Since the only large Shenzhou of the Song army was under the protection of the ships, in the battle just now, he could only hit others from here, and he was not injured at all. Yang Yan knew that he was not proficient in water warfare, and he was very confident in Li Gongzuo's water warfare ability, so he completely handed over the command to Li Gongzuo, and he was just watching the battle with Zhao Qianru, Chen Liang, Wei Chang, Tie Chenglin, Gu Xueping and others on the building of the large Shenzhou, talking and laughing.

At this time, Li Gongzuo stood on the lookout of the large Shenzhou and looked down on everything on the sea from the highest point of the battlefield, and the situation of the entire battlefield was clear to him. The tactics of the pirate coalition had already been expected by him, so he calmly issued his own orders.

The standard-bearers passed Li Gongzuo's orders to the ships, and at this moment, the Song army, which had been standing still just now and was waiting for the pirate coalition to attack, suddenly changed, and the entire formation stretched back and forth and became a longitudinal arrangement. At the head and tail of the two small Shenzhou to start and break, the only large Shenzhou in the center, the other flying tigers, loach boats, and sea falcon boats are protected around the large Shenzhou, and other boat ships are interspersed in it, from a circular array to a spindle-shaped array with front and rear points and a drum in the middle.

Moreover, the waterwheel spun and the oars swayed, stirring up countless waves, piercing the sea, and rushing towards the enemy's formation at an astonishing speed. It was like a sharp awl, like a pocket that surrounded it.

Meng Heng was also taken aback, he didn't expect yesterday that the Song army, which had always put on a defensive posture, would actually take the initiative to attack. Now, although the pirate coalition is about to form an encirclement, it has also caused the warships to scatter and the front line to stretch too long, once the Song army concentrates its forces like this and launches a fierce attack on a point, it is very likely to be broken through by the Song army. Therefore, Meng Heng hurriedly ordered the two wings to be closed, no longer pursuing the encirclement of the Song army, but instead attacking the flanks of the Song army.

The personal qualities of the pirates may not be bad, but the overall combat ability is far inferior to that of the Song army, and they changed formations in a hurry, and now they are still extremely there, and the two small Shenzhou at the head of the Song army's fleet are so unstoppable that they slammed into the two oncoming pirate ships.

Although the two are only small Shenzhou, they are also rare large ships. Moreover, the bow of the ship is wrapped in sharp iron, and it is going at full speed, and the hull is heavy. The pity of the two pirate ships was nothing more than five or six hundred small sea ships, which could withstand this collision, only to hear two loud "boom, boom", sawdust flying, one pirate ship was hit with the bow, and then it fell apart and broke into dozens of pieces, while the other ship was hit on the side side, and made a turn on the sea, and immediately turned upside down. All the people on board also fell into the sea.

The two small Shenzhou just shook for a while, and the hull returned to stability and continued to rush forward. When the other pirate ships saw such a might, they were already frightened, and although they were coerced and lured by Meng Heng, they still avoided one after another, who would dare to come up and stop them. Opened by these two small Shenzhou, the Song army's fleet smashed into the formation of the pirate coalition with a warp.

At this time, the two wings of the pirate coalition army came together, but Yijing was a step too late and did not catch up with the Song army's flank, so he could only closely pursue the Song army behind, hoping to attack the Song army from behind.

At this time, the bed crossbows, slingshots, and archers on the various warships of the Song army were all launched in unison, rockets, artillery, stones, smoke balls, thunderbolts, thunderbolts, tribulus fireballs, oil bombs, etc., like hail, fired towards the pirate warships on both sides.

The sound of "boom, boom, boom" was endless, the firelight flashed, debris flew sideways, and the smell of gunpowder smoke was all over the sky for a while. More than 20 pirate warships on both sides of the Song army fleet were all burned and fell into the flames, and the pirates on board jumped into the water to flee for their lives, but became the target of the Song army archers.

The other warships were in disarray, and they all had no intention of fighting, and only cared about fleeing for their lives. At this time, the speed of the advance of the Song army's fleet barely slowed down, and it broke through the encirclement of the pirate coalition. And Meng Heng led the two wings of the pirate coalition army and pursued desperately behind, but he was only a few dozen steps away and failed to catch up with the Song army, but saw the Song army go farther and farther.

In this round of confrontation, the pirate coalition lost at least more than thirty ships, while the Song army only sank two small boats.

At this time, Xu Hai and the others, who were watching the battle on Mingshan Island, only looked dumbfounded, and never dreamed that the naval army of the Great Song Dynasty would have such strong combat effectiveness, not only with such strong firearms, but also with the operation of the entire fleet, which was as flexible as an arm. Everyone is fortunate in their hearts, fortunately it was not Song Jun who fought with them yesterday.

At this time, the Song army's fleet had already turned around, and the formation changed again, from the spindle shape arranged in columns, to a horizontal line again, just in time to meet the pirate coalition army chasing behind, and attacked again.

Xu Hai was puzzled, although from the results of the confrontation just now, the Song army had the advantage of pressing the sex, and the strength of the ship was one of the reasons, but the main reason was that the Song army's tactical use was reasonable, and in response to the scattered attacks of the pirate coalition army, all the forces were concentrated on one point and broke through one point, resulting in the overall passivity of the pirates.

However, despite the unfavorable start, the current pirate coalition army is still more than the Song army in general, according to Xu Hai's idea, the Song army should still adhere to the previous tactics, concentrate forces, and attack a little bit, as long as this repeated impact a few times, Meng Heng's coalition army will definitely be defeated and retreat.

But now the Song army is lining up the warships, which is obviously a big violation of the way of using troops. Generally speaking, although the horizontal array can expand the attack area, it will be because of the lack of depth, once it is broken through at one point, it will cause the collapse of the whole line, unless it is in the case of absolute superiority in troops, otherwise this kind of horizontal formation lined up will never be used. Is it difficult because the victory in the first round just now made Yang Yan have the idea of underestimating the enemy?

In fact, Li Gongzuo naturally knew the weakness of the horizontal array, but this time the Song army finally found an opportunity to fight a decisive battle with the pirate alliance, not only to defeat the pirates, but also to inflict heavy losses on the pirates as much as possible. And this kind of horizontal formation, Qiaqia can expand the attack surface to the maximum and sweep away the enemy's army. And Li Gongzuo also knew in his heart that after the first round of blows, the pirates had long lost their fighting spirit, and as long as the Song army attacked again, they would only scatter and flee, and they would not fight hard with Ben, even if they were broken through a few points, it didn't matter. That's why he dared to boldly use this kind of horizontal array, not to mention that Li Gongzuo still had a trump card in his hand that he hadn't used.

Meng Heng was originally chasing the Song army behind, but now the Song army has turned around and is now the first to bear the brunt. However, after a round of impact from the Song army just now, the formation of the pirate coalition army was in chaos, although there was a heavy compensation promised by Meng Heng, but the other small Haiqiang still turned the rudder one after another, ready to escape. After all, everyone can see that the sailors of the Song army cannot be defeated by Ben, and saving their lives is more important than money.

At this time, Meng Heng also gathered fifty or sixty ships around him, all of which were his subordinates, and the three main warships of "Fei Biao", "Fei Jiao" and "Fei Leopard" were still around his ship. It's too late to turn around and escape now, the best way is to learn the tactics of the Song army, concentrate your forces, and break through a little, so that you can pass through the array of the Song army and escape back to Zanglong Island. Therefore, Meng Heng immediately ordered to launch an attack on the Song army, and let the three main warships of "Fei Biao", "Fei Jiao" and "Fei Leopard" take the lead, followed by fifteen larger ships, his own boat "Feilong" in the center, and the other small boats in the rear, hoping to rely on these main ships to break through the array of the Song army. Lead the other ships to break out of the encirclement.

At this moment, the Song army's ship formation changed again, and eight warships suddenly accelerated, leaping out of the lined up ship formation, and quickly adjusted into an arrow shape to meet Meng Heng's fleet.

Meng Heng looked at it, the shape of these warships was very strange, but just now they were hidden in the Song army's ship formation, and he didn't pay attention to it, and then he saw that the size of these eight ships was about the same as his own ship "Flying Dragon", but there was another layer of roof on the deck, covering the deck and the shipbuilding, and wrapped in scaly iron blades, like a turtle shell. And on the top cover and on the side of the side, there are many sharp iron cones and sharp knives, shaped like hedgehogs, which are very different from other ships.

This is the latest ironclad warship made by the Song army, originally after Yang Yan proposed to Wei Chang to cover the iron sheet on the side of the ship, after the idea of making ironclad warships, Wei Chang has been thinking hard in Guangzhou, Li Gongzuo also gave him strong support, during Yang Yan's expedition to Dali, Wei Chang finally succeeded in transforming eight flying tiger ships into ironclad ships after repeated experiments. This time it was used in the final battle of the pirates.

After the transformation of the ironclad ship, the entire hull is wrapped in hardwood, and in addition to the hardwood, it is covered with a layer of scaly iron, which can withstand any bow and arrow, artillery. On the top cover there are four crossroads to walk on. Where there was no road, there were awls and knives everywhere, so there was no fear of the enemy stepping on the roof of the ship. The bow of the ship was also equipped with a large iron cone, which could be used to ram the enemy. There are twenty-four two-foot square windows on the port side of the ship, which can be sealed and opened, and there are also four in the bow and stern of the ship, which can be used by the soldiers in the ship to fire arrows, as well as bed crossbows and slingshots. One ship was equipped with four bed crossbows, eight slingshots. It is twice as large as the average Flying Tiger ship. Each ship was equipped with fifty sailors and eighty soldiers.

Since the hull was covered with iron armor, the weight increased suddenly, so in order to reduce the weight, the things that could be reduced were minimized, and there was a chance that the ship would not be loaded with anything other than the necessary weapons, and even the soldiers would not wear armor. In addition, on the basis of the original four waterwheels, two masts and four sails for each Flying Tiger boat, twelve oars were added on each side of the boat. After the trial, the speed of the ironclad ship did not slow down, and it was also very maneuverable. However, because food and fresh water were supplied by other ships, ironclad ships could not go to sea alone to fight, and had to act with the fleet.

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