Everyone Had Patience
The plan Yue Yuan spoke of was actually a tactic he devised against the enemy.
Now that the Interstellar Transaction Market side knows that the human fleet is controlled by Strong Artificial Intelligence, and even a multi-threaded one at that, they only have two ways to win. One is to use their numerical advantage to fight head-on, an advantage that is gradually diminishing. The other is Strike at the Yellow Dragon strategy, charging straight towards the heart of the human fleet and destroying its flagship.
However, before that, Yue Yuan believed that they would not directly Strike at the Yellow Dragon as soon as the battle started, but would first engage in combat and observation for a period of time, with the aim of finding the location of the human fleet's flagship.
After the first major battle and several years of small-scale battles in this starry sky, both sides had come to know each other well. Under these circumstances, the center of the opponent's formation was not necessarily the location of the flagship.
Therefore, to find the flagship's location, it is necessary to first conduct a probing attack, so as to deduce the flagship's location from the reaction delays of each warship.
Yue Yuan's tactics were simple: when engaging the enemy, the two fleets Donghai (East Sea) Warship and West Sea, equipped with Strong Artificial Intelligence, along with the warships originally assigned to them, would be temporarily under the unified command of Lyra, creating the illusion for the Interstellar Transaction Market that their fleet had only Lyra as its Command Center.
When they launch a surprise attack, we will allocate some command of the warships to the Donghai (East Sea) Warship and West Sea to catch them off guard.
A battle between the two sides is imminent.
The first to fire was still the Laser Energy Cannon, which had the longest effective range and the fastest speed, and the method of salvo firing from groups of warships was still used.
Countless warships fired invisible beams of laser energy, and when these beams intersected in the Void, it marked the start of the second large-scale battle between the two sides.
Clearly, the Interstellar Transaction Market was very cautious this time. They did not launch a surprise attack at the beginning, but instead split their twelve million warships in two, passing through the human spherical formation at a distance of 20 to 30 light-seconds from both sides, while simultaneously firing at the human fleet from both directions.
This distance gives them enough reaction time. Even if the human fleet changes direction to chase one of the fleets, they can turn and accelerate to create distance, while the other fleet can engage the human fleet from another direction.
This tactic is very effective against fleets that cannot be divided, and it can determine the approximate location of the enemy flagship in a very short time.
As the battle progressed, both fleets began to suffer losses. By the fifteenth day of the battle, the casualties on both sides had approached three digits.
During this period, the First Fleet of Mankind has clearly demonstrated a combat strategy centered on the Lyra, which means that the location of the Lyra has been exposed.
However, the Interstellar Transaction Market side was clearly cautious; they still did not launch a surprise attack, but continued to wage war in this manner.
Yue Yuan wasn't worried about this. In long-range combat, human warships undoubtedly held an absolute advantage. Laser Energy Cannon were the mainstay of long-range engagements, while Electromagnetic Railgun equipped with Super Micro Nanobots were almost impossible to hit warships at such distances. Even if they were lucky enough to hit a target, they could be easily destroyed by the warships that had already detected the trajectory of the projectiles, using layers of Close-In Weapon System.
In fact, Yue Yuan knew what the other side was waiting for. He could tell from the brightly lit icon on the star map that had been in the field of vision of human probes. They were waiting for the three million warships that were coming to provide support.
Before that fleet arrived, Yue Yuan believed that the enemy would not launch a surprise attack.
As he had predicted, things unfolded much as he had expected. Although the two fleets officially clashed, for a considerable period afterward, the Interstellar Transaction Market's strategy remained primarily one of attrition.
Knowing that the other party would not be so easily fooled, Yue Yuan was very patient. Under his instructions, the Donghai (East Sea) Warship and West Sea in the First Fleet were like two Unmanned Warships, receiving command from the Strong Artificial Intelligence of the Lyra.
The entire fleet seemed to exist as a Strong Artificial Intelligence, cooperating with the two sub-fleets of the Interstellar Transaction Market, being pulled back and forth without any intention of splitting up the sub-fleets to pursue separately.
A day later, the three million warships finally arrived at the battlefield and attacked the human First Fleet from another direction.
At this point, the First Fleet of mankind was besieged on three sides.
Even so, the First Fleet of Humanity still did not show any intention of splitting up the fleet to deal with the enemy from each direction. Instead, the entire fleet would sometimes fire at the enemy fleet in one direction and sometimes turn around to fire at the enemy fleet approaching from another direction, as if it were being mocked.
The Interstellar Transaction Market was also cautious enough. After the arrival of its three million supporting warships, they did not launch a direct surprise attack on the human flagship. Instead, they adopted a hit-and-run tactic. Each squadron quickly swept past the edge of the human fleet, fired a few shots, and then moved away. They then made a large turn in space and waited for an opportunity. When their own squadrons performed the same actions on the human fleet from another direction, causing the human fleet to Attitude Adjustment and turn its guns around, they launched a second round of cutting attacks.
The three squadrons were like three flies buzzing around a dung ball, extremely annoying.
However, relying on their advantage in ranged combat, the humans were in no hurry and simply kept at it with the enemy.
"Commander Yue, the enemy doesn't seem to be taking the bait. I think we should send the Donghai (East Sea) Warship and West Sea out directly. Three hours from now will be a good opportunity," the Second Mate Lyra suggested impatiently.
The opportunity he was referring to was the moment when the human Great Fleet was chasing a squadron from one direction of the Interstellar Transaction Market, and then another squadron from the Interstellar Transaction Market accelerated toward the human fleet from another direction.
If, at this moment, humanity suddenly splits its fleet in two and charges head-on to close the distance to about 10 light-seconds to strike the enemy's divided fleet, it will surely deliver a crushing blow.
However, Yue Yuan did not agree.
Seeing this, the First Mate spoke up again, "Commander Yue, if the other side continues to use this tactic against us and we don't react, in the end we can only end up with both sides running out of fuel. This area is close to the other side's Second Planet base, and we won't have an advantage in resupply."
"Hmm. Don't be impatient. What you said makes sense, but there's still plenty of time. Let's wait and see." This time, Yue Yuan nodded in agreement, but still didn't intend to immediately divide the fleet into two or three.
The battle has only just begun, and we have a long time before our fuel runs out, so there's really no need to rush. Besides, even if both sides eventually run out of fuel in this manner, we can tell from the actions of the opposing fleet.
For example, a fleet might return for resupply, or all of them might return for resupply.
At most, they can turn back at that point; the First Fleet isn't afraid of being surrounded and annihilated here. On the contrary, that might even be an opportunity.
In short, humanity is not in a hurry. If we can't take the Second Planet base this time, we'll come back next time.
Under this mindset, the Human First Fleet continued to coordinate with the three fleets of the Interstellar Transaction Market in a tug-of-war across space. The Interstellar Transaction Market side was also sufficiently cautious; knowing the location of the Human Flagship, they engaged in a battle of attrition with a disadvantageous attrition ratio for almost a year before finally making a tactical change.
They are indeed trying to determine whether the human fleet has only one Strong Artificial Intelligence.
Before this point in time, their other fleet had engaged in battle with the human fleet stationed on the Thirteenth Planet on another battlefield, and the human fleet showed no signs of the existence of a second Strong Artificial Intelligence.
It wasn't until the news reached them that the remaining human fleet changed its tactics, dividing the Great Fleet into three groups, each commanded by the Han Hai, Deep Sea, and North Sea fleets respectively, that they made the tactical change.
Perhaps they believed that multiple Strong Artificial Intelligence had already appeared on another battlefield, which is why they determined that only the Lyra was a flagship equipped with Strong Artificial Intelligence.
However, what they didn't expect was that humanity had been waiting for them to launch a surprise attack on the Lyra for a year.
Thus, the First Fleet of Humanity saw the three squadrons of the Interstellar Transaction Market almost simultaneously distance themselves, then make a turn in space, and then rampage at full thrust, attacking the First Fleet of Humanity from three different directions.