Madam Zheng’s two offensive fleets would be led by the first and second husband. Meanwhile, her personal fleet would be used as a defensive measure so that the attacking units would not need to come back and protect their bases and what have you. First would take Zheng Jing, and 30 other strategists to go and lay siege to Wu Zi Xu’s base. Likewise, Second would take his army and go attack Zheng He with Zheng Zhi Long, Baron, and about 30 others. There would be two much smaller armies composed of about 10 tacticians each and would provide support for whichever side needed it. Lastly, the remaining group of strategists were littered around the home base of Madam Zheng and acted as defensive troops for repelling attacks.

The two offensive armies under Madam Zheng attacked their enemies first, so naturally, their defenses would have to be on standby if the enemy decided to make any bold plays. Even though First and Second were the ones to take the initiative, they did not go about it unprepared. Far from it in fact. One day before they took action, they made a smokescreen on the frontlines where they knew that there would be ships stationed to mess up their sight. Making such a smokescreen cost them a fair amount of time, but it was worth it as they began sending an inconsequential amount of ships through the fog to distract the enemy.

All the while, the real bulk of the armies under First and Second would move around the fog. They believed their enemy would be a bit more reluctant to place a lot of defenses in those certain areas. However, all of their eggs were in one basket if they were to actually do such a thing so there were a few more points that they made the majority of their fleet sneak through. Both the First and Second fleets were able to accomplish it with little to no pushback and they had broken through the first line of defense of their enemies. To their credit, both the First and Second had a double feint at their advantage.

Now that they were both through the first line of defense, both offensive armies sailed towards the next line of defense and smashed that too. With Zheng Jing and Zheng Zhi Long as the vanguard for both teams, the attacks were swift and deadly. The majority of the fleet would follow behind and pick off the scraps so that they were not able to chase down the two speedy captains of the Forever Pirates. However, there was just one problem, both sides had essentially snuck through the first line of defense and as such, they were not able to set up a reliable supply line.

That was where the magic part of the plan would begin. If the first line of defense chose to follow, then there was a detachment that split off from the main bodies to fight them along with a small fleet that was still on Madam Zheng’s territory that would come into the fray too. If the first line chose to stay, the two fleets would come to them, finish them off, and then establish a supply line. As it turned out, what they Wu Zi Xu did was to have his first line of defense all converge and attack the enemies right in front of him. On the other hand, Zheng He decided to have his first line go attack the enemies that had invaded.

This one move showed just how large the difference in experience was between Wu Zi Xu and Zheng He. In these heated moments, a strategist had to assume the worst and expect there to be multiple traps laid out in front of them. Nearly every move they made would have been taken into account at such a high-level battle. The million-dollar question was, what move is most appropriate to disrupt all that preparation your enemies had so painstakingly taken the time to create. What Wu Zi Xu was banking on in this certain situation was for the fleet that the first line would be fighting was in a long enough distance that the other fleet would not be able to come and save them in enough time. It turned out, his assumption turned out to be correct.

As it would happen, Wu Zi Xu did not think it through enough and once his first line made contact with the enemies in the Forever Pirates territory, two smaller groups came into the fray as well as the incoming fleet from their back. Similarly, Zheng He’s first group would be caught by the same trap, except just one step before Wu Zi Xu’s group had. The fights lasted only an hour or two, but being surrounded by relatively high-class ships decreased the morale so much that the fight was nearly won before it was over.

Now that there were few enemies standing in their way to their advancing armies, the support fleets frantically set up a supply line as fast as they could. Even with these gains, the progress on Zheng He’s territory was a bit slow, even less needed to be said about Wu Zi Xu and his two close allies who were likely stronger than they appear, and they appeared plenty strong. All of this took place in a span of just under a week, but by the end of the week, the other two groups decided to finally take action against the other as well. At first, they focused on defending from Madam Zheng’s attack, but they realized that if they took the other one out right now, they would be able to focus solely on Madam Zheng. Who, at the moment, was appearing extremely daunting.

Against the Second’s army now was a massive group of 20,000 ships, with 2 more groups of 5,000 following close behind. This was a mediocre response to the Second’s fleet of 60,000. However, everyone on the battlefield knew that you could do everything right against a much smaller opponent and still lose. However, it was now Baron’s opportunity to show the naval strategists how they would be able to seize and control dominance in the air.