After more than an hour of pursuit and cannon fire (all one-sided), nearly half of Preira's fleet of armed merchant ships had been sunk or damaged by the Li fleet. They began to lag behind in scattered groups, stopping to make emergency repairs or rescue sailors who had fallen overboard after their ships were burned, blown apart, or went under.
After half their ships had been sunk or damaged by the Li fleet's long-range "kite-flying" bombardment, the remaining armed merchant ships had no choice but to instinctively slow down, doing their best to keep farther away from the five demonic-looking ships of the Li fleet and avoid having those terrifying cannonballs land on their heads.
During that more than an hour of naval battle (being beaten up), they had already discovered in despair that their medium and large, two-masted lateen-rigged ships and North Sea three-masted square-riggers simply couldn't catch the five enormous warships with their long, sleek hulls and multitude of masts and sails!
Even if they kept pressing forward, wouldn't they only suffer more casualties?
So they began to slow down, putting on a show of continuing the pursuit while keeping their heads down. Gradually, they fell farther behind and spread out, no longer maintaining a tight formation. Instead, they watched the seven warships ahead of them, which had already caught up and were now only seven or eight hundred yards away.
The situation had now become this:
The five second-rate North Sea three-masted battleships led by Preira, the governor of Malaya, and the two second-rate battleships led by Swedish naval admiral Hedram were closing in on the Li fleet from two different directions. They were about to catch up and enter suitable range for cannon fire.
Given the guns aboard those seven battleships, they could return fire as