The sun had fully risen above the horizon, radiating brilliant, dazzling light, and the waves on the sea grew more intense, echoing the might of this grand naval battle.
Dozens of fast-moving Venice warships, like ferocious sharks, charged recklessly towards the flanks of the opposing Papal States fleet.
The closer they got, the higher the accuracy of the Papal States' cannons. Under a deluge of overwhelming artillery fire, several Venice warships were quickly damaged while in motion, and more were hit, catching fire and sending up thick plumes of smoke.
However, the fierce bombardment could only, at best, deplete the Venice Navy's effective strength; it could not stop the Venice flanks from their charge. All the soldiers and oar-slaves rowed with all their might, and the undamaged warships moved even faster.
At this moment, both sides knew that the Venice flanking navies had no retreat. Even a slight pause would mean being slaughtered. At this distance, surrender was not an option. Their only chance for survival lay ahead: to charge in and engage in boarding combat, destroying the Papal States Navy's flanks!
Seeing the flanks charge so bravely, Veronese was very pleased. He also heeded Lavallette's suggestion, ordering the center to advance while unleashing their cannonballs upon the Papal States Navy.
Because Giovanni ordered the left and right flanks to retreat and form a wedge formation, the center was completely exposed to the Venice center. And since Venice was no longer conserving cannonballs, and their own fire was more divided among the charging Venice flanking fleets, the Papal States' center immediately experienced a sharp increase in pressure.
With superiority in both the number and quality of warships, Veronese's center surprisingly turned the tide, suppressing the Papal States' center and successively sinking several Papal States' fast light warships and one heavy warship, boosting morale.
"Damn the Papal States! Their cannon fire is so fierce. These small boats, they're even equipped with so many cannons!" Lavallette, charging at full speed, looked at the Papal States' newly equipped, oddly shaped small gunboats, feeling both hatred and envy.
Lavallette's right flank had already sustained nearly a third of its casualties. If this were on land rather than at sea, an army with slightly poorer organization would likely have already begun to rout at this casualty rate.
Now, the entire Venice right flank fleet was holding on by a thread. If they couldn't decisively cripple the Tuscany Navy on the Papal States' left flank in one go, and the reinforcements from the Papal States' center encircled them, they would have no power left to fight back.
How good it would be if he had more warships, even just a few; how good it would be if the commander had listened to his advice earlier, his casualties wouldn't have been so high; how good it would be if the Venice Navy had updated its weaponry and equipment in time, they wouldn't be so passive.
Lavallette's heart was filled with regret and unwillingness, but no matter what, he had to fight with all his might!
Pisani's left flank was in an even worse situation, with casualties approaching half. This was because he faced Karl's right flank, which initially had twice as many warships, many of which he had personally given to the Papal States. Thinking of this, Pisani almost had a heart attack and nearly spat out a mouthful of old blood.
During the charge, the disparity in the number of warships between the two sides was already close to four times? The personnel disparity was even greater. How could they possibly fight like this?
Pisani outwardly continued to spare no effort in encouraging his soldiers, and it had a great effect. However, in his heart, he had already begun to make other calculations: the Senate treated him like a dog, the Venice people treated him as a disgrace, and Veronese treated him as expendable. Since that was the case...
Thus, the left and right flanks of Venice almost simultaneously reached the front of the Papal States Navy's flanks. One by one, massive ramming prows repeatedly split open the hulls of more than twenty Papal States warships, emitting tearing sounds accompanied by splattering flesh and blood.
Whether it was the Papal States or Tuscany, the quality of their ramming prows was far inferior to Venice's. Therefore, even in head-on collisions, Venice warships could completely split open their opponents' warships with extremely minimal damage.
Karl's right flank had many warships, so these casualties were negligible. He still held an irreversible advantage against Pisani's left flank.
However, Riccardo's left flank was not so optimistic. They already had few ships, and Lavallette was proficient in naval warfare, using ramming prows far more efficiently than Riccardo. After the first round of collisions, Riccardo had only slightly more warships left than Lavallette.
Although the soldiers who fell into the water did not die directly, under the shooting and driving of Lavallette's fleet, not many would be able to re-enter the battlefield.
Riccardo's heart was bleeding, but he quickly organized a counterattack and fiercely engaged Lavallette's fleet.
Swords, spears, bows and arrows, firearms, even stones and oars—everything on the ships that could be used was employed.
Relying on several tall, heavy warships, the Tuscany Navy, from their elevated position, instantly killed dozens of Venice soldiers.
Realizing the huge disparity in warships, the soldiers of Lavallette's fleet also did not hesitate. Their warships, in groups of three to five, threw grappling hooks, pulled alongside Tuscany's heavy warships, and rushed up from all directions.
The well-trained Venice Navy moved as if on solid ground on the swaying and even rotating warships, swiftly attacking enemy soldiers. They still held a considerable advantage against Tuscany, who were also skilled in naval warfare.
The battle became extremely chaotic for a time, and the Papal States' center's artillery support suddenly lost its target, unsure of what to do.
Karl, facing Pisani's charge, remained very calm. He knew that his soldiers were not good at naval combat, so he flexibly maneuvered his warships, trying to avoid boarding actions, and continuously used artillery to deplete the enemy's effective strength.
Not only that, but when Pisani's warships pulled alongside his large ships for boarding combat, Karl even ordered his soldiers to scuttle their own ships and jump into the sea, then use artillery to bombard both their own ship and the enemy's ship together.
Each impact was like a punch into cotton, completely ineffective, and the number of soldiers and warships continued to decrease. Pisani's expression was so dark it looked like water was dripping from it, and he cursed Karl for not fighting fair, but the other party seemed indifferent and even a bit smug.
Although the soldiers of Pisani's fleet were also fighting desperately, it was clear to anyone with an eye that given the current situation of Pisani's fleet, they could not last much longer.
Veronese perhaps also noticed this. Without waiting for the cannonballs to be fully expended, he impatiently ordered a full-speed advance to assault the Papal States' center.
Through Wyatt, Giovanni had already gained some understanding of Veronese, and although he sounded unreliable, Giovanni dared not underestimate him in the slightest, meticulously organizing a response according to the arrangements made earlier through countless studies.
Success or failure depended on this one move.
Smoke billowed across the sea as Veronese's central fleet of nearly a hundred warships aggressively pressed towards Giovanni's central fleet.
More than twenty heavy warships were arrayed simply and brutally in the center, forming an unbreakable defensive line, while the other warships maintained their speed, keeping abreast.
If the Papal States Navy could still operate with ease in the battle on the right flank, then at this moment, the nascent Papal States Navy faced its true challenge.
Veronese, being opinionated, took the vast majority of the Venice Navy's forces, thus having an overwhelming advantage in terms of quantity, quality, and width of the battle line.
Although Giovanni timely contracted his battle line to reduce the impact of Veronese's first wave, the inevitable first charge from Venice still caused significant casualties for Giovanni.
The construction of heavy warships was not an overnight task, and the Papal States Navy still had a huge gap in both the quantity and quality of heavy warships compared to Venice.
Without enough heavy warships of sufficient quantity and quality to act as the front line, the light warships were pushed to the front, and in the completely mismatched collision, dozens of light warships of the Papal States were destroyed in one blow; many of them couldn't even make Venice's heavy warships pause for a moment before being shattered by the massive ramming prows.
Twenty-odd heavy warships from Venice, relying on their size advantage, plunged into Giovanni's defensive line, ramming and tearing through it, quickly ripping open a huge breach.
Immediately following, Venice's light warships swarmed in, harvesting the damaged ships of the Papal States and the soldiers who had fallen into the water.
Accompanied by the chilling sound of metal striking flesh and the desperate screams of the dying, the seawater was dyed red with blood.
Giovanni's meticulously set up first defensive line was instantly annihilated in the face of overwhelming power, which was something Giovanni had not anticipated.
This caused Giovanni to feel a great sense of frustration, and it greatly boosted Venice's morale.
Pisani's left flank, which had been on the verge of collapse, suddenly rallied, engaging in a ship-for-ship battle with Karl, resulting in utter chaos.
Flags of both sides fluttered and scattered everywhere, but no one could be sure that a warship flying their own flag was necessarily an ally, and the Papal States' cannons found it difficult to lock onto targets.
However, relying on a huge numerical advantage, Karl still firmly suppressed Pisani, though it was difficult to annihilate or rout the opponent in a short time.
Thinking of this, Karl made a decisive move, immediately ordering half of his warships to quickly attack Veronese's flank and rear, assisting Pisani's central fleet.
On the other side, Lavallette and Riccardo were still fighting to a draw, their minds solely focused on the immediate duel, with no time to spare for other battlefields.
The continuous close-range artillery attacks had an exceptionally high hit rate, and the battlefield was particularly brutal, with almost every cannon blast accompanied by several or even more than a dozen bodies flying, and scattered limbs and shattered flesh littering the ships and the sea.
The effective forces of both sides were rapidly depleting.
With Karl's division of forces, Pisani regained a slight advantage in numbers and the overall situation.
The heavily damaged Pisani quickly adjusted his mindset, cooperating with Karl's detached reinforcements, organizing a counterattack, concentrating superior firepower, and prioritizing shelling Veronese's heavy warships from all directions.
Because they had plunged in too aggressively, the Papal States warships that had recovered formed an effective blockade against the subsequent Venice light warships that filled in, and Venice's twenty-odd heavy warships were suddenly encircled, including Veronese's flagship, which had charged at the forefront.
The flagship, charging at the very front, tall and mighty, was exceptionally conspicuous and naturally became the primary target of the Papal States' artillery fire.
Dozens of Papal States cannons were almost point-blank firing at Veronese's flagship; if the flagship hadn't been greatly reinforced in all aspects and exceptionally sturdy, it would have been destroyed in just this one round of shelling.
Several cannonballs exploded directly beside Veronese, and Veronese was tackled to the ground by a loyal guard.
Including this guard, more than a dozen heavily armored guards died on the spot, their blood splattering Veronese's face, and a severed arm landed squarely in Veronese's hand, which he frantically grabbed, startling him even further.
Veronese, who had just been full of vigor, seemed to suddenly realize the cruelty of war; his face suddenly turned as pale as a sheet, his whole body trembled uncontrollably, and large beads of cold sweat rolled from his forehead.
Still shaken, Veronese, terrified, quickly had his guards protect him and hide in the bottom deck of the flagship, while frantically ordering his warships to turn around and break through the encirclement.
While the flagship charging at the very front could greatly boost one's morale, when the flagship was heavily encircled, the panic it caused to one's own side was immeasurable.
Furthermore, with Veronese's reaction, the surrounding soldiers were somewhat at a loss, and the distant warships and soldiers on board, who had not received new orders from the flagship, were even more leaderless.
Now, whether victory or defeat would be achieved by charging forward in one go was unknown; how could it be easy to turn back while heavily encircled?
How could Giovanni let go of such an excellent opportunity?
Dozens of Papal States warships frantically encircled from front and back, tightly trapping Veronese's flagship.
At the same time, Giovanni released more than a dozen fireships, which had been prepared and hidden behind, setting them ablaze.
Burning with raging flames, they charged through the pre-reserved gaps directly towards Venice's heavy warships, including the flagship; how could these heavy warships, already riddled with cracks, withstand such a desperate attack?
Half of the Papal States fireships directly pierced through Venice's heavy warships' external fire-resistant coating, embedding themselves halfway into the enemy's hull.
Immediately following, a massive fire suddenly erupted, and more than a dozen of Venice's large ships were directly destroyed in the blaze.
The soldiers on board either jumped into the sea to escape or perished in the sea of fire, leaving the entire Venice army dumbfounded.
Veronese, who had sought safety by retreating to the flagship's bottom deck, was instead the first to be engulfed by the flames, with no time to react, burned to ashes.
With the flagship consumed by fire and the commander undoubtedly dead, in just a blink of an eye, the situation astonishingly reversed; Venice was undoubtedly doomed to defeat, with no power left to resist.
Seeing this, Pisani had no more psychological burden; he directly abandoned commanding the fleet, ordering his warships to bypass the Papal States' defensive line and escape at full speed to the east before the Papal States could react.
"Idiot! This idiot!" Lavallette's eyes were bloodshot as he cursed loudly, his voice filled with uncontrollable resentment and sorrow.
Seeing that the situation was irreversible, and then seeing Pisani fleeing alone, he was even more enraged: "This damned coward!"
After much deliberation, Lavallette understood Pisani's calculation and finally made a decision to preserve as much of Venice's remaining strength as possible: "All forces, break through forward! Venice cannot hold out anymore!
Retreating is a dead end; we must charge forward and return to Venice's maritime territory before we can make further plans!"