Chapter 400: Redemption

Perhaps, a little too far ahead. Although the range of those ballistas is already considerable, they are cold weapons after all, and they do not change in any way because they are loaded with powerful fire oil bombs. In terms of the size of the ship, the power system, the command system, and the ammunition load, in fact, it does not have the conditions to completely control the battle situation and win by relying on this tactic. However, Seven Seas Trading Company took this immature, but indeed leading-edge tactic to the extreme.

In this naval battle, from the beginning of the morning to noon, the Nanami Trading Company had already sunk or incapacitated more than 100 warships of the coalition fleet under Alexander's command at a small cost of seventeen large and small warships. It was already a third of the coalition's fleet, and by noon, the balance of power between the two sides was gradually tilting in favor of Nanami Trading Company. This kind of tilt is mainly in terms of quantity comparison and morale, when the fleet under Ye Tao began to prepare for hand-to-hand combat because of the fierce consumption of ammunition, the coalition fleet has been significantly loosened, and the ships of some countries or families have obviously begun to work and do not make efforts, as far as possible around the range of Ye Tao's fleet, waving the flag and shouting that they will not approach, and closely follow their own queue. But in naval warfare, especially in such a sea area where hundreds of ships are fighting, it seems impossible to stay out of the situation. But those who have no will to fight can only be lazy on the battlefield and dare not withdraw from the war. Although the coalition forces are not very united, if they are the first to withdraw from the battle in such a critical battle and are caught, no one is sure that those countries and families will retaliate.

In this battle, the crew of the Ning Xuan was excited. One order after another was issued from the Ning Xuan, and even at the most dangerous moment when the Ning Xuan was besieged by the other party's three clippers, it was not interrupted. The relay communication airship, which was always suspended in the center of the battlefield, was shocked to watch, but it had to admit that the performance of the Ning Xuan was really excellent, and from beginning to end, it seemed that there was never a minute of panic. When it was besieged, Ning Xuan never called for rescue from other sub-fleets, and sank one and damaged one enemy ship, and the other was directly bombarded into a floating fireball after the frigates that were entangled by the enemy only freed up their hands.

In battle, Ye Tao's artillery skills are breathtaking. Each fleet, each warship, each commander and even each gunner will more or less form some of their own styles and characteristics after a period of operation. But never before has a shooting commander been able to combine precise design with the control of the enemy with firepower. Ye Tao actually did not pursue an absolute hit rate, but the shooting of all the guns of the whole ship finally reached an astonishing hit rate of two into four, and the Greek fire did not spray, once the spray was bound to be the result of an enemy ship, and the four sprays were no exception. And the combination of Ye Tao's artillery skills and Old Man Qi's pirate fighting style makes the battle seem weird, cruel and ruthless. On two occasions, Ye Tao deliberately used a high-trajectory projectile that the opponent could force out of the way to force the opponent to make a very unnatural turn. On the sea, the consequence of this turn is often that it loses speed in an instant because it is too late to adjust the sails, and the warships under the command of the old man seize this time and make a violent impact. On one occasion, three warships attacked the enemy ship vertically from two directions, and smashed a relatively narrow and pure sail warship into two. The morale of the own side is greatly boosted, while the coalition side is cold.

What I didn't expect was that the flagship and the escort fleet behaved so violently, which made the entire Ye Tao fleet more and more furious. Katarina, who likes to ram and fight hand-to-hand with a battleship the most, naturally has the same example, and even the always steady Qi Chase turns into a combination of melee impact and shooting after more than half of the ammunition is consumed. Although it has been fighting with the Samir family in the South Seas and the Middle East for quite some time, this is the first time that the Huya ship has performed so well.

The more fought, the more chilling naval battles continued almost until the evening. Ye Tao's fleet was originally faster than the other party's, and he didn't even plan to leave a chance to escape for the coalition fleet, and followed closely behind. Let Alexander start in the afternoon, several orders to fully withdraw from the battle were in vain, and he had to turn back and continue the battle. At this time, more than 130 warships of the coalition fleet had been sunk or ordered to flagship, and there were only 10 seriously injured ships that were barely sailing. Of the original more than 300 warships, the allied fleet was full of ambition and confidence, and there were less than 100 warships that still retained their combat effectiveness to varying degrees. Pursuing behind them was Ye Tao's fleet, which was already outnumbered by them.

Ye Tao's fleet damage was also quite large. After more than half of the sharp weapons such as fire oil bombs and Greek fire were consumed, and all ships had to start controlling their use, the damage rate of Ye Tao's fleet increased. By 10 p.m., nearly eighty battleships had withdrawn from the battle, of which thirty-nine were sunk. Due to the general large-scale ships of Ye Tao's fleet, it is naturally no problem to accommodate his own crew members who have fallen overboard. The ships that were wounded and slowly followed the main fleet on the surface of the sea began to carry out battlefield salvage work under the escort of the six Huya ships that remained to protect them. Coalition sailors, officers, civilians and ministers who were brought up from the water filled the cabins of the ships. Fighting in the Middle East has become the norm. Captives can be ransomed for a large sum of money, and if the other party is not interested in redeeming them, they can be sold to any place to be used as slaves. In fact, it is best to sell those officers who are highly skilled in military affairs, and in the more west, gladiatorial combat is in the ascendant, and simulated naval gladiatorial combat happens to be very popular now. Since many of the captives caught this time have glorious family backgrounds and high status, even if the other party refuses to pay for redemption and sells them to the Samir family to show the captives and humiliate the enemy, they will definitely have a good profit. As for the gladiators' business, Nanami Trading Company couldn't get involved, they still hadn't opened this road, and not many people in the guild really had much interest in making this kind of money. Selling people to work is already a bad thing for many people, and selling them to others to die is very contrary to the philosophy of the merchants of the Seven Seas Trading Company, which is now becoming more and more civilized and moral.

By about nine o'clock in the evening, Alexander finally couldn't stand it anymore, and he finally ordered the combined fleet to disband and break through separately. Only a small fleet escaped, but Alexander himself did not escape and fell into the hands of Rao Zidan's detachment. Since naval encounters seemed to have always had a tradition of treating prisoners well, Alexander surrendered his sword. This is also the highest-ranking officer captured on the battlefield since the founding war of the Samir family.

Most of the success at night was due to the airship troops. After the size of the combat fleet was reduced, it was enough to have only two relay communication airships in the air, and the other airships were all engaged in reconnaissance, they overlooked the entire sparkling sea, carefully observed the shadows on the sea, and once they found that the enemy was part-time, they turned on the searchlight and hit a pillar of light, and followed the opponent until their own warships surrounded him and beat him fat. As soon as their fleet takes over, they immediately turn off their lights and speed forward, continuing to search for the next target. When sailing at night, the ships could not go faster, and this tactic made the captains of the coalition forces cry without tears.

In fact, Alexander had despered a little earlier, and if he had insisted that the fleet escape for a while, he might have escaped. The searchlight equipped by the airship team is a well-deserved weapon in this time and space, but the searchlight with huge power actually doesn't last long, and the battery that can be carried on the airship is so little, and the failure rate of this primary searchlight is really a bit high.

Ye Tao personally led the fleet with fewer enemies and more enemies, almost completely annihilated the allied fleet, and captured Alexander, the commander-in-chief of the allied fleet, as well as many important generals, ministers, and leaders of various countries, and the news reached Dubai the next morning, causing bursts of cheers. But the elders of House Samir were mixed. Now, the last threat to their establishment has been eliminated, as long as the Samir family operates diligently and develops faster and stronger than the other party, the Samir Kingdom will soon become a force that can influence the situation in the entire Middle East, but what do you say about the favor owed to Ye Tao and the Seven Seas Trading Company this time? They have no ambition at all for Nanyang now, and they are very satisfied with the cooperation with Nanhai Trading Company and Dongping, and they are very looking forward to it. really saw Dongping's strong combat power, even if they were ambitious, they didn't dare to do anything. The Samir family has been in business and intrigue for hundreds of years to get to where it is today, and the trade-offs are naturally very clear.

After the victory, Ye Tao led the fleet to anchor at the port of Taran, north of the Sea of Azov, for supplies and repairs. The fleet of the Samir family quickly went to meet them, and Assad was in the fleet. Since Ye Tao was able to personally lead the fleet here, it was extremely likely that he would be invited to participate in the founding ceremony again this time. Assad also had another mission: to help the Seven Seas Trading Company dispose of the captives. The Samir family knew very well the value of these captives, and they were afraid that the kind-hearted Ye Tao would lose a lot if they dealt with it sloppily, and in this regard, they still considered Ye Tao and the Seven Seas Trading Company very much. The Samir family can't compensate the Nanami Trading Company for much of its military expenses, but this kind of thing can still help. Unexpectedly, after learning of Assad's intentions, the "kind-hearted" Ye Tao very generously packaged and sold all the prisoners of war to the Samir family for 12 million standard gold coins. Assad was overjoyed, he naturally understood that this kind of negotiation was too time-consuming, and Ye Tao and Seven Seas Trading Company did not have the heart to do so. But the Samir family has time to use in a variety of ways to reach its full potential. According to Assad's estimates, fifteen or six million gold coins alone will not be a problem. And among these people, there are others that can be fully utilized.