials, but they are rarely seen along China's coast. Several centuries later they might be very common, but most of that would be from species introduced from abroad. In late Ming China, they were extremely hard to find.

The Indochinese Peninsula, however, has plenty of teak, distributed across the regions that would later become Burma, Thailand, and Laos.

Moreover, using teak to build warships yields even better quality than oak warships.

This sea battle had thoroughly awakened Wan Bangyan. He had lost one Xinhui ship and three wucao ships, but fortunately, he would be allotted three of the captured Dutch warships.

After receiving this letter, Zhao Han immediately ordered the felling of sawtooth oaks, to be transported over mountains and ridges to Guangzhou for shipbuilding.

This was a native Chinese oak, and its wood quality was top-grade. But for shipbuilding, the trees had to be at least seventy or eighty years old, meaning they could basically only be found in deep, old-growth forests. The transportation costs would be driven extremely high.

As for the Macau offensive and defensive battle, there was little suspense.

The moment the sea battle began, the Dutch soldiers conducting the landing assault were all dumbfounded. Their ships were retreating, and as for them... they hadn't even boarded yet!

Over a thousand Dutch, Japanese, and Malay soldiers, who had been preparing to assault the fort, saw the sea battle erupt and the cannon fire growing more distant. The commander immediately ordered a retreat.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Under bombardment from the fort and pursuit by the defending troops, the retreat quickly turned into a rout.

Do not expect high morale from these men — a bunch of Dutch army soldiers whose pay couldn't even feed themselves, a bunch of Japanese ronin hired to loot, a bunch of semi-enslaved Malay natives. Their combat quality was no better than that of the Great Ming's own troops.

Sixteen years ago, Dutch soldiers captured by the Macau garrison, in order to save their lives, had actually begged to convert to Catholicism.

Catholicism and Protestantism, each regarded the other as heresy. They really went all out just to stay alive. The Dutch army not only had worrying combat effectiveness, but their faith was also highly questionable.

Of course, the Portuguese were not much better.

Because the King of Portugal exploited them too heavily, many Portuguese in India directly converted to Islam and Hinduism...

"There's another one here!"

The discoverer of New Zealand, the surveyor of Australia — the thirty-five-year-old Abel Tasman — had his exploration vessel sunk. He had barely managed to swim back to shore when he was met by a group of charging Macau defenders.

Abel Tasman, a Dutch Protestant, very crisply raised both hands and shouted in Portuguese, "I am a Catholic! Don't kill me!"

(End of Chapter)