On the third day of February in the twenty-sixth year of Chongzhen, the mighty Southern Expedition Fleet passed through the entire South China Sea and the Karimata Strait and attacked the Dutch Batavia.
Batavia Bay is not a bay that goes deep inland, but a relatively open semicircular sea area. The Dutch Pier is almost exposed at the edge of the ocean.
The reason why the Dutch dared to build a seaport in such a place was because they had absolute confidence in their fleet thirty years ago. The Dutch were confident that their battleships had no rivals in the Far East, and no one would dare to attack the Dutch military port.
Therefore, the defense force of the military port does not need to be too strong, as long as it is slightly covered.
But this kind of self-confidence became very fragile in the 26th year of Chongzhen.
Lu Hu sailed the fleet into Batavia Bay and stood on the bow of the flagship to carefully observe the city of Jakarta a few kilometers away.
Squadron Captain Shi Dingping said: "Commander, the rumors should be true. The Dutch seem to have really given up on Batavia."
Lu Hu nodded.
The fleet entered the range of the port's coastal defense artillery but the Dutch did not conduct artillery fire. This is unreasonable. The only explanation is that all the Dutch artillery has been withdrawn, and only the Javanese are left in the port. No one knows how to operate the artillery.
.
Lu Hu waved his hand and said: "There is no need to choose another landing point, just bomb Fort Batavia directly."
The semaphore was hung on the mast, and the forty ironclads, like forty monsters, approached the Batavia dock little by little.
On the dock, Wu Yingxiong looked at the panicked Javanese soldiers in panic.
Before leaving, the Dutch did not help Wu Yingxiong train the Javanese soldiers. These soldiers did not know how to use coastal defense artillery. The only thing the Dutch gave Wu Yingxiong was an artillery manual in Dutch.
Wu Yingxiong finally found a few Javanese natives among the Javanese soldiers these days who had a rough understanding of Dutch, but these few people could not fully understand the Dutch words. Therefore, no one dared to operate the cannons on the bastions and docks these days.
At this time, Li Zhi's fleet had already reached the vicinity of the dock. If they didn't open fire, they would be bombed by Li Zhi's fleet.
Wu Yingxiong rushed to the shelves and asked the Javanese natives who knew a little Dutch to operate the cannon according to the artillery manual.
Aim at the approaching ironclad ship, charge it, load it, insert a match rope, and light it.
Hearing only a bang, Wu Yingxiong felt that his ears were about to be deafened.
I don't know if there was too much gunpowder or something, but the cannon exploded. In the huge sparks, the cannon barrel that was supposed to shoot out the cannon completely cracked and turned into iron blocks flying in all directions. The unlucky ignition rope around the barrel was dirt.
The soldier was killed by the shock wave in an instant, and his body flew back several meters before falling to the ground.
Even several other natives standing a little further away were also hit by the explosion, killing one and injuring four others. Although Wu Yingxiong was standing twenty meters away, he was frightened by the huge shock wave and fell to the ground.
But he quickly got up and his face turned pale.
It's over. There is no artillery to attack Li Zhi's fleet, and it will be bombed.
The ironclads in the open bay were divided into two squadrons. The twenty ships in the front squadron gradually moved to an area four miles away from the dock, forming a semicircular formation to surround the fortress on the dock.
The gun windows on the ship's side were suddenly opened, and four hundred cannons were pushed out.
The soldiers in Fort Batavia were all stunned, watching those terrifying muzzles aimed at them.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Countless red flowers seemed to suddenly bloom on the sides of the twenty ships, and they were colorful and dazzling. Then the black cannonballs pierced the sky and shot toward the Batavia main bastion five miles away.
From Wu Yingxiong's point of view, after the cannonballs came out of the gun barrel, they shot up, down, left, right, and in all directions like fairy flowers, dominating every corner in the front, rear, and four sides of the bastion.
The shell hit the ground and exploded.
Huge sparks exploded from every corner of the bastion.
Four hundred rounds of heavy artillery shells set off a storm of iron rain.
The shock wave was like a storm that swept through the entire bastion, rushing through all the space. The Javanese soldiers around the shells were immediately blown to pieces, and their charred bodies flew in all directions with the shock wave. The shrapnel of the conical shells was unbridled.
The ground splashed in the air, harvesting the lives of the soldiers in the bastion like the scythe of death.
With just one round of shelling, the entire bastion was completely blown open.
The bastion, or the wall outside Fort Batavia, was blown to pieces. The various arrow towers and defensive towers on the edge of the bastion were all blown down and turned into rubble and bricks. Everywhere in the bastion
It was a big hole made by a cannonball, which shattered the masonry on the ground and created a pit of charred black soil dozens of centimeters deep.
I don’t know how many Javanese soldiers were killed by the bombing. They turned into corpses that didn’t move at all, lying in a mess around the pit. Many soldiers had their hands, legs, and stomachs broken by the bombing, and their bodies were bleeding.
There was blood all over the ground, and he was screaming and struggling near the crater.
The screams of countless wounded soldiers became the background sound in the fortress, sounding like a noise.
But no one paid attention to these soldiers. The Dutch took away all the doctors, and the local natives did not understand surgery at all.
Wu Yingxiong looked at the tragic situation in the fortress, his face turned white.
How is it possible that the Dutch asked Wu Yingxiong to guard for several months? Let alone a few months, Wu Yingxiong couldn't even guard for an hour.
Wu Yingxiong suddenly felt that Hongmao was playing tricks on him.
With the combat power of Li Zhi's fleet, even the tens of thousands of Red Mao sent by the Red Army probably wouldn't be able to defend it. How could the Dutch believe that they could defend this place? Hong Mao obviously ran away and left himself and the soldiers here to die.
Wu Yingxiong trembled and subconsciously prepared to run away.
However, before Wu Yingxiong could take a step forward, another volley of heavy artillery fired towards the bastion.
The shell flew across the sky like a meteor and slammed into the Batavia Fort. A huge shock wave exploded in the bastion again. Countless pieces of flesh and blood were blown out by the shock wave, splashing everywhere in the small space.
Wu Yingxiong lay on the ground in a panic, not daring to raise his head, but suddenly felt a heat on his head. He touched his head and felt blood on his hand, mixed with a few pieces of burnt black meat.
Wu Yingxiong thought his head had been blown open and let out a huge scream.
However, he screamed for a long time and groped hard on his head, only to find that his head was not broken open and that the flesh and blood belonged to someone else.
Wu Yingxiong's psychology completely collapsed. He jumped up suddenly and fled outside the fortress.
He had long forgotten the nonsense about protecting Batavia, and now he just wanted to escape with his life.
However, Wu Yingxiong was not the only one to escape. Many soldiers were also fleeing to the bottom of the bastion, and the path out of the bastion was crowded with people.
Wu Yingxiong believed that he was the commander, so he shouted loudly and pushed away the soldiers in front, asking others to get out of the way to let him go first.
But no one thinks highly of Commander Wu Yingxiong.
A Javanese soldier who was pulled behind by Wu Yingxiong suddenly pulled out his sword and stabbed Wu Yingxiong in the back.
The blade penetrated the flesh and was completely submerged in Wu Yingxiong's body in an instant.
Wu Yingxiong let out a heartbreaking scream and rolled on the ground. However, the blade was too destructive to the body's organs. He only rolled a few times before losing all his strength and died.
