Aragones stood on the roof of his mansion, looking gloomily at the Spanish fleet advancing on the sea in the distance.
As he expected, DeSantis's fleet did not prioritize rescuing settlements, but decisively abandoned Aragones' territory and rushed straight to the Haihan base deep in the bay.
Objectively speaking, there is actually nothing wrong with DeSantis's choice. Seizing the fleeting fighter opportunity and defeating the Haihan fleet in chaos is the only way to change the current situation. If he chooses to save the settlement first, it will be tantamount to fighting the fire with a salary, and he will only miss precious opportunities.
But to Aragones, this is DeSantis digging his own grave.
"Since you don't plan to save me, then I can't save you!" Aragones murmured to himself.
DeSantis didn't know that he had already stepped half into the gate of hell. The front is the narrowest channel in the bay. After driving through this, you should be able to see the Haihan Base.
However, judging from the thick smoke rising in the distance, the fire at Haihan Base should not be extinguished yet, and the Haihan Fleet must not be able to resume combat capabilities so quickly.
Thinking of a large group of lambs waiting to be slaughtered ahead, DeSantis couldn't help but get excited and shouted to the sailors on the deck: "Let the Haihan people know today what the real Invincible Fleet is!"
Everyone on the deck responded in unison, everyone was in high spirits and wanted to accept the military exploits that came to them as soon as possible.
The fleet passed through this section of the strait at the highest speed. Next to the mouth of the Chicano River on the east side in front is the Haihan base and temporary port.
There was a raging fire on the coast and smoke was rising. DeSantis picked up a monocular and planned to see how many Haihan warships were burned in the fire.
But when he saw it, he was so shocked that he almost couldn't hold the telescope.
Those fires were not burning wrecks of warships, but piles of bonfires on the coast. Judging from its condition, it was clearly a man-made fire scene rather than the result of a fire.
The port was empty, with no warships at all, let alone capsized wrecks.
DeSantis' heart sank, and he rushed to the right side of the ship to observe the situation on the west side of the bay.
After sailing out of the narrow strait section just now, the bay turns sharply south here, and Haihan's base port is located on the east coast, so the west side naturally becomes a blind spot for vision.
It didn't matter. After seeing it, DeSantis' heart beat faster and he shouted that something was wrong.
At least two digits of Haihan warships were rushing over from near the west coast. The large warship at the head of it was at least twice as big as the other warships next to it. It should be the legendary Majesty-class warship.
But according to the information provided by Aragones, Haihan only stationed one Majesty-class battleship in San Diego Bay, and this ship should have capsized and sunk in the previous fire.
The answer is obvious. Either the Haihan people knew witchcraft and parachuted another Majestic-class battleship into the bay, or the information provided by Aragones was wrong, and his so-called night attack and arson had nothing to do with it. The side of the ship.
Judging from the bonfire burning in Haihan Port, the truth of this matter is obviously not simple. But DeSantis no longer cares about wondering what role Aragones played in this incident. He must first make a judgment on the current situation and then immediately issue instructions to the fleet.
The Haihan fleet is approaching fiercely, and it is obvious that it has been ambushing here for a long time, waiting for its opponent to appear. If you wanted to turn around and escape at this time, you would have to make a big circle in the bay. But if the Haihan fleet directly blocked the channel where DeSantis came from, the entire fleet would be stuck here and would be passive.
For the current plan, we can only bite the bullet and accept the challenge. If we can defeat the Haihan fleet face to face, then the risk will be worth it.
DeSantis immediately ordered a signal to be sent, and all ships in the fleet faced off.
The total number of ships in the Spanish fleet is slightly more than that of the Haihan fleet opposite, which makes DeSantis seem to see a glimmer of hope of victory.
However, he obviously did not know enough about the combat methods of the Haihan fleet. The tactics used were still the long-used boarding battles of the Spanish fleet. He expected that after the close-range naval gunfire, he would use gang jumping to shorten the combat distance to face-to-face. degree. In this way, the Spanish fleet may be able to rely on its strength to fight Haihan to the death.
However, the Haihan fleet did not fulfill his wish. It began to turn at a relatively long distance, opened its formation, aimed its broadside at the Spanish fleet, and then opened fire and bombarded it.
This distance was beyond the range of the Spanish naval guns, but it was still within the strike range of the Haihan naval guns, so the battle became a one-sided strike.
Moreover, the Haihan fleet controlled the combat distance extremely well and did not give the Spanish warships a chance to get close at all.
Two Spanish warships tried to rush close to engage in a firefight. As soon as they adjusted their direction, they were immediately subjected to a round of concentrated fire. The shells rained down like a raindrop, and in an instant a bunch of holes were opened in the sides of the two ships, and then ignited the flammable materials in the cabins.
The sailors on the ship could only give up the fight, turn away from the crossfire zone, and concentrate on dealing with damage control problems first.
After the two fleets moved towards each other and completed the stagger, the Spanish fleet unilaterally withstood a round of artillery fire. Almost all the ships participating in the battle took some hits from the shells, but their reluctant counterattacks rarely hit the target.
The dominant Haihan fleet did not turn around for the next round of fighting, but rushed straight towards the direction from which the Spanish fleet came, apparently intending to block the enemy's retreat.
Seeing this, DeSantis cursed Haihan for his lack of martial ethics and actually escaped after one round of fighting. At the same time, he ordered the fleet to turn around quickly to seize the only channel out of San Diego Bay.
He knew that if his fleet was blocked in the bay, even if the Haihan people did not take the initiative to fight, it probably wouldn't be able to survive for too long - could he still count on Aragones to raise troops to rescue him.
DeSantis secretly vowed that if he could successfully escape today, he would make Aragones' actions public. He has now figured out that if Aragones had not colluded with the enemy, even if the enemy set up an ambush in the bay, they would not be able to induce him to take the initiative to attack.
The so-called night raids and arson, the so-called once-in-a-lifetime fighter planes were all just Aragones' methods to lure him into a trap.
DeSantis really doesn’t understand why Aragones can’t cooperate with him honestly and wait patiently for a real fighter to appear.
The two local settlements are located on both sides of the bay. With a little arrangement, they can block the waterway in the bay. If Aragones is determined to fight Haihan to the death, plus the fleet brought by DeSantis, he can also There is no chance of winning.
Just as DeSantis was thinking, artillery positions actually appeared near the colonial settlements on both sides of the bay, and the muzzles of the guns were all pointed at the sea, forming a pincer attack. It's just that their target is not Haihan, but the Spanish fleet that is heading here.