The death of Captain Gao not only made Weng Ya lose the laughter of the past, but the Jinhe, including the entire fleet, was filled with a layer of heaviness. Since the establishment of the fleet in Jinhe Bay, not to mention the captain, even the junior officers have not been killed in battle, and the worst one can be traced back to the port of Malacca being attacked by the Javanese, and it was not killed in a naval battle, it was attacked by someone on land, and less than ten sailors died.

But before the battle really began, there were so many casualties in the fleet just because of the first dish, and an armed cargo ship had lost its combat effectiveness and was drifting alone on the surface of the sea for repairs. Now everyone knows what war is, real war! It's not as simple as igniting a cannon and cheering, the conflict that breaks out between countries is ultimately filled with human lives. The side with good weapons and advanced technology is just a small number of people who fill it in, but it is absolutely impossible to understate the death of a few people.

Hong Tao didn't have the time to enlighten these crew members one by one, they were not cowardly, but they were not very used to the rhythm of war, and they were not mentally prepared. This mentality can only be adjusted with one battle after another, and it is useless to say that it is useless. Now that the Royal Navy is transforming into a real army, the only thing I can do is to command them well and keep them away from death as much as possible.

"Stop the boat! They can't run this far, we're fooled! Hong Tao soon ran into another big trouble, the main force of the Mongolian naval division disappeared into the black sea, and the Royal Navy chased more than 150 kilometers to the west, but still did not find any trace of them.

"Uncle, will they dock?" A person with a temper like Weng Ya belongs to the mountain riding model, which goes up fast and comes down faster. Attended Captain Gao's funeral. Woo cried for a while, and in less than an hour, she came out of the cabin again as if nothing was wrong.

"The coastline on this side has been explored by Deputy Minister Kong with the fleet for several years, and it is impossible for a port that can accommodate so many ships to suddenly appear, unless they go to Michigan, but their ships can't run so fast." Hong Tao lay on the helm platform. With the help of the windproof lamp held by the first mate, he kept calculating with a compass on the chart, but he couldn't get the answer he wanted.

"Will they return then? With such a big loss and still half the journey to go, will they cancel this southward operation? Weng Ya raised another possibility, which sounds a little reasonable.

"They still have at least four hundred warships, and I've seen the ships that intercept the fleet, and they don't have too many people on them, which means that the troops on these ships have been moved to other ships. The losses of the landing force of the Mongols were not significant. Given their character and the current situation, a return home is unlikely unless the manager dies. ”

"Don't guess, I think they must have changed their course...... That's right! This time we have a good opponent, we are calculating him, and he is calculating us at the same time...... Bring another lamp! Hong Tao shook his head, he didn't believe that the commander of the Mongolian Sailors would return, if he was such a timid person. It's long overdue, and you don't have to wait until now. And even if it's a return. Nor should they hide their search team. Looking at the horizontal and vertical routes on the chart, Hong Tao suddenly shouted, he seemed to understand something.

"There is only one possibility, you see, they have taken a new route this time, and from here they directly cut into the mouth of the Yangtze River! They're right. Send more ships to hold us down during this period of turn to the west, and as soon as it gets dark, they turn around and turn southwest, so that we can't see what they're doing, and if we don't have charts to use. And they succeeded! ”

When the second mate brought the lamp, Hong Tao figured it out. The reason why the second batch of interception fleets of the Mongolian naval division put on a formation of being beaten in the face and added more than 20 ships was not a coincidence at all, but a plan by the Mongolian commander to get rid of the golden cicada.

As long as this group of ships could drag themselves until dusk, the main force of the Mongol sailors could take advantage of the darkness to turn to the deep sea, and then sail directly from the sea a little below the tip of the Shandong Peninsula to the mouth of the Yangtze River and even further south. Since they can fly directly from Dengzhou to Jinzhou, it means that they already have a certain ability to sail far. This new route is a bit risky, but it's not too difficult, as long as it's sunny for a few days and there are stars in the sky at night, it can provide them with enough navigation data, even if there are deviations, it won't be too much. I have to say that there are indeed capable people in the Mongolian Naval Division, and if they are allowed to develop for a few more years, the Southern Song Dynasty Naval Division will have to be chased and beaten by the Mongolian Naval Division like the Southern Song Dynasty Army.

"That'...... So what do we do? Weng Ya also understood, she felt that what Hong Tao said was very reasonable, and there was no more reasonable explanation other than that. It is impossible for such a large fleet and hundreds of ships to disappear from the sea, and even if they all sink, they will leave traces.

"I'll take a look...... It was one o'clock in the night, and it was almost a ten-hour voyage, and they should have reached about 35 degrees north latitude, and here we were a hundred and fifty kilometers away. It would take at least seven hours to catch up with them, almost at 34 degrees 6 or 5 minutes north latitude. In that case, let's not follow them behind their butts and continue to let them play this trick, let's sail straight south and wait for them in front. Tomorrow morning around eight o'clock in the sea to give them a head-on blow, and then return to the Lisi Islands to replenish. Hong Tao quickly calculated the distance and time difference between the two fleets, and then tied the compass to the chart north of the 34th parallel, and made his own judgment.

"Left rudder thirty! Heading 180, full speed! The order of the fleet commander was the final decision, and Weng Ya did not hesitate at all, and immediately issued a new order to the herald on behalf of Hong Tao.

"Order the 1st and 2nd Attack Fleets to search in a straight line to the east, with an interval of two nautical miles at night and five nautical miles during the day!" Hong Tao then added an order, and strings of lanterns rose on the mast, conveying his order to the fleet behind him. Then the ships began to turn, hung their sailing lights high, and began to enter their positions in an orderly manner.

Hong Tao did guess correctly, in order to avoid the constant harassment of the royal fleet, Chagatai once again adopted Muhammad's suggestion, and while Hong Tao was still dealing with the interception fleet, he secretly changed course and took a new route. Although this is a bit dangerous, and in the event of bad weather, it is possible to get lost with the whole fleet, but compared to the threat of the waves, Chagatai feels that it is worth it. Especially these days, the weather at sea is good, there are no tropical storms, and there are no overly strong headwinds, which are very suitable for sailing for his schooners.

"Muhammad, you are a person sent by the Immortal Heaven to help the Mongols, when we land on land, I allow you to choose a city other than Lin'an to be your fiefdom, where do you want to choose?" All night, the Mongolian sailors did not see those nasty navigation lights, and the sailors no longer had to worry about duty all night. But the next morning, Chagatai still had a pair of panda eyes. He hadn't slept all night, and at the slightest movement on the deck, he would run out of the cabin to see if the haunting devil's fleet had caught up again.

Now he is really a little frightened by Hong Tao's extremely combative, flexible and mobile fleet, he is not mentally prepared for this naval battle mode at all, and he has never heard anyone talk about it. The other party's big ships ran like horses on the grassland, and their own boats were like slow sheep, only driven away, without the power to fight back, and they had no strength but could not use them in a hurry. This kind of taste was brought to the enemy by the Mongolian cavalry before, and suddenly I tasted it myself, and Zhen Nyima is not a taste!

Well, now the back of the fleet is still empty, and the horses have been thrown off by themselves, and all this is brought by this bearded cannibal, reward! Must be rewarded! The Mongols have never been stingy with the reward of meritorious people, and they have no such thing as a meritorious person. And the prize thrown out was not theirs in the first place, so why be stingy?

(To be continued.) )