On May 23 of the Great Pirate Era, the Navy assembled nearly 130 large and medium-sized sailing battleships in the waters west of the Sabaody Archipelago. Along the unavoidable route to the Red Line, they launched a massive, carefully planned ambush against the Sunny and the pirate crew led by the brat.
The Navy had spared no effort in preparing for the ambush. Its lineup was impressively formidable, and its officers and men were exceptionally well-armed and trained. The fleet alone carried nearly two or three thousand cannons of various sizes!
If any other pirate ship had been ambushed—even Whitebeard's flagship, the Moby Dick—it would probably have met its end on the spot, sunk in an instant by the countless cannons with no chance of escape.
But then something happened that left everyone stunned:
The Navy's massive fleet, nearly 130 large battleships, not only failed to achieve a single thing, but was instead hit by a long-range diving bombardment from the brat's pirate crew and its era-defining weapon: the Flying Fish Knights, launched from their ships!
The Navy had pursued them at full force from the very beginning. Then the brat's pirate crew counterattacked, and after the fifth wave of air raids, they finally opened a gap in the encirclement. In the end, the Navy's large sailing battleships, powered by both sails and paddle wheels, paid a terrible price: six ships sunk, twenty-two damaged, including those with light or heavy damage and those run aground, and nearly ten thousand officers and men killed, wounded, or missing!
In the end, the Navy had no air defenses and no idea how to fight effectively against aerial attacks. It had no powerful admiral or vice admiral on hand to respond, either. With the planned ironclad encirclement broken, the Navy, overwhelmed by grief and