Editor's note: At the Cold Weapons Institute, "Can Defeat the Spanish Legion, Where Are the Dutch Maurice Phalanx Cattle?" After the article "Not Necessarily the Opponent of the White Pole Soldiers of the Ming Dynasty", some readers questioned that zheng's army attacked more than 1,000 Dutch troops with 25,000 in the battle of Zheng Chenggong's restoration of Taiwan, and it was still a year of hard fighting, so the combat effectiveness of the Dutch army was far superior to that of the Chinese army at that time. Is this the case?
▲Statue of Zheng Chenggong
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Rise and Fall of the World History ¥698 Purchase
We must first point out the fact that when Zheng Chenggong started his army in 1647, he only had a corner of South Australia, and only took Xiamen and Kinmen as bases in 1650, although he had 200,000 troops at his peak, but because he could only control the narrow coastal areas for a long time, he could not go deep into the inland, and the Army of Zheng Was very small, and the water army and miscellaneous service accounted for a large proportion of its army. Most of the army needs to undertake the task of tun tian to produce military food, and there are not many people with combat effectiveness.
Zheng's failure to echo Li Dingguo, as well as the failure of the Northern Expedition to Nanjing, indeed there was a lack of strength and lack of soldiers (at the time of the Battle of Nanjing, Zheng Chenggong's soldiers may only be more than 20,000 people), should not be too harsh, can fight with the Qing army for more than ten years, the stronger the fight, Zheng Chenggong is enough to be called a hero. Although Zheng successfully attacked Taiwan with 25,000 troops, after the attrition of the Battle of Nanjing, his army soldiers led by the Iron Man Army suffered heavy losses, and the land force was already very weak at this time.
Zheng Chenggong set out from Kinmen Zhiluo Bay, and after his temporary stay in Penghu, he took advantage of his familiarity with hydrology to take advantage of the high tide to avoid the Dutch blockade, crossed the dangerous Lu'er Gate at sea, and successfully landed on Taiwan. At this time, there were 1500 Dutch soldiers in Taiwan. After arriving in Taiwan, Zheng Chenggong first forced a landing on the Dutch fortress of Chichi by cutting off the water source, and at about the same time, the Battle of the Northern Front broke out between him and the Dutch army.
▲ Junker ship
The Battle of the Northern Front was divided into two parts: naval and land warfare. In terms of naval warfare, Zheng Jun's 30 Rongke ships besieged three Dutch warships, but the Dutch, as a maritime colonial power, had much larger ships and fierce firepower than Zheng Jun. Zheng Jun used the wind direction to cleverly avoid artillery fire to approach the enemy ships, the Dutch "Hector" blew itself up to avoid being captured, Zheng Jun boarded the "SGraveland" by casting rockets to cover, the hand-to-hand combat on the deck was extremely fierce, but finally was driven out, after 45 minutes of naval battle, three Dutch warships sank and were wounded, and they were defeated back to the South Berth.
In terms of land warfare, Chen Ze's 1,000 men fought against 240 Dutch troops. The Dutch commander, Captain Bader, in accordance with Morris's specifications, formed 240 Dutchmen into 2 phalanxes of 10 columns each, each with 12 men, firing guns as they advanced. Zheng's army consisted of 500 men and the Dutch, including archers, musketeers, shield men, and a very small number of Iron Men. Although the Dutch firearms were better than the Zheng army, and after the loss of the Battle of Nanjing, the proportion of zheng jun's musketeers was already very low, but the arrow rain of the Zheng army still put great pressure on the Dutch army, and soon the Zheng army pounced on the Dutch with a barrage of bullets, forcing the Dutch to fight with them.
During this period, the Zheng army shelled the Dutch army with 50 small guns, and the 4 naval guns on the Dutch pilot ship also continued to fire projectiles at the Zheng army, but the soldiers on both sides were of good quality, and the shelling did not affect them much. The Dutch later spoke highly of the Iron Men, believing that they combined defense and mobility, and that muskets could not harm them. Zheng Jun's sword and shield hand is also extremely strong, and he does not lose the wind in hand-to-hand combat with the Dutch. When the 500-strong roundabout force of the Zheng army silently crossed the dense forest and attacked the Dutch flank, the Dutch quickly collapsed, and the Zheng army attacked the Dutch army on both sides, killing 160 people and losing two-thirds of the Dutch army, and Captain Beder was killed.
Although the Zheng army was more numerous than the Dutch army in the land battle at the end of the northern front, the firearms configuration was much inferior, but it still fought a successful annihilation war, which at least proved that the individual combat effectiveness of the Zheng army was the same grade as the Dutch army. Before the war, the Dutch had said that one Dutchman could be worth 25 Chinese, and this war proved to be a joke.
▲ Heatlander Fortress model
The Battle of Chichi and the Battle of the Northern Front left the Zheng army in control of the southwestern part of The Island of Taiwan and the Tail Island of the Northern Front, respectively, in which the Dutch were trapped on the island of Dayuan, trapped in the famous Fortress of Zeelandia, which was a typical fortress structure, very strong, easy to defend and difficult to attack.
In May 1661 (the eighteenth year of Qing Shunzhi and the fifteenth year of the Yong calendar), Zheng's army of 10,000 men stormed chichi city, and due to the fortification of the city, more than 500 people were killed. Zheng Jun then turned the city into a siege and dug a trench to block the city of Zeelandia. In June, when food began to be scarce, Zheng Chenggong ordered 20,000 troops to go to Tuntian, leaving less than 5,000 people to besiege the city of Zeelandia, where more than a thousand Dutch soldiers (and a number of other family members) were stationed, at least, the Zheng army that surrounded Zeelandia was only 2,000 people, but the Dutch still did not dare to go out of the city to fight with Zheng Jun. It can be seen that in the land battle of the Battle at the end of the Northern Front, the combat effectiveness of the Zheng Army gave the Dutch a deep fear.
In July, Dutch reinforcements from Batavia arrived, and in addition to 725 soldiers and eleven warships, reinforcements also brought a large amount of supplies and gunpowder to the city of Zeelandia. Subsequently, the Naval Battle of the Taijiang River broke out.
The Dutch dispatched 5 plywood ships (from the perspective of the Battle of Shiluo Bay, a splint ship can play against 3-5 Chinese sailing ships), 2 brigs and more than a dozen small boats, attacked 12 Zhengjun sailing ships and artillery forts on the shore, due to shallow water and headwinds, and Zheng Jun had superior navigation skills, the superior Dutch fleet suffered a fiasco, losing more than 300 people, and Zheng Jun lost less than 100 people. The Battle of the Taijiang River proved that the naval combat effectiveness of the East could not be lost to the colonizers from the West. The two sides have since fallen into a protracted standoff. On October 10, the Dutch army "Ankhuvin" went to the Penghu Archipelago to loot food, 90 Dutch were ambushed and defeated by more than 30 Zheng troops, and 36 people were killed or captured, this time with fewer victories and more to prove the combat effectiveness of the Zheng army.
In December, the reinforcement commander Kau led his army to flee by boat back to Batavia, and the defenders of Zeelandia were in despair. Due to the scattered battles with Zheng Jun, shooting, and illness, after Kaowu escaped, there were fewer than 900 people in the city who could fight.
On 26 January 1662, the Zheng army launched a fierce attack on Utrecht Fort, a subsidiary fortress of Therasidio, and the german Dutch sergeant Hans Jeuriaen Rade was greatly improved in its fortification techniques. The land batteries were set up with 30 guns, and the guns of the Junker ships at sea also participated in the shelling, firing 2500 shells in 7 hours, of which 1700 hit the Utrecht Fort, the roof of the Utrecht Fort was destroyed, the beams and pillars were all broken, and it was impossible to defend, the defender Captain Ruhr led the army to escape, and the Zheng army captured the Utrecht fortress in one day.
▲ Marshal Vauban, famous marshal of the Bourbon Dynasty Sun King Louis XIV era
After the capture of the fortress of Utrecht, the Zheng army gained the commanding heights and was able to attack Zeelandia from a commanding height, and it was only a matter of time before Zeelandia was breached. At this time, there were only 3,000 Zheng troops on Dayuan Island, but the Dutch did not dare to go out of the city to attack, and Zheng Successfully ordered the construction of trenches while advancing towards the city of Zeelandia, and returned the Dutch fire with firearms. This tactic was similar to the parallel trench advance invented by Vauban, but at this time Vauban was only a 29-year-old young man who had not yet emerged in the court of the Sun King.
▲ Dutch Governor of Taiwan
Under the oppression of Zheng Jun, the Dutch governor of Taiwan, Yi Yi, surrendered to Zheng Jun on February 1 and left Taiwan with the remnants. During the nine-month war, more than 1,600 Dutch starved, died of war, or died of illness (including female dependents). As far as the Battle of Taiwan is concerned, although the Western army still does not seem to have a significant advantage over the East Asian army after the baptism of the Thirty Years' War, its advanced civil engineering technology can also be quickly mastered by the Eastern army. The European military system really surpassed the East by a great deal, and it was not until after the War of the Grand Alliance and the War of the Spanish Succession.
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