The battle unfolded with a rumbling roar. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 The white smoke from the cyan eight-inch round mouth could not hide the orange firelight, and the solid lead ball after one shot high a hundred feet away, causing it to whizz into the wooden battleship in an arc. I could only hear the sound ......of "clicking", but sawdust was flying, and the plank, which was originally smooth and smooth, was turned into a huge hole under this blow.

This is the end of the matter, the pirate army should be glad that the Second Fleet of the Tang Army is not equipped with the kind of large-caliber flowering cannons that the First Fleet is equipped with. Although that kind of artillery is very powerful, as long as a few shots can completely destroy an enemy warship, but the production is seriously insufficient, and the problem of miniaturization is difficult, but the equipment of flowering shells has always been very difficult - up to now, this kind of artillery shells with strong destructive power are still in a limited mass production situation, and the output of several hundred rounds a day is not enough to fight a war. Therefore, the early round ball solid lead bullet was still the main ammunition of the Tang Army, especially in the Second Fleet, which carried out combat missions all year round.

Because the power of solid bullets is not sufficient, the pirate army still has the ability to resist. With the sound of the bowstring, "boom". Bamboo arrows flew out from the bow arm under the action of huge kinetic energy, almost the same trajectory, but completely different bearings. Let the bows and arrows that were as dense as locusts pierce the Tang army's battleship at once. Then the explosion sounded, and the gunpowder pack tied to the bamboo arrow finally burned out due to the hemp rope at the end of the arrow, and its great power was released in an instant. The layer of iron sand that was attached to the gunpowder body was expanded and cracked. Countless scorching iron sand smashed wooden decks, bamboo sails, and even the bodies of some less fortunate people like a storm that swept everything. For a moment, the pungent smell of gunpowder, the scorching deck, the wailing of the wounded, and the rising flames all appeared in the corner of the battleship. However, it is also fortunate that the scope of such a situation is not too large, at least for a warship with a hand of sixty feet, such damage is only a fresh disease.

"Uh-huh! It's like two adults fighting with the strength of a child. Standing on his own ship "Xiangyang", Shihong let out this meaningless exclamation. The threat to any position in the battle line of the long snake formation is the same, so the flagship "Xiangyang", which is always in the bow position, also suffered a lot of damage. But fortunately, although such an injury looks terrible, in the end, it can only be said to be a minor injury. After all, the exploding arrows on the Jiangdong Army's side can only be regarded as defective, although the momentum caused is full, but the power it has is not great. Not to mention that compared with the flowering bombs that have appeared on the Tang Army's side, even compared with the thunder rockets that have been retired by the Tang Army, they are also very weak - the power of ten Jiangdong Army explosive arrows is only equivalent to one Tang Army's thunder rocket, this is the gap between the two. Because there is such a gap, it is no wonder that Shihong would sigh like that.

"Don't you think that's enough?" Kong Hengwen's weak face was a little pale: "I think this war has been fought very fiercely." ”

"It's intense. But in the end, the effect was ......" Shihong shook his head heavily: "From the beginning of the attack to now, we have fired four rounds. In the case of our twelve warships, each of which fired four hundred and twenty shells in a salvo, we had fired 1,680 shells in the period that had just passed. That's a staggering amount, but what about the end result? More than 1,600 shells fell, and we only sank six battleships, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the scale of more than 100 warships on the other side. ”

"That's right. But the same enemy doesn't have the ability to do us any damage. Kong Heng couldn't understand why Shihong was dissatisfied.

"It didn't hurt...... That's why I'm saying it's like two adults with the strength of a child fighting. Think about it, this adult's physique is strong, what if he encounters a child's fist? I'm afraid of hundreds of punches, so I'm not afraid. That's exactly what we're experiencing right now. It's a boring battle. Shihong muttered.

"Isn't that great? Anyway, what we need is this stalemate, until the encirclement detachment we sent out approaches. Kong Heng seemed to understand something, but he couldn't approve of Shihong's idea and rolled his eyes.

"That's right......! But it's really ...... It's boring. Shihong is still so firm.

"Bear with me." For Shihong's firmness, Kong Heng has no better way. He could only persuade in general terms.

"That's all there is to it." Shihong looked very helpless.

The battle that Shihong called boring is still fought in the way of "you have a shot, I have an arrow". In the process of bombarding each other, another period of time passed. Several rounds of non-stop bombardment have reduced the battle loss ratio between the two sides to 99 to 11. The pirates lost eight more ships, and Shihiro's side also lost one. Although the battle loss ratio was not as bad as it could be, it was still Jiang Xiu's side that had the upper hand.

"But...... This battle is so boring...... But I didn't want to be bored like this, so ...... Let's choose to change formations. "No soldier likes a long confrontation, even though it is necessary at some point, but when there is a glimmer of hope to avoid it, he always wants to give up, even Jiang Xiu. After withstanding several times the blows of the enemy, he was a little unbearable to the current battle situation, and finally issued an order: "The right flank suddenly turned to the left, and the whole army became a crane wing formation." This is quite a formation that is quite beneficial to the Jiangdong Army, once Jiang Xiu completes such a change of formation, then it can highlight the numerical superiority of his own fleet and concentrate more powerful firepower against Shihong.

"No!" With an order, the pirate fleet began to turn. Everything was like a regular fleet, and they made a slow and orderly change of formation.

"It's really no different from the troops! Even though they are pirates, it is really ...... that they are disciplined like this Pirates without a bunch of pirates! The change of formation of the pirate army quickly reacted to Shihong's crystal cylinder, and he looked coldly at the series of actions made by the other party, but he pouted lightly, and made a very objective comment as a bystander.

This is obviously a piece of evidence, a piece of evidence that says that Sun Wu has a connection with the pirate army. But Shihong knows this kind of evidence, and a high-level person like himself will understand it when he talks about it, but if he wants to show these records in words to everyone to explain, he will be pointed out as insufficient evidence - the situation is so weird, so helpless. It's really embarrassing that something that everyone knows knows can't be made public for one reason or another.

"No matter, anyway, what we are doing now is to defeat the other party." In the face of Jiang Xiu's change of formation, Shi Hong didn't care very much, he didn't seem to be afraid that Jiang Xiu would do this, after estimating the direction of the sea wind at the moment and the time when the other two detachments under his command were approaching, he quickly gave the order: "The whole fleet is tilting left and turning!" "But he was going to be opposite to Jiang Xiu's fleet.

"What do you want to do?" Hearing Shi Hong's order, staff officer Kong Heng suddenly became a little curious. To tell the truth, although Kong Heng has a certain understanding of tactics and strategy, this understanding is only limited to paper and some ordinary thinking, he has almost no combat experience, and he has no experience in commanding troops alone, but he has no idea about the incident of the mutiny on the scene, so naturally he does not understand Shihong's approach.

"How? It's hard to understand. Shi Hong was stunned for a moment when asked by his staff officer, he didn't seem to find any good words, so he smiled bitterly: "To put it simply, we have to jump out of this encirclement before Jiang Xiu encloses us." ”

"What about the details?" Kong Heng still didn't know a little much, but he continued to ask.

"Detailed? That's it. Shi Hong ordered someone to take a pen and paper, and directly drew an arc-shaped trajectory on the paper: "Jiang Xiu is using the fleet to arrange a crane wing, then what I can do is to face him, and make the trajectory of his fleet also draw a crane wing shape, and go directly around the outside of the other party." The advantage of the Crane Wing Formation is that he has the ability to concentrate on attacking the position he has circled, if we get out of this position and go around, I am afraid that Jiang Xiu will end up busy in vain. ”

"I see." Kong Heng got such an explanation, and suddenly came to his senses. At the moment, he didn't speak but stood silently aside, listening to Jiang Xiu's constant orders, "Zuo Manrudder!" "Left half rudder! ”

Orders are constantly being given, and the trajectory of the fleet is constantly changing. Because the flexibility of the battleships on the Tang Army's side was much greater than that of the pirate army's warships, when Jiang Xiu saw all this, understood Shihong's intentions, and reacted quickly, the situation did not improve as he imagined, but because the warship's steering degree was not as good as the other party, he could only watch the other party escape little by little - the technical gap here again became the smile of one side and the helplessness of the other side.

Two quarters of an hour later, Shihong's fleet finally completed its turn. At this moment, he occupied a position with a partial wind, and occupied a very advantageous position with eleven ships slightly emitting green smoke directly facing the two wingtips of the enemy's crane wings. After shooting, luck at this moment once again paid attention to Shihong, the pirate army that had already organized the fleet into a crane wing formation could not have too high speed because of the formation and wind direction, although they also understood their poor situation, and quickly made the decision to turn, so that the fleet began to move, but the slower speed still allowed Shihong's fleet to have five rounds of artillery fire in the process of its difficult turn, and nearly two thousand shells whistled towards Jiang Xiu's two wings. In this position where the attack could not be made, Jiang Xiu could only bear it silently. Even though he felt like he was going to vomit blood when he saw the last ten battleships sink and the six battleships couldn't fight, he still couldn't keep going.

At this moment, the ratio of warships between the two sides was seventy-six to thirty-five. At the same time that Jiang Xiu finally got out of that embarrassing position, Shihong's two detachments finally arrived at the battlefield and joined the siege of Jiang Xiu. It was at this time that the situation of the war became clear for the first time. When facing the prepared Shihong team, Jiang Xiu had never taken him down with several times his strength, so how could he win this battle with only about twice the strength of the opponent.

"Hey...... After all, I was still hurt by habit. Over the years, we have been accustomed to fighting against the other side, so after seeing the opposing fleet approaching, we instinctively made the decision to attack, but we did not want to rely on our own superiority in strength, but we could engage the opponent in a hand-to-hand battle as we did at the beginning. Not...... If we had done that, I'm afraid this battle would have ended long ago. Jiang Xiu was a little remorseful, "Are you accustomed to too advanced tactics and forget some fundamental things?" Maybe! However, I remember that the navy has only been around for more than a decade....... Jiang Xiu reviewed his actions, but he didn't have the idea of giving up in his heart, as far as he thought about it, he seemed to have a chance to win now.

"Zijun, it's up to you later." Jiang Xiu shouted to a military general in heavy armor standing next to the rudder: "If you can shift the formation of the fleet to the upwind direction again, then we still have the possibility of victory here." ”

"Raid?" The military general in heavy armor understood what Jiang Xiu meant, and a bloodthirsty light flashed in his eyes. He is a military general, a military general who is looking forward to fighting people on the battlefield. Coming to this sea of strife because I hated the calm earth, I thought I could be exercised, but I didn't want to be the real situation. Now that bed crossbows and artillery are widely used as the standard equipment of both sides, the skipping battles between fleets are decreasing day by day, and they clearly have a good martial arts, so they can only rely on their self-considered good minds to gain a foothold here and get busy. Of course, this also has the credit of the brother above, but it is not very important, after all, he is the son of Zhou Tai, and he is also very good in the ability to control the battleship.

Cannons rumbled, sharp arrows soared, and shattered hulls and rising fires flashed at the same time. Although it was still autumn, the deep waters were still cold, and the sailors who were lucky enough not to die, whether they were on the pirate side or on the side of the Tang Army, were struggling in the turbulent waves while the battleship was silent. The battle continued, and neither side had the spare time to carry out such a rescue act.

The turning of the fleet was completed with difficulty. Jiang Xiu, who finally gained the upper hand, turned his fleet into a Kei formation. This is also a fairly stable formation, with concentrated firepower being his characteristic, but it is also lacking in mobility like the Crane Wing Formation.

“…… Want to go from one concave to two? Seeing Jiang Xiu put on such a formation, Shi Hong couldn't help muttering to himself, he pondered Jiang Xiu's thoughts, but he was a little puzzled: "It's completely correct to concentrate your own firepower to attack." It's just that your courage seems to be a little too big, you are already a little overwhelmed by using one concave bottom of the Crane Wing Array to deal with one detachment, let alone using two concave bottoms of the Kei Formation to deal with two detachments? Jiang Xiu...... Aren't you afraid that your stomach will burst? Saying that, Shihong shook his head lightly, and then quickly gave the order: "Take the enemy formation as the center and carry out a ring attack." Remember, don't get caught up in the formation. "Since the opponent's formation is a Kei formation, the opponent's attack is concentrated on both sides relative to the concave bottom. If you rush through the formation on your side, you will definitely be attacked from the left and right of the enemy, which is naturally undesirable. But if you don't enter the battle, but cruise in a circle, go around the enemy's periphery, and focus on attacking the enemy's concave bottom and five points at the wingtips, then everything is different - the pirate warships that are completely modified according to the battleships of the Tang Army, their main attack power is concentrated on both sides of the battleship, so as long as their fleet moves the top of the opponent's fleet formation, the opponent's counterattack will be weakened a lot. Although in such a situation, the attack on his side will drop a lot due to the reduction of the opponent's force area, but the opponent's counterattack can't, but Shihong thinks that in this situation, his own army can exert the strongest combat power.

"If the enemy's formation is a line, then the line will have a start and an end point and a line, and all we have to do is use our line to face their two points." A vague statement appeared in Shihong's mind, and he had this idea in mind, but there was no better explanation, and it was not until after the war that he made a more vivid analogy: "It's like removing one of the two horizontal lines of the I-word." Of course, this is in the ideal state. - This is all for the future, in this battlefield at the moment, all he thinks about is how to destroy the enemy on the opposite side.

The current ratio of the fleet on the battlefield is sixty-eight to thirty-three. In the counter-bombardment of fleet operations, the hit rate of each other's generals has seen a low level. Under such circumstances, Jiang Xiu was able to sink two Tang Army warships, which was already a super-level performance. However, such a play did not affect the fundamental comparison of the strength of the two sides. Jiang Xiu's only favorable result was that he had already gained the upper hand, and in the following operations, the fleet had been adjusted to an upper hand position. As long as he is willing to make up his mind, it seems that the breakthrough can still be done.

"But...... Will Jiang Xiu give up so easily? For this, Shihong is very skeptical.

The operation of the fleet is still ongoing, whether it is on Shihong's side or Jiang Xiu's side. The battle situation at sea was always relative, and when Jiang Xiu's fleet gained the upper hand, Shihong's fleet was naturally pressed in the direction of the headwind. Of course, they were not really headwinds, but slightly sideways, relying on the bamboo sails on the ships that could meet the wind in all directions, the speed of the entire fleet was normal, and nothing unusual happened.

“…… No anomaly is a real anomaly! Shihong muttered to himself. He turned his head and asked Kong Heng beside him: "Zhongding, do you think that guy Jiang Xiu will insist on a dead truth?" Will he keep repeating his mistakes? ”

"I'm afraid not. That guy wasn't a clever man, but he was also very cunning. It is not much easier to expect them to fall into two almost identical traps than to expect them to commit suicide. Kong Heng shook his head gently, "Those people have always believed in the principle of fighting if they can, and running away if they can't." ”

"In other words, they can continue to entangle us here for now, because they are sure that they can continue to fight and win?" Shihong tentatively said his guess.

"Naturally! Otherwise, I really can't figure out why they would continue to fight with us under such circumstances, enduring the consequences of the warships being sunk for us. Kong Heng nodded heavily.

"Hmm...... So what kind of means do you think they will use? With our three detachments in the group, what other means can they use against us? Shi Hong became more and more puzzled by this: "Can't Jiang Xiu's side see that when all the warships of our Second Fleet have arrived, he will only lose more of their strength by continuing to fight with us here?" They're no match for us. ”

"I don't know." Kong Heng shook his head in frustration.

"Forget about it, it's better to keep everything as it is for the time being!" Shi Hong wanted to respond to all changes with the same: "The whole fleet is still in a wheel-shaped formation, give me a hard beat!" I'm going to see what these damn pirates want to do. Hmph, although this kind of battle is very long and unbearable for ordinary people, since the other party chooses to consume it with us, then we will consume it until they lose their last drop of blood. Shihong said viciously.

However, just when Shi Hong thought that everything was like this, Jiang Xiu's fleet suddenly changed: the sharp edge in the middle of his fleet quickly accelerated the speed of the battleship, and it stood out fiercely, shooting like a sharp arrow out of the string, and rushed straight towards the second squadron that was going around the middle and sharp parts.

"Damn it...... They actually ...... It's actually the idea of a surprise attack! After seeing Jiang Xiu's sudden change of formation, Shihong finally saw through Jiang Xiu's intention to be entangled with himself all this time. It's just that at this time, everything seems to be a little late.

"Get out of the way!" Shihiro quickly gave the order and asked the flagship to give instructions to the second squadron. However, at the same time as this instruction was issued, Jiang Xiu's lead battleship had already rammed several warships of the Second Fleet. The battle unfolded here and now, and the hooks, padlocks, claws, and all sorts of things used to board the ships were shot at the heads of the battleships that had been knocked to a halt. Although the strong impact caused both sides to bear severe "pain", Jiang Xiu's side, which had already been prepared, was obviously the first to come to his senses. After a whistle sounded, countless pirate soldiers quickly hung up the ropes that had boarded the ships, like ladders during the siege of the city. They quickly got on the overtime of the Tang warship, and before they could stand firmly, they would wave their knives and kill the sailors who were vaguely at a loss. For a moment, the roars, the clashing of swords, the scattered and heavy footsteps of both the enemy and the enemy, and the wails of the people before they died, all rang out here. Under the sharp blade of the pirate sailors who never gave up the battle of skipping shifts, the Tang soldiers who were still a little overwhelmed by the earth-shattering collision in front of them did not have much resistance at all. Often, when they woke up from their dazed state, they saw that they seemed to have risen much taller, and in the same position where they had stood, there was a headless body spurting blood.

"Damn ......" Faced with such a situation, Shi Hong was annoyed, and he thought that he had underestimated Jiang Xiu after all: "If I pay more attention, there may not be such a situation at all." Shihong thought so, but at this moment he had no other way. In a situation where we are mixed with each other, it is impossible to open fire and fight an artillery battle. All he could do now was to rush over and cut off a part of the enemy, so that they could not send sailors on board the ships of the Second Fleet on a large scale and increase the number of enemies on the Second Fleet, but also let the Third Fleet come up and use his own sailors to increase the combat power of the Second Fleet.

"Okay...... It's really ...... that it has degenerated from the cannon's bombardment to the current appearance I can only hope that they can support it. Shihong was so annoyed that he didn't know what to say, and after giving the order that should have been given, all he did was use the crystal mirror to observe the battle situation on the other side.

Through the crystal mirror, a scene of fighting was displayed in Shihong's eyes: the scene of broken hands and feet, the image of broken intestines, the shadow of the majesty of the generals, and the pathetic actions of the strong men were all clearly presented in front of him, so that his heart could not help but worry with the development of tableware. He is the general of the Tang Army, and his eyes are also from the perspective of the Tang Army. Through the thin lenses, his heart melted with those soldiers, his heart was sad because of the death of the Tang soldiers, and he rejoiced because the Tang soldiers killed the enemy. Although at the moment, he did not have much strength in this face-to-face fight, but he still did his best while enthusiastically paying attention to everything he could see.

The roar of the cannon rumbled, and in the face of the enemy ships that were swarming from the other side, Shihong's side adopted various methods to weaken the opponent's strength according to the plan of his own commander. The original fleet of eleven warships was reduced to four smaller units in an instant. They galloped at their own speed, constantly spraying shells that were enough to kill people as they moved at a rapid pace. For a while, the water column rose in all directions, and the sawdust flew, but it was very majestic to deter those miscellaneous soldiers who tried to share a bowl of soup from the front, so that their original indomitable momentum was stagnant.

The battle between the fleets and the fleets was now completely divided into two almost unrelated battlefields: on one side there was a battle of artillery and arrows, and on the other hand, there was a fierce battle between swords and swords. Here, the power of the fleet's artillery and bed crossbows and the personal courage of the generals and soldiers are all on display. Both the Don Army and the Pirate Army forgot everything here. Attack, attack, desperately attack, destroy the enemy in front of them, this has become their unanimous idea. People all have a position, and because of the difference in position, they wield similar swords, even if they don't know each other at all. This may be a sign of pathos for some people with a deeper vision. But for two sides on the battlefield who are at war with each other, it's a boring rhetoric. Standing on the battlefield and feeling the atmosphere of the battlefield, everyone will involuntarily do their best for the people on their side. Victory or defeat of life and death often exists in this mutual play, in this case, you can't even get your own life and death, let alone those things that you don't have? People on the battlefield don't have that many ideas.

The battle continues......