Chapter 171 Iron Chain Boat

"My Lord, their ships are coming!"

Esmond Island is small and mountainous. It is not as beautiful and rich as Tas Island in the north.

The Esmond family has lived here for generations and developed a fleet of moderate size. They occasionally collect tolls from passing ships. There is little arable land on this island, so the population is not large.

But this does not mean that the Esmond family is poor. This island is located in the center of the waterway between Dorne, the Crown and the Stormlands, so the tolls from the passage allow the Esmond family to live comfortably.

There are not many standing troops on Esmond Island. There are less than a hundred garrisons stationed in Greenstone City all year round. Their family has eleven sworn knights, five of whom are their own family.

Due to population limitations, Esmond Island cannot quickly recruit a large force in wartime. This is their limitation.

When Cole was flipping through the catalog of the Esmond family, although he found that they appeared in various occasions, they were all mentioned in passing. Obviously, there was no famous person.

The knight leading the Ysmond Navy was Sir Lomas Ysmond, whose elder brother was Earl Elton Ysmond.

They anchored the fleet in the strait of Ysmond Island.

Lomas watched the warships slowly grow larger on the sea in the distance, nine, ten, and a round sail merchant ship. It seemed that the intelligence was correct, and there were no ships in the Storm's End.

But thinking of their enemies, Lomas' heart was inevitably a little turbulent, and such emotions filled the entire island in the past few days.

The man sung by the bard as the "White Bird Knight" broke the confidence of the rainforest people with several victories. He thought that the families and castles in the rainforest could slow down Cole's advance, but the defenders of those castles either opened the city to surrender or were defeated in one fell swoop.

They anxiously waited for reinforcements, hoping that Cole could stay in the rain forest for a while longer, but he finally came. Although there were only a dozen ships, the white bird flag fluttering in the wind seemed to have brought them great pressure and fear.

Where is Lannister? Brother, why do you believe those lions?

They only have thirteen ships, and Ethmon Island has twice as many ships as them, with a total of twenty-seven ships, eighteen warships, and a 150-row main ship named "Green Turtle".

He ordered people to blow the horn and prepare to lead the fleet to meet the enemy, and not let them go ashore. At the foot of the Red Mountains, the rainforest people were beaten up by them on land even though they had twice as many enemies. The soldiers of the White Bird Knight were well-trained and disciplined. Ethmon did not have the confidence to defeat them on land, at least in terms of the current morale.

Let's see if this White Bird Knight is so magical on the sea.

Romas was nearly fifty years old. He had heard too many legends in his life. Prince Rhaegar and Robert the Usurper lived in the same era as him. He had personally experienced the disputes of that generation and understood that these warriors with legendary skills were just individuals.

Their ships were getting closer and closer. When the warships were close to 500 steps, arrows flew in the air. Romas thought to himself that they had released their arrows too early.

Not many of these arrows hit people. They poured out waves of arrows, either on the ship or on the deck.

The fleet of Storm's End was lined up in a row, forming a neat array. Romas was curious in his heart how this was done.

It was very difficult to maintain a certain formation in a battle at sea. Often the skills of the battle came from the commander's distribution of the various directions of the ships.

It was not until they were less than 200 steps away that Romas saw that the thirteen warships were connected by chains.

On the deck of the ship, he saw soldiers holding spears and shields, they formed a solid formation, and he even saw the silhouette of a warhorse among them.

On the warship in the center, he saw a knight in silver armor under a white flag, waving the flag, and then the archers on the deck began to shoot arrows.

Lomas shouted loudly to dodge.

At a distance of about 200 steps, he had just ordered the ship to move forward at full speed. When he was about to withdraw the order, the distance between the two fleets was less than 50.

Coming, the thirteen ships seemed to form an island and rushed towards them head-on.

The warships of Ismon Island presented a sword-shaped formation, each ship moved forward in a scattered manner, preparing to attack the ships of Storm's End one by one, but now, they formed a block, and it was obvious that this method of fighting had failed.

Bang!

He heard the sound of the keel bow colliding with the hull, and before they could stand firm from the shaking, the enemy's landing bridge had been built.

Three or four wide wooden slops formed a wooden bridge connecting the two ships. When Lomas saw the soldiers with swords rushing over, he shouted: "Get on! Hurry up!"

People on the plank bridge fell into the sea from time to time, and the deck was in chaos.

Lomas held a one-handed axe and chopped down several soldiers from Storm's End. He took advantage of the gaps where there were no enemies around and glanced at the situation of the entire battlefield. He saw that several ships connected by iron chains had been hit and sunk.

The iron chains also stopped all their ships, and the ships on the entire sea were gathered together.

He saw that the enemy used the overly long spears to stab Ismond's soldiers through the ships, and Ismond's soldiers could not break through the spearmen on the deck.

The plank bridge was built for them. After sending out the first wave of soldiers jumping off the ship, they did not send anyone over, but instead used spears to guard the plank bridges.

Now the two armies were facing each other across the bridge, but due to the short weapons, the people of Ismon were the ones who suffered.

When Lomas heard a horn from the enemy, the spearmen changed their formation instantly. They opened a path, and a heavily armored soldier quickly boarded the bridge and began to rush towards them.

He saw the silver-armored knight at the forefront. He was holding two swords and wearing full plate armor. He ran very fast and boarded the Green Turtle in an instant.

Behind him were five or six fully heavily armored axemen and four or five chainmail swordmen.

They jumped into the ship and started killing. The soldiers who were at the forefront were killed and fled in an instant. Many people jumped into the sea in panic.

These armored soldiers killed a space, and several of them were killed by random attacks, but they had bought enough time for the spearmen behind them. Those soldiers holding spears also jumped over the ship and leaned on each other to form a stable and fixed hedgehog formation.

They lost. These enemies turned the sea battle into a land battle.

Lomas looked at the silver knight getting closer and closer to him and clenched the axe in his hand.