Chapter 474 The First Kalimantan War (Part 2)

Hugh Gough's sudden order to retreat was indeed unexpected by Nanming, because such an advantaged and very proud opponent usually would only think of taking a step back after a bloody encounter.

In fact, in order to keep the British troops in "Xinjing", Zhu Qiongying sent people to spread rumors that there were tens of millions of taels of silver hidden in the palace.

But I didn't expect that the other party was completely unmoved. In fact, Hugh Gough's military thinking was indeed backward, but his intuition and judgment were very good.

At the same time, Nanming's performance was too fake, and the two sides acted as if they were going to die for their country even before there was any contact. This made Hugh Gough feel a great sense of violation.

And after arriving in Kalimantan, he felt that the Lion City had a serious lack of intelligence on the so-called "Nan Ming".

The barbaric tribes described by the officials actually had an astonishing rate of firearms equipment. In addition, this strange fortress and the spirit of the defenders surprised him.

Hugh Gough has never looked down upon any Eastern army. This was true for India and the Qing Dynasty, but this time he admitted that he had failed.

The battle that he thought would be over in a week at most took five days on the road and three days of siege, but no substantial progress was made. Although he did not lose anything, his trump card was almost exposed.

Hugh Gough didn't want to engage in any digging and siege. He thought it would be more cost-effective to use the maritime advantage to continue to harm the enemy's ports.

The Prime Minister Zhiyun of the Southern Ming Dynasty, who stayed behind, immediately ordered people to dig up the dikes in order to flood the Seventh Army. However, the reality was that the river directly changed its course, and the flood bypassed the British troops.

But it was not completely useless. At least it created a floodplain and delayed the return of British reinforcements.

Hugh Gough looked at the flood of sediment in front of him and could only lament his bad luck. But he would not wait and immediately ordered the cannon fodder third brother to build a pontoon bridge.

On the other hand, Zhiyun couldn't believe the scene she observed through the telescope. Those British people actually dared to jump into the flood to build a pontoon bridge, but she had no time to admire their courage because the thunderclouds from the north had already arrived. The arrival of the rainy season will greatly weaken the combat effectiveness of the British army, and at the same time create opportunities for "beating dogs behind closed doors".

Zhiyun still admires the strange foreign prince Zhu Qiongying talks about. Every "gift" he gives to Nanming is very important to this country.

For example, although the tactics at this time only had eight words, it was their only chance to completely defeat the British.

The five thousand men in her hand did not have the equipment of the "Three Battalions" and the Xinjing Imperial Army. Most of them only had bows and arrows, spears, shovels, and hoes, so if they wanted to block the British army head-on, they would simply hit the stone with an egg.

Moreover, in fact, the power and range of bows and arrows will be greatly reduced after being stained with water, let alone fighting in the rain, which is simply a fantasy.

But she still has a way to delay the opponent's marching speed. Zhiyun ordered her men to immediately destroy all the bridges from Xinjing to Mara Port, then destroy the roads, and then use the little gunpowder in their hands to make a few "landmines". The rest can only be left to God's will.

In Mara Port, the fighting never stopped.

The heavy rain greatly reduced the combat effectiveness of the British army, but the gap in training between the two sides was still irreparable. The Nanming army had an advantage due to the tunnel surprise attack in the city, but the battle at the dock was not optimistic.

Although the British army on the dock only numbered four to five hundred people at most, the Nanming army could not charge forward at all.

It was precisely because of this that Lieutenant General Humphrey Senhouse and his adjutant did not follow the footsteps of Colonel Hardek Kreese, and they successfully escaped to the dock.

Seeing the Nanming soldiers pouring into the dock like a black tide, Lieutenant General Senhaus decisively ordered everyone to board the battleship and fire the cannon.

The battleship salvo is so powerful that it cannot be resisted by flesh and blood.

General Liu Dadao didn't hesitate. He swung his sword and chopped off the head of a British soldier who was begging for mercy, and then raised it high.

"Brothers, kill a foreign devil and get ten acres of land! Catch them all for me!"

Then Nanming soldiers began a city-wide search for the remnants of the enemy. As for the British who hid on the ship, they encountered new problems before they had time to breathe.

Since the number of remaining sailors was limited, and Vice Admiral Humphrey Senhouse did not want British ships to fall into the hands of the enemy, there were only twenty or thirty men on each ship except his flagship.

Lieutenant General Senhaus also imagined that more survivors would rush to the dock and then all the ships would be driven away.

But a scream woke him up. A large number of Nanming soldiers were climbing onto his warship with knives in their hands. Some people had even jumped on the ship and started to chase and kill the British sailors crazily.

And these people not only had knives, but some also had revolvers. Lieutenant General Humphrey Senhouse leaned on the side of the ship, and screams came one after another around him.

He looked back and saw through the flashing thunder light that another battleship was already crawling with Nanming soldiers wearing black clothes or shirtless, and more people emerged from the black water.

Lieutenant General Senhaus collapsed on the ground. He felt that he was in hell at the moment, and his enemies were completely a group of demons from hell.

In fact, the first thing Zhu Qiongying did in Nanyang was to recruit local Chinese pirates, but these people were usually sent out to intercept merchant ships transporting piglets and do some shady things.

Ship hijacking is their specialty. These people are known for their ruthlessness, and it is impossible for real desperadoes to do such a thing as sneak attack on a battleship in a small boat at night when there is a storm.

In fact, these pirates had more experience in dealing with foreigners than the Southern Ming army. Before they surrendered to Zhu Qiongying, they often had to deal with these foreigners. If they ran slower, they would be killed or captured to receive a reward.

Once they were caught up by the other side, the only way to survive was to jump to the other side, so at this moment these people were extremely desperate.

The captain of the British ship "Hai Axin" had just shot and killed a Southern Ming soldier with a long beard, and two more young soldiers jumped onto the deck. The "Wo Lai" next door had been completely conquered. The captain who was still resisting just now had his head cut off and his body thrown into the sea.

On Humphrey Senhouse's flagship "Bengal", a British soldier stabbed a Southern Ming soldier with a gun, but the latter held the rifle tightly before he died and refused to let go, creating an opportunity for his companions to cut the former into pieces.

What was even more fatal to Humphrey Senhouse was that after the riot on the ship, the Southern Ming army that had just retreated came back again.

The bloody killing continued like this, and this long night was like the scythe of the god of death, constantly harvesting lives.

The next day, Senhouse leaned against the mast dejectedly. His entire fleet was left with only his flagship and less than a hundred officers and soldiers on it, and he himself was injured.

If it weren't for a few brave guys who detonated the ammunition rooms of other battleships last night, I'm afraid I would have become a sinner of the British Empire.

Of course, Humphrey Senhouse also had to thank his adjutant, the brave Welsh boy. If he hadn't cut the cable of the flagship, I'm afraid no British would have been able to leave the port of Mala alive.

In the early morning, fog rose from the sea, but the lookout still found a fleet approaching slowly. He shouted when he saw the Union Jack hanging high.

"Captain! It's our ship!"

"Great! Ask them for help quickly, and tell them that pirates have attacked us, and ask them to help us take back the port of Mala!"

However, Humphrey Senhouse was not happy for too long, because when the fleet approached, he found that although the two battleships led by the team also flew the British flag, they were all Orientals on board, and the gun ports had been opened in advance.

Zhu Qiongying, who was standing on the bow wearing a Western military uniform, said "Fire!"

The two battleships fired together when approaching the "Bengal". For a time, the iron balls smashed the wooden hull, and wood chips flew all over the sky. The people on the ship were either directly broken into two by the iron balls, or stabbed to death by the scattered fragments.

This was Zhu Qiongying's last trump card, the Southern Ming Navy, two battleships, three cruisers, and seven frigates. It was with these guys that she subdued the pirates in the South China Sea, and it was also her confidence.

Two of the battleships were eliminated by Austria and were originally left to Zhu Qiongying by Franz. Three cruisers were captured from the British, and the other seven frigates were bought from the Dutch and Spanish, with Austria as the middleman.

In Mala Port, the heads of British soldiers have piled up like a hill.

These Southern Ming soldiers don't know anything about international law. Most of them are farmers or coolies, or pirates, bandits or gang members.

Even if there are one or two who have read books occasionally, they only know that "those who offend the mighty Han will be punished even if they are far away."

When Zhu Qiongying's warship arrived at Mala Port, she got off the warship alone, holding something in her hand, and threw it into Liu Dadao's hand.

It was a human head. Liu Dadao observed it carefully for a long time but couldn't see anything, because in his eyes, Westerners were all the same.

"It's the head of Humphrey Senhouse. Send it to Hugh Gough and tell him to surrender or die."

"God bless the Ming Dynasty, long live!"

"Long live!"

The soldiers of the Southern Ming Dynasty shouted long live. They were all extremely excited because they had done what the Qing Dynasty could not do, and it was really a happy thing to be able to cut off the head of the enemy chief.

All the generals felt that they had won 80% of the war, and the rest was just to wipe out the remaining enemies.

However, they did not know that in addition to the expeditionary force in Southeast Asia, the British also had hundreds of battleships and hundreds of thousands of troops.

On the other hand, Hugh Gough was already mad to death. He didn't know what kind of wicked person was to destroy the road so badly.

People and horses could still make do, but those baggage could not move on this road at all, especially those heavy artillery. Hugh Gough was reluctant to abandon it. He could only ask people to fill the pit while asking for help from Mala Port, hoping that the other party could gather some natives to help him.

But the British did nothing along the way, so how could they expect the natives to help them now?

When the locals saw the British coming, they all fled into the mountains and refused to leave. The latter had no good solution. They tried to set fire to the mountains, but it was too difficult to do so in the rainy season, so they had to give up in the end.

Hugh Goff's messenger was arrested as soon as he arrived at Mala Port. He couldn't believe the scene in front of him. Thousands of British soldiers' bodies were being collectively incinerated in the center of the port.

"Sir, please don't mind. Our weather is hot and humid here. If the bodies are not handled in time, plague will occur. But we can transfer your ashes to your country."

Luo Xiangnan, who is in charge of diplomacy, said in fluent English. He was the son of a wealthy businessman in Guangzhou. He studied in Europe for many years and wanted to return to China to make a name for himself.

But things didn't go as planned. Luo Xiangnan thought he couldn't get enough of the officialdom of the Qing Dynasty. Instead, he was castrated and thrown on the street because he offended a certain nobleman.

In order to save the family business, his father chose to expel Luo Xiangnan from the house, but Nian still gave him some money to go to Nanyang during the father-son dispute.

Luo Xiangnan is the head of the Shenji Camp, the Minister of Honglu Temple (equivalent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs), and the only eunuch in the Southern Ming Dynasty.

"You?" The British soldier felt that the gay man's choice of words was a bit inaccurate.

"Yes, you guys."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you are useless, and we don't have the habit of preparing rooms for invaders here, so please die!"

Luo Xiangnan pushed the British man into the burning pit of fire. He ignored the struggling and screaming man below and just said to the people around him.

"Tell your Majesty that there are still 2,700 people in Hugh Gough's team and more than 200 wounded soldiers, including 1,200 Indians. In his opinion, these people are unstable factors.

But you tell your majesty again that Indians are not good birds, and we have no spies who can penetrate into the other side. Tell Prime Minister Zhiyun that the alienation strategy is not easy to use against Westerners. "

However, Zhiyun still got a Spaniard to go to Hugh Gough's military camp to read the imperial edict.

The general idea was to "urge Hugh Gough to surrender, and made it clear that Mara Port had been lost and that they had no way out.

At the same time, a reward of 10,000 taels was offered for Hugh Gough's head. Each British soldier had a reward of 10 taels of silver, and other officers had a reward ranging from 20 to 100 taels. "

That night, many assassinations occurred in the military camp. Several soldiers had their heads cut off, and some officers were even among the dead.

At the same time, the number of deserters in the Indian military camps is also increasing. Some people are taking the heads of British people to receive rewards, and some are unable to bear the abuse of British people. However, most of them are just daily deserters because of the corruption of military discipline.

But this was a serious blow to the morale of Hugh Gough's army. He knew very well that all the soldiers would run away before he could reach Mara Port.

But it was impossible for the proud British general to surrender. He believed that the "Lion City" (Singapore) should have received the news and would send people to rescue them soon.

What he has to do now is to take the troops to Mara Port to wait for rescue, and for this, some things have to be given up.

The first was the seriously wounded. There was a lack of medical treatment in this place, and the terrain was rugged and difficult to navigate. Carrying them was really a burden, so they were handed over to the army chaplain.

But those priests were not stupid, they just left the seriously injured people on the road and ran for their lives.

Naturally, Nanming's army would not take care of these people, but it was different for the indigenous people who had been bullied miserably by the British. They would seize this opportunity to complain and take revenge.

Then those heavy weapons also became the target of abandonment, because these big guys often got stuck in the mud and slowed down the march, so they had to be abandoned.

But Hugh Gough would not leave it to the enemy, so he blocked the bore with mud and blew it up. After losing two-thirds of their baggage and almost all their artillery, the British army finally arrived at Mara Port.