"What's the panic!"
*Twang twang twang...* Lorist parried over ten arrows in succession, but the deck below and the nearby whaling ships erupted in screams. The originally empty deck was now studded with arrows of varying lengths. The exposed cannon crews and trebuchet operators had nowhere to hide, suffering nearly one-third casualties in this plunging fire attack...
A miscalculation. Lorist's heart sank. Because they were at sea, all family soldiers who boarded had removed the standard family armor and switched to light, buoyant water-beast leather armor to prevent drowning accidents. Moreover, Lorist believed the bronze cannons' long-range power would destroy enemies at two to three hundred meters, giving no chance for enemy boarding actions. So the water-beast armor served more as life jackets, offering little actual defense.
But he never expected the Invincible Fleet to drag others down with them in death. Ignoring the fact that sixty-plus large armed warships in the vanguard had been destroyed by chain shot and fire-stone shot, they didn't retreat. Instead, they used the burning warships ahead as shields, taking advantage of the smoke and fire obscuring vision, and charged forward with the wind and current, successfully closing the distance to within 150 meters before launching their first counterattack with longbow plunging fire, inflicting heavy casualties on the
Arrows fell like rain...
Lorist never imagined longbow plunging fire could be so devastating in naval warfare. No one on deck could operate the trebuchets or cannons anymore; soldiers scrambled for cover everywhere. White arrow feathers blanketed the deck, dense as a forest of stunted trees sprouting across the planks.
Only the Invincible Fleet, with its numerous ships and men, could afford such longbow barrages. Lorist had once installed large steel crossbows on ships with nearly 300-meter range, but they were scrapped due to poor stopping power. In naval combat, crossbow bolts couldn't match cannons — they couldn't blow massive holes in hulls, and ordinary ships riddled with bolts could still flee like porcupines. But the Invincible Fleet used their masses of sailors to saturate entire sea zones with longbow plunging fire, posing an enormous threat and inflicting massive casualties on the Nortons.
"Enemy ships at 120 meters! Ugh..." The dutiful lookout, several arrows protruding from his body, fell from the mast to the deck, twitched twice, then lay still.
Lorist leapt off the platform: "Joe, you protect Jinolio."
Lorist strode over to a trebuchet, grabbed the winding crank, and tried to cock the long throwing arm back into position. Ovikis hurried over at once: "Your Highness, let me do it."
Lorist used his sword in one hand to deflect the renewed arrow rain while roaring, "Go to the hold and get me a few gunpowder packets! Then have the cannons fire — destroy those fire ships up ahead!"
Ovikis charged into the hold through the arrow storm. Moments later, the bronze cannons below deck thundered again. Though the burning warships were hard to destroy outright with cannon fire, most of the burning wreckage on the upper decks of the fire ships that took several iron balls was shaken into the sea. With the flames diminished and the smoke blown away by the sea wind, the Invincible Fleet's large armed warships were revealed behind them, sails half-furled, and further back the giant Sepnim Sea Castle vessel. From a distance, the bows of those warships were packed with archers, bows drawn.
Lorist kicked the trebuchet's catch to the frontmost notch — the mark for the weapon's minimum effective range.
"Put the gunpowder packet in the pouch! There's a slow match pulled out next to it — cut it in half, light it, move!" Lorist bellowed at Ovikis as he emerged from the hold carrying several packets.
Without scissors, Ovikis used his sword to slice the slow match in half. Just then a fire arrow landed beside him; he grabbed it and lit the fuse. Lorist yanked the release lever. The long throwing arm swung upward, and the gunpowder packet was flung far out.
The packet soon shrank to a tiny black dot. Just as it was about to plummet into the midst of the archers on the enemy warship, a sudden flash of fire and a distant thunderclap rang out. Nearly every archer on that bow where the packet landed was swept clean.
Lorist was delighted: "Quick, let's keep going!"
Ovikis stepped in front of him, blocking the way: "Your Highness, let us handle the firing. You direct..."
At the same time he waved the surviving crew on deck over. Soon the second packet soared skyward. There were still seven or eight trebuchet crews without casualties. Lorist assigned one group to ferry gunpowder packets from the hold, while the other six clustered together to work the trebuchet. Lorist and Ovikis stood to left and right, swords in hand, shielding them from the arrow rain.
After a chaotic barrage of throws and explosions, the center of the front was spared from the arrow rain, but the Invincible Fleet's charging formation had already shifted from convex to concave, and the distance between the two sides of the Norton Family's line-abreast formation was now less than a hundred meters.
All the cannons were firing desperately, but the effect wasn't very good. The main reason was that the fire ships at the front of the Invincible Fleet had become natural shields for the warships behind them. These burning large armed warships weren't like those thin-hulled merchant ships — no matter how fiercely the fire burned above, the hulls below remained unaffected. On top of that, the cabins of these charging large armed warships were packed with bags of flour as cushioning, so even after enduring such fierce cannon bombardment, they neither fell apart nor sank.
...
A young man more than ten years younger than his own son had such courage. When the sixty-odd large armed warships charging in the front rank had their masts snapped and sails torn, colliding and tangling with the second rank of warships, and came under trebuchet attack — those burning boulders falling from the sky turning seventy or eighty warships into fire ships — Viscount Penelope was thrown into a panic. His first thought at that moment was to withdraw as quickly as possible.
Though it was framed as preserving the Invincible Fleet's vital strength, Viscount Penelope was truly frightened at that moment. And not a single one of the fleet's senior officers present objected to the withdrawal proposal — everyone had been terrified by the Norton Family fleet's unimaginably sharp long-range attacks. They'd barely come up with a way to neutralize the Norton Family fleet's cannons, but the enemy's trebuchets were even more formidable; the range and power of the stones they threw surpassed even the Invincible Fleet's newly equipped catapults. No one could have imagined that the sixty-five large armed warships arrayed in the vanguard would be wiped out so quickly in such a short time...
"We cannot withdraw!" A firm voice stopped the withdrawal order Viscount Penelope was about to issue. At the critical moment, Young Master Serihan stepped forward; with just a few words, he changed the fleet leadership's minds, and they gritted their teeth, determined to press forward and fight the Norton Family fleet to the bitter end.
Young Master Serihan said that withdrawing now would only let them escape today, not tomorrow. The Norton Family's armed warships had already blocked the route to Hidden Gold Bay; once they withdrew, the enemy would likewise dispatch that cannon fleet to harass them, leaving them caught between a rock and a hard place — continuing like this would only lead to eventual collapse. Better to go out in a blaze of glory and fight a decisive battle to the death with the enemy, especially since he had already found a path to victory.
"What path to victory?" The fleet's senior commanders wore looks of bewilderment.
"It's simple..." Serihan said. Before the battle, he had refused to station marine assault teams on the large armed warships of the vanguard precisely to avoid casualties and to probe the power of the Norton Family fleet's cannons. Though they had blocked most of the cannon damage, he hadn't expected the Norton Family to possess such formidable trebuchets, which turned the vanguard warships into burning fire ships.
But these fire ships have also become the best cover for the following fleet. Though we lost those few dozen vanguard warships, we still have over a hundred large armed warships. We press forward, using these fire ships as shields, and lower half our sails to avoid being spotted by the enemy too early, slowly closing the distance. Today the wind and water favor us — the current and wind align, and heaven's timing and earth's advantage are both on our side.
And now we're less than two hundred meters from the enemy. If we close another fifty meters, we can organize men to use longbows for high-angle shots and give the enemy a nasty surprise. If we close to a hundred meters, the long-range weapons on our warships will also come into play, able to suppress the enemy's cannon and trebuchet attacks. We could even turn those fire ships leading the way into our own weapons, pushing them forward to burn the enemy's warships...
Serihan's words steeled the Invincible Fleet's senior commanders' confidence in victory. When the organized archers launched a counterattack using high-angle longbow shots and heard faint screams from ahead, all the fleet's senior commanders let out cheers. It hadn't been easy — they'd finally inflicted casualties on the enemy, and even minimal casualties counted as a great victory.
But their joy didn't last long. Packages trailing sparks were thrown from the Norton Family fleet and exploded thunderously on the bows and the sea surface. The sailors gathered at the bow firing arrows were nearly wiped out. Viscount Penelope paled in shock: "What is that?"
Young Master Serihan answered with a grim expression: "No need to worry about what it is — it's just another of the Norton Family's new tricks. Now we have only one path: we must charge across this hundred meters as fast as possible, use our numerical advantage to board the enemy warships, seize the vessels, and win final victory! My lord, there's no time — order full sails and charge! Command the small fast ramming ships following behind us to prepare, and have them charge at the final fifty meters. Not only will that disperse enemy fire, it'll provide us cover!"
A clear bugle call rang out — the final charge signal, the signal for a death-or-glory assault. Cheers of "Ten Thousand Victories" erupted from nearly every still-intact warship. All the half-lowered sails were rapidly raised, and the fire ships leading the way sped up considerably. Brave sailors, ignoring the gruesome fate of the bow archers, operated various long-range weapons and launched a fierce attack on the Norton Family fleet's line abreast formation, less than a hundred meters away.
The enemy fleet's cannons fired desperately in return. Sturdy hulls shuddered violently from time to time, and the sharp shriek of iron shot grazing past ears filled the air. But no one felt fear now — even when companions beside them had the misfortune to be struck by cannonballs, suddenly losing their heads or having great holes torn in their chests and abdomens. The sailors still calmly fired various long-range weapons at the enemy.
...
A stone the size of a human head smashed down beside Lorist, bounced once on the thick deck, and flew off in another direction. Lorist glanced at the stone without the slightest reaction, then turned his gaze back to the Invincible Fleet ahead.
"Quick, quick, prepare chain shot..." Shivard kept urging. Of the ten land-combat cannons stationed on the deck, only four were still firing. The gun crews had taken heavy casualties from the high-angle longbow attack; the wounded had all been carried below decks, and it had taken Shivard a long while to scrape together four half-intact crews.
"My lord, we're out of chain shot..." This was bad news.
Shivard looked at the enemy ships less than a hundred meters away, sighed, and said, "Prepare canister shot, and get everyone's weapons ready. I think we might have to engage in close combat."
A huge explosion sounded from the whaling ship next to them; flames and black smoke flashed. It was a violent explosion at one of the second-floor gunports currently firing, which also blew a large hole in the deck. A land-combat cannon along with its carriage was thrown high into the air and fell into the sea...
"Bastards! How could they be so careless!" Shivard flew into a rage. This was definitely that gun crew making a mistake in their haste — either they loaded too much powder or placed the powder bags too close and they were ignited by the fire. Such a critical mistake at this juncture was too damaging to morale.
From the Invincible Fleet came the mournful sound of conch shells again, followed by a wave of victory cheers. Vaguely visible through the burning fire ships and smoke, small fast ramming warships with thick, sharp, cold-glinting giant spears at their prows emerged from behind those large armed warships. These small fast ramming warships were like centipedes that had grown legs, extending twelve oars on each side that sliced through the waves. They swiftly skimmed past the front warships, through the gaps between the burning fire ships and smoke, shooting toward the whaling ship formation like arrows...
"Ramming warships! Lower the gun muzzles, load canister shot, aim, fire!"
All the gun crews were familiar with the Invincible Fleet's small fast ramming warships, because they had heard the Thunderclap Fleet's gunners boast more than once about how they dealt with those small fast ramming warships. Canister shot was the best weapon — one blast, one hit, one cannon could wipe out a whole ship's crew. But they forgot the most important point: the Thunderclap Fleet had never let the small fast ramming warships get within fifty meters.
Cannon fire rang out in quick succession. Over the hundred-plus small fast ramming warships rapidly approaching on the sea, patches of blood mist occasionally rose. But fewer than thirty ramming warships were hit; more of them had already closed to less than twenty meters and launched their final charge!
Soon ramming warships slammed into the whaling ships one after another. Thudding impact sounds rang out continuously. Amid the violent shaking of the whaling ships, grappling hooks were thrown up from below, catching on the gunwales. Sailors on the ramming warships, holding short swords in their mouths, nimbly climbed up the ship hulls gripping the grappling hook ropes.
Shouts of killing came from the left. Lorist turned to look and saw an Invincible Fleet Sepnim Sea Castle giant warship ram into a whaling ship. That whaling ship was struck so hard its bow reared up high. The bronze cannons and trebuchets on the deck tumbled rolling toward the other end. And on the Sepnim Sea Castle giant warship appeared countless fully armed sailors, climbing on ropes and lunging onto the whaling ship.
On the adjacent whaling ship there were still six gun crews. At this moment, under the command of Deputy Commander
Lorist coldly turned his gaze back: "Jinorrio!"
"Your Highness, I am here."
"Pass the order: have the medium armed fleet on the right flank sortie. Circle around and bombard the enemy ships' waterlines at close range. Order the guard squad in the cabin to attack; follow me in counterattacking the enemy ships!"
"Yes, Your Highness!"
...