New Shun 1730

Even so, Niu Er did not pull all the troops out of the Bandung area.

Because, merits vary.

Defending Jingliwen is only the most basic requirement.

Beyond this basic requirement, what kind of effect can be achieved, whether he can understand the intention of the Privy Council, and whether he can make greater contributions, all depends on his ability.

Whether he can make his superiors shine will determine his future. And the so-called shining requires skills. The superiors want an apple, and you have worked hard to get a big grapefruit, saying that this thing is better than an apple, but the problem is that the superiors don’t want grapefruits, then it’s not a shining, but a black eye, thinking that this person has no overall view, at least can’t understand the intentions of the superiors, and it’s hard to have a chance to be independent in the future.

Since Niu Er was selected here, the Privy Council naturally looked at him differently and thought that he was "capable". If the final result can also get an evaluation of "capable", not to say that he will rise to prominence, at least he can climb faster and higher than others.

After receiving the secret letter from the Privy Council, Niu Er made his own idea.

Obviously, Nanyang is too big. The ancients said that a cunning rabbit has three burrows, but the Dutch have too many burrows in Nanyang. The court is not afraid of naval battles, but is afraid that there will be no chance of naval battles and the Dutch fleet will run away.

The purpose of capturing Jingliwen and defending Jingliwen is to attract the Dutch fleet to gather and lure the court's navy to destroy the Dutch fleet.

But Niu Er thought very clearly that the court's goal was Nanyang, so Batavia must be captured.

The task given to him by the Privy Council was to attract the Dutch fleet. In addition to this task, as long as the strategic intention of the Privy Council can be grasped, the merit can be taken to a higher level.

So he personally led 800 people to guard Jingliwen.

The rest of the troops gathered in the mountainous area between Batavia and Jingliwen.

Because Niu Er calculated that if the court's fleet suddenly appeared and captured the Dutch fleet, then the Dutch troops besieging the city would not choose to continue the siege.

Instead, they must retreat to Batavia to defend Batavia.

Even if the Dutch commander was a fool, when he saw the appearance of the Dashun fleet and the start of the war, he should have understood that Dashun’s goal could not be Jingliwen, but to capture Batavia.

Batavia cannot be lost, it is the "capital" of the Dutch East India Company.

Therefore, at that time, the Dutch army must return to support. And there is only one way to return to Batavia.

Moreover, considering the need to return to support quickly, the Dutch will definitely retreat quickly, and it is impossible to do too much reconnaissance, nor can it delay time on land.

This can be used to fight an ambush on the road they must pass.

If the Batavia defenders can be eliminated in the field before the main force of the court's marines land, this credit is great, enough to get a "capable" evaluation for yourself.

If you don't consider the court's grand strategy, only consider the Java region, according to Niu Er's original ambition to go it alone and capture Batavia, this battle should not be fought like this.

Instead, he should attack Cirebon and leave a small number of troops to defend the city. He would take his troops, wait for reinforcements, and defeat them one by one, thus completely eliminating the Dutch's living forces.

Batavia could not be defended after all, because the company's policy did not welcome Dutch people who were not employees, and the number of troops here was limited. He felt that he was really capable of relying on himself, relying on the tactics of concentrating superior forces to attack the enemy's must-rescue and defeating them one by one, and relying on the strength of the Guiyi Army to capture Batavia.

However, this would seriously undermine the court's strategy.

Because the court's eyes were not on a small West Java, but on the entire Nanyang.

The key to the entire Nanyang was not Batavia, but the Dutch fleet. That was the connection between the various Dutch strongholds. If this line was cut off, the entire Nanyang would be scattered castles that could not support each other.

If he did this, the Dutch fleet would never be able to gather. At that time, even if he captured Batavia, would it be a credit?

Niu Er thought, if that happened, he would never be promoted in his life. Wouldn't the Whale Marquis scold him and send him to Kuwu and other places to be a garrison officer for life?

But on the other hand, he would defend Jingliwen first, let the Dutch fleet gather and transport troops, wait for the court fleet to appear, and then let that part of the troops attack the retreating Dutch halfway. This would be a real achievement.

Although it seems that they are all for the attack on Batavia, the core is completely different.

Now it seems that everything is going well.

Warships flying the VOC flag have begun to gather on the sea outside Jingliwen.

The winter weather is also very good, without typhoons, which is suitable for naval activities.

The troops transported by the Dutch from all over have also landed, camped, and assembled near Jingliwen.

The Dutch also adopted the French siege method and began to build blockades and dig trenches around the castle to prevent the defenders in the city from breaking out.

The fleet's artillery also began to tentatively shoot at the castle.

However, it is not easy to capture Jingliwen.

Only by attacking a city can one defend it. Since the Guiyi Army was able to capture the castle, they naturally knew the weaknesses of the defense system.

After the military reform, Dashun knew how to attack a city, so of course they also studied how to defend the city in a targeted manner.

These technical officers are impossible for the surrounding emirates to have, and they are definitely not something that a group of grassroots rebels can have.

With the development of war methods, since fortress engineering has become a discipline, it is natural to talk about science.

In addition to the siege methods of the Guiyi Army, the problem that Cirebon had to face was the threat of naval guns.

The Dutch had artillery batteries in Cirebon, and Cirebon was different from Ceylon. When the Dutch built the fortress in Cirebon, they had to guard against other forces at sea. At that time, they were hostile to Spain, Portugal, and even Britain after they fell out, as well as the Bugis pirates and Chinese pirate groups at sea. Of course, they had to build expensive sea artillery batteries.

When Ceylon was captured, the Netherlands was in its golden age. The British forces were completely expelled from Southeast Asia, and the Spanish were forced to shrink in Luzon and dare not show their heads. There was no need to build expensive sea artillery batteries.

However, before the Dutch garrison surrendered, they did a very standard thing according to the drill manual.

The gun ports of the cannons were wedged shut with nails.

Not to mention that it was not easy to dig them out, even if they were dug out, the cannons would be unusable. The wedges would squeeze cracks out of the barrel of the cannon, which might cause the barrel to explode.

There were artillery batteries but no cannons, which was a headache for the Guiyi Army defending Jingliwen.

Artillery fire was impossible, otherwise, with the artillery batteries in Jingliwen, they could really fight a cannon battle with the Dutch.

For this reason, the fortress engineers who graduated from Jinghai Palace and sent by the Privy Council on the Guiyi Army side forcibly recruited local people to cover the stones of those artillery batteries with soft soil, so as to minimize the threat caused by warships and cannons and make it less likely to bounce.

At the same time, a new formula was dug behind the artillery batteries, turning the artillery batteries that originally fired at the sea into several sloping earth slopes that caused blind spots for artillery fire.

Just guard against the Dutch landing in small boats.

On the front, considering that the Dutch suffered a great loss before the French tunnel siege method, they might also use this siege method.

Moreover, the Dutch had a manpower advantage here, and it was easy to recruit local people to work after years of rule.

Therefore, on the side of the castle facing the plain area, the tactical guidance given by the fortress engineers was to use zigzag trenches against zigzag trenches.

In front of the castle, the zigzag trenches dug during the siege were used to expand the defense range outward.

The Dutch artillery could not directly attack the bastion area, and if they wanted to advance, they had to go through the most bloody and cruel trench hand-to-hand combat.

The naval guns could not cover the front, and the artillery on the shore could not shoot from two miles away, which would not be able to counter the defending artillery.

Therefore, the only choice for the Dutch was to dig pits with the Guiyi Army to advance.

When the two sides approached, they launched a charge to gain distance and occupy positions for the artillery to approach.

Since the Guiyi Army chose such a defensive tactic, it meant that they would inevitably launch a counterattack.

This kind of battle is the most cruel.

What is being competed is the fighting will of both sides.

This is not a field battle on the plains, where you can’t die or not, and it will be over in a few waves. Many times, even within ten or twenty minutes, the victory or defeat of a line is decided.

However, it is impossible to deploy too many troops at one time for such a charge and counter-charge.

The two sides can only confront each other within the shooting range, and launch a bayonet charge from time to time. The scale will not be too large, but it is extremely miserable, and the frequency may be very high.

It is even possible that within a day, there will be three or five mutual charges to see which side's soldiers can't bear it psychologically and finally refuse to push the line and tug of war.

In the Dutch camp, Governor Valkenir and some confidants in the army looked at the defense system repaired by these "rebels" with unprecedented solemnity.

The entire bastion was quiet, but trenches like spider webs could be seen. There would be a bend every few distances, making it impossible for the solid bullets of the cannon to kill the soldiers in the trenches, because the inertia of the shells could not make the shells turn.

The Netherlands did not have effective shrapnel shells, and the colonial garrisons did not have elite troops such as grenadiers.

Now it is impossible for the cannon to move forward, because many places seem to be the artillery positions of the rebels, but there is no way to know which one is it.

The range of the gunboat attack has little effect on the defenders. Valknier has fought with the armies of local small countries, and he was also the governor of Ceylon.

For example, the Sinhalese, although they have guns and cannons, they defend the castle when they guard the castle. And this way of defending the castle allows the Dutch artillery to perfectly play its advantages and easily capture it.

But these rebels in front of them did not shrink in the city to defend, which made the artillery of the naval guns not very effective.

The artillery of the naval guns is not effective, and we can only rely on the troops on land to push the cannons to the front for artillery. But the defenders have too many advances, and they must first destroy the artillery positions on the opposite side one by one before they can let the infantry advance.

Or, just like the French, start digging trenches at a farther distance and approach little by little. But the Netherlands did not have professional engineering troops. There were some in the mainland, but there was no such excellent technical force in the colonies, so they had to force civilians to dig.

However, if civilians went to dig, they would face the risk of artillery fire from the defenders. The civilians definitely did not have the skills of professional engineers, and the cooperation of five people to gradually connect the trenches from small pits.

They could only be exposed within the range of artillery fire and dig like live targets. But the organizational ability of the civilians would disperse as long as they were bombarded twice.

This was just a technical problem, which was enough to give these Dutch people a headache, but it was not enough to make them look so solemn.

The reason why they looked so solemn was that these standard counterattack tactics and fortifications were absolutely impossible to be made by a group of escaped slaves from the sugar factory.

The British seemed to have really invested a lot of money, at least sending a colonel and a sufficient number of instructors. Even if they could capture Jingliwen this time, they would have to deal with the endless disruptions from the British in the future. Can they handle it?

"It seems that the war in Europe will continue for a long time, and our British allies will take advantage of this war to quietly extend their hands into Southeast Asia. Gentlemen, I think it will be difficult to attack. I think we should just siege. The warships block the sea, and we surround the castle."

"An excellent commander can specify excellent tactics. But he can't produce food, fruits, and vegetables. And the commander can't fight malaria, scurvy, and tropical diseases. The British instructor on the opposite side is excellent, but compared to the fragility of the body and health of God-made people, what can he do?"