Zhao Hao hurriedly returned to the back hall of the Shuaifu, Liu Zhu had already prepared the sand table, and the location of the enemy and our warships was marked on it according to the report of the sentry ship, and the situation was clear at a glance. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 infoSince it was impossible to determine the nature of the 'merchant ship' or where it fled, the warships sent by the various battalions used the 'dragnet' tactic to search for it. The 'dragnet' is that each ship keeps a certain distance from the longitudinal route of the target, so that no matter which direction the enemy ship escapes, as long as it does not dock, it will hit the grid laid by many warships, and the other warships will quickly concentrate on the target after receiving the early warning.

The advantage of this is that the traces of enemy ships can be quickly captured, but it is impossible to search in a large area like on land, and everyone can only move forward at a certain distance from each other, which is generally based on the signals sent by their own warships to find each other. At present, the 'long-distance' communications of various armies are carried out by firing signal flares into the air, and the situation is reported in different colors and quantities.

In this way, the goal is to capture, if one or two enemy ships are okay, with the firepower of a single ship of the Song Navy, they can be killed or entangled, but if the number of enemy ships is several times that of their own, it will be troublesome. In particular, in order to maintain their rapid mobility, the sentinel ships mostly use warships of small tonnage, and are only equipped with self-defense weapons, generally each ship has 52 sailors, equipped with one medium ballista, two small ballistas, and has weak combat effectiveness. It will take time for your friendly ships to arrive at the signal, and if you want to fight against many enemy forces on your own, it is tantamount to moths to a fire.

According to the combat regulations of the navy, the task of the sentinel ship is to reconnoitre, immediately use the most efficient and effective way to report the enemy's situation, and take self-defense measures after being attacked; If the enemy is strong, the sentinel ship should quickly get out of the range of enemy ship fire and change to surveillance, wait for reinforcements to arrive, and not take the initiative to attack. The problem is that now the enemy ship has sunk one of our own sentinel ships first, and it is a sneak attack, which has made the army very angry and desperate for revenge.

On the other hand, when the enemy finds that the opponent has only two sentinel ships and has an absolute advantage, he may turn the defense into an attack, and turn from a prey to a hunter. It is really unlikely that the red-eyed two sides will retreat, so Zhao Yu is worried that whether the sentinel ship will attack desperately after discovering the enemy's situation, or be entangled by the enemy, it will be extremely unfavorable to himself, causing unnecessary casualties.

"Now the closest to the target are all sentinel ships, their strength is too weak, and it will be very disadvantageous to us in the event of a conflict!" The situation of friend and foe shows that the enemy is strong and I am weak at the moment, Zhao Yu said after a moment of silence. Limited to the current means of communication, it can only be unilateral contact, and I can't contact it, so I can only do it in a hurry.

"Your Majesty does not need to worry too much, according to the current situation and the direction of the wind today, his subordinates deduced that after the four sentinel ships nearby saw the signal, they would be able to rush together in two moments to entangle the enemy army. And the Destroying Front Army will not be more than half an hour away from the location now, and the support fleet from the Chengmai Water Camp has already set off for two hours, and it should only arrive in an hour to gather them and annihilate them! Liu Zhu said optimistically.

"It's strange that the enemy ships are not far from where they were discovered yesterday, and that we searched all night without finding them!" Listening to Liu Zhu's words, Zhao Yu breathed a sigh of relief, but he was still puzzled by the strange behavior of the enemy ship.

"Your Majesty, according to the analysis of your subordinates, the enemy ship was in a hurry to flee westward after the clash with our sentry ship yesterday, and it should have been hiding in the nearest Luleipu. We thought it would flee quickly, so we put the main search force on the west side, so we were deceived by it. Liu Zhu thought about it.

"Well, you're right, we've been deceived." Zhao Hao had to admit that the enemy ship was playing beautifully, and the so-called strategy was that you lied to me, I lied to you, and he deserved to be deceived by others if he made a mistake in judgment, so he admitted it calmly. And he was more worried about where the enemy ships that came to reinforce were hidden, how many of them would be, and looked at the sand table and said, "What makes me wonder now is that after the enemy found out that their ships were in distress, they could immediately dispatch more than 20 warships to meet them, how did they do it." ”

"Your Majesty, my subordinates think that the enemy army should have restored Guantou Village!" Liu Zhu pointed to a bay road at the southernmost tip of the Leizhou Peninsula.

"Yes, otherwise the enemy would not have been able to get here so quickly, it seems that Ali Hague is very smart, he has successfully exploited the loopholes in our defense!" Zhao Yu thought for a while.

Guantou Village used to be the old village set up by the Song Army, which is only more than 40 miles away from Qiongzhou in a straight line, and can monitor the entire sea surface on a good day. After the Song army evacuated, the village was occupied by the Yuan army, but how could Zhao Yu let go of this thorn in his eye, so he had already sent troops to pull it out. However, the wharf and other facilities were still there, and some passing ships docked here in order to avoid the wind or replenish the fresh water room, and the Song army no longer paid attention to it.

"Your Majesty, the sin is in your subordinates, and you have relaxed your vigilance so that you are taken advantage of by the enemy!" Liu Zhu hurriedly pleaded guilty when he heard this, and he was at least guilty of negligence as a commander of the navy.

"No, it was my order to relax the surveillance of merchant ships, so in the final analysis, it was my mistake, and it was Ali Hague who saw the loophole and took advantage of it." Zhao Yu waved his hand and took the initiative to carry this pot. In fact, it is still the fault of money, he let the merchant ships come and go freely is to prepare to release water to raise fish, cultivate the market, and plan for Qiongzhou to make some foreign money, who knows that the family will use it.

"It's still the fault of the subordinates, if we strengthen the surveillance of the ports along the coast of Leizhou, we won't let the enemy take advantage of the loopholes." Although the little emperor took the initiative to take the responsibility, wouldn't it be too ignorant if he was not 'modest' as a subordinate, Liu Zhu hurriedly saluted.

"Since Ali Hague wants to hide from the world, he will not reveal such a big flaw, but he has already started planning, and it is not something that we can prevent if we are more careful." Zhao Hao explained slightly. He has now figured out that Ali Hague took advantage of the loophole in his own side of the merchant ship network, disguised the warship as a merchant ship and used the method of ant moving, hoping to complete the transfer of the navy in a piecemeal secret.

"Your Majesty, in order to prevent the enemy from continuing to infiltrate as merchant ships, are we immediately blocking the strait and prohibiting all ships from passing through?" Liu Zhu asked.

"Well, the blockade of the straits is necessary, but I'm afraid it's already too late. How's the sentinel ship's logbook checked? "The most important thing now is to find out whether they have completed their pre-war preparations.

"It's been sorted out, please take a look at it!" When Liu Zhu heard this, he immediately presented the document to the Tao.

"Sizzle...... Ali Hague's purpose has been achieved. Zhao Hao couldn't help but gasp when he saw it, there were more than 900 merchant ships passing through the strait in the past month, even if they were subtracted by half, they would not be less than 500, relying on these warships was enough to launch a large-scale attack on Qiongzhou.

"Your Majesty, your subordinates immediately find out where the enemy's naval army is, and personally lead the army to destroy it in the harbor!" Liu Zhu's heart was also tight, now is not the trade wind season, far from the time for merchant ships to leave and return home on a large scale, and the number of ships passing through the strait according to the current record is not inferior to the trade wind season. And I didn't even find out about such an abnormal thing, and all I could do at the moment was to atone for my sins.

"Huh. The fact that the enemy ship gathered all kinds of spies on such a large scale showed that it had a long memory, and Ali Hague would not make the same mistake again. Zhao Hao smiled bitterly. In recent times, neither the Affairs Bureau, nor the Espionage Division, nor the Jiyi Division have found any abnormalities in Guangxi and Leizhou stationed in Hong Kong, indicating that the warships transferred by Ali Hague are all 'hidden', and Guantouzhai is likely to be one of them.

"Your Majesty, now it is said that Ali Hague is preparing to send troops to Annam, is it against them to mobilize the navy?" Kublai Khan's establishment of the Champa Province and the Annan Xuanwei Division have long been spread, and the king of Zhennan Huan has already established a government in Ezhou, and mobilized soldiers from Jinghu and Jinghu to go south to attack the city under the guise of Annan.

"It's possible, but it's not very likely. Since they are false, Annan must attack by land, why should they mobilize so many naval troops? Even if you need the help of a navy, the rivers in Annam are not suitable for sea vessels! Zhao Yu said.

"Your Majesty is right, Ali Hague is using a plan to cover up, and wants to attack my Qiongzhou under the cover of attacking and occupying the city!" Liu Zhu nodded.

"Hehe, yes or no, we'll know after this battle. Even if they weren't, they would destroy our ships and hurt our soldiers, and I wouldn't let them go! Zhao Yu slammed his fist on the sand table and sneered.

"Exactly, since they are provocative, we have to fight back fiercely, so that he doesn't dare to offend me Qiongzhou again!" The little emperor's words were very appealing to Liu Zhu, and he rubbed his hands and said hatefully.

"We can only wait for the news ahead, and we will see after this battle. But I haven't eaten since morning, and I'm hungry, and I can't stand it! Zhao Yu rubbed his stomach and said with a grin.

"Sins, sins, subordinates have forgotten such important things." Liu Zhu then thought that it was already noon, and he still made the emperor hungry, so he hurriedly apologized......

Zhao Yu knew that he couldn't go back today, so he ordered Liu Zhu to clean up a yard and wait for the outcome of the matter. Of course, he didn't dare to slack off, and gave him the backyard of the Shuaifu, and after a while, Wang De had already asked the yard to be cleaned up, and Zheng Yong arranged the guards. And the lunch was also ready, and someone sent it over, he looked at it and frowned, and secretly scolded Liu Zhu in his heart for being really ignorant. He carried the thunder for him, and he still sent himself the meal according to the food standard of the commander, and did not add one or two dishes. But it's still very gratifying, after all, they still have their words in mind.

In the afternoon, with the addition of reinforcements, more news came back, and Zhao Hao also sketched out the general battle situation. After the news was sent by the first sentinel ship to find the enemy's traces, they thought that they could use their ballistas to destroy the merchant ship equipped with only a few trebuchets with their ballistas, and avenge the sinking of the friendly ship. So the two sentinel ships did not switch to surveillance and tracking as required, but rushed up.

After several major battles, the Qiongzhou naval army had experience in dealing with enemy ships equipped with stone throwers. The thing of the stone thrower looked very good, and after being hit, the light one broke the mast, and the heavy one immediately sank to the bottom. However, its weaknesses are also very obvious, one is the slow launch speed, many shooting blind spots, and the other is low hit rate, especially on unstable platforms, it takes great luck to hit the target.

The sentinel ships were small and fast, and they knew that they would not be so unlucky unless they were carrying them home, and that if they rushed to the enemy's approach, the enemy ships would be helpless against them. So the two ships chose the merchant ship that fell at the back to cooperate with each other, and the enemy ship found out and immediately attacked with a catapult when it entered the firing range, and they were not afraid to move forward with the good maneuverability of the sentry ship.

But the sentinel ship soon discovered that something was wrong, the four stone throwers on the merchant ship were not only accurate, fast in rate of fire, but also very methodical, and the gunners seemed to have calculated their route accurately, but fortunately the captain was experienced in finding that something was wrong and avoided it in time. They realized that what they encountered was not a merchant ship, and they could play with the stone thrower like this, and they couldn't do it without more than ten years of experience, and the other party was a soldier just like themselves.

When the sentinel ship found out about the problem, it did not dare to be careless, and while firing disruptively, it continued to approach so that it could use the maximum power of the ballista and sink the enemy ship in one fell swoop. But the two enemy ships in front of them found that the rear ship was entangled, immediately slowed down and changed the column to a horizontal team to respond, in the face of the attack of more than a dozen stone throwers, they could not withstand it, so they had to retreat out of its range, and what was more terrifying was not far away, more than 20 ships were found to be coming quickly, hoisting the flag of the Yuan army, and the other party did not want to let them go, and immediately surrounded them in a pursuit formation after discovering them.

When the cat encounters a tiger, it can only escape, let alone a group of tigers, the two sentinel ships immediately released carrier pigeons again to report the situation, and at the same time released signal flares to send a signal for help to their own ships around them. When the Song military sentry boat cruising nearby saw it, it immediately sent the information and quickly rushed to the area where the incident occurred to rescue.

The sentinel ships that arrived in the vicinity were also unable to resist and did not dare to engage at all, so they retreated in the direction of the nearest Chengmai water camp under alternate cover. They knew that their own base that received the warning would definitely send troops to respond, and the warships cruising around were also converging on this side. After two quarters of an hour, the Destroyer was the first to arrive, and the situation was immediately reversed, after sinking three enemy ships in succession and seriously wounding two, the enemy found that Song reinforcements were coming, and began to retreat, and the Song army then turned into pursuit.

Of course, the fleeing enemy ships were not idle, and they also sent a signal for help while running, and as the two sides continued to increase their troops, an unexpected conflict finally turned into a big battle......