Chapter 1112: Needle Against Needle

"This time, let the Westerners have a taste of the Ironclad Warship's power." Gong Ying withdrew his gaze from the Ironclad Warship and brightened the seafood in his wooden bucket, "Before we deal with the Westerners, let's eat our fill first."

"That goes without saying." Zhou Yi also brightened the seafood in his own wooden bucket.

Ever since they realized there were so many things in the ocean that could be eaten.

They truly felt the vast, boundless ocean was an incomparably huge treasure trove.

And their navy were the guardians protecting these treasures.

The two spoke as they returned to the shore.

That night, bonfires were everywhere on the coast, like scattered stars.

The navy soldiers sat around the bonfires, boiling full buckets of seafood.

Mixed with a faint, salty fragrance, it drifted very, very far away.

A leisurely night passed just like that.

The next day, the Great Song Navy soldiers stationed in Malacca were all busy.

They transported grain, coal, and ammunition from the warehouses on shore into the ship holds, while simultaneously replenishing fresh water.

Besides this, they also checked the Steam Engine and Boiler condition of every Warship to ensure the warships could sail normally.

They were busy for three full days.

On the morning of the fourth day, the Great Song fleet, led by twelve Ironclad Warships and supported by forty-eight Sailing Warships and forty-eight Steamships, passed through Malacca and headed toward the Tianzhu sea area.

The Great Song Navy possessed sixty Steamships and Sailing Warships.

The other twelve Ironclad Warships and Steamships remained deployed along the Ryukyu line to protect trade routes and guard against pirate-style raids by Sam Country warships.

Because, although the Sam Country warships had suffered heavy losses under the strikes of the Great Song Navy.

The Sam Country people were worthy of having received the true teachings of the Anglo pirates.

In order to raid Merchant Ships, they were simply reckless with their lives.

According to the confessions of the captured Sam Country soldiers, before they set out, not only the Xitu Guo, but even the Sam Country had issued a War Bounty Decree.

The decree stipulated that any spoils they seized on the battlefield would be repurchased by each country at eighty percent of their original price.

This meant,

If they captured a Warship worth 300,000 pounds, they could receive a reward of 240,000 pounds.

Such a high reward could keep them free from worry for a lifetime, or even make them very wealthy.

It was precisely because they faced such a huge temptation that the Sam Country soldiers chose to linger in the Dongtu sea area, like ghosts that would not disperse, even while knowing the disparity in strength.

In fact, during this time, besides the Sam Country people, the supporting Western Fleet had also joined the ranks of official pirates.

But in front of the island chain defense line built by the Great Song Navy, apart from a few illegal smuggling Merchant Ships being attacked, the navy had suffered no losses.

On the contrary, the Western Lands Allied Forces' warships were sunk one after another in the Dongtu sea area.

At the same time, because of this disgusting tactic of the Western navy, the Great Song Navy commanders had long been impatient to seek a decisive battle with their main force and destroy Tianzhu, the biggest supply point of this Xitu Guo in Dongtu.

Once the Western navy lost the fulcrum of Tianzhu, Dongtu would inevitably be much quieter in the future.

Thinking this, a cold sneer appeared at the corner of Zhou Yi's mouth.

At this moment, he was on the Jinling Ironclad Warship.

After the Ironclad Warship was launched, this warship became his Flagship.

Patting the metal ship rail in front of him, Zhou Yi felt incomparably steady in his heart.

The number of warships supported by the Western Lands this time was huge, with a total number about eight times their own.

But to him, no matter how many Western warships there were, it was of no use.

In front of the Ironclad Warships, they were nothing but a rabble.

Their Ironclad Warships not only had sturdy hulls and powerful guns, but the Rotating Turret could fire from all directions, and the triple-expansion Steam Engine provided the Ironclad Warships with formidable power.

Even their own Steamships could not outrun an Ironclad Warship sailing at full speed.

Therefore, once the war began, their Ironclad Warships would surely be like tigers entering a flock of sheep, starting a massacre.

After half an hour of sailing, the fleet passed through the long strait.

At this time, the formation of the fleet had changed.

The twelve Ironclad Warships were on the inside, while the forty-eight Steamships and Sailing Warships were on the outside, hiding the Ironclad Warships.

The sea outside the strait was wide, and Western Steamships often came to scout.

Sure enough, not long after they sailed out of the strait, they discovered the Western scouting Steamships.

Seeing this, Zhou Yi did not order a pursuit, but instead deliberately let these scouting ships leave.

He wanted to head toward Tianzhu in a swaggering manner, luring the Western fleet into a decisive battle with the Great Song Navy in the Tianzhu sea area.

Facing the Great Song fleet that had ventured deep alone with nearly eight times the force, he believed the opposing navy commander would find it very difficult to remain calm.

Just as Zhou Yi had thought.

Five days later.

The intelligence brought back by the Western scouting Steamships made the entire Coalition navy explode in chaos.

"How far are they from Calcutta?" Maluofu stared fixedly at the scouting ship captain, not wanting to miss a single word.

"Reporting to the Admiral, their sailing speed is not very fast, even slower than ours. We returned a step ahead, and there is still one scouting ship watching them, but the most optimistic estimate is that they will arrive by around noon tomorrow at the earliest," the captain replied.

Maluofu looked toward the setting sun, which meant there was still more than a night's time to prepare.

"Admiral, order all warships to enter the inner river. The Great Song Navy is more cunning than a fox and best at launching sneak attacks at dawn; we cannot suffer this old loss again," a navy commander suggested.

Maluofu's eyes flickered, and he shook his head, "No, if we enter the inner river, we will easily be blocked inside by them. This time we will set a trap for them. Leave fifty warships behind, assemble the remaining warships on the sea fifty miles away, and mobilize a large number of fishing boats to enter the port. Have the fishing boats and warships all light their oil lamps, and at the same time burn damp branches on the ships to create thick smoke."

The other navy officers heard this and immediately understood Maluofu's meaning.

In the port covered by thick smoke, the Great Song Navy would mistakenly believe that the lights in the smoke were all from their warships, thereby thinking that all their warships were in the port.

In this way, they would launch a sneak attack.

At this moment, they could take advantage of the situation to attack from behind the Great Song Navy and annihilate the Great Song Navy entirely.

"Even if the plan fails, it does not matter; our number of warships is eight times that of the Great Song Navy fleet. No matter how strong an elephant is, it cannot withstand the biting of a lion pride." After receiving support from a large number of warships, he regained his confidence.

In the request for reinforcements, he assured the Queen that he would use the second batch of supported warships to destroy the Great Song Navy.

During this time, he was simultaneously gathering warships from various countries in the Tianzhu sea area for drills and looking for opportunities to engage the Great Song Navy.

However, the Great Song Navy stubbornly holed up to the east of Malacca, relying on the protection of the Forts on both sides of the strait.

At the same time, because they had lost all their colonies near Malacca.

A large-scale fleet could not possibly bypass a sea voyage of over eight thousand li to pass between Australia and Java to engage the Great Song Navy in battle.

Therefore, they could only hope that the Great Song Navy would misjudge the situation and enter the Tianzhu sea area to clash with them.

Now, they had finally waited for this opportunity.

After all, just as he had expected, in such a short period of time, the number of warships of the Great Song Navy could not have exploded.

The reconnaissance of the scout ships corroborated his conjecture.

The Great Song fleet that came this time still had a very small number of warships.