You have to respect Ouyang for always being able calm and collected even when his enemies give him some surprise. He takes whatever situation they throw at him, finds a way to solve it,and then on top of that finds a way to increase his own territories strength. At this point if the City states area and swordsman city are both taken down by Great Xia(which is the most likely outcome), then its basically GG for the Yan alliance. The only three cards they have left to play are the Silver Hand, Plan Z,and becoming subordinates of the Imperial cities. The Silver Hand cant help because a portion of there members sea trade is being held hostage by Great Xia or there just far away to do anything. Plan Z I imagine will probably do some damage to Shanhai alliance as a whole and will probably mark the end of the alliance which will mean all of its members(other than the adventures) will join Great Xia in some fashion. However, I dont think it will cause serious harm to Great Xia itself. The imperial cities are eventually going to be Ouyang's enemies,eventually, anyway so Yan alliance joining one or several imperial cities is basically giving Great Xia an excuse to attack them.
I was just thinking that after 10 years when the children would be learning history, they would all learn about these historical moments and battles.
Ouyang shuo would be in history books and there would be information how in the game he used tactics and historical figures to rule them over south of China.
Only in a magic world like TWO could one sail 700 ships with just 3000 sailors. The 40 Z1 class should have no less than 30 but closer to 60 each to be fully functional; that's to split into at least three 8 hour watch-teams to include helmsman, lookouts, boatswains, riggers and damage control. Heck, the Cimas would probably need at least 3 to 6 in order to operate efficiently which would eat up 1500 to 3000 by themselves. Yes, you could scrape by with fewer actual sailors if the soldiers & marines actually turn-to and support the watch rotation....
Jus7aguy