Chapter 729 Between offense and defense

For the Ma Da Blue Army, which has tens of thousands of people, the offensive in the morning is just a tentative attack, and using hundreds of lives to test the strength of the city defense is only a small amount for the commander of the Ma Da Blue Army.

It's just an ordinary combat method. The casualty rate that the defending army cannot bear is not a big problem for the Ma Da Blue Army. The Ma Da Blue Army's tactical intention is very clear, which is to use a simple offensive to find Bada.

The breakthrough point of the Via City defenses. At least after the morning battle, it can be said that most of the Dutch army's defensive methods have been exposed, and after a few hours of adjustments by the Malta Blue Army, their offensive will be more targeted.

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The troops of the Ma Da Blue Army stopped a little farther away than in the morning, and then began to install and adjust the trebuchets. After Bart noticed this, his face became even more gloomy. Although the trebuchets in the Ma Da Blue Army fired slowly

, its lethality to personnel was also very limited. In the battle with the defenders in the morning, it was no match for the city defense artillery. During the battle, several were destroyed by artillery shells, but Bart knew very well that this primitive weapon had its advantages.

First of all, the strike accuracy of this weapon determines that its target is not a single point, but an area. For example, if a certain section of the city wall is designated as the target, the probability of hitting this area is higher than that of a city defense military artillery that can accurately hit a stone.

There are more and more machines, and this is the main offensive method currently used by the Malta Blue Army. Secondly, the lethality of this weapon to personnel is relatively limited, but the damage to the city defenses cannot be ignored. Although Batavia's

The rammed earth city wall can resist ordinary artillery bombardment, but the heavy stone bullets whizzing down can gradually break out the gaps and cracks in the city wall. If the opponent keeps using trebuchets to focus fire somewhere, the defenders actually have no

There are no particularly effective defensive measures available. We can only watch the stone bullets falling from the sky destroy the city wall bit by bit. Thirdly, the trebuchet used by the Ma Da Blue Army this time has an extremely long range. Compared with the artillery at the top of the city, it is no longer obvious.

The disadvantage is that the defenders can no longer use the range advantage of their own weapons to suppress the opponent's long-range firepower output.

The battle in the morning had obviously allowed the Mada Blue Army to detect the hit rate of the city defense artillery at that distance, and consciously moved the trebuchet back a certain distance. On the one hand, it was to reduce the chance of the trebuchet being hit by the city defense artillery.

Probability, on the other hand, is probably to change the target of attack-this is one of the things that Bart is most worried about.

In the previous battles, only about half of the casualties suffered by the Mata Blue Army below the city came from the attacks on the city walls, while the other half were caused by the small wedge-shaped fortresses outside the city that made it difficult for the Mata Blue Army to successfully launch an offensive.

Although there are often only one or two hundred soldiers stationed in these fortresses, the firepower output by the gun arrays they form can firmly lock the Ma Da Blue Army who are trying to attack the city through the ladder bridge near the moat.

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Since the siege troops were almost all lightly armed, it was difficult for the weapons in their hands to cause any damage to the strong fortress - in fact, the Materan infantry could not even charge within twenty steps of the fortress, and they had already fallen inside the city.

Under the attack of the musketeers outside. Under such a crossfire attack, the Malalan infantry could not engage in a head-on confrontation with only the short spears and bows in their hands. Facts have also proved that the results of their attack methods were extremely limited, although they also killed several people.

The defenders in some forts were unable to capture these troublesome forts and advance the offensive to the city of Batavia.

When the first stone bullet flew through the air and hit the trench, causing a large splash of water, Bart knew that the commander of the Mada Blue Army was obviously aware of this and had adjusted the priority target from the city wall to the garrison fortress outside the city.

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After the first round of ejection, the trebuchet on the opposite side stopped for calibration. But Bart did not dare to wait for the opponent to adjust slowly, and immediately ordered all the artillery within the range to fire, trying his best to bombard the enemy's trebuchet.

Most of the wedge-shaped fortresses outside the city were built after the last war. As peripheral defense fortifications, the height, thickness and solidity of their retaining walls cannot be compared with those of the main city walls, and their ability to withstand attacks is naturally much lower.

When the Matarlan trebuchet launched its second round of projectiles, several stone bullets hit the outer wall of the fortress outside the city, kicking up large amounts of dust.

The forts outside the city are also equipped with artillery, but due to the limited space inside the fort, there are only two to four small-caliber artillery in each fort. They are mainly used to kill troops who forcefully cross the defensive trenches.

The trebuchets were not within its range. Therefore, the garrison in the fortress had no effective response to the trebuchet attacks except shouting and hiding around like headless flies.

After the Ma Da Blue Army withdrew the trebuchets, the Dutch army's artillery hit rate indeed began to decline. Although Bart adjusted his tactics in time and let the artillery on the city wall begin to focus fire on areas, the effect was still not ideal. After that,

After five rounds of bombardment, only one trebuchet was hit. This performance made Bart almost jump in fear.

Of course, Bart did not dare to order the army to go out of the city to counterattack. That would definitely fulfill the opponent's wishes. The Ma Da Blue Army was eager for the defenders to go out of the city to fight, and then relied on their superior strength to force a fight. In addition, before the Ma Da Blue Army landed, the defenders

Several passages to the city moat have been destroyed, leaving only the passage in front of the north city gate. However, if the war goes unfavorably, the troops fighting out of the city may not be able to return to the city in time due to the narrow passages. In such a double situation

Under the risk, Bart naturally did not dare to act rashly.

The Mata Blue Army unhurriedly carried out stone-throwing attacks on several forts outside the city for two hours. Hundreds of stone bombs flew from the Mata Blue Army position to the Dutch fort, destroying the defenses of the fort.

The wall was covered with dust. During these two hours, the Dutch defenders also hit twelve trebuchets, but the casualties were too far away to be counted.

The commander of the horse-defying blue army was obviously more patient than the Dutch army expected at the beginning of the war. In this round of fighting, the opponent did not send out infantry to rush into the battle line again. Basically, long-range weapons were used to attack the fortress outside the city. These stone-throwing

Although the machine requires more manpower, its cost of use is actually much lower than that of artillery. During the two-hour battle, the trebuchet can fight almost uninterrupted, but the artillery on the city head needs to be cooled intermittently, and

Commanders must also consider the consumption of ammunition and the loss of artillery life. In contrast, although the defenders have advanced weapons, they are much more passive than their opponents who mainly use cold weapons.

In the end, dusk fell and saved the defenders who were almost collapsing in the fortress outside the city. The Ma Da Blue Army packed up their siege equipment unhurriedly and slowly retreated to the camp three miles away in military formation. The defenders

Then we should seize the time and inventory the battle damage outside the city.

The results of the inventory really worried Bart. Of the six forts outside the northern city wall, only the two immediately outside the north gate had the function of protecting the entrance to the city because of their dangerous location. They were built more efficiently than the other forts.

Because it is strong, the damage is pretty good, and minor repairs will be fine. However, the other four forts are not so lucky, and the protective walls have collapsed in varying degrees. The fort was the most severely damaged.

, one-third of the protective wall has collapsed or cracked, and its defense difficulty will be greatly increased as a result.

In addition, the casualties were more serious than that in the morning. The number of soldiers killed in the fortress by stone bullets or the walls collapsed actually exceeded the number of soldiers killed in the morning, and the number of wounded was nearly a hundred. Such battle losses are of great significance to

For the defenders with limited strength, this is absolutely an unacceptable situation. If the battle continues like this, in less than ten days, the Ma Da Blue Army will be able to use this primitive tactic to wear away the enemies of the defenders bit by bit.

Elite.

Bart originally thought that Van Diemen would come to the front line in person to deal with the situation here, but when he came down from the city wall, he learned that Van Diemen had rushed to the east, where the fighting situation was worse than in the north, outside the city.

When the fortress was attacked by trebuchets, the parapet collapsed, overwhelming the artillery in action below and the soldiers on the entire gun emplacement. The fire used to light the fuse ignited a barrel of black powder not far away, and the subsequent explosion

The entire artillery crew was sent to the sky, and more than 20 unlucky people nearby were implicated. What was even more serious was that the explosion also collapsed a large section of the protective wall that had not collapsed, making the fortress

Nearly one-half of the area has lost basic protection - if the Mata Blue Army attacks the trench again, the soldiers will have to fight face to face with these Southeast Asian barbarians.

Although this was not good news to be thankful for, Bart was secretly relieved. If there had not been this big loophole on the eastern front, the performance of the northern front he was responsible for in the afternoon would obviously have been severely criticized.

Although there were no major problems with Bart's command, as a commander, the positions he was responsible for did suffer undue casualties and losses during the battle.

"Assemble manpower immediately and repair the fortress wall outside the city overnight!" Bart can't think of a more effective way to defend against the enemy now, so he can only seize the time to repair the damaged fortifications. As for whether this temporary repair can be done

He no longer wanted to imagine being able to face the next wave of offensive from the Ma Da Blue Man.

"Second Lieutenant Bart, the grown boss is here again."

As soon as Bart returned to the headquarters under the city wall, the guards came in and reported to him the news of Cheng Dapeng's visit.

"Didn't I ask him to contact Su Keyi first?" Bart muttered, but still did not refuse Cheng Dapeng's request: "Bring him in."

Cheng Dapeng came into the house carrying a lacquered wood food box, and after seeing Bart, he thanked Bart for his hard work. Bart had been fighting for a day, and his energy had long been gone. He didn't even think about standing up to greet him, but

He nodded and said, "Boss Cheng, what's the matter with coming here at this time?"

"I know Lord Bart has had a hard time fighting today, so I specially ordered some watercress dishes to be made, hoping to replenish Lord Bart's strength a little bit." After saying this, Cheng Dapeng put the food box in front of Bart without waiting for Bart's response.

Open it on the table.

"Delicious bacon and pea soup!" Bart originally wanted to say something polite, but when he saw the dishes in the food box, his attention was immediately attracted: "Mini muffins! And French fries! Boss Cheng, you are so awesome

So thoughtful!”

"It's not just that." Cheng Dapeng unhurriedly opened the first layer of grids, and it turned out that there was another layer below: "This is Western paella, and there is also a small bottle of wine. Mr. Bart has probably heard of the Haihan people brewing it."

The ‘Sanya Wine’ bar?”

"Of course, this wine tastes very good. I didn't expect you to hide so many good things!" Bart took the wine bottle from Cheng Dapeng's hand with a smile, carefully looked at the "Sanya" mark on the glass bottle, and nodded.

Said: "Yes, this is an authentic Haihan product. It is often out of stock in the Batavia market and the price is terrifyingly high. If I remember correctly, such a small bottle of 'Sanya wine' costs one florin."

, my salary is not even enough to drink a bottle of this wine every day.”

"If Mr. Bart likes it, I will send you some in the future. I still have a small amount of stock in my house." Cheng Dapeng said as he took out the bowls, chopsticks, spoons and cups, and neatly arranged them for Bart.

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Bart felt a little sorry: "Boss Cheng is too polite, how about... let's have a drink together?"

"I can't bear to drink, so I'd better enjoy it with Lord Bart." Cheng Dapeng came to the camp specifically, and naturally he didn't come to drink with Bart.

After meeting Bart last time, Cheng Dapeng was thinking about how to continue this line, and even specially recruited several colleagues in the same group to come up with ideas. After everyone thought about it, it seemed that using delicious food as comfort food would be a good idea.

A feasible idea. So I spent money to find a cook from Northern Europe in the city, and then cooked a few so-called Nordic delicacies.

However, the Netherlands does not have any outstanding food. Even the Dutch themselves once complained that "the French live to eat, while the Dutch eat to live." In addition, the ingredients that can be found locally are already very limited.

Therefore, Cheng Dapeng was a little bit disappointed with the dishes he made. So he asked the chef from his rice store, who was also a colleague from the security department who had received cooking training in Sanya, to add Haihan's signature seafood rice, which was used

The seafood comes from Dacheng Rice Store's own stock that has been reserved in advance. Cheng Dapeng was worried that the portion was not enough, so he added a bottle of "Sanya Special Brew" in 2-packs.

Facts have proved that Cheng Dapeng’s worries were misplaced. Bart, who had been hungry for almost a day, obviously didn’t have any thoughts about being picky about food, and almost swept away all the food in a hurry. As for the bottle of Sanya special brew, before he started eating

Just drank it as an aperitif.
Chapter completed!