Chapter 1 The Enemy is Diminishing

How could the Samir family not know that the enemy in front of them had suddenly decreased in number, existing only to hinder them, and that the main fleet had turned towards other directions? On the sea, although the Samir family's direct fleet and Ye Tao's fleet were separated by the Allied forces' fleet, it was impossible to organize simple communication between the two fleets. Eagles and, even more effective on the sea, bald eagles were the best messengers. When the message reached Ye Tao's fleet, informing them that they were very likely to encounter the enemy's main fleet, both Ye Tao and Qi Zhentao and Min Yue felt only excitement and anticipation. In truth, Ye Tao had a moment of worry, after all, Tan Weixin was also on board. In a great naval battle where nothing was certain, no one could guarantee anyone's safety. However, seeing Tan Weixin's expectant expression, Ye Tao was immediately relieved. This was their purpose in coming here, such a grand scene would likely only happen once in a lifetime.

But knowing that they were now the enemy's target, although they anticipated a great battle, Ye Tao and the others were not people who would simply wait for things to happen. They knew that this time they probably wouldn't encounter the situation Qi Zhentao had faced before, running out of all weapons and ammunition. After all, the enemy wanted to focus on explosive force, and if the battle with them dragged on, the Samir family's direct fleet and vassal fleets could appear from another direction at any time. But thinking about the fervent combat style of the Middle East region and the possibility of the opponent using costly boarding tactics to exhaust the superior maneuverability of the Tiger Fang-class, Azure Water-class, and Rippling Water-class ships, they still needed to carefully prepare some plans and methods.

As the fleet's size increased, it could no longer be commanded in the original way. After a simple reorganization at sea, Ye Tao was elected by everyone as the fleet's overall commander. The fleet was then divided into five squadrons, commanded by Qi Zhu's and Min Yue's deputies, Xia Jiangping; the chief instructor of the Seven Seas Trading Company fleet, Rao Zidan; the escort fleet commander, Zhuang Mingying; and Katrina, the female fleet commander from a pirate family, possibly the only one in the world.

Min Yue and Qi Zhentao assisted Ye Tao in commanding the overall situation of the entire fleet. The Ning Xuan and the other four Tiger Fang-class ships, along with two Rippling Water-class ships, were organized into an independent command observation squadron. At the same time, the airship squadron was also fully loaded onto this command observation squadron for attack and relay communication.

Everyone knew that, according to Qi Zhentao's and Min Yue's styles, although in command positions, they would still not hesitate to lead the command squadron in a surprise attack if needed, and Ye Tao would definitely approve of this kind of adventure. Perhaps to cope with this situation, the ships assigned to the command squadron were all led by the most outstanding captains, and the positions of those sailors who had been wounded in battle were replaced with capable personnel. Those strong and agile personnel who were sparsely equipped on each ship and played a major role during boarding actions were not concentrated. Instead, some were drawn from the Ning Xuan and from Ye Tao's guard team and distributed to each ship, ensuring that each ship in the command squadron had at least one sharpshooter and four near first-class experts. As for the Ning Xuan, it had twice as many observers and signalmen as usual.

Looking at the densely packed rear bridge, Ye Tao's head hurt. He secretly regretted not starting to develop electrical devices earlier, and not inventing the radio sooner. In its current state, although it could barely meet the needs of fleet command, once a battle started, and both the issuing and receiving parties were moving at high speed, many orders could not be repeatedly verified and then executed. Avoiding chaos could only rely on God's blessing.

But in the current situation, this was the only way to make do. Fortunately, the commanders of each squadron were all experienced and good at what they did, so there was no fear of any major problems.

Qi Zhu's battle tactics had always been aboveboard. Even if the overall combat strength was inferior, he always concentrated combat power on a single local point, forming an absolute local advantage. This tactic was even more orthodox than that of the Dongping regular army.

Although Xia Jiangping was a veteran naval officer, his commanding style was sharp and bizarre. All the basic combat skills of the fleet he commanded were extremely refined, but he preferred to take risks and always liked to launch surprise attacks.

Rao Zidan's grandfather was a pirate. When Qi Zhentao was still a pirate, his father was the most senior and technically comprehensive old sailor in the entire fleet. Rao Zidan, on the one hand, had a family background, and on the other hand, had the opportunity to read and write. He had also been stuffed by the old man under Min Yue's command for several years. He was very familiar with both pirate tactics and the regular tactics of the navy. In recent years, naval warfare technology had changed, and whenever new weapons were installed on warships, the Seven Seas Trading Company and the Dongping Navy often equipped them simultaneously. The training norms were jointly developed by both parties, and Rao Zidan's elucidation of the conventional and unconventional uses of weapons often made people's eyes shine. This operation would largely depend on Rao Zidan's performance.

Although Zhuang Mingying and Katrina were both from pirate backgrounds, their styles were quite different. Zhuang Mingying's ability to command pirate fleets to hunt was unparalleled, but after joining the Seven Seas Trading Company, he became the best at escorting. From the time he commanded small fleets to do short-to-medium-haul, less important escorts until now, he was the best candidate for escorting the most important people and things for the Seven Seas Trading Company. When performing this kind of escort mission, he had the power to organize fleets from the entire Seven Seas Trading Company system. He was a commander who combined speed, ruthlessness, and stability quite perfectly. Katrina's commanding style was very feminine. Usually, when there were any battles, she was too lazy to pay attention to them. She usually lazily gave a few instructions and handed them over to her deputy to command. But if someone or something appeared on the battlefield that could excite her, the power she burst out in an instant could be staggering. Her tactics were狂热狂热, and especially since she was now the person in the entire Seven Seas Trading Company who most often engaged in boarding and close combat.

After reorganization, the fleet adjusted its course unhurriedly, strengthened its aerial and ground searches, and launched a frontal attack against the incoming Allied fleet. Although they were not afraid of the enemy, they had no intention of衝擊冲擊 the center of the enemy's large fleet. That was not courage, it was foolishness. And now, if Ye Tao's mixed fleet was to be able to exert its full strength, it not only needed to use every minute before the battle to coordinate well with each other, but also needed God's help. If they encountered unfavorable weather, and the airship squadron could not play a role, they would have a headache. Fortunately, this situation did not occur. When the vanguard of the Allied fleet appeared on the sea that evening, the clouds, the sun, and the moon were all annotating that the next day would be a good day for battle. The only slight imperfection was that a tentative night raid launched by the Qi Zhu and Katrina squadrons that night failed to achieve any results, only sinking one of the enemy's fast warships.

"Lord Ye, please order the attack!" The next morning, both sides had organized their fleets with great tacit understanding. Ye Tao's fleet formed a loose ring, placing the command squadron in the very center. The Allied fleet, on the other hand, had the vanguard fleet in front, followed by a fleet of similar size, and then several large fleets advancing side by side in the rear, the entire fleet forming a huge T-shape formation. The Allied fleet's main force was now very far away from Ye Tao's fleet. Because dawn had just broken and the thin fog on the sea had not yet dissipated, there was no specific number for how many ships the enemy had. But everyone in Ye Tao's fleet knew that the total number of enemy ships was at least 40% more than their own, and the total number of enemy crew members was more than twice as many as their own. However, accustomed to fighting more with less, everyone was not too sensitive to this proportion of disadvantage.

When the two huge fleets collided, the scene could no longer be described by the simple word "grand."

Tan Weixin was watching the battle at this time. Now, the command of the fleet was being conducted on the open-air platform on top of the bridge. The huge iron-clad table in the chartroom and those small ship-shaped pieces of chess containing magnets had all been moved there. And the chartroom was now empty. Tan Weixin had Sisi place a small table in the chartroom, with fruit, snacks, and tea. Tan Weixin held a pair of the most advanced, not yet in production, only three prototypes successfully made variable magnification built-in level and micro-light scale device telescopes, leisurely leaning on the舷窗 on all sides, looking around. This kind of scene would probably never happen again, at least not in the next few decades or centuries. Ye Tao's fleet, relying on its excellent maneuverability, actually gradually turned the circular formation into a spindle-shaped formation, directly penetrating through the middle left of the opponent's line. The two vanguard fleets rushing in front did not dare to block, retreating slowly towards the main formation while carrying out some feeble shelling. Although the Allied forces did not yet have warships specifically for long-range combat, each ship was equipped with at least catapults and crossbows. However, the forms were quite different.

The catapults on the Allied warships ranged from six pounds to six hundred pounds in terms of the number of projectiles fired, and the structures ranged from human-powered, heavy hammer, to lever-style. Crossbows, on the other hand, were only equipped on a few main warships. The Allied forces were able to manufacture crossbows because they had captured crossbows from the Samir family on the ground battlefield, and then figured out the general principles and began mass-producing them. However, the Allied forces did not have the experience and technical system of the Ye clan workshop in crossbow manufacturing technology. The standards in terms of torsion spring preload force and processing accuracy were too different. Although the range of the crossbows could also reach the basic requirements, the shooting accuracy was really不敢恭维. An even more fatal problem was that, although the Allied fleet had long begun to popularize long-range projectile bombs similar to kerosene bombs and spark bombs, the Allied forces were, after all, a combination of many countries and families. They were wary of each other in their cooperation. The only relatively qualified formula using whale fat, sesame oil, etc. as raw materials had never been made public, and the output was quite limited. Most of the kerosene bomb-like things had implemented fire prevention principles from the beginning of their design, and the Seven Seas Trading Company and the Dongping Navy warships, whose surfaces were sprayed with fire-proof and flame-retardant coatings, had ways to deal with these unqualified products.

After the first round of contact, the long-prepared mutual shelling ended, and Allied Commander Alexander resentfully put down the binoculars in his hand... Even these binoculars were captured. Although the battle results statistics would have to wait for a while, from the current situation, due to the accuracy of the ordnance and the power of the projectiles, the results of this first round of mutual shooting were really too frustrating. Watching six warships that had been waiting to carbonize on the sea under the concentrated shelling of the opponent, and a considerable number of warships were wounded in the first round, whether in terms of combat power loss or morale, the Allied forces had declined a lot.

"Regardless of the cost, let Cares and Zha Jiaming rush up to me. If we don't shorten the distance between the two sides, we will all die here." Alexander ordered with gritted teeth.