"This is a game of cat and mouse." Ning Zeyuan stood on the towering command tower of the Taiping, staring at the Qi Navy fleet that was once again turned to escape in the distance. In the picture inside the telescope, the opponent's speed and formation were obviously slower and more panicked than a few days ago. Obviously, the opponent's physical strength and energy were consumed too much in the pursuit day by day and it was a little difficult to support.

For Ning Zeyuan, the most difficult thing in this encirclement was to capture the other party's trace. After all, from the previous information, a general area was only demarcated. However, the sea was so vast that this area did not look big on the chart, but for the fleet in this sea area, it was still endless blue sea water.

Speaking of which, their luck was really good. Since Zhou Yangfan discovered the enemy's first warship, the encircled area immediately shrank widely. In just half a day, the Ming army fleet discovered Changxing Island, the base camp of the Qi people, and then naturally caught Fan Xin's fleet that was fleeing.

However, Ning Zeyuan didn't want to just rush over and press his opponent to the ground to rub. From the moment he discovered the opponent, he had basically destined to be destroyed by the Qi fleet. This ending is irreplaceable, but Ning Zeyuan hopes to take advantage of this opportunity to hone the level of joint combat in his fleet.

This combined fleet of more than 120 main warships was selected from the navy of dozens of small island countries in Manila. These people are not bad in terms of the comprehensive quality of the crew and the skills of water combat. But after the integration, their original combat system was completely disrupted, and the new Ming Navy combat system was completely transplanted. It would take a certain amount of time to make them adapt and master these.

No matter how good your daily training is, you can never resist the practice of real swords and guns on the battlefield. Because on the battlefield, you cannot tolerate mistakes. Once you make mistakes, you will pay the price of your life. Such bloody efforts can always make more people remember them deeply and unforgettable, so that they will not make the same mistakes again.

Ning Zeyuan gathered the steam artillery warships together and did not allow these warships to participate in the battle. Instead, he ordered other sail warships of the four fleets to chase and surround the Qi army's navy on the sea.

Judging from the actual combat effectiveness, many problems have been exposed. The four fleets made many cooperation mistakes, and even when they were close contact, they were beaten to a mess by the Qi Navy, so that the opponent broke through.

At this time, the steam warships will play their role, use their speed advantages to force the Qi people fleet back to the battlefield scheduled by Ning Zeyuan, and return to the scene of being chased by four sailing warships.

After a few days of sea pursuit, fighting, and the joint fleet had lost five main warships and more auxiliary warships, and the losses of the Qi army's navy were about this number. Ning Zeyuan was simply disdainful of the losses. What he valued was that after these losses, the fleet under his command became more and more round and more skillful in command. With the cooperation between each other, the combat skills between the ships were rising rapidly, which was what he wanted. On the battlefield, the weak would inevitably be eliminated, and the one who stayed was the strong people who could experience big scenes.

The Qi navy in front of me is already a grasshopper in the autumn. I don’t know when the fleet of the Tiger Dynasty will be Ning Zeyuan’s real enemy.

For a long time, the Ming Dynasty's war was dominated by the army. The navy fleet really played a pirate role very few times. Most of the time, they existed as a maintenance of the channel security of merchant ships and the extermination of pirates. In the battle of the Qi Navy, they have always used an overwhelming advantage to force the other party to step out of the far sea. Under such circumstances, the huge military expenditure spent by the navy every year is questioned by many people in China.

Ning Zeyuan had always wanted everyone in the Ming Dynasty to prove that the navy was definitely not optional, but an existence that was indispensable. Now, his opportunity finally came. The distant Tiger Dynasty would attack the Ming Dynasty from above the sea. In this war, the role that the army could play was minimal. If you want to defeat the enemy, the navy must play a huge role and defeat the powerful Western fleet in the naval battle head-on.

With such a threat, Ning Zeyuan would not miss any opportunity to improve his combat effectiveness.

After several consecutive days of encirclement and blocking, it has been confirmed that Ning Zefeng was not in this fleet, which also made Ning Zeyuan very puzzled. According to the size of Qi's military advisor, the Qi army should have more than ten main warships that have not appeared, and these should be led by Ning Zefeng now. Ning Zeyuan is naturally clear about the truth that the cunning rabbit has three holes. The encirclement and suppression in the past few days has been intended to tempt Ning Zefeng to attack, or the fleet in front of him is forced to approach Ning Zefeng when he is chased to the sky and has no way to enter the ground, so that he can solve the problem once and for all. But what disappointed him was that there is no sign that things will develop as he imagined.

Changxing Island has been completely exposed to the Ming army's vision, and no trace of Ning Zefeng was found in the searches around. Where is this cunning guy hiding now?

"Transfer orders to each fleet and eliminate the enemy." Thinking that if Ning Zefeng could not be wiped out in one fell swoop this time, there would inevitably be endless troubles in the future, Ning Zeyuan felt a little heavier. The smaller the fleet size, it gave Ning Zefeng more space to move around, and it would be even more difficult to wipe him out.

Fan Xin's anger was getting higher and higher day by day. After a few days, he had completely figured out the scale of the enemy. Four fleets and hundreds of main warships were definitely not something he could resist. What made him angry was that the enemy did not take him seriously at all, but teased him like a cat and a mouse. He originally wanted to use the enemy's underestimation of the enemy to escape from the sky. In fact, he did do it and escaped from the encirclement of the four sail fleets. But the problem was that whenever he did this, the opponent's steam warship would come and drive him back to the hunting circle again.

He actually became the other party's prop for practicing, and Fan Xin finally figured out what the other party wanted to do.

You can't run away, so prepare to fight to the death! The soldiers' physical strength and energy are getting worse day by day. Such an experience is a torture for everyone.

Just like a person sentenced to death, the knife to the execution ground is not the most painful. The most painful thing is the days when I wait for the execution, and that is really the life of my life.

Staring at the dark fleet that appeared opposite, Fan Xin drew his sword, raised it high, and fell heavily, "Attack, for the sake of the Great Qi!"

A bright red flag was raised above the flagship, which was the sign of death. The signal soldiers stood in the midst of the battle and blew flags at other warships.

"Occurrence, for the Daqi!"

The last twenty main warships led by Fan Xin and dozens of auxiliary warships launched a decisive attack on the Ming army's joint fleet ahead.

Fan Xin was not afraid of these Manila warships in front of him. Compared to them, the firepower of the Qi Ren Navy was stronger. The thunder cannons installed on the side were much more powerful than the opponent's catapults and crossbows. Since the Ming army's steam artillery warships did not participate in the battle to watch the wall, Fan Xin did not mind pulling more backs before he died.

As the two sides were constantly approaching and about a mile away, both sides turned to the other side at the opposite enemy ship.

Accompanied by the loud rumbling sound, the thunder cannons on the Qi ship opened fire at the same time, and countless red-burned iron bombs flew into the air. At the same time, countless stone bombs thrown by catapults and countless powerful crossbows flew up from the warships opposite.

The distance between the two sides was so close that there was no room for refuge. Several coalition warships ignited a raging fire in an instant, and the buildings and facilities on the deck were destroyed by iron bombs. With one encounter, several warships lost their combat effectiveness.

But Fan Xin was not happy at all because his losses were not lighter than his opponent. It was not those catapults that caused him damage. Compared with the thunderbolt, the threat of the catapult was much smaller. What really caused him to be seriously damaged was the opponent's strong crossbows. Unlike ordinary strong crossbows, some packages were tied to the poles of these strong crossbows. When these strong crossbows were nailed to the hull, a loud bang came immediately. Within the range of the explosion, whether it was the hull or the thunderbolt facilities, they were all broken into pieces.

"Stop in, rush in." Fan Xin stood on the burning deck and shouted loudly. His warship was the opponent's key target and was the most severely damaged. After a round of confrontation, he knew that he would suffer too much if he continued to fight like this. The opponent's special crossbow arrow could bring the greatest damage to his fleet. If you want to get more results and pull as many as possible, you can only rush into the opponent's fleet and have a melee.

He thought that the quality of his soldiers was far greater than that of the barbarians on the opposite side.

The Qi people fleet was like a group of angry worker bees, and used all their strength to pierce the joint fleet opposite. The opponent did not expect that Fan Xin would suddenly use such a trick of killing 800 enemies and losing one thousand of himself. In the moment of response, he became a little busy. Some wanted to fight head-on, while others wanted to avoid the other side, and in the moment, he became a little confused.
Chapter completed!