To an outsider, it would look as if Madam Zheng was being slowly pushed back by the forces of Zheng He. That would be a reasonable assumption given that after the initial stalemate, Zheng He was now conquering more and more land right in front of the Forever Pirates. In fact, this was exactly what it looked like to the elders of the pirates because they had not been informed of the plan that their queen had devised.
The amount of frustration that was building up among them was one part due to them seemingly losing more and more land, while the other was that the assignments that they had been given were becoming less fighting the enemy and more just shoot at them from a distance.
Zheng Jing was especially confused as he knew that Madam Zheng knew just how utterly useless his ships were when it came down to sinking any ships that were as modern and as advanced as what the Vesper's had brought out this time around. Yet he was still relegated to the same tasks as the others. He confronted her about the matter, as did many of the other elders, but she just shrugged and told him that the only thing he could do was the instructions that were already given to him. This did little to smother the flames of anger amongst the pirates.
What started out as the Vesper faction being only slightly larger in territory had now become a ratio of 1:5, not exactly great progress on their part. It did not matter though as everyone in the Forever Pirate faction knew that Madam Zheng never did anything that wasn't part of her master plan.
The elders knew of why she did not confide in many of them about this plan of hers due to the rumors being spread around that some elders were trying to take the leadership away from their queen. Who knows what these strategists would be able to do if they had intel on Madam Zheng's end plan and gave it away to the enemy? Many of these pirates have had a history with Madam Zheng when she was still alive, and one or both her of her two husbands. Is it possible that not one of her subjects would have these thoughts? Not a single one?
Zheng He kept pushing his forces towards Madam Zheng's fleets as he did not want to lose sight of his greatest foe. This was a smart choice as he could keep an eye out for her as well as make sure that she wasn't doing anything shady. They kept pushing and Madam Zheng only ended giving up more land than everyone else had originally predicted. Then, something changed that gave the fans of Forever Pirates some hope as to how well they would be able to perform in the face of odds as disadvantaged as this.
Madam Zheng finally gave out the order to hold their ground once they were up against the wall of the map. They had been reserving their forces and taking their enemies out from a distance. Due to this strategy, they had taken significantly fewer losses than the Vesper's.
This didn't mean that they were now more powerful than the Vesper's, just that their ships were in far better condition. The pushback from the elders with days of pent up rage and being name called had finally been unleashed. A lot of elders were past the point of just fighting to win a war, they were now unleashing having to kill for as long as they had, they were pirates after all.
Surprisingly, the push from the elders had so much force behind them that even the Vesper faction had to take a defensive line further up their newly conquered land. Of course, the elders were not able to push back the great and powerful Zheng He with the ships that were in their personal collection and surprise alone. Only a couple of hours after the barrage of attacks, Zheng He was able to slow their advance albeit slowly.
By the end of the day, the elders managed to get a little bit of the land that they lost but lost all of their momentum once Zheng He showed up with multiple ships within his special personal fleet to combat them. The elders were powerful, yes, but even with all of their wisdom and experience, Zheng He was way above them. Same for Madam Zheng. These two were the only ones who would be able to give each other even an inkling of a challenge to each other.
What the Vesper's had been doing to the islands that they had captured during the course of the week or so was that they were using some of their best, most expensive, part of their inventory to make sure that the pirates would not be able to manage to get the islands back again.
Construction had started and nearly completed for the multiple or so small islands. While the ones who weren't big enough did not get a makeover and had been used as a sort of training ground for new recruits. The bigger islands would need a significant amount of time for them to finish the word that needed to be done.
For once, Madam Zheng did not seem to be ordering her troops to do everything in their power to do whatever she wanted. Her only order to them to give the enemy hell, as if any of them had needed a reminder who their enemies were. This time, with the help of the First, Second, and Madam Zheng's personal fleet, they were able to smash through the perimeter that the enemy had set up to slow them down.
He did not have any of his personal ships that were nearly on par with anything that Madam Zheng had in her arsenal, aside from the carriers that were now mostly parked on various islands that were up for grabs once the forever pirates had started to retreat about a week ago.