Daming Military Empire

Chapter 340 Intercepting Merchant Ships
On the sea south of Malacca, a huge fleet is slowly advancing. This fleet has nearly [-] large and small ships, including about [-] armed merchant ships, and the rest are all small and medium-sized warships!

Looking at the flags they played, this should be the caravan of the Dutch East India Company. How could there be so many warships mixed in it?
Van Mendy can't do anything about it. Recently, a powerful group of pirates suddenly appeared in the Indian Ocean, plundering the merchant ships frantically. Thirty or forty merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company have been intercepted. Companies are in a hurry. If the customer's order is not delivered, the business will be impossible!

Therefore, Fan Mendi organized a huge caravan and dispatched all the armed merchant ships and small and medium-sized warships of the East India Company in Batavia, as well as all the small and medium-sized warships of the Second Far East Fleet. , As for the super battleship, he dare not send it, he is afraid of causing misunderstanding when the fleet passes through the Strait of Malacca.

The Strait of Malacca is now controlled by the Ming Empire, but they did not strictly prohibit the passage of merchant ships from various countries. As long as they are doing business seriously, they will not care about it. Even the Star City Port is open to merchant ships from all countries. Now the Ming Empire, Spain, Maritime merchants from Portugal and Southeast Asian countries almost all use Xingcheng Port as a transfer point or even a trading point, and its prosperity even surpasses that of Batavia!

Naturally, the merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company would not go to Xingcheng Port, but they must pass through Xingcheng Port if they want to pass through the Strait of Malacca. Fan Mendi is quite scrupulous about the Ming Empire. The biggest shadow in his heart is that he dare not send battleships to the vicinity of Xingcheng Port.

This time the team is led by Rear Admiral Van der, the squadron commander of the Far East Second Fleet. This van der is not a relative of Van Mendy. There are many Dutch names with Fan in it. His Fan has nothing to do with Van Mendy's Fan. None, but he was also captured by the Ming Empire, so he was extremely afraid of the Ming Empire.

The Strait of Malacca is ahead. Fander is standing on the bow of the flagship, holding up a telescope and watching the direction of Xingcheng Port nervously. They have brought so many warships this time. I don’t know if the Ming Empire will misunderstand it. If they send a fleet to intercept That's troublesome.

Fortunately, there was no movement in the direction of Xingcheng Port. The sea was full of merchant ships from various countries, and none of the warships of the Ming Empire appeared. It seemed that the Ming Empire would not care about them.

Fandre let out a long breath, and was about to put down the binoculars, when suddenly, there was a stern whistle from the flag bearer on the mast. He quickly looked back, and saw that the flag bearer on the mast was pointing straight ahead, whistling desperately there. .

In front of!He had just focused on the Xingcheng Port on the right, but he really didn't pay attention to the front. Seeing the panic of the flag bearer, he quickly raised his binoculars and looked straight ahead.

Seeing this, his face turned pale from fright, and there were dense black spots in front of him, almost blocking the entire strait!

What's going on, he couldn't help scanning the direction of Xingcheng Port again, what a ghost, all the merchant ships on the sea rushed towards Xingcheng Port, as if they had encountered pirates!
There can't be pirates in front. There are at least a thousand black spots in front. If the pirates had such a large scale, they would have dominated Nanyang long ago. There are no such powerful pirates in Nanyang. The front is very likely to be the navy of the Ming Empire!

Sure enough, as the distance approached, Van der quickly saw clearly the two leading warships. The terrifying size must be the treasure ships of the Ming Empire, and other countries did not have such huge warships.

Soon, Fandre even saw clearly the flags on the two warships, the Sun Moon Dragon Flag was the navy of the Ming Empire!

What on earth did the Ming Empire want to do? Do they want to tear up the contract and go to war with the Netherlands again?

A hopeless expression gradually appeared on Fandre's face. He really knew the combat power of the Ming Empire Navy too well. With the small and medium-sized warships he commanded, he probably couldn't even withstand a round of salvos!
What should I do, turn around?Don't be kidding, now the warships of the Ming Empire are equipped with wheels similar to oars on the back. At that speed, warships of any country can't run. If you want to escape in front of them, you really don't even think about it.

Fandre couldn't think of any other way, so he could only nervously watch the flag bearer on the mast of the opposite super giant ship, hoping that he could play a flag to show what they wanted to do.

The flag bearer on the opposite side seemed to have heard his request, and quickly played the semaphore. The semaphore was very simple, and he understood it immediately. There were only two sets of actions in total: stop the ship and accept the inspection.

Check, they just want to check!
Fandre breathed a sigh of relief. The Ming Empire's fleet didn't need to deceive him. With their overwhelming advantage, even if they put out the semaphore of "surrender me immediately", he had to obey.

He ordered without hesitation: "Order, all merchant ships and warships lower their sails, drop anchor, stop the ship, and prepare for inspection."

Following the semaphore played by the flag bearer on the mast, all the ships of the Dutch fleet began to lower their sails and anchors, and the entire fleet slowly stopped.

Soon, the fleet of the Ming Empire rushed up and surrounded their "poor" three hundred or so ships. However, fortunately, they did not make any threatening actions, but sent three hundred or so ships Warships of about the same size as them were connected to the ships of the fleet one by one. It seemed that they really came to check.

Soon, a Fuchuan battleship of the Ming Empire Navy approached the flagship where Van der was, and quickly threw a hook and lock on the opposite side to slowly pull the two ships closer together. Soon, a general of the Ming army in the uniform of a major general appeared, he came to the front of the Ming army with a scroll in his hand, and shouted in Spanish: "Where is your commander, come forward!" .”

Hearing this, Van der had no choice but to step forward, gave a military salute, and said loudly, "Hello, Major General, I am Van der, Commander of the Second Far East Fleet of the Dutch Navy."

The general of the Ming army on the opposite side politely returned a standard military salute, and said loudly: "Zhang Weicheng, Rear Admiral Commander of the South China Sea Fleet of the Ming Empire Navy, was ordered to come to inspect, please cooperate."

After finishing speaking, he stretched out his right hand, stretched out the scroll in his hand, and handed it to Fandre.

Fandre took the scroll curiously and looked at it. Besides the Chinese characters, there were Spanish and Portuguese on it. Of course he could understand that this was an order issued by the Governor of Nanyang of the Ming Empire, which read:

Zheng Zhilong, governor of Nanyang, the king of Zhennan in the Ming Empire, ordered all naval fleets of the Ming Empire stationed in Nanyang:
Recently, a large number of pirates have been raging in Nanyang, causing heavy losses to the maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty. This king is deeply ashamed, and now orders all naval fleets of the Ming Empire stationed in Nanyang to closely inspect the merchant ships coming and going. Anyone who has stolen goods from pirates will be detained!
(End of this chapter)