Since long-range attacks are limited in naval battles, and their power is relatively weak,

naval tactics today mainly involve using bows to suppress the enemy at medium range, then closing to board and fighting at close quarters on deck.

With an advantage in both ships and soldiers, charging into the enemy fleet as quickly as possible and engaging in close combat is certainly an effective tactic that makes the most of one’s strengths while minimizing one’s weaknesses.

The Knight Commander’s idea wasn’t wrong.

His mistake was that he had no idea that, for the Kingdom’s sailors, maneuvering on the water was their absolute forte.

Normally, once an Imperial ship had prepared for boarding and the crew at each station was working in sync, it could make contact with an enemy ship in under two minutes.

That was already quite fast. Against an ordinary navy, the Imperial fleet could simply close in on the enemy.

But the fleet they were facing now was a first-rate force led by Anliexi, one that had fought countless battles at sea.

From the command platform, Anliexi ordered the ships, which had been lined up abreast, to turn around and face the enemy with their aft quarters.

Anliexi was an excellent naval commander, with far more experience directing battles at sea than his opponent.

So he only needed a quick glance to judge the distance. At once, he ordered every ship to go full speed.

When the Imperial ships were about forty meters from the Kingdom fleet and their soldiers had prepared to board, they were startled to see the enemy ships charging toward them at speed.

The Kingdom fleet wasn’t presenting its sterns to the enemy. Instead, it faced them with the broader firing surface of its aft quarters.

The Knight Commander wasn’t a fool. By now, he’d realized something was wrong. The enemy fleet couldn’t have simply given up on escaping—that couldn’t be all there was to it.

What’s more, the enemy commander had kept his ships moving at roughly the same speed as theirs, with every vessel presenting its starboard aft quarter to the Imperial fleet.

That was clearly the prelude to maintaining distance and attacking from medium to long range.

Once he understood what was happening, the Knight Commander immediately ordered the sails lowered and the rowers to row backward. They were to stop pursuing the enemy and pull back for now.

But the order had already been given, and turning the Imperial ships around to retreat wasn’t so easy.

Just as the Knight Commander was growing anxious, the Kingdom fleet reached full speed.

The Grey-Robed Man had told Anliexi what orders to give: the entire fleet was to advance in a single-file line, then make a rightward turn. This brought the Kingdom fleet around behind the Imperial ships and cut off the enemy’s escape route.

Soldiers of this era often saw scenes like this.

On the battlefield, when one side faced a formation of enemy infantry, it might send in a powerful cavalry force.

The aim was to drive the cavalry through the enemy’s flank, cutting off a portion of the opposing army in a short time.

Then, during that brief window, the side that had sent in the cavalry would concentrate its superior forces and wipe out the troops that had been cut off.

Once you understood this tactic, it wasn’t hard to see that

what the Grey-Robed Man had just done was apply a land-based tactic to naval warfare!

Of course, this tactic also relied on the Kingdom ships being fast, powerful, and sturdy enough.

Perhaps this was a better way to put it:

The Kingdom fleet was like a force of heavy cavalry, able to charge and weave through a formation of old-style ships at will.

As the ships carried out these orders, they kept facing the Imperial formation with either their port or starboard sides.

Meanwhile, the catapults hurled one volley of stone shots after another, throwing the enemy formation’s left and right wings into chaos.

And it wasn’t just stone shots. The firing ports on the middle and lower decks of each ship had opened, and from them flew one thick-shafted arrow after another.

The arrows were fired from the large mechanical crossbows specially installed on the warships.

The Kingdom’s crossbows had been specially redesigned.

First, the designers had increased their size, lengthening the bow arms to about a meter. The longer bow arms and strings increased the arrows’ range and striking power.

They’d also added pulleys to the string at the rear of the bow arms, reducing the effort needed for the shooter to draw the string.

Next, they modified the structure of the arrow magazine.

The original design required loading each arrow, only a few inches long, into the magazine one by one. That made reloading relatively slow.

In ordinary land battles, this method of loading wouldn’t have much effect on the density or continuity of arrow volleys if groups of crossbowmen took turns firing in multiple waves.

But on ships, especially those that regularly made long voyages, the captain simply couldn’t—and wouldn’t—allow a large number of extra crew aboard just to fire in rotating groups.

It was obvious enough: a ship had only so much cargo capacity. If you brought too many people, where would the cargo go?

And feeding, housing, and accommodating the crew took up a lot of space, too.

On top of that, space aboard a ship was limited, so they couldn’t install too many crossbows.

If they kept using the original crossbow’s loading method, slotting each arrow into the magazine one at a time,

then when facing the kind of naval battle common at the time—closing in quickly and boarding for close combat—the continuous stream of arrows would inevitably have sizable gaps.

To address this problem, the designers mounted the arrow magazine upside down above the crossbow.

A single drum magazine held well over a hundred arrows, and it was also quick and easy to refill.

All the crossbowmen had to do was open the lid on top of the drum and load in handfuls of arrows, making sure they were facing the right way.

When necessary, they could even replace the entire drum.

Next came the firing mechanism.

The original crossbow’s cocking lever was above the bow. But the improved mechanical crossbow had a drum magazine mounted there, so it couldn’t use the original mechanism.

So the Kingdom’s designers moved the lever beneath the bow and replaced the simple lever mechanism with a gear-driven winch, which was easier and faster to operate.

That way, the shooter only had to sit behind the crossbow and keep turning the winch.

The method of operation was a little like the two pedals of a bicycle from... another world.

Though it was turned with both hands, when necessary, the shooter could lie on the deck and pump it like crazy with both legs instead.

Finally, they improved the crossbow’s mount.

The designers made it possible to raise or lower the crossbow by forty degrees vertically, and adjust it sixty degrees to either side horizontally.

When several crossbows on one side of a ship worked together, this meant there were basically no blind spots in their medium-range firing arc.

However, these drum-fed mechanical crossbows were relatively heavy, and their design was limited by the available technology. Adjusting their vertical angle wasn’t very convenient, but sweeping them from side to side posed no problem.

So in practice, the crossbows’ vertical angles had to be adjusted and fixed in advance. Then they could quickly sweep across the horizontal plane.

To make up for the limited downward angle of fire caused by the ships’ large hulls and high gunwales, additional crossbows and firing ports were installed amidships.

Each crossbow was operated by two people.

One turned the winch to fire the arrows, while the other aimed the crossbow. A dedicated team handled the arrow supply.

All in all, under normal conditions, these crossbows could fire three arrows every two seconds, while putting relatively little strain on their operators.

If the person turning the winch was strong and cranked it with all their might, they could even fire five arrows in three seconds. By the standards of the time, that was a terrifying rate of fire.

Finally—really, the last improvement—the craftsmen replaced the animal sinew bowstrings with spring-steel wire.

Using spring-steel wire gave these mechanical crossbows a huge leap in both range and killing power.

Compared with animal sinew, which could easily become damp and deteriorate, spring-steel wire was sturdier, more durable, and easier to maintain.

That was easy to understand.

When you were actually out at sea, the air was thick with moisture. Animal sinew could easily get damp and deteriorate, while spring-steel wire didn’t have that problem.

And to put it bluntly, all you had to do for maintenance was take a small brush and coat it with a layer of animal or vegetable oil.

The design advantages, the Grey-Robed Man’s command, and the Kingdom fleet’s skill at handling their ships—

all these factors combined to set the stage for a magnificent counterattack...

At that moment, the Kingdom fleet was completing a swift circling maneuver, aiming to cut off the Imperial fleet’s retreat after looping around.

Stone shots from both sides of the Kingdom ships and volleys of arrows formed a dense barrage, suppressing the ships on both wings of the enemy fleet.

With the wind having shifted, the Kingdom fleet could use its long-range weapons with ease.

The Imperial fleet, on the other hand, knew that firing crossbow bolts into the headwind would only waste ammunition, so it had no choice but to find a way to board.

Even so, because of the enormous difference in the number of ships, the damage to the Imperial fleet had remained relatively minor.

The Kingdom fleet hadn’t achieved enough to turn the tide of battle.

The Knight Commander saw what his opponent was trying to do, so he urgently ordered the ships in the center to reinforce both wings and act as shields against the Kingdom fleet’s barrage.

The remaining ships were to quickly change course and move in to grapple with the enemy fleet as fast as possible.