I will be crowned king

April 28, 102, Saint’s Calendar, is destined to be a very special day for the Free Confederacy.

After the trade with the Kingdom of Naxir ended in late March, various intelligences about the "imperial counterattack" began to spread, and countless rumors and gossip continued to spread in various colonies; the inaction of the Supreme Council, various colonies The newspapers even added fuel to the flames, causing panic in the newly "upgraded" Free Confederacy.

In April, when the ice and snow melted, the Supreme Council not only did not take any action to refute the rumors, but instead accelerated the establishment of the Confederate Legion. The establishment of the General Staff and the recruitment of troops in various places were also put on the agenda, which directly confirmed the previous "rumors" .

When Louis Bernard marched westward, promulgated the final resolution of the Supreme Council and assembled the Confederate legions, the colonies that had been holding on to the last bit of luck finally couldn't sit still and gathered all the people within their territories. Armed forces, join the ranks of the Governor of Sailing City.

This is of course not because they really understand their righteousness, but because of the simplest reason: Sailing City is the only colony among the thirteen colonies in the Confederation that has complete city defense facilities and is extremely abundant in all kinds of supplies; their own colony is finished They can still escape to Sailing City, but if Sailing City is finished...then it's time to consider whether it's time to surrender.

Although the strength of Beluga Port is not inferior to that of Sail City, the former colonial liberals who are facing disaster obviously still believe in "their own people" more.

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

Soon, Louis Bernard, who was marching quickly while gathering reinforcements, rapidly expanded his team from the 2nd Infantry Regiment, which had less than a thousand men at the beginning; when he was about to pass through the pass of Black Reef Port to Gray Pigeon Castle, his subordinates had already A 20,000-strong army was gathered that could at least rival Ludwig in terms of numbers!

Of course, this army has a lot of ingredients: adventurers of unknown origins, fanatic believers with firm beliefs, naturalized indigenous tribes, mercenary groups that are half bandits and half civilians, militias composed of local people, and caravan guards... It is simply... The parades and exhibitions of all walks of life in the Free Confederacy were so varied that it was mind-numbing.

Except for less than one-fifth of the militiamen and the initial Second Infantry Regiment, who could unswervingly carry out the orders issued by Louis Bernard, the rest were basically under the banner but doing their own thing, with a level close to A coalition of feudal lords in the early Dark Ages.

As for the equipment level, the quality of the personnel is even more indescribable: organizations such as adventurers, mercenaries and militiamen also know that they bring their own weapons and dry food. Some people join the army as soon as their heads are hot, and they don’t even have any decent weapons; set off. On the third day, there was an unlucky guy in the team who fainted on the roadside after being hungry for two days. Fighting for supplies among friendly forces also happened from time to time.

And as the news about the Jihad Army spread, more and more colonists began to take the initiative to join the army. The people east of Long Lake Town were basically gathering at Beluga Port, and those to the west joined Louis Bernard's team; the mighty army When the leading troops entered Gray Pigeon Castle, "reinforcements" continued to arrive on the road from Black Reef Port to Changhu Town.

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

Louis, who was well aware of the level of these troops, certainly did not intend to rely on them to defend Sailing City, nor did he expect to issue any orders to them; he just hoped that this large-scale army would allow the Jihadi Army to see the determination of the Confederacy to resist , just to dispel the unrealistic and cruel goal of "eradicating heresy".

But his goal was destined to fail... Almost at the same time he arrived at Gray Pigeon Castle, a piece of bad news about the jihad army came: no less than thirty ships flying the flag of King Clovis and the flag of the Ring of Order. The fleet suddenly appeared in the waters surrounding Sail City and launched a bombardment in the direction of the port.

The siege battle is about to begin.

……………………

"Boom!!!! Boom!!!! Boom!!!!"

The dazzling firelight lit up the gloomy sky of the Turbulent Sea, and the calm water surface was stirred up into waves; accompanied by ear-piercing screams, solid bombs exploded into towering water columns one after another in the port of Sail City.

The once flourishing and densely populated port was now surrounded by dozens of battleships; more than a dozen cruisers, two battleships, and even an ironclad ship that was completely black and spitting out black smoke, passed by the side one after another. Rows of black and thick barrels were proudly displayed towards it, spitting out flames symbolizing death and destruction.

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

Facing the sky full of artillery fire and the enemies rushing towards them like a tide, the defenders huddled in the artillery bunker did not even dare to leave the target-like stronghold easily, hoping that the enemy would take the initiative to die.

As the oldest and largest colony in the entire Free Confederation, Sailing City has an extremely complete defense system; in addition to the diamond-shaped city wall surrounding the entire city, large and small fortresses, fortresses and strongholds are almost all around the city, and from the dome to Looking down, if you want to attack the urban area, you must break through at least the three lines of defense, and use heavy artillery to completely destroy all the fortresses and strongholds along the way. At the same time, you must 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 anchored on the water outside Yangfan City, covering the landing of the troops with artillery fire that was not accurate at all, and never came close to the port. There are no signs; even the artillery fire is sporadic; so loud that it is not enough to pose a threat to the coastal defense fortress.

So when the landing force finally landed happily on the shore and prepared to continue advancing, they found that they had to attack intact forts on foot - and they were being pointed at by rows of black holes. situation.

Accompanied by the roar like fried beans, swarms of cross-fired volleys of guns, mixed with a small number of solid bullets from four-pound and eight-pound cannons, exploded into clouds of smoke and dust on the shore, defeating the soldiers who had no time to find bunkers. Even if they could Even though I successfully logged in, I was completely unable to gain a foothold.

"Can't we really let the fleet get closer to the port?!"

Looking at the poor "performance" of the soldiers on the coastline, Ludwig couldn't help turning his head and said to William Cecil: "Or you can use the main guns of the two battleships to destroy those two damn coastal defense batteries. Smash it to pieces!”

"I understand your thoughts very well, Your Majesty the Legion Commander. Unfortunately, that's not possible." William Cecil, who looked equally ugly, shook his head and said in a sincere tone:

"In order to improve efficiency, we did not carry too many shells for the 68-pound main gun. The two ships combined only had 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 let out a long sigh: "I'm very sorry, but please allow me to refuse."

Ludwig was startled, then turned away with a cold snort, no longer paying attention to the other party.

Although he was unhappy, he was actually very clear about the reason for William Cecil's insistence; although he agreed to assist, in fact the Royal Fleet was not within the system of the Jihadi Army and had no obligation to assist in the siege; let alone letting the precious The ships risked damage and sunk and entered the attack range of the security fortress.

In addition, the defenders of Sailing City were too "vicious": probably guessing that they would not be able to resist the Jihadi fleet, they simply demolished the port and the shipyard at the port, with more than a dozen sailboats of different tonnage, All sunk in the dock of the port!

Once the ship gets close, it's nothing if it anchors and becomes a living target. If something messy pierces the bottom of the ship, it's really not worth the gain.

The only thing to be thankful for is that Sailing City destroyed its own port, which completely cut off the possibility of assistance from the sea; but if you think about it seriously, the Free Confederacy without a navy probably never considered sending support from the sea, so this worry has never been considered. It was worrying from the beginning.

Since the navy's gun support cannot be counted on too much, the army can only launch a siege... Judging from the intelligence obtained from the empire, the garrison in Yangfan City will not exceed 6,000 at most, and only four pounds and eight The two types of light infantry artillery, if divided equally, are not enough to support the entire defense system of Sail City, and there must be some weak parts.

Although he lacked artillery and excellent artillery with an army of 20,000, his strength was an absolute advantage; it was only a matter of time before he was besieged on three sides and broke through the walls to seize the city.

Time...the problem is that what I lack most now is time.

"Intelligence intercepted from Black Reef Port shows that an army of 40,000 people has arrived at Gray 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: "Your most important thing now is to prevent this 40,000-strong reinforcements from confronting the defenders of Sail City. The troops unite.”

"Forty thousand people? Are you kidding me?" Ludwig curled his lips disdainfully:

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

"oh?"

William was stunned for a moment, and 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 corners of Ludwig's mouth slightly raised: "We have docked at Naxil Port, and the Jihad Army is probably no secret to him; in this case, he guessed that we would It is not surprising to attack Beluga Harbor or Sail City."

"Among the two colonies, Ice Dragon Fjord is his base camp and must have impregnable defense preparations; the only thing worth worrying about is Sail City."

"In addition, the distance between the two places is far away, so after getting the information, he will rush to support Sailing City non-stop." Ludwig smiled contemptuously: "However, a long-distance attack, rapid march, lack of logistics and sparse reinforcements can How much effect does it have?"

"Although the plan was completely correct, your biggest mistake was that you greatly underestimated my speed of action; you never expected that I could arrive at Sailing City in such a short period of time and immediately launch an siege, Anson. bach!"

Seeing Ludwig's confident look, William Cecil, who had originally planned to say something, shook his head and stuffed what he wanted to say back into his heart.

Forget it, after all, it was the other party's mission to capture Yangfan City, and my mission was just to transport the army to its destination; why bother asking for trouble and offending people on both sides at the same time?

An hour later, just as the two of them were looking at the anxious battle situation and preparing to continue to order troops to be sent to the port, a cavalry officer suddenly ran onto the deck. Regardless of his soaked embarrassment, he handed over a wet letter. The transparent letter was handed to the legion commander.

The expressionless Ludwig took the letter and opened it calmly; before he finished reading the result, his face showed a shocked expression as if by magic, and his eyes almost fell out of his head.

The curious William Cecil looked at the almost petrified legion commander, and couldn't help but glance at the content on the letter; then he was not much stronger than the other person, and was instantly petrified.

"Urgent report! There are signs of large-scale military operations at Gray Pigeon Castle, with a scale of about 20,000. At the same time, a large number of people appeared on the line from Red Hand Bay to Black Reef Port, and baggage was mobilized to reinforce the direction of Gray Pigeon Castle... Light cavalry has appeared. And harassed the border area of ​​Sailing City, suspected of being dressed in Clovis Army uniforms!"

………………

Fort Gray Pigeon, Camp Louis.

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

With deep doubts, Louis frowned and looked at the commander of the Second Infantry Regiment in front of him: "As long as you stationed at Gray Pigeon Castle and constantly harassed the surroundings of Sail City, can you stop the jihadist army on the opposite side from attacking the city?"

"That's right." Alexey nodded: "Major General Ludwig Franz, the commander-in-chief of the Holy War Army opposite, is a leader who pursues stability on the battlefield; as long as our 20,000 troops are stationed in Gray Pigeon Castle, then Slowly advance towards Sailing City, threatening from the north at all times; unless there is a way to ensure that we are eliminated without being cut off by the defenders of Sailing City, he will never start to attack the city easily."

"This way we can delay his actions without starting a war and wait for the situation to turn around!"

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

Well……

The embarrassed Alexei thought of Colonel Roman, and forced a smile from the corner of his mouth:

"Yeah, that's really beyond understanding!"

Sorry for the late update