I Will Be The Crowned King Chapter 385

The latest website: April 28, 102, according to the saint's calendar, is destined to be a very special day for the Free Confederacy.

When the trade with Nakhir Kingdom ended in late March, all kinds of information about the "imperial counterattack" began to spread, and countless rumors and gossip continued to spread in the colonies; the Supreme Council's inaction, the colonies The newspaper office even contributed to the flames, making the newly "upgraded" Free Confederation panic.

In April, when the ice and snow melted, the Supreme Council not only did not have any action to refute the rumors, but instead accelerated the speed of the establishment of the Confederate Legion, the establishment of the staff, and the recruitment tasks in various places have also been put on the agenda, which is equivalent to directly confirming the previous "rumors". .

When Louis Bernard marched westward, promulgating the final resolution of the Supreme Council all the way, and gathering the Confederate legions, the colonies that had been carrying the last bit of luck finally couldn't sit still, and they gathered all the people within the territory. Armed forces, join the ranks of the Governor of Sail City.

Of course, this is not because they really understand the righteousness, but because of a simple truth: Yangfan City is the only colony among the thirteen colonies in the Confederacy that has complete city defense facilities and is extremely full of various materials; its own colony is finished. They can still escape to Sail City, and if Sail City is finished... then it's time to consider whether it's time to surrender.

Although the strength of Beluga Port is no less than that of Sail City, the liberals in the former colony who are facing disaster obviously still believe in "our own people" more.

Among them, the Alliance of Shouxin in various places also played a big role in the process of recruiting soldiers; although nominally it does not care about sectarian differences, the core of the alliance is still the Ecumenical Church led by Bishop Ruiper; it has been persecuted, massacred, experienced After hundreds of years of war, they still refused to bow their heads and fled to the new world, they will never forget the fate of being targeted by the Holy See.

Soon, Louis Bernard, who was gathering reinforcements while marching in a hurry, expanded rapidly from the 2nd Infantry Regiment, which had less than 1,000 troops at the beginning; when he was about to cross the pass of Black Reef Harbor to Grey Pigeon Fort, his subordinates were already there. An army of 20,000 people that can rival Ludwig at least in number has gathered!

Of course, this army has a lot of moisture: adventurers of unknown origin, staunch believers, naturalized indigenous tribes, half bandits and half civilian mercenaries, local militias, caravan guards... The parade exhibitions of all walks of life in the Free Confederacy are so diverse that it makes one's scalp tingling.

Except for less than one-fifth of the militia, and the first 2nd Infantry Regiment, who can unswervingly implement the orders given by Louis Bernard, the rest are basically under the banner but go their own way, and the level is close to A coalition of feudal lords in the early Dark Ages.

As for the level of equipment, the quality of personnel is even more indescribable: organizations like adventurers, mercenaries and militia also know that they bring their own weapons and dry food. On the third day, there were unlucky people in the team who had been hungry for two days and fainted on the roadside, and there were occasional situations where friendly troops scrambled for supplies.

And as the news about the jihadist army spread, more and more colonists began to join the army actively. The east of Long Lake Town basically gathered towards Beluga Port, and the west joined Louis Bernard's team; the mighty army When the vanguard entered Grey Pigeon Fort, "reinforcements" kept arriving on the way from Black Reef Port to Changhu Town.

If the New World Company had not undertaken a large part of the supply tasks, and the colonies had also accumulated experience in material flow from the trade with the three North Sea countries, more than half of the "big army" would have starved to death on the march.

Louis, who knew the level of these troops, certainly did not intend to rely on them to defend the city of sailing, nor did he expect to give them any orders; he just hoped that this huge army could show the Confederates' determination to resist. , to eliminate the unrealistic and cruel goal of "eradicating heresy".

But his goal is doomed to fail... Almost at the same time as he arrived at Grey Dove Castle, a piece of bad news about the jihadist army came: the King Clovis flag and the Ring of Order flag were flying, no less than thirty ships. The fleet suddenly appeared in the waters around Sail City and bombarded the port.

The siege battle is about to start.

"Boom-!! Boom-!! Boom-!!"

The dazzling fire lit up the gloomy sky of the turbulent sea, and the calm water was stirred up with waves; accompanied by a piercing scream, solid bullets exploded one after another in the port of Sail City.

The once-blooming, densely populated port was now surrounded by dozens of battleships; more than a dozen cruisers, two battleships, and even an ironclad ship that was pitch-black and spitting black smoke, swept over the side of the ship one after another. Proudly showed rows of black and thick gun barrels at it, spitting out flames that symbolized death and destruction.

Although it did not cause substantial damage to the city and several fortresses on the shore, the surging artillery fire had completely suppressed the resistance of the defenders. Thousands of jihadist soldiers could take the landing ships and swagger toward the coast. Launch a landing operation with the port.

In the face of the artillery fire from the sky, the enemy rushing up like a tide, the defending soldiers curled up in the artillery bunkers did not even dare to leave the target-like stronghold easily, hoping that the enemy would take the initiative to die.

As the colony with the longest history and the largest scale in the entire Free Confederation, Yangfan City has an extremely complete defense system; in addition to the diamond-shaped city walls surrounding the entire city, large and small forts, fortresses and strongholds are almost all over the city. Looking down, if you want to attack the urban area, you must at least break through the triple defense line, and use heavy artillery to completely destroy all the fortresses and strongholds along the way, and at the same time suppress the artillery support from the urban area with absolute firepower.

But the strange thing is that despite the huge fleet of thirty warships, all the ships, without exception, were moored on the water outside the city of sailing. Signs; even artillery fire was intermittent; so loud that it was not enough to pose a threat to the coastal fortresses.

So when the landing troops finally landed on the shore happily, and the whole team was ready to continue to advance, they found that they had to attack the intact forts on foot—and they were being aimed at by rows of black muzzle barrels. Down.

With the roar of fried beans, pieces of cross-plating guns, mixed with a small number of four-pound and eight-pound cannons, blasted smoke and dust on the shore, and beat the soldiers who had no time to find cover, even if they could. After successfully landing, it was completely unable to gain a firm foothold.

"Is it really impossible to let the fleet move closer to the port?!"

Looking at the poor "performance" of the soldiers on the coastline, Ludwig couldn't help turning his head to William Cecil and said: "Or use the main guns of the two battleships, and put those two **** coastal defense battery smashed to pieces!"

"I understand your thoughts very well, Your Excellency, Legion Commander, unfortunately not." William Cecil, whose face was equally ugly, shook his head and said sincerely:

"In order to improve efficiency, we don't carry too many shells of the 68-pounder main gun, and the two ships only have ten rounds; the hit rate at this distance is probably not even one-tenth."

"As for letting the ship approach the port..." William suddenly paused, with a very strange expression, and sighed with a long sigh: "I'm very sorry, but please allow me to refuse."

Ludwig was stunned for a moment, then turned his head away with a cold snort, ignoring the other party.

Although he was unhappy, he was actually very aware of the reasons for William Cecil's insistence; although he agreed to assist, the Royal Fleet was not in the jihadist system and had no obligation to assist in the siege at all; let alone make precious The ships risked being damaged and wrecked into the attack range of the security fortress.

Gu Xi

In addition, the defenders of Yangfan City were really too "malicious": probably guessing that they couldn't resist the jihadist fleet, they simply demolished the port and the port's shipyard, a dozen sailboats of different tonnages, All sank in the docks of the port!

Once the ship is close, it is nothing to be anchored and become a living target. If some messy things pierce the bottom of the ship, it will really be worth the loss.

The only thing that is fortunate is that the sailing city destroyed its own port, which is equivalent to completely cutting off the possibility of assistance from the sea; but seriously think about the Free Confederation without the navy, and probably have not considered sending support from the sea, so this kind of worry has never been a problem. It was overthinking to begin with.

Since the naval artillery support of the navy cannot be expected too much, the siege can only be carried out by the army... Judging from the information obtained by the empire, the defenders in Yangfan City will not exceed 6,000 at most, and only four pounds and eight The two types of light infantry artillery, if spread out evenly, are simply not enough to support the entire defense system of Yangfan City, and there must be some weak parts.

Although he has a large army of 20,000 people, he also lacks artillery fire and excellent artillery, but the number of troops is an absolute advantage; it is only a matter of time before being besieged on three sides and breaking the wall to seize the city.

Time... The problem is that what I lack most right now is precisely time.

"According to the information intercepted from Black Reef Harbor, an army of 40,000 people has arrived at Grey Pigeon Castle and will come to Sail City at any time."

William Cecil silently took out a crumpled newspaper from his arms and handed it to Ludwig: "The most important thing for you now should be to stop the reinforcements of 40,000 people and fight with the city defender. Army rendezvous."

"Forty thousand people? What a joke!" Ludwig pouted in disdain:

"I think it's only five thousand at most!"

"Oh?"

William was stunned for a moment, he heard what the other party meant: "Do you think the person who came to support... is Anson?"

"It must be him!"

As if he had seen through someone's plan, the corner of Ludwig's mouth rose slightly: "We used to moor at the port of Nakshire, and the jihadist army is probably no secret to him; since that's the case, guess we will Attacking Moby-Dick Harbor or Sail City is not surprising."

"And among the two colonies, the Ice Dragon Fjord is his base camp, and there must be a solid defense preparation; the only thing worth worrying about is the sailing city."

"In addition, the distance between the two places is far away, so after getting the information, he must come to support Yangfan City non-stop." Ludwig smiled contemptuously: "But a long-distance attacking and rushing army, lacking logistics and few troops, can How much does it work?"

"Although the plan is completely correct, your biggest mistake is to greatly underestimate my speed of action; I never thought that I could arrive at Sail City in such a short period of time, and immediately devote myself to the siege battle, Anson. Bach!"

Seeing Ludwig's confident face, William Cecil, who was planning to say something, shook his head and put what he wanted to say back in his heart.

Forget it, anyway, it was the opponent's mission to capture Yangfan City, and his mission was just to transport the army to the destination; why bother yourself and offend people on both sides at the same time?

After an hour had passed, just as the two of them were looking at the anxious battle situation and were about to continue to order troops to be sent to the port, a cavalry officer suddenly ran up to the deck, not caring about the wet and embarrassed appearance, and took a wet letter. The clear letterhead was handed to the Legion Commander.

The expressionless Ludwig took the letter and opened it calmly; as a result, before reading it, his entire face showed a shocked expression like magic, and his eyes were about to fall out.

Curious William Cecil looked at the almost petrified legion commander, and couldn't help but glanced at the content on the letterhead; then he was not much stronger than the other party, and instantly petrified.

"Tight report! There are signs of a large-scale army operation in the Grey Pigeon Fort generation, with a scale of about 20,000; at the same time, a large number of personnel appeared on the line from Red Hand Bay to Black Reef Harbor, and the baggage was transferred to reinforce the direction of Grey Pigeon Fort... Light cavalry has appeared. And harassed the border area of ​​Yangfan City, suspected of Clovis Army uniform!"

 …

Castle Grey, Louis Barracks.

"Lieutenant Colonel Alexei, is this... really alright?"

With deep doubts, UU read www.uukanshu.com Louis frowned and looked at the second infantry commander in front of him: "As long as we are stationed at Grey Dove Castle and continue to harass the surrounding area of ​​Yangfan City, we can stop the opposing jihadist army from attacking. city?"

"That's right." Alexei nodded: "Major General Ludwig Franz, the commander-in-chief of the Mujahideen Army opposite, is a leader who seeks stability on the battlefield; as long as our 20,000 troops are stationed at Grey Dove Castle, then Slowly advance towards Yangfan City, always threatening from the north; unless there is a way to eliminate us without being cut off by the defenders of Yangfan City, he will never start sieging the city easily."

"In this way, we can hold off his actions without starting a war and wait for the turn of the war!"

"So it is." Louis nodded slightly, and then showed a knowing smile: "I know so deeply about Major General Ludwig, no wonder Anson asked you to come with me."

Uh…

The embarrassed Alexei had the figure of Colonel Roman in his mind, and forced a smile from the corner of his mouth:

"Yeah, that's too much to understand!"

Chapter end