Thunder rumbled in the distance; it was said to be the sound of the
Captain Fiedres pricked up his ears, listening to the shouts and clamor from the surrounding ships, suppressing the shock and unease in his heart. Only when he discovered that the surrounding ships showed no abnormal situation, still maintaining good order and formation as they sailed forward, did he slowly set his heart at ease.
As the captain of a large armed merchant ship fully loaded with 100,000 catties, Captain Fiedres's only pride was the merchant ship beneath his feet, named the Mermaid's Song. From his grandfather to his father, and then to himself, three generations of struggle and sacrifice at sea had finally allowed his family to possess a complete large armed merchant ship of their very own. For Captain Fiedres, on the sea, aboard the Mermaid's Song, he was the sole king and lord.
However, as the owner of the Mermaid's Song, Captain Fiedres also dared not defy or resist the orders of the Qigeda Merchant Guild. When he received the command to join a large fleet organized by the Qigeda Merchant Guild to transport a batch of supplies for the Commercial Alliance to Hidden Gold Bay, he did not dare voice any objection. After all, the Qigeda Merchant Guild was the hegemon of the southern seas; if he offended them, the Mermaid's Song might find itself unable to move a single step on the ocean.
As a seafarer whose family had made their living on the sea for three generations, Captain Fiedres naturally had his own connections and sources of information. He soon learned in a tavern the reason why the Qigeda Merchant Guild had organized such a large transport fleet. It was said that the Commercial Alliance's Invincible Fleet had gone to war with the Northland Norton Family's North Sea Fleet; the Invincible Fleet had supposedly suffered a crushing defeat, and even the Port of Erlina had been burned to ashes by the North Sea Fleet in a single blaze.
It was said that during winter, most of the ships that had accepted the commission to transport supplies to Hidden Gold Bay had fallen into the hands of the Norton Family fleet—for instance, the Emma, the Dragonfly, the Morinmode, and other large armed merchant ships like the Flying Fish's Song had all been seized. Moreover, the Norton Family's North Sea Fleet supposedly possessed a type of bronze cannon even more formidable than the legendary dwarven cannons; their long-range attacks were unrivaled under heaven, hitting a ship with every shot, or so the rumors went...
The reason the Qigeda Merchant Guild organized such a large transport fleet was to avoid materiel losses. Everyone knew that the Commercial Alliance and the Andinaq Kingdom were waging a brutal bloodbath on the Mana Hill Plains. The well-informed sailors and crewmen on the sea looked with pity upon those soldiers conscripted in the south, transported by sea to Hidden Gold Bay, and then fed into the Mana Hill Plains—that bottomless pit of flesh and blood.
For the Commercial Alliance, the sea route was the lifeline maintaining the frontline situation right now. Therefore, assembling a massive transport fleet and having two detached squadrons of the Invincible Fleet escort it was only natural and proper. It would simultaneously eliminate the threat of the Norton Family's North Sea Fleet intercepting them at sea, and show those doubtful seafarers that although the Invincible Fleet had suffered certain losses in its clash with the North Sea Fleet, the Invincible Fleet remained the master of the southern seas.
Captain Fiedres was precisely such a doubter. He had always suspected that this voyage was not the leisurely journey that the Invincible Fleet's officials claimed, but rather one fraught with danger. The reason was simple: on the very night before the fleet's departure, the Norton Family's North Sea Fleet had suddenly appeared outside the harbor and launched another night raid.
Captain Fiedres was immensely grateful that his Mermaid's Song, as a large ocean-going armed merchant vessel with substantial cargo capacity, had been berthed in the innermost part of the harbor, rather than those unlucky medium-sized freighters stationed on the outermost perimeter. That night, flames shot into the sky and cannon fire thundered. Had the Invincible Fleet's small, fast ramming warships not reacted quickly and rushed to the rescue in the nick of time, the Invincible Fleet might well have suffered another Elniba Port inferno that night.
Captain Fiedres still remembered that chaotic, fire-lit night vividly. Because of that night raid, the Invincible Fleet was forced to delay its departure by seven days. Although the fleet's upper echelons had issued a gag order forbidding the fleet's crew and sailors from discussing the night raid, Captain Fiedres and these old sea dogs still learned through the drunken tongues of sailors and crewmen in taverns that the raid had inflicted catastrophic losses on both the Commercial Alliance and the Invincible Fleet. The Commercial Alliance lost over fifty medium transport ships laden with supplies that had been positioned on the outer perimeter, while the Invincible Fleet lost twenty-odd large and medium armed warships and more than thirty small fast ramming warships, yet the enemy withdrew unscathed.
Perhaps the Norton Family Fleet's unexpected night raid had finally shocked those arrogant Invincible Fleet commanders back to their senses. Seven days later, before departure, Captain Fiedres received the formation arrangements and voyage plan, and was surprised to discover that the transport fleet would not be sailing along the traditional sea route, but rather hugging the coastline toward Hidden Gold Bay.
Sailing along the coastline wasn't impossible, but it would lengthen the entire voyage. If they took the sea route, they could reach Hidden Gold Bay in twenty-one days. But hugging the coastline would take at least a month or forty-odd days. After all, a long stretch of the coastline consisted of the Tidanini Mountains, and there were no proper ports along that coast—only a few temporary landing points for going ashore to take on water.
A grand fleet composed of over a thousand large, medium, and small merchant ships and warships was unprecedented in the history of the Galentea Continent—whether there would be any followers remained unknown. Almost everyone assumed the fleet would sail majestically along the sea route, white sails blotting out the sky, an imposing spectacle—a parade to proclaim the Invincible Fleet's might. No one expected the Invincible Fleet to actually adopt a coastal route, which was truly jaw-dropping.
The greatest advantage of sailing along the coastline was avoiding being attacked from both sides—the Invincible Fleet only needed to protect the outer perimeter. The enemy couldn't possibly insert themselves between the coastline and the transport fleet to launch an attack; if they tried, the Invincible Fleet's warships wouldn't even need to intervene—just a few merchant ships pinching the enemy warships would leave them either grounded or trapped, because they'd have no room to maneuver.
The traditional sea route could indeed speed up the journey and save time, but it also exposed them to attacks from all directions. For the defending Invincible Fleet, the transport fleet stretched over ten nautical miles—protecting it completely was indeed extremely difficult. A single night raid had finally made the Invincible Fleet's commanders understand just how formidable the enemy's North Sea Fleet was; although it numbered only a dozen-odd warships, its threat to the transport fleet was not much less than that of an entire detached squadron...
Now, the Invincible Fleet's two detached squadrons weren't thinking about how to defeat the Norton Family's North Sea Fleet, but how to safely escort the transport fleet to Hidden Gold Bay. Because those eight hundred-odd transport ships carried essentially all the military supplies and provisions scraped together from the seven southern provinces, plus a hundred thousand forcibly conscripted recruits. For the Commercial Alliance, these supplies, provisions, and recruits were the key to whether the Commercial Alliance could defeat the Andinaq Kingdom—the most critical guarantee for victory in this bloodbath.
Sailing along the coastline meant the Invincible Fleet's two detached squadrons, as well as the Qigeda Merchant Guild's armed fleet, didn't need to be intermingled with the transport fleet in formation. The transport fleet stayed on the inside, the escort fleets on the outside—so if the Norton Family's North Sea Fleet attacked again, they'd first have to punch a hole through the outer escort fleet's defensive perimeter before they could reach the transport fleet inside. At the same time, the greatest benefit was that if the transport fleet suffered losses under attack, those transport ships that could no longer hold on could simply run aground on the beach, preserving their transported supplies and reinforcements, rather than on the sea route where they could only watch helplessly as they sank...
"This is the third attack, isn't it..." Captain Fiedres thought worriedly as he listened to the distant thunder of cannon fire.
Sailing along the coastline was somewhat safer, but the speed was far too slow. On traditional sea routes there were undercurrents below and favorable winds above, but such convenient sailing conditions were hard to find near the coast. The seemingly endless transport fleet moved at a snail's pace; after twenty-one days at sea they hadn't even passed half the Tidannini Mountains' coastline, and instead welcomed the Norton Family's North Sea Fleet's third attack.
On the fourteenth day since departure, the fleet once again encountered an enemy fleet attack—still fourteen cannon-armed warships. They engaged in a bitter two-day, three-night battle with the escorting Invincible Fleet and the Qigeda Merchant Guild's armed fleet. In the end, they presumably ran out of ammunition and withdrew again. The escorting Invincible Fleet and Qigeda Merchant Guild's armed fleet lost nearly seventy small fast ramming warships and medium armed warships in total, plus seven large armed warships...
Captain Fiedres' Mermaid's Song was assigned over a dozen Invincible Fleet crewmen and sailors. Nominally it was to strengthen the transport ships' escort, but in reality these crewmen and sailors were all survivors rescued from warships sunk or destroyed by the Norton Family fleet—they'd been assigned to transport ships only because their warships were gone.
In just two days, Captain Fiedres got on familiar terms with these Invincible Fleet crewmen and sailors. After wining and dining them, Captain Fiedres quickly obtained detailed battlefield intelligence from their mouths.
"That North Sea Fleet commander is extremely cunning. Although he only has a dozen or so warships under his command, he never engages us in close combat—he always fires cannons at us from three hundred meters away, and when we approach they hoist sail and flee to open the distance. We can't pursue too closely, because we can't break formation; otherwise they'd lure us out and concentrate their cannon fire to sink our warships.
Our commander set several traps, even using the transport fleet—deliberately exposing a gap in the defensive perimeter, hoping to lure the enemy fleet into attacking those transport ships, then encircling and closing in to engage the enemy in close combat and annihilate them. But the enemy fleet commander didn't take the bait; he seemed to treat the transport fleet right before his eyes as invisible, concerning himself only with harassing our escort fleet.
Moreover, the enemy's cannon fire is extraordinarily fierce, with extreme range. Iron shot fired from over three hundred meters away is as large as a bowl's mouth. I served on the Cuttlefish, a large armed warship; at the time our ship wasn't charging particularly fast, and there were still three small fast ramming warships and one medium armed warship between us. Four enemy warships fired at us simultaneously, and a red-hot iron shot pierced through hull planking over ten centimeters thick, crashing directly onto a coil of cable on the deck. It immediately ignited, the fire spreading along the cable to the sails, and before long our warship was burning like a torch—there was no saving it..."
This boatswain named Hila was a bit drunk, recounting his warship's ordeal while extolling the enemy's might. It was just as well he was now aboard the Mermaid's Song merchant vessel; if he were still with the Invincible Fleet he'd likely be tied to a mast and whipped right now.
But Fiedres knew he was telling the truth. The cables that raise and lower sails on deck are coated in tallow for lasting lubrication and durability, to prevent seawater corrosion. That stuff fears fire above all; during naval battles involving fire attacks, there are usually dedicated watchmen to extinguish flames the moment they appear. The Cuttlefish was so far from the enemy that they likely never anticipated this, which is why tragedy struck.
"Can our Invincible Fleet's many warships really not eliminate these dozen-odd Norton Family warships? Even if they possess ultra-long-range cannons, we have so many warships—if we swarm them all at once, they can't possibly shoot us all down..." Captain Fiedres asked.
You, you don't know—the enemy warships are simply too slippery. Their warships hold many advantages over all of ours in maneuverability and sail handling, and they're even faster than us. If we pursue, they'll lure us away from the Sunlit Seas into the deep ocean and wipe out our warships there. Last time, over twenty warships gave chase and only three returned.
Originally our small fast ramming warships could pose a major threat to them—the last night raid was also driven off by our small fast ramming warships. But now their methods for dealing with small fast ramming warships are simply too brutal. I told you their cannons fire iron balls as big as bowls, right? But—but they also have another kind, made up of many iron beads the size of fingers, nearly a hundred per shot, and a single volley takes out a whole swath.
Before, they always used those bowl-sized iron balls against the small fast ramming warships, missing six or seven times out of ten. But now they've switched to those iron beads, and they even let the small fast ramming warships approach them. Once the distance closes to fifty or sixty meters, a single salvo turns the deck into a storm of blood and flesh—if you don't die you're wounded, and there are hardly any survivors. It's simply a nightmare scene.
From that day on, Captain Fiedres grew anxious about the outcome of this voyage. Don't be fooled—the Invincible Fleet and the Chikde Chamber of Commerce's armed fleet still have four or five hundred warships, but if the Norton Family's North Sea Fleet keeps harassing them, who knows how many will actually reach Hidden Gold Bay? What if—what if the Invincible Fleet is wiped out? What would become of merchant ships like his, laden with supplies? Press on, or turn tail and flee?
Deep down, Captain Fiedres was inclined to turn around and flee—the war between the Commercial Alliance and the Andinaq Kingdom had nothing to do with him; preserving his family's sole merchant vessel was what mattered most. But the Commercial Alliance now controlled seven major ports along the Golden Coastline, and even the Qigeda Kingdom was its ally. If he fled back and the Commercial Alliance held him accountable, neither he nor his ship would escape...
Twenty-one days separated the first night raid from the second attack, but now the third attack came only seven days after the second. A veteran captain with Fiedres's wealth of seafaring experience could easily deduce that the enemy must have a supply base ahead, or a powerful fleet prepared to intercept the transport convoy. Perhaps a massive naval decisive battle awaited the Invincible Fleet—they would clash with the Norton Family fleet to determine who was the true overlord of the seas.
Who ruled the seas mattered not at all to Captain Fiedres—he was just an independent merchant captain, and as long as he honestly paid fees to the victor for a license to sail and trade, that was enough. Listening to the distant thunder of cannon fire, Captain Fiedres melancholily fingered the white linen cloth tucked in his bosom. If the Invincible Fleet were defeated, he intended to hoist that white cloth on the mast at the first opportunity—he'd rather surrender than let his merchant ship be blown to splinters by cannon fire...
...