. The distance between the two fleets gradually narrowed, only a distance of three hundred paces, Li Gongzuo gave an order, and the bed crossbows on the various warships of the Song army were launched together, and the first crossbow guns were fired, which opened the prelude to this naval battle.

The Song army had a total of 55 large and small warships, in addition to one large Shenzhou and four small Shenzhou, the other 50 ships were seven Flying Tiger Boats, 15 Sea Falcon Boats, 10 Loach Boats, 10 Small Boat Walkers and 8 other warships. At this time, the ships of the Song army were all lined up horizontally, and with a series of tense springs, hundreds of crossbow guns five feet long brought out a terrifying roar, flew across the sea at a distance of three hundred paces, and shot at Meng Heng's ship formation.

Among them, at least more than half of the crossbow guns fell into the sea, but some of the remaining crossbow guns were nailed into the side of the ship, some were inserted into the deck, and many of the crossbow guns hit the target, causing Meng Heng's formation to let out a miserable scream.

Due to the distance was too far, the blows inflicted by the crossbow on Meng Heng's coalition forces were actually very limited, and only a few dozen people were shot in one round. But it was precisely because of such a distance that the psychological blow to the coalition forces was extremely heavy: what a terrible thing it was for the Song army to be able to start attacking from such a distance.

Meng Heng was shocked in his heart, but now he thought that he had no turning back from the bow, so he could only fight hard. Therefore, Meng Heng immediately issued an order, ordering all the warships to spread out as much as possible, in a huge semi-arc, to advance towards the Song army, so as to reduce the impact area of the coalition army, and second, to take advantage of the advantage of more ships to surround the Song army. The number of Meng Heng's ships was originally more than twice that of the Song army, but once dispersed, the formation became even larger, and the sea was full of allied warships, as if it was five or six times that of the Song army.

Seeing this, Li Gongzuo smiled slightly, and immediately ordered, in response to the changes in the coalition army, the Song army also quickly adjusted the ship formation, the two wings immediately closed to the middle, four small Shenzhou guarded the four directions, the only large Shenzhou in the center, the other flying tigers, sea loach, and sea falcon ships were protected around the large Shenzhou, and other boats were interspersed in it, from a goose-shaped array to a circular formation. The round formation was originally conducive to defense, but now that the Song army has few ships, it is also a reasonable arrangement to simply shrink the formation.

After both sides adjusted their formations, the distance between the two sides was narrowed to only a hundred steps, and if you looked from the air at this time, you would see that Meng Heng's coalition army was like a giant moon bud, and like a huge pocket, which was gradually moving towards the Song army, as if it wanted to annex the Song army.

"Shoot the arrows." The two sides gave orders almost simultaneously, and suddenly countless arrows streaked through the air, flying back and forth on the gradually shortening sea of both sides.

Although the number of warships of the Mengheng coalition army was large, the bows and arrows were limited, and the range was much closer than that of the Song army. The Song army not only had many bows and arrows and a long range, but also the Song army's warships were generally taller than the pirates' warships, and they had a great advantage, so after the two sides launched a confrontation, the pirates were quickly suppressed by the Song army's bows and arrows. You can only hold a shield to block your bow and arrows. But it's okay for a shield to block an ordinary bow and arrow, but a crossbow shot at a bed crossbow is like a void, as long as it is shot directly, it is better to be pierced like papier-mâché, and directly hit the person hiding behind the shield.

Yu Heng had no choice but to give the order to let the warships continue to advance in the rain of arrows of the Song army, hoping to get close to the warships of the Song army and carry out the ship-pedaling battle.

At this time, the arrows fired by the Song army were also mixed with a large number of rockets, and the Song army did not shoot arrows indiscriminately, but in a group of seven or eight ships, they concentrated on one enemy ship and fired rockets together, and only after the ship was completely on fire did they transfer the target to the next ship. In this way, after a while, more than a dozen warships in Meng Heng's fleet caught fire. However, after yesterday's battle with Xu Hai, Meng Heng's fleet also gained a lot of experience in water warfare, and the warships on fire still sailed towards the Song army's ship formation, rushing at high speed, trying to ram the Song army's warships before they were burned.

At this time, the slingshots on the various warships of the Song army began to fire stones again, and one by one the stones weighing dozens of catties flew towards the enemy ship with a whistling sound, these stones plus the momentum, weighing a thousand catties, are not an ordinary blade shield can parry, once hit by the stones, the small enemy ship is either smashed into two, or is also smashed to the point that it cannot move. Even large enemy ships were smashed to the point that their sides were broken and their decks cracked. The pirates who were hit by the stones were even more bleeding and had broken bones and bones. There was a scream on the seashore.

As soon as the two armies first came into contact, the Mengheng coalition army suffered nearly 20 warships. The cheers on the Song army's side were higher and higher, and their morale was greatly boosted.

Meng Heng didn't expect that before the warships of the two sides approached, the Song army caused such a big loss to himself, and at this time he began to regret it in his heart, and he shouldn't have chosen to fight a decisive battle with the Song army on the spur of the moment. However, he also knows that he regrets that he is late now, and he can't retreat if he wants to. I could only grit my teeth and go down.

Fortunately, through yesterday's battle with Xu Hai, Meng Heng found that the coalition army could only fight against the wind, not against the wind, so last night Meng Heng recruited the leaders of the joint pirates, and sternly stated that everyone must go all out in the battle the next day, and if they find that the battle is unfavorable, after this battle, they will definitely settle accounts with him. Of course, Meng Heng also understood that it was not enough to rely on intimidation for these people, so he made it clear that after this battle, Meng Heng would be responsible for all the replacement and loss of other pirates' personnel and ships, and marked the actual price, and compensated 1,000 guan for the loss of a small boat, 2,000 guan for the loss of a large ship, and 50 guan for one person.

It is this kind of coercion and temptation, so until now, the pirate coalition has not broken up, and is still trying its best to fight against the Song army, otherwise as soon as they saw that the Song army had such a powerful weapon, the other little pirates would be frightened and run away.

In the pirate alliance array, Meng Lanjun's troops were in a different scenario, among her subordinates, to Meng Heng's people were captured by the Song army when they attacked Guangzhou, so almost all the thirty ships brought this time were loyal to her. Of course, because she was afraid that people would reveal her secrets, only a few henchmen knew about her surrender to Yang Yan, but she had already discussed with Yang Yan and made a mark on each of her boats, and the Song army would not generally attack her ships. Of course, it is inevitable that some accidental injuries will occasionally occur, but Meng Lanjun's fleet has suffered the least losses. It's just that Meng Lanjun dispersed his fleet into a large group of ships, and always maintained a position that did not move forward or backward, so that it would not attract too much attention.