New Shun 1730

After the Chinese people near Kote were organized, Lei Zhenlan and Kapitan, who were originally appointed by the Dutch, directly joined the Dashun side and brought all the thousands of people who could be gathered nearby to the dock according to the original organizational model.

After the officials who spoke Min or Cantonese made the court's policies clear, these people were relieved of their worries.

The court's policies were better than those of the Dutch. Most people at this time had not yet awakened and had not received those subtle educations since childhood. If the Dutch had given better policies, they would not have opposed the Dutch.

This is a curse. If the Hongxi Massacre and the Batavia Massacre were allowed to happen, the Chinese would be more loyal to the court; however, since it was prevented, it had to give a more benevolent policy than the Dutch to make the people stand on the side of Dashun.

They didn't care too much about who would rule, but more about whether the hope given to them by the Dutch and the sixty acres of land could be implemented after the court took over.

After the policy was read out, there was thunderous cheers, and everyone was naturally enthusiastic about the Celestial Empire.

The military staff assigned some tasks such as transporting cannons, collecting farm tools, and cutting wood to prepare trenches.

These people were originally slaves in the sugar factory. When they arrived in Ceylon, they were organized as contract servants. They had a certain degree of organization and were quite skilled in doing such things.

Soon, more than 5,000 Chinese transported logistics, cannons, etc. to the road near Colombo Fort.

The sound of artillery fire had been heard in the distance, and the sound of artillery from many warships gradually became one.

Du Feng looked at Colombo Fort in the distance and knew that the negotiations had failed. The Dutch did not surrender without resistance.

This was nothing. In the original plan, the Nanyang region must have a big fight, and they would not actively persuade them to surrender. Because there are still a lot of chiefdoms and small countries around Nanyang, so-called fear of power but not virtue, the Dutch need to be used as a chicken to scare the monkeys, so that the surrounding small countries know the combat effectiveness of Dashun, and they will be more obedient.

But Ceylon had already ended the chaotic era of nations, and only the Kingdom of Kandy remained, trapped in the mountains. No matter who occupied Colombo and Jaffna in the coastal areas, the Kingdom of Kandy had to get along with them in a friendly manner.

So it would be best to persuade the Dutch to surrender, because there were no small countries around that needed to be deterred, and it was meaningless to fight so casually, as if flirting with a blind man.

Since the Dutch did not surrender, Du Feng began to prepare for the siege according to the established plan.

The old three things.

Hot air balloons were launched for reconnaissance.

Infantry formations, engineers built artillery bunkers, wooden shrapnel shells were used to bombard directly, and the amount of solid bullet gunpowder was reduced by one third to create a bounce. .

Engineers led the organized people to dig pits, zigzag trenches were close to the anti-artillery slope, Minié shooters and artillery provided cover, the people filled the moat with firewood, and the elite grenadiers seized the most disgusting trench in front of the anti-artillery slope.

The significance of the existence of the grenadiers is to live up to the lyrics "We throw them from the glacis, about the enemies ears". The most disgusting part of the bastion is the "glacis", the slope.

The Dutch colonial soldiers stationed here have not fought a decent battle for many years. It's just that with the conquests of the Dashun in the past few years, the Dutch's original arrogance has disappeared. Although they haven't fought for many years, they are still defending honestly.

It's not like the historical war with Guoxingye, when they were full of arrogance and didn't defend the city. They directly lined up to shoot at each other, ready to break 5,000 with 300 like they did against the natives.

Instead, they followed the regular combat method in a rigid manner, with some soldiers guarding on the bastion and a small number of soldiers in the fortifications outside the bastion to contain them.

Du Feng was not in a hurry, but deployed his troops step by step, outside the range of the bastion's defensive artillery, as the command post of the main camp.

The conscripted civilians were at the back, piling up and bundling the collected earth baskets, sacks, branches, etc.

Professional engineers began to dig trenches in sections, and built the first artillery position about 600 meters away from the bastion.

The wood for laying the position was transported along the dug trenches, and the heavy artillery was pushed and pulled to the constructed artillery position.

When all this was ready, the engineers led the team to dig the first trench in front of the artillery position.

After digging, the tactical staff of the engineers used simple geometry to find the blind spot angle of the artillery according to the distribution of the bastion gun positions, planned the path of diagonal digging, let the conscripted civilians enter the trenches, and began to dig forward in sections in a zigzag shape.

The Dutch officers in the castle panicked when they saw this posture.

An expert knows whether there is a problem or not as soon as he makes a move. If the commander is a fool, he can't see how serious the problem is with this tactic. When Liu Yu attacked the Russian castle on the north bank of Heilongjiang River, he used this tactic to scare Hannibal, and he panicked, because this tactic originated from France, and Hannibal studied fortress engineering and artillery at a military academy in France.

The Dutch were even more sensitive to this tactic, because this tactic was originally developed by the French to attack the Dutch fortress.

During the War of Independence, the Dutch bastion tactics made the Spanish cry for their parents. But during the Franco-Dutch War, the French's new tactics made the Dutch defending the city cry for their parents, and the casualties of the defenders were three to five times that of the attackers.

It is not difficult to crack this tactic in theory. You only need to have a field army and win the battle in the field. But if you don't have one, you will fall sooner or later if you just stay in the castle to guard it.

The Dutch governor of Ceylon had previously sternly rejected Dashun's persuasion to surrender. In fact, he still had a little arrogance towards Asians in his heart. He felt that although it sounded like these people were good at fighting and had many warships, he might not be able to defend.

After all, he had never really fought against Dashun.

As for the Asian troops, let's not talk about anything else, just the Sinhalese of the Kingdom of Kandy in front of them, they also had brown bass and eight-pound cannons, but the Dutch could still use the fortress garrison troops in the field, and often defeated two thousand with three hundred.

With the arrogance brought by this psychological advantage, the governor of Ceylon refused to surrender.

But now, he has begun to regret it.

The attack on the other side of the sea has temporarily stopped.

The Dashun navy easily destroyed the two cape artillery batteries, and there was no defense on the coast that could stop the Dashun navy from entering the bay.

However, after the naval bombardment, they carefully sent light ships to break into the bay, measure the water depth, and set buoys to point to avoid being trapped in the bay and becoming a live target due to insufficient water depth.

But Colombo is a natural harbor with a very suitable water depth, so the castle was built here.

Once the water depth measurement is completed and the warships enter the bay, the sides and backs of the entire Colombo Fort will be exposed to the range of the Dashun naval guns.

If the sides and backs of the fortress are exposed, what can they fight?

The navy is still measuring the water depth and it is estimated that it will have to wait until tomorrow to take action. This crisis has not yet fallen on its head.

However, the siege of the Marines is imminent, and as soon as the Marines' bombardment began, the Dutch defense has already tended to collapse.

Because... the bastion is anti-solid bullet.

However, the Dashun side had wooden-backed shrapnel shells and mortar shells with fuses that fired slowly but at a very high angle.

In order to increase the efficiency of the bombardment, the French reduced the amount of charge and let the iron shells hit the bastion and bounce around to kill the Dutch on the bastion.

The Dashun side went a step further and directly made wooden-backed shrapnel shells, which were also used to kill the Dutch on the bastion.

The idea was the same, but the means were different.

Moreover, the effect was much stronger than playing pinball with reduced charge.

The troops guarding the fortifications in front of the bastion collapsed after the first round of bombardment by the Dashun.

The garrison on the bastion faced the solid bullets of the pinball, the wooden-backed shrapnel shells that exploded overhead, and the gunpowder bags fired by large-caliber mortars with a very large charge.

There were hot air balloons in the sky for observation and correction. Those grenades and mortar shells could cross the bastions and walls for indirect shooting, easily blocking the passages between the bastions.

The soldiers could not and dared not to provide support: if they did not assemble in full force, the team would be scattered; if they assembled in full force to provide support, two shrapnel shells would explode overhead and they would collapse directly.

This was the first time that the Dashun Army fought against Europeans after its reform.

The rumbling of the cannons and the shrapnel shells scattered overhead announced one thing: the era of bastions was over.

The tactics of siege warfare, defense warfare and defensive counterattacks based on bastions would completely withdraw from the stage of history after this battle.

Instead, the success or failure would be determined by the battles at the legion level.

The era of bastions led by the Dutch War of Independence finally came to an end on the Dutch bastions.

The East led this tactical change, while the main tactical idea of ​​the Austrian Succession War, which was still ongoing in Europe, was still the offensive and defensive battles of fortresses and the cutting off of supply lines to force retreat. Frederick II was the first to win the battle, but he was only groping and had not formed a complete system.

On the Dashun side, the hardware, or in other words, the material foundation, directly announced the end of the old era.

In the interval of the bombardment, the governor of Ceylon risked being sniped by the Minié shooter, observed the direction of the Dashun digging tunnel, and then made a decision.

"Raise the white flag and surrender. The direction of their trenches perfectly avoids the angle of our bombardment, and the shells can't bounce into the trenches at all."

"Besides..."

Sighed bitterly, helpless.

Besides, the cannons on the bastion had been completely suppressed and destroyed by the opposite grenade, and even caused a gunpowder barrel explosion.

There was no danger of digging tunnels 600 meters away.

After the order was issued, the flag of the East India Company was quickly lowered, and a piece of white cotton cloth slowly rose to declare surrender.

When the white flag was raised, the bombardment outside ended.

The Dutch soldiers who suffered heavy casualties looked at the sky with lingering fear, as if they had been pardoned, fearing that another explosive grenade or a heavy-charged gunpowder bag fired by a mortar would fall on their heads.

I don’t know who took the lead, but the soldiers who were defending on the bastion and were lucky enough to survive cheered at the raised white flag and took off their hats to salute the white flag.

The governor of the Ceylon colony, dressed neatly, led his adjutant and some officers and asked people to open the gate of the castle.

Waving the white flag, they slowly walked towards the position of the Dashun Army that was still digging there.