Madam Zheng and her company continued to lose a steady amount of their land to Zheng He and eventually it was clear that their defense just would not be able to hold if they continued on like this. Changing defensive formations when your enemies were hounding at you was not the easiest thing to accomplish, yet Madam Zheng was able to tour a few of their defensive positions and did so with ease.
These new formations would but them a little more time, but it was no long term solution to the string of successes that the Vesper faction was having these past 2 weeks. It was just so unnatural of them to want to advance as quickly as they did. The First, Second, Madam Zheng and many of the elders knew that Zheng He was up to something, but they could only guess as to what it could possibly be that made them change their whole style of warfare to something so unlike them.
With the way things were, Madam Zheng was likely going to be losing a good chunk of her forces in another two weeks. She had to act now. She chose three locations that the enemy was most likely to go through once they got through the defenses of the previous few locations and had the 3 massive fleets guard these locations that would be advantageous to them.
Mainly by providing fire support and being able to send reinforcements to each other should any of them start to struggle with their enemies. Once everything was set up, Madam Zheng ordered the forces that were between them and the Vesper forces to fall back to the 3 aforementioned positions and help each fleet out. A few casualties were had in the process, but nothing too major as they escaped right after it was dark enough outside.
The fleets of Zheng He immediately gathered upon these 3 locations the very next day and they did not let up their assault. For the very first time in the history of Vesper, they were beginning to take a few notes from the Forever Pirates in how to get results in the most efficient way possible. However, although the pirates were outnumbered, they would not fall to just any mere attack. It would be an absolute disappointment if they did. Though the pirates were in no way of being at risk of falling any time soon, they were taking quite heavy losses. It was just the sort of brute strength tactic that this was even possible to begin with.
These 3 points, all in Madam Zheng's territory, was where all the action was. None of the enemy ships were even bothering with the islands along the way. This was a crucial decision as this led to them possibly getting flanked, but with a fleet this powerful, those garrisons on the island was a joke. It would require a near miracle for them to do any real damage, no matter how much they tried.
Both sides were now in a war of attrition, just trying to get each others' number of soldiers, strategists, and ships down so that they could launch a full-scale attack and end the tournament. This lasted until Madam Zheng, the First, and the Second was able to break free and continue to retreat deeper into their lands. The Vesper fleet followed.
This continued for a few more times until it became evident that Madam Zheng was running out of places to run away to, and sustaining so many casualties also stung. It was quite suspicious that the enemy did not even bother to patch up their defenses to allow them to escape so many times, but was not a huge concern right now. Things were getting tight, the end of the tournament seemed to be near, both sides had lost a considerable amount of their forces and that number just kept going down each day. The Forever Pirates decided that they would do a last stand and outmaneuver their enemy for the win. This was an easy thing to say, but an extremely hard task to accomplish.
First, they finally gathered up every last soldier, gun, cannon, ship, and missile that was in their possession and combined it into one big fleet to do battle with the similarly large fleet of the Vesper's. Then, they found the best location for them to defend and set up as many defenses there as they could. Lastly, they made sure to keep the morale of their soldiers up, this was crucial as they had been running away for the better part of a few weeks now.
Even something as simple as a few words from their leaders was enough to get most of them riled up and ready to fight. In no time flat, their enemies were once again upon them and laying siege to whatever defense that they had set up this time. No matter what, if one side were to lose this battle, they would have essentially lost the entire tournament.
Everything up to this point was important, but this battle now would determine which faction was on top. To the two leaders, Zheng He and Madam Zheng, this would be one of those fights that would be remembered until the next time that a tournament of this scale was to be had.
Quite possibly the final battle raged on like no one's business. It was known to all of the remaining strategists that this would make or break their prospects within their respective factions, if they were able to contribute a lot to win the tournament, they would be rewarded accordingly. This was what all of the elders and below were thinking about when they went into battle yet again.
However, now the stakes were at its highest, and those with thousands of years of experience will know, this was the time that every decision past and present was crucial to the eventual outcome of this entire war. There was no time to be afraid to act, there was no time to think only react, there was no time to hold back.