I will be crowned king

Just when Anson was trying his best to comfort Louis who was angry because he had been taken advantage of too many times, but was exposed by the honest man in turn, the atmosphere in the hall of Gray Pigeon Castle was still so tense that the air was almost condensing.

Wherever people gather, there are bound to be entanglements of interests; entanglements will further gather people into various groups or organizations, and the organization will be further divided, with specious and contradictory voices appearing.

The Free Confederacy, which was forced to stick together for warmth under the pressure of survival, and was actually in disarray, was no exception... Even though it was at a critical moment of life and death, it had already made up its mind to elect the marshal of the New World Army, and established a staff to coordinate all the troops, personnel and materials, while still working hard for The last bit of trivial bickering.

According to the battle plan Anson had discussed with Louis, the all-out attack by the Jihadist Army was roughly divided into several stages: landing on the coastline, seizing the port, advancing step by step, and finally killing them all.

The empire's goal is to retake the colonies and eradicate liberals; the church's goal is to kill the Universal Sect, the Rune family and the apostle Rune to show off their force and prepare for future interference in the secular world.

The two gangs came together to achieve their common wish, which they could never do without burning the colony to ashes with thousands of heads; so they would never be as merciful as Bernard Molwes. ; It must be repeated siege and massacre, burning and killing all the way to finally push the Confederacy to a desperate situation and completely eradicate it.

So based on this speculation, the two formulated a "three-stage defense" plan, with Beluga Harbor as the core and a defense network deployed, with Gray Pigeon Castle, Slave Port, Black Reef Harbor and Red Hand Bay as the first line of defense. , Changhu Town and Huixue Town were the second line, which gradually shrank under the massive attack of the Jihad Army, and finally retreated to Dongju City to defend it.

While maintaining flexible defense, they gradually evacuated the materials and population of each colony to Winter Torch City and the colonial settlements to the north as much as possible.

Of course, this number cannot be too large, but it is only to prevent the Jihadi Army from really killing them all, and the work of transporting supplies has been carried out by Anson and the Storm Legion since the establishment of the Free Confederacy, and it is only expanding in scale now.

But this is still a huge additional burden for each colony. As for the so-called "elastic defense", it sounds good, but in fact it treats the colonies as abandoned objects and consumables; especially the several colonies headed by Gray Pigeon Castle The colony was tantamount to directly condemning them to death.

Anson was also helpless. Of course, he also wanted to fight quickly in Hantu Shina, but on the one hand, the strength gap between the two sides was too great. No one of the six holy war armies could guarantee that they would defeat the other in a short time; on the other hand, the new world's The infrastructure is far inferior to that of Hantu, and the coastline most suitable for mobile operations is still under the control of the enemy... we can only retreat and defend, use the front to wear down the enemy, and at the same time hope that another change will happen in our favor.

At this time, the benefits of making Louis Bernard the marshal were immediately apparent; facing the colonies that were constantly fighting for their own interests, Louis, who set an example, could immediately make everyone speechless - he could even make Sailing City Give up, the other person simply has nothing to say.

Even so, there were still constant quarrels within the Supreme Council regarding the distribution of the number of troops, the proportion of material commitments, and the withdrawal time of each colony, and no decent results could be achieved at all.

Anson and Louis were busy assembling the army and preparing the staff, and had no intention or desire to interfere with these. The actual work was completely left to Reinhard Roland, Polina Frey and the little secretary; While mediating and dispatching among the various colonies, they first began to transport some personnel and supplies to the rear.

"...But having said that, there is something that is a little surprising to me."

Looking at the quarreling hall separated by only one wall, Alan Dawn, who was almost buried alive by various documents and reports, suddenly raised his head and looked curiously at Reinhard, who was also busy next to him:

"Today's Free Confederacy has become the public enemy of the entire ordered world, to the point where everyone is calling for beatings; Sir Louis Bernard, let's put aside for now, as the heir of the Roland family, why are you still willing to stay here to serve the colony?"

"Um?"

Reinhard raised his head after hearing this. He was silent for a moment, and then showed a very meaningful expression: "Are you really just curious?"

"It's just a surprise." The little secretary smiled without changing his expression.

"Yeah?"

Reinhard curled up the corners of his mouth and exaggeratedly breathed a sigh of relief: "That's great. I thought Lord Anson was uneasy and asked you to test whether I am the church's spy."

"Then, sir, are you really the church's spy?"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk... Usually before raising this kind of question, shouldn't you first rule out any suspicion on yourself, your Excellency the clerk who was born in a church monastery?"

"The moment all scribes choose their followers, they abandon their status as priests and are only loyal to the person they follow; but you are still the heir of the Roland family, and your succession is not low."

"Ashamed, I am only the fourth in line. There are three brothers and their powerful relatives and allies in front of me. In comparison, the strongest allies that I, the Roland family, can find in the future, seem to be the Free Confederacy and His Excellency Anson Bach. ”

"So if we can obtain important information and sell it at a high price, we must be able to get support from the church, right?"

"It's too humorous to say this sentence from a monastery priest... Even ordinary knights in the north of the empire know that the relationship between the church and the Roland family has always been quite bad due to the entanglement of interests."

"So if I can win over the church, I will definitely do everything in my power to support you in order to infiltrate the Roland family."

"Yes, if a talented priest with a promising future assists a low-level officer like Anson Bach who comes from a minor aristocracy, and he can catch such a big fish in the end, the Holy See will be delighted, right?"

...The two of them were talking to each other as if they were having a cross talk, testing each other's background without changing their expressions; in the end, they silently looked into each other's eyes and agreed not to say anything more.

"His Excellency Reinhard Roland is worthy of being an ally of Lord Anson Bach at a critical moment." The little secretary took the initiative to praise:

"With your ability, the position of mere bank president is a bit unqualified."

"No, it's really surprising that Mr. Alan Dawn is here."

Reinhard shook his head, and the playful smile on his face grew wider: "I gave up a talented priest like you and left the Holy See in vain. If I were the person in charge of the monastery, I would be heartbroken and regretful!"

As if they had understood in their hearts, the two people who met each other nodded slightly and continued to deal with the pile of documents.

Outside the noisy hall, nothing happened.

………………………

At the same time, the main force of the Holy War Army, which was vowing to conquer the New World, had also set off from various ports and crossed the turbulent sea towards Sailing City.

Out of distrust of the former enemies, and the fact that the collected ship capacity was really not enough to carry all the troops, after unanimous discussion by the Jihadi Army Headquarters, it was decided to let the Hantu Jihadi Army, which was originally the main force, take charge of the rear. Four The Imperial Holy War Legion took the lead.

The reason given by the headquarters for this is that the Hantu Jihad Army is well-equipped, has many cavalry, and has the largest artillery force among all the Jihad Army, and even has the largest number of people; if they are allowed to set off as the main force, the ships can transport two A half-legion not only lost combat power but was also inconvenient to command.

Of course, Leon Francois could not be convinced by this excuse of not even wanting to pretend to fool the children; but just when the furious Crown Prince Hantu was about to argue with the headquarters, he was relieved by the Nares stopped.

After all, this war is completely meaningless to Hantu. His and Leon's mission is not to take the colonial heads to ask the Holy See for credit, but to ensure that there is absolutely no loss in this legion and to bring it back as intact as possible. .

In addition to being willing to send troops to deal with the church, they also deliberately showed off their force to Clovis and the empire, proving that Hantu had recovered from the war - but it had not - in order to make enemies and allies afraid; it really caused the army to suffer losses in the new country. In the wasteland of the world, I am afraid that the François dynasty will perish.

But Arthur Herred didn't know this. As long as those Hantu country people could obediently let their ships out and not cause trouble, he and his brave jihadist army could happily go to the new world to kill the heretics, and he didn't care about them at all. Think about something.

This royal blood descendant, the famous "Dragon Roar" talented person, and the resentful brother-in-law of Bernard Morwes relied on his surname of Hered to successfully grab a spot as the leader of the Holy War, even if it was only for a period of time. A knight errant, he has won many duels. His only leadership record is the Battle of Hantu, where he served as an infantry regiment commander. He received no military honors and was almost beaten to death by a cute girl.

Of course, Arthur was also very aware of his weaknesses in military experience, so he worked hard before going out and finally got his brother-in-law Bernard Morweis, who was the colonial minister (former), to agree to supervise the army in the name of Serve as his advisor.

With Bernard's assistance, Arthur, who was originally reckless enough to only assemble half of the army with insufficient equipment and ran into a riot in Port Adland, and was almost captured by the mob, became the first among the main force to complete preparations and was the first to set off. The Holy War Legion.

Bernard, who already had experience crossing the rough sea, adopted the advice from the Bernard family and specially designed a fast route directly to the Sailing City; according to the description of the "30-year-old captains of the Bernard family", along this route This route is blessed by the spring and summer winds. As long as there are no storms, you can reach Sailing City within a month.

Well, as long as there's no storm...

"boom--!!!!"

Dazzling lightning flashed across the dark dome, exuding a strong fishy smell, and the seawater like monster saliva was blown by the strong wind like towering hills, rising and falling on the sea.

Dozens of multi-masted warships were struggling to shuttle between these "hills", being beaten by strong winds and heavy rains. The originally intact formation was also in pieces, and they could only think of ways to save their lives and move forward.

"Hold on—sail!"

Facing the waves that seemed to swallow up the sky, Arthur Herred, who was already soaked to the skin, took the helm personally. His originally beautiful golden hair had turned into the tentacles of some kind of mollusc, hanging down on his shoulders and back. , only a pair of eyes filled with excitement are still glowing:

"Light all the lanterns and put as many as you have on the deck so that the ships behind can see us immediately and follow us out of the storm together!"

Although a group of sailors were already staggering in the waves, they still carried out Arthur's order - or in other words, whether they lit the oil lamp or not had no impact on whether their ship would capsize.

But his excited attitude still frightened many people... Regardless of being soaked by the rain and sea water, the embarrassed Bernard rushed out of the captain's room. When he saw the figure of the helmsman, he was immediately stunned:

"Arthur Herred, what are you doing?!"

"Sail the ship and break out!" The young legion commander showed an extremely hearty smile, plus a pair of white teeth that could blind others at night: "I want to lead the fleet and rush out of the storm!"

"you?!"

Bernard was going crazy: "Have you ever driven a boat? Have you had any experience sailing on the sea?!"

"No!" Arthur admitted happily: "But there is a first time for everything!"

"The first time has to be now. Do you know that you have the lives and deaths of tens of thousands of people in your hands now?!"

"Of course I know, that's exactly why I have to try, brother-in-law Bernard!"

Arthur, who used full left rudder and tried his best to avoid a mad dog wave ahead, tightened his muscles, blushed and gritted his teeth at Bernard:

"At this critical moment of life and death, what could be more... inspiring than the commander-in-chief personally going into battle?!"

"Really? Isn't it usually because the commander-in-chief appears in person because if he doesn't show up, he will be finished?!"

Bernard wanted to roll his eyes, but the huge waves made it difficult for him to stand still; the wind and waves were getting bigger and faster, and even though he had been prepared as thoroughly as possible, the ship had begun to leak and The situation of backflow; the dome of lightning and thunder also seemed to be calling out to them, bringing down signs of destruction.

Although he knew that the weather at sea was inherently unpredictable, Bernard didn't understand. He had clearly chosen the safest route, and many old captains had sworn to themselves that they were absolutely safe. How could he still be unlucky enough to fall into a storm? Where is it?

Looking up at the dark, lightning-thundering dome, and Arthur Heritage who was so excited that he was about to dance, some extremely regretful thoughts were rapidly expanding:

"Here's the Ring of Order, promise me this is the last test, okay?"