Chapter 1022 Advantages

Lin Baiguang found himself quite comfortable in the Anping guesthouse. Though officially government property, it was essentially private Zheng family estate, with maintenance and expenses naturally more generous than the Emperor's own. The buildings were spotless, and the hostel clerks looked well-fed and proved extremely attentive to this "honored guest" of the Zheng family.

Yet the Zheng family's reply was like a stone sinking into the sea—no word at all. His entourage watched the courtyard entrance each day, hoping for a Zheng family messenger. Besides the solicitous hostel attendants and clerks coming and going, no one appeared.

His entourage were all naturalized citizens, and they grew anxious one by one, fearing they and their "chief" might be detained by the famous great sea lord, possibly forfeiting their lives.

Lin Baiguang remained untroubled. The Zheng family could not possibly refuse this bait—even knowing it was poisoned, they could not resist. Zheng Zhilong possessed a powerful gambler's mentality. Through such "gambling," in merely a decade or so, he had risen from a minor servant under his uncle to a settlement leader under Yan Siqi, then vaulted to become the Southeast Sea's hegemon.

Just as Zheng Zhilong would be lured to the Qing military camp and seized decades later, this was not actually his first time falling for such tactics. Years earlier, he had been tricked aboard a ship by Taiwan's Dutch governor Nuyts, kidnapped, forced to sign a trade agreement, and compelled to pay ransom. Yet when the Manchus later dangled territorial enfeoffment as a king before him, Zheng Zhilong took the bait once more.

From this perspective, the Great Library believed conducting salt trade with Zheng Zhilong was entirely feasible—as long as it was business, everything was negotiable.

However, though neither the Senate Standing Committee nor the Branch Committee had revealed how they intended to resolve Zheng Zhilong and Liu Xiang, it was obvious that ambitious sea lords like them were inevitably marked for elimination. Their organizations were too large to accept reorganization. Even if they submitted, the Zheng family's leaders and the interwoven network of subordinate captains and confidants made this group impossible to rapidly absorb into the Navy and Commerce departments.

Moreover, major sea lord organizations like those of Zheng Zhilong and Liu Xiang proved quite harmful to China's coastal maritime trade through their monopolistic pursuits. After Zheng Zhilong defeated Liu Xiang, he sold international trade maritime passage rights at exorbitant prices—one sailing permit cost two thousand taels per year, effectively barring ordinary merchants and boat owners with insufficient capital from participating in ocean trade. Before the Ming fell, the Zheng Zhilong organization had virtually monopolized the Hirado trade with Japan. Among Chinese ships arriving at Hirado, one quarter were Anhai ships under his direct control. And their struggles and monopolies in Chinese coastal areas also seriously disrupted domestic maritime commerce.

The Senate sought to seize maritime hegemony and establish Pax Senatoria—peace under Senate rule. The purpose of achieving hegemony was not merely obtaining excess profits, but more importantly promoting maritime trade and stimulating coastal industrial and commercial development. If trade profits were all monopolized by channel merchants, then except for necessities and luxuries, traders and retailers would eventually be forced to withdraw from this commercial system. Excessively high prices would also cause consumer purchasing power to shrink or even disappear entirely.

"Private monopoly means reaction," Ma Qianzhu had characterized the sea lords at an expanded Executive Committee meeting. "It is backward—an old thing obstructing productive forces."

"Obstructing productive forces" was a very serious characterization—roughly equivalent to a death sentence.

Thus completely crushing them and absorbing the remnants was the Executive Committee's only choice. This had already become consensus among Senators with access to core secrets.

His purpose in coming to Anping was not primarily to show goodwill or lull Zheng Zhilong—that was merely incidental. The Ocean Fleet and transport squadrons cared nothing about either Liu Xiang or Zheng Zhilong's naval forces. The Senate's fleet primarily sailed outer ocean routes. Unless Zheng Zhilong possessed radar and wireless radio, accurately intercepting the fleet would prove extremely difficult. Even if he achieved incredible luck in catching the fleet or adopted an ambush approach at fixed locations, the battle's outcome would still prove unfavorable to him.

The Navy had conducted numerous map-based wargame simulations at Maqiao, modeling various hostile activities that Zheng Zhilong, Liu Xiang, and the Dutch might undertake. Under various harsh conditions, all three powers still lost completely.

Taking Zheng Zhilong's organization as an example: If Zheng Zhilong wished to attack Operation Engine forces—never mind the main First Fleet and Second Fleet—even merely to intercept transport squadrons, he would have to deploy his entire main force to the Penghu area and establish positions. And the transport convoy commander would need to be foolish enough to crash directly into his ship formation. Once Lingao learned he was deployed at Penghu, nine auxiliary boat squadrons returning would suffice to crush him.

If Zheng Zhilong's fleet hid along the coast, that would relatively ensure their advantage. After all, in harbors and bays crisscrossed with sandbars and reefs in shallow waters, his fleet's majority of light vessels possessed great flexibility, and fire ships also stood some chance of success. But Operation Engine's transport routes generally avoided approaching the mainland coast.

Zheng Zhilong was also unlikely to actively sortie into outer ocean routes to intercept Senate convoys.

Traditional Chinese navigation depended heavily on maritime landmarks. Because China had not developed latitude and longitude concepts, even with compasses, ships still faced the problem of being unable to accurately determine position. The traditional method was celestial observation, roughly determining location through star positions.

But more common and convenient was using maritime landmarks. In traditional navigation guides—"bearing books"—bearings to various destinations and courses were clearly recorded. Course changes always used sea landmarks as navigation markers. Ship navigation therefore generally followed coastlines or used sea islands and sandbars as reference points.

Due to these fundamental deficiencies, Zheng Zhilong's ocean warfare capability was actually quite limited. Except for the Dutch, neither Liu Xiang nor Zheng Zhilong possessed the ability to conduct search operations across broad ocean expanses. In truth, their battles with the Dutch and other sea lords almost invariably occurred near coastal bays and islands.

As for the Dutch, auxiliary boats alone numbered nine squadrons—thirty-six large fuchuan and guangchuan. Any one of these thirty-six possessed firepower no less than large Dutch warships, and in quantity far exceeded them.

Though Zheng Zhilong was said to command hundreds of warships, only thirty to fifty of these were dedicated large combat vessels. Individual ship combat power fell far below that of auxiliary boats—even small Dutch sloops and brigs could engage Zheng Zhilong's fleet while outnumbered. Even if Zheng Zhilong concentrated all his warships, he might not match the auxiliary boat squadrons.

The Navy had used computer programs to conduct simulated naval combat tests. One side was a typical large Dutch armed merchantman: the NEW BANTAM, with eight hundred tons cargo capacity and maximum displacement over twelve hundred tons—among the largest class in East Asian waters. Shipboard firepower consisted of seven eighteen-pounder culverins and sixteen twelve-pounder demi-culverins—all the guns capable of entering artillery combat. Since cannons were distributed on both sides, its single-broadside volley weight was only about one hundred fifty pounds.

NEW BANTAM proved completely helpless facing Lichun-class and 901 types—rifled gun power against early smoothbores was essentially godlike. According to software calculations, the destructive power of 130mm Dahlgren rifled gun solid shot, incendiary, and explosive shells, even with very conservative estimates, required at most only five or six hits to completely destroy NEW BANTAM's combat and sailing capability. In one simulation, a solid shot directly penetrated the hull, struck the powder magazine, and detonated the entire ship.

Even facing auxiliary boats without rifled guns, Dutch top warships held no advantage whatsoever.

When confronting auxiliary boats equipped with forty-eight-pounder smoothbore cannons and sixty-eight-pounder carronades, not only was volley weight inferior to auxiliary boats, but range, penetration, and accuracy were also completely outmatched.

A typical auxiliary boat of the guangchuan type, with approximately two hundred tons standard displacement, mounted six forty-eight-pounder cannons alone, plus four sixty-eight-pounder carronades. A single broadside could throw two hundred eighty pounds of shot—roughly double NEW BANTAM's output.

Moreover, the culverins and demi-culverins on Dutch warships had low individual shot weight and weak penetration. Culverin penetration fell far short of twenty-four-pounders. According to French long gun data, Napoleonic-era eighteen-pounder long guns at one hundred yards had less penetration than twenty-four-pounders at three hundred yards. One twenty-four-pounder shot delivered more destructive power than two eighteen-pounder shots—to say nothing of forty-eight-pounder guns. With quality carriages, twenty-four-pounder rate of fire also considerably exceeded culverins and demi-culverins.

As for sixty-eight-pounder carronades, their point-blank range was two hundred seventy yards, while culverins reached only about three hundred thirty yards. At five-degree elevation, carronades actually outranged culverins. And culverins required roughly one hundred yards range against galleons for sufficient lethality, while sixty-eight-pounders proved the opposite—penetration was so powerful they remained effective at great distances. Though fuchuan construction was weaker, exchanging fire still posed no difficulty. In an artillery duel at three hundred yards, culverins could certainly wreck fuchuan, but sixty-eight-pounders could blast armed merchantmen to pieces.

As for the Hexie-class with even lighter armament, despite possessing inferior single-broadside volley weight compared to NEW BANTAM, even without escort from combat vessels like auxiliary boats, Hexie-class vessels sailing in convoy still constituted the most formidable fleet in East Asian waters. A transport convoy of five ships carried enough firepower to repel any fleet the Dutch could deploy at once.

After all, to contend with Dutch fleets, Zheng Zhilong invariably had to concentrate his main force and fight in coastal waters just to secure victory.

No matter how they calculated and simulated, as long as they avoided charging headlong into narrow waters for close-quarters engagement, whether Zheng Zhilong, Liu Xiang, or the Dutch—none posed any concern.

(End of Chapter)