The blue sea was a wolf, flags, sails, broken knives and guns, broken armor, broken masts, broken pieces of wood, scattered all over the sea. Several of the still burning ships were slowly sinking, and the surviving soldiers on board jumped into the sea and swam in the direction of their own fleet.

The fleets of the two sides were slowly separating, and the Jin army finally won a moment of respite and regrouped in formation. In the first round of the battle, the Jin army lost a total of 37 warships, including 18 large ships of more than 10 zhang, and at least 20 warships are still burning with flames. At least half of them will lose combat effectiveness. That is, the loss of the Jin army's warships was at least more than forty. And the warships of the Song army on the opposite side did not seem to have suffered much loss.

Wanyan Benxu's face turned pale, and this battle couldn't be fought with Ben. In fact, in terms of the number of warships and soldiers alone, the Jin army is still far more than the Song army, but the current Jin army, including Wanyan Benxu, has lost the confidence to fight the Song army.

Wanyan Benxu said to Wanyan Changzhi in a trembling voice: "Lord Wanyan, let's retreat, we can't defeat the Song army, and if we continue to fight, we will only suffer more heavy losses." Now that we are retreating, the Song army will not come to pursue us, at least we can lose some less ships. ”

Wan Yan Changzhi's face changed a few times, and he fought fiercely in his heart, and finally made up his mind, and said: "Don't retreat, immediately order the bow of the ship to be turned over and fight the Song army again." ”

Wanyan ran to the starling, and said: "Lord Wanyan, we can't fight the Song army anymore, we can't beat the Song army......"

Before he finished his words, Wan Yan Changzhi interrupted him and said sharply: "Wan Yan Benxu, as the chief general of the water army, you don't think about how to defeat the Song army, but you are so cowardly and robbing the war, fearing the enemy like a tiger, and scratching the hearts of the army. What a sin. ”

Wanyan Benxu's heart trembled, he knelt down on his knees in front of Wanyan Changzhi, and said in a trembling voice: "The last general will not dare, and I hope that the Lord will forgive his sins." ”

"Now I order you to give the order immediately, turn the bow of the ship, and fight the Song army again." Otherwise, I will immediately write to the emperor, and I will cure you for the crime of cowardice and not fighting. ”

Wanyan Benxu looked up at Wanyan Changzhi, only to see that the gaze in his eyes was unwavering. Knowing that there was no way to recover, he gritted his teeth, got up and shouted: "All the warships, turn the bow of the ship and prepare for battle." ”

"Our warships shared the loss of two Flying Tiger boats, two Loach Boats, four Magpie Ships, and eight Small Boats. Sixteen ships in total. Another five Flying Tigers, eight Loach Boats, four Sea Falcons and two Small Shenzhou ships were injured and damaged, but it did not affect the battle. The other warships also reported the losses of the Song army to Li Gongzuo. Obviously, the losses of the Song army were far greater than those of the Jin army.

Li Gongzuo nodded, and then the sentry reported: "Li Commander, the warship of the Jin army is turning around." ”

"Oh." Li Gongzuo was slightly surprised, and when he looked back, the Jin army's warship was really turning around, obviously to have a second round of competition with the Song army.

From the first round of engagements, the Jin army should have known that there was almost no chance of victory against the Song army's naval army. In such a situation, he dared to turn around and continue to fight with the Song army, was the chief general of the Jin army brave or stupid? According to Li Gongzuo's idea, if the Jin army withdrew like this, he did not plan to lead the army to pursue, because his task was to bring the expeditionary force back to the Great Song Dynasty. However, if the Jin army wants to fight again, then Li Gongzuo will naturally be honored to the end.

"Order all ships to turn around at once and prepare for battle."

The Song army's fleet turned its head one after another. The ships of the two sides faced each other again, about three hundred paces apart. At this time, the soldiers who fell overboard in the first round also swam to their own fleet. The Song army and the Jin army rescued their own soldiers who had fallen into the water, and on the other hand, adjusted their formations to prepare for the next round of confrontations.

Compared to the first round, the Jin army's formation was significantly more dispersed, and the array of warships was not as dense as before. This was ordered by Yan Chang to change the formation. Although he is not good at water fighting, after the first round of fighting, he is also familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of both sides. Although the number of warships of the Song army is small, they are taller than the warships of the Jin army, and the attack distance and power of long-range weapons are far superior to those of the Jin army, so if the Jin army also adopts a dense formation, it is more conducive to the long-range weapons of the Song army.

On the contrary, the large ships of the Song army must have been lacking in flexibility, and although the Jin army's warships were small, they were far more numerous than the Song army. Therefore, it is beneficial to give full play to the advantages of the Jin army by dispersing the warships, adopting the tactics of encirclement against the large ships of the Song army, and showing the opportunity to get close to the big ships of the Song army.

Yang Yan saw it very clearly. I was thinking about how to deal with this tactic of the Jin army.

At this time, Li Gongzuo made corresponding adjustments, and the three large Shenzhou were no longer scattered, but concentrated together, and each Shenzhou was about thirty steps apart. With three large Shenzhou as the core, the small Shenzhou is arranged on both sides of the large Shenzhou. Medium-sized warships such as Flying Tiger, Sea Loach, and Sea Falcon are distributed on the outside of Shenzhou, forming a large arc to surround Shenzhou in it, while other small warships are interspersed in it.

Yang Yan understood that such a formation could enable the larger Shenzhou to avoid directly engaging in a close confrontation with the opponent's warship. At the same time, the long-range weapons on the Shenzhou cover the medium-sized warships, so that they can get the support of the Shenzhou when fighting the Jin army. To a certain extent, it's more like a stacked array on the sea.

"However," Yang Yan was a little puzzled: "This seems to be a formation that is more inclined to be a defense-oriented formation." Does Li Gongzuo want to hold on first and then fight back? However, judging from the current comparison of the strength of the Song and Jin armies and the change of formation of the Jin army, Li Gongzuo's action is also in line with the way of using troops. Yang Yan asked himself, if he had changed his command, he might have done the same.

At this time, the distance between the two sides was shortened to nearly two hundred paces. The bed crossbows and slingshots on the various warships of the Song army began to fire at the warships of the Jin army. Song Jun and Jin Jun started the second round of the contest.

Crossbow arrows whistled through the sky, and firearms such as smoke balls, thunderbolts, thunderbolts, iron artillery, thistle fireballs, and oil bombs were also fired at the Jin army's warships. The sea, which had just calmed down for a while, suddenly fell into a fierce battle again.

However, this time, due to the dispersion of the Jin army's warships, the Jin army's losses were not as great as in the first round. Most of the crossbow arrows and shells fell into the sea. On the contrary, the warships of the Jin army were constantly approaching the Song army between crossbow arrows and artillery fire.

If this continues, they will be able to get close to the Song army's warships, and they will be able to implement the Jin army's most desired combat method - pedaling ships. In this way, the advantages of the large number of the Jin army can be fully brought into play. Although in the process of approaching the Song army, some warships were still shot by the crossbow arrows of the Song army, hit by artillery fire, some warships burned again, and some were sunk, but on the whole, the warships of the Jin army were getting closer and closer to the Song army. And the Jin army also began to counterattack the warships of the Song army, firing rockets and fire crossbows.

Li Gongzuo stood on the ship's tower, and the entire battlefield was unobstructed. As the battle progressed, one command after another was issued and teleported by the flag bearer to the other ships.

The entire sea was suddenly covered with rockets flying over the sky. Rockets fell on the warships of the Song and Jin armies, and the soldiers on both sides fired rockets and fire crossbows at each other, while dying to extinguish the flames that fell on their own ships.

After Yan Benxu, he saw a glimmer of victory at this time. It suddenly occurred to him that all of this was the result of the change of formation of the end of the face. For a while, my heart was full of sincere admiration for Wanyan Changzhi. I couldn't help but say: "Lord Wanyan, it seems that this time we have hope." ”

The Jin army's fleet was only sixty paces away from the Song army, and it seemed that it was about to approach the Song army and engage in a ship-pedaling battle, and now it seemed that the Song army had no other way.

"However, with the strength of the Song army, it seems that it should not be so passive." At this time, there was no joy on Wan Yanchangzhi's face, on the contrary, he faintly felt a trace of wrong emotion in his heart. But what was wrong with the body, he didn't know in his heart.

At this moment, Li Gongzuo waved his hand violently, "Attack." ”

As the standard-bearer passed Li Gongzuo's order, the formation of the Song army's fleet immediately changed. Three fleets consisting of two small Shenzhou and more than a dozen medium-sized warships quickly fought out of the Song army's ship formation from the left, middle and right directions, and rode straight to the Jin army's ship formation with a tailwind.

Each fleet of the Song army is composed of two small Shenzhou as the core, one at the head, one at the back of the palace, eighteen waterwheel wheels rotate rapidly, and the flexibility is not inferior to that of medium-sized warships, and two small warships have no time to dodge, they were hit by Shenzhou, shook a few times, and suddenly turned upside down. Medium-sized warships were lined up on both sides of Shenzhou, so that Shenzhou did not have to be distracted by attacks from both sides, and concentrated its firepower against the enemy ships in front.

Wan Yan Changzhi was shocked, but because the distance between the two fleets was too close, the Jin army had no time to react, and could only watch as the Song army's fleet rushed into the Jin army's formation.

Due to the scattered distribution of the Jin army's warships, this left enough room for the Song army's assault fleet to maneuver. The Song army's fleet shuttled through the gap between the Jin army's ship formation at an astonishing speed. The ship's bed crossbows, slingshots, and crossbowmen were fired together. Fire bows and arrows, fire crossbow arrows, muskets, rockets, and tongues of fire whistling towards the warships of the Jin army. Smoke balls, thunderbolts, thunderbolts, iron artillery, thistle fireballs, and fierce oil bombs also continued to smash into the Jin army's formation. Due to the close proximity of the warships of the two sides, the Song army's long-range weapons had a high hit rate.

The three small fleets of the Song army crisscrossed through the Jin army's formation, and they were unstoppable. One by one, the warships of the Jin army were hit, caught on fire, and blown up. Thick and choking smoke enveloped the entire surface of the sea. The ships were sunk, and some of the golden soldiers on board were shot by bows and arrows, some were killed by cannonballs, and some were burned to death. The desperate Jin soldiers jumped into the sea to flee for their lives, but became the target of the Song army's archers. Blood poured out of the water, screams and wails, roars and explosions resounded across the sea.

And the Jin army's ship formation was also disturbed, no one listened to Yan Benxu's command anymore, large and small warships crashed like headless flies, and several warships collided together and sank.

This was Li Gongzuo's strategy, first put on a defensive position, induced the Jin army's fleet to attack, and when the two armies' fleets approached, the Jin army's fleet dispersed, sent a small fleet to break into the Jin army's ship formation, and used the Song army's warship's speed and firepower advantage to disrupt the Jin army's formation.

Wanyan Benxu looked at the small fleet of the three Song armies with a pale face, and the Jin army was in chaos. The shadow of victory just now has long since disappeared without a trace. And at this time, Wan Yan Changzhi was also iron-faced, the commander of the Song army did command the fleet superbly, and the control of the warship was far from what they could imagine for the Jurchens who grew up on horseback.

At this time, Yang Yan and others also admired Li Gongzuo's command.