When Li Xuan received the report of the Battle of Qiongzhou, it had been three days since the Battle of Crossing the Sea.

Seeing the battle report, it was said that Rear Admiral Ouyang Gui personally led the main force of the Second Fleet to desperately entangle the Ming Army's naval fleet, and at the cost of heavy sacrifices, he successfully covered the landing of the transport fleet and successfully sent the Second Mixed Regiment to Qiongzhou Island.

Although Li Xuan couldn't experience it in person, he could still feel the fierceness of the battle at that time from between the lines!

The Second Fleet first carried out artillery battles at a long distance to contain it, and then waited until the Ming Navy discovered the transport fleet and wanted to leave the battlefield to pursue the transport fleet, although the Second Fleet was weak, but still took the initiative to rush up and start a melee, although in the end the Ming Navy Division still got rid of the entanglement and continued to pursue, but it also bought the transport fleet time to land.

At the same time, in this battle, although the Second Fleet suffered heavy losses, but the results were not small, the Second Fleet sank 13 armed merchant ships, more than 20 small ships, and the cost of nearly 1,000 casualties, sinking almost 10 large ships and more than 30 small ships of the Ming Army's naval division.

From a purely tactical point of view, playing a near-one-to-one battle loss ratio is an acceptable result.

From a strategic point of view, the Second Fleet successfully covered the landing of the Second Mixed Regiment on Qiongzhou Island, and there is no doubt that the Datang Navy has achieved a strategic victory in this battle.

Closing the battle report in his hand, Li Xuan then set his eyes on Bao Yifen: "The performance of the navy in this battle is worthy of being the pillar of the country, the arm of me, and it can resolutely and decisively attack the powerful enemy army under the condition of inferior troops, and severely damage the opponent, and successfully cover the landing of the army, I am very relieved!" ”

Bao Yifen showed grief and a heavy expression at this time, but he said in a firm tone: "It is the honor of my navy officers to be able to die for His Majesty and die for the foundation of the Tang Dynasty!" ”

At this time, Rear Admiral Bao Yifen took a deep breath and said: "However, this time our navy has suffered great losses, with nearly 1,000 casualties and soldiers, and the Second Fleet exists in name only, I am afraid that it will be difficult to cover the follow-up operations of the army on Qiongzhou Island!" ”

At this time, Rear Admiral Zeng Ziwen on the side said: "The Navy's sacrifice and dedication are deeply admired, since the Second Mixed Regiment of our Army has successfully landed, then I can wait for the good news of the Second Mixed Regiment, and the Navy does not need to take any more risks to transport!" ”

Of course, Zeng Ziwen's words are not because of generosity, but the losses of the navy this time are really a bit heavy, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a bone injury, and he will force the navy to continue to transport materials or replenish troops, not to mention whether he can pull down this face, even if he forcibly speaks, I am afraid that the navy will not be able to do anything.

The Second Fleet consisted of 16 armed merchant ships of more than 100 tons, and 13 of them sank in this battle, leaving only three with scars all over their bodies and three ships full of overboard officers and soldiers returning to Leizhou Mansion.

In addition, most of the more than 30 small boats were sunk in battle, and although there were not many naval officers and men on each of these small boats, the total number of casualties on the 20 or so small boats sunk was not a small number, and in this battle, more than 500 people on the navy side directly slept in the sea, and among the hundreds of people who fell into the water and were brought back from the ship, there were also many wounded.

Even Ouyang Gui, the commander of the Second Fleet, was seriously injured, and when he returned from sending the battle report, he said that Ouyang Gui had been seriously injured because of multiple injuries in his abdomen and hands, and he had already thought that he was seriously injured and unconscious before the battle was over.

The serious injury in this year is not much different from death, even if Ouyang Gui is a senior general and has priority treatment conditions, and even Li Xuan has already sent the imperial doctor to Leizhou Mansion quickly, but to be honest, many of the people present do not have much confidence in whether Ouyang Gui will survive.

This battle can be said to have greatly damaged the vitality of the Second Fleet, not only the sinking of many large-tonnage armed merchant ships, but also the casualties reached hundreds, which is a great loss for the Tang Navy, which is still quite weak.

But this is just the idea of the navy and the army, not for Li Xuan, although he also feels sorry for the loss of the navy, but he knows better: this loss is very heavy for the navy and the second fleet, but it is nothing for the great Tang Dynasty.

Hundreds of naval officers and men were killed or wounded? This sounds serious, but this is nothing, the Tang Dynasty is at war with the Ming Dynasty, although it is winning one after another, and the casualty ratio is relatively large, but any large-scale battle will have to be killed and wounded by hundreds or even thousands.

Since the Huangzhushan era, thousands of Tang Dynasty soldiers have died for the Tang Dynasty, and the casualties of these hundreds of naval officers and soldiers are only a fraction of the total casualties of the Tang Dynasty's division.

As for whether the casualties of these naval officers and men will cause the loss of naval talents, this is not serious, because these officers and men in the navy have no experience, and this battle is also their first large-scale naval battle!

How to say it, this navy is originally a weak chicken, no matter how weak Li Xuan is, it is acceptable, it is a big deal that it will be obscene for a period of time in the future, after taking Qiongzhou Island, Li Xuan did not expect the navy to do anything in a short period of time, and he did not need the navy to do anything, just slowly accumulate strength.

As for those warships, these are armed merchant ships converted from civilian ships and simply small fishing boats and the like, if these ships are for civilian ships, sinking these ships is enough to bankrupt them, but the Tang Dynasty is not a ship company, this is a dynasty!

A dynasty that occupies three provinces, rules nearly 10 million people, and has an annual tax revenue of more than 10 million taels!

For such a dynasty, the loss of a dozen merchant ships is a fart!

If you lie on the slipway and are being refitted, there are enough twenty or thirty merchant ships of various types of more than 100 tons, of which there are eight ships of more than 200 tons.

If it weren't for the serious shortage of artillery, Li Xuan would have dared to directly modify hundreds of armed merchant ships, anyway, these are armed merchant ships, not professional warships, so they don't need to be rebuilt, they can be directly modified with civilian merchant ships, and there are many hulls that can be modified.

The only thing that limits the number of armed merchant ships is not the number of ships, but the number of artillery.

Therefore, the only thing that made Li Xuan feel a little pity in this battle was the artillery on those armed merchant ships!

The hulls of civilian ships can be easily collected, but the guns on the ships are not so easy to obtain, the self-made production is insufficient, and the artillerys made are also small-caliber artillery.

However, since they have all been lost, although Li Xuan feels pity, he doesn't feel much heartache!

Therefore, from the point of view of him, the emperor, the navy completed the task, even if it suffered certain losses, but it was acceptable, and the most important thing was that the navy successfully covered the landing of the second mixed regiment on Qiongzhou Island.

Maybe in a few days, he will be able to receive the news that the second mixed regiment has successfully conquered several other counties in Qiongzhou City, and the capture of these cities basically means that the Tang Dynasty has completed the control of Qiongzhou Island.

Compared with the loss of a few ships and hundreds of casualties, in exchange for a Qiongzhou Island, Li Xuan thinks it is still more cost-effective.

The biggest significance of taking Qiongzhou Island is to completely cut off the possibility that the Ming Dynasty may rely on Qiongzhou Island as a base to attack and counterattack the coastal areas of Guangdong.

Secondly, after taking Qiongzhou Island, even if it is a complete opening up of the sea route from Lianzhou Mansion and Leizhou Mansion to the Nanyang region, if the Ming army and naval division in the Pearl River Estuary can be cleared in the later period, then it will basically be able to open up the route from Guangzhou to the Nanyang region, which is of great strategic significance for the maritime trade of the Tang Dynasty in the future.

In addition, as a later generation, Li Xuan also knew that Hainan Island has a large-scale open-pit iron mine that is rare in China, and it is also a rich mine, among which the Shilu iron ore also has associated copper mines.

Whether it is iron ore or copper ore, it is urgently needed at present.

Needless to say, iron ore can be used to make guns, swords and iron farm tools, and even the current small and medium-caliber artillery, and the amount used is quite large.

In the area controlled by the Tang Dynasty before, there were no large-scale iron ores, let alone rich ores, which were mined from some small iron mines in Guangdong and Guangxi, and then transported to cities such as Wuzhou, Zhaoqing, Foshan and other places for large-scale smelting.

The iron ore is small and scattered, which will inevitably affect the cost and mining volume, which is unacceptable to Li Xuan, who is bent on building Datang into an industrial country.

On the one hand, copper is the main raw material of coins, copper coins are the most widely circulated coins at present, and they are also the main currencies used by ordinary people. As for the silver taels, in fact, this is not the everyday currency used by ordinary people, but is used as a large reserve currency.

In addition to being the main raw material for copper coins, copper also has a more important role for the Tang Dynasty, that is, as a material for artillery, especially long-barreled large-caliber artillery.

Although the Tang Dynasty has tried to cast iron in two-pound shotguns and three-pound shotguns, the artillery made of iron still has many problems such as heavy weight and short service life due to the current technology, and it is still difficult to cast long-barreled large-caliber artillery with iron on a large scale.

Therefore, the current demand for copper in the Tang Dynasty is very large, and it is always a good thing to have an additional associated copper mine.

However, how to extract the iron ore and copper ore on Hainan Island is a troublesome matter