I will be crowned king

Red Hand Bay, the northern section of the New World Army's defense line.

While Borre Levent was still struggling with the security war, Louis and Anson had just received the first batch of express delivery from Black Reef Port.

After passing through a trench that was three meters deep and two meters wide, the two came to an artillery position that was still under construction. There were so many soldiers busy pounding earth and laying bricks around that not many people noticed. The two of them had already walked into the center of the construction site.

In front of them were neatly arranged in two rows, sixteen brand-new four-pound cannons and ten eight-pound cannons. Each one was equipped with a matching gun carriage and traction device. It looked as if it had just left the factory. How long is the same.

Of course, this is what has just left the factory. To be more precise, it is a new product specially ordered by Bernard Morwes from the Royal Military Factory of the Principality of Snapdragon for Arthur Herred's Legion.

And right next to these artillery are stacks of neat weapon boxes. Judging from the signs, the weapons placed in them should be rifles. According to the standard of three guns in a box, this is just a construction site used as a temporary transfer place. , where there are at least three hundred rifles.

But compared with the real "big deal", these things are nothing... Dozens of fully loaded ammunition trucks are piled up in all corners of the entire construction site, making it almost difficult to enter and exit normally, making the surrounding area still busy. The soldiers were terrified, fearing that they would accidentally drop a spark and blow up the entire position into the sky.

It’s just that they were obviously over-concerned. All these weapons and equipment, guns and ammunition wooden boxes were tightly sealed, and they had not been opened since they left the factory. They had not been touched at all.

Looking at these "deliveries" that were too new to be updated, even though Louis had been mentally prepared, he was still shocked: "These, these are the officers of the Jihad Army who agreed to sell them to us?"

"That's right, and it's three times higher than the market price." Anson nodded, his expression seemed a little careless: "Of course, these are not all."

"Not all?!" Louis looked at him in shock.

"What we have in front of us only accounts for about one-tenth of this batch of goods... Because they are close and we need to speed up the army's change of equipment, we asked the troops responsible for escorting them to be sent directly to the position."

Nodding lightly, Anson pointed in the direction of Red Hand Bay: "There are also some things that are not suitable for deployment here, some that can be stored as combat readiness, and some that are best not to be discovered by the opposite side for the time being... They should all be there now. In the warehouse at Red Hand Bay.”

"……for example?"

"For example...ah, thank you very much." Anson thanked softly and took the list from the little clerk behind him, and glanced at it casually: "For example, two thousand pairs of military boots, plus bandages, spirits, medicines, ropes, and Two hundred boxes of grenades, one hundred boxes of Borne rifles, one hundred boxes of Garand rifles, one hundred boxes of Miller rifled shotguns..."

Due to the emphasis on artillery but not on infantry, and the vast territory, the empire did not have a situation like the Clovis Army was dominated by the "Leiden Military Industry". Each major principality and even the central city had its own arsenal, designing and equipping itself. Developed weapon rifle.

Among them are high-end products such as Boni, which are exported to various countries and are loved by nobles. There are also Garlands, which are imitations of Leyden but are even worse than Leyden but cost twice as much. They are also specially provided to sharpshooters in the army. The cost is comparable to that of Berni, and the range and accuracy of Miller are extremely good...

Silent, Louis casually opened a weapons box, took out the Miller rifle inside, and completed the whole process of loading the front-loading rifle in just ten seconds. His skill made the soldiers who were still working next to him stunned. .

But the young knight was not happy at all.

He is not a fool... This kind of Miller rifle is produced in the Grand Duchy of Edland and is mainly used to equip snipers on ship observation decks; one or two can be said to be an accident, and batches of Miller rifles can only show that the Jihadi Army The Adlan knights and officers inside must have also participated in the smuggling.

Based on his knowledge of Adlan's army, without his father's acquiescence or secret instruction, those people would never have had the guts; they had even reached an agreement with the Archbishop of Clovis, Luther Franz, through some informants early on. An agreement is not impossible.

But at the same time, his father also strongly supported the jihad operations of the empire and the church. Not only did he give up the Port of Adlan and the Bernard family's fleet, but he also sent the family's vassals and knights to actively help Arthur Herred. Form a legion, and even ask yourself to surrender to the Jihad Army...

This inconsistent and contradictory behavior has left Louis completely confused. What does his father want to do?

"Ah, in addition, there are two eighteen-pound naval guns and two twenty-four-pound cannons." Anson turned back two pages and added lightly:

"Because it's too heavy, each cannon requires at least four to six pack horses to pull it, so it's still halfway there and should be there in the afternoon."

"Eighteen pounds and twenty-four pounds... two doors?!"

The young knight's eyes widened and he shouted, directly attracting all the attention of the people around him.

"To be precise, four doors."

Anson twitched the corner of his mouth helplessly. He originally planned to suppress this matter, but after such a fuss, everyone would definitely know about it.

"We plan to use all these four artillery pieces to arm Red Hand Bay as a surprise for the Jihadi Army - they must think that our coastal defense batteries are all small-caliber artillery pieces, and they will treat them well with these big guys when the time comes. Get rid of this group of guests who have come from afar."

"Ah, very good!"

Realizing that he had lost his composure, the young knight quickly straightened his face, raised his waist, and put his hands behind his back: "We must build Red Hand Bay into a real iron and steel wall so that the enemy cannot advance even half a step forward and plunder the territory of the Free Confederacy. territory!"

"Not only that, we must always remember the sacrifice of Miss Polina Frey, launch a counterattack from this line of defense under our feet, retake Gray Pigeon Castle and Sail City, and drive the Holy War Army off the land!"

As the words fell, the young knight clenched his right fist and raised his arm with all his strength; the knights of Sailing City who followed immediately took the lead, and then the soldiers in the construction site waved their wooden shovels and hoes and broke out. gave excited cheers.

"General the Crusaders——"

“Expelled from the land—!!!!”

"General the Crusaders——"

“Expelled from the land—!!!!”

"General the Holy War Army——"...

Messy and majestic cheers soon spread from the artillery positions, and the excited shouts of the soldiers could be heard throughout the northern defense line.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Anson and Louis hurriedly left the position where the inspection had not yet ended, and walked to a place where construction had just started and there were not many people.

"Are all these supplies really sold to us by the Jihadist Army?!"

Before he could relax a little, the young knight asked impatiently: "Even if guns and ammunition can be concealed, how can we explain the four naval guns?!"

"Uh...you guessed it, not quite."

"Not at all?"

"That's right, it's not just the Holy War that does business with us, but also the fleets that sent them to the New World." Anson patted his shoulder, signaling not to get too excited:

"To be precise, the Jihadi Army itself is still secondary. These talents are our most important suppliers at the moment - they are not considered the Jihadi Army, but they are basically well-armed and there is no risk of being deployed to the battlefield. So I am very happy to sell us weapons that are not needed."

"Of course the price is not cheap. It is generally much more expensive than what the Jihad Army holds, basically more than five times." Anson opened the account book in his hand, pointed to the column above and said:

"The advantage is that there is no risk afterwards, and we can get certain weapons and equipment that the officers of the Jihad Army would never dare to give to us."

For example, the eighteen-pound naval gun... Louis nodded slightly, with an incredulous expression on his face: "Then what did we pay for it with - wood, coal or steel?"

"How is that possible?"

Anson shrugged: "Even if they are willing to accept it, we can't transport so much goods from the rear to the front in one go, and we have to ask an army of only a dozen people stationed in dozens of colonies to deliver the goods to them. After all, Bo Ray Levent and those people are not fools, at least they are not pure - of course they are real money!"

This seemingly reasonable answer made Louis even more confused:

"Do we have a lot of cash?"

"Well, unfortunately not." Anson shook his head:

"The shortage of precious metals has always been a particularly troublesome problem in the new world. Even our own banks use steel and coal as general equivalents to calculate prices. The only gold mines are only small gold mines with very limited output. , there is no way to support our private deal with the Jihadi Army."

"But fortunately, we still have some gold and silver storage left over from the past, which can barely pay part of the payment; in addition, it happens that we also have what the enemy needs most right now."

"The thing we need most...could it be food?"

"Very close." The corners of Anson's mouth raised slightly:

"It's salt."

"salt?!"

"There are basically only two sources of salt in the entire New World - trade with the three North Sea countries, plus self-production and sales in the colonies." Anson explained: "Needless to say about the former, the civil war in the Kingdom of Naxir has almost interrupted most of the salt. For part of the trade, the colony's output is basically concentrated in Sailing City, several coastal salt fields in the Beluga Port colony, and small salt mines inland."

"We took away almost all the salt stocks when we retreated, and also destroyed the salt ponds in Sail City. The Jihadi Army will either plunder them or not, and they probably won't be able to get a lot of salt in a short time."

"Just, it's that simple?!" Louis still didn't believe it.

"It's that simple." Anson nodded: "At least for us, that's the case."

"To us...huh?!"

"I just said, we don't have much real money, but that doesn't mean the Jihadi Army opposite doesn't have much." Anson revealed the answer silently:

"The Jihadi Army lacks salt, so they have to find ways to purchase it. In the short term, the only option is us. The officers who got our salt bribed the people in charge of the logistics department and asked them to buy the salt at a high price. The problem Isn’t it solved?”

Of course, because of this, the grassroots Jihadist soldiers lack ammunition and weapons, and they can only eat light food because of the high price of salt. That has nothing to do with them - this belongs to the invisible hand of the market, supply and demand. Rebalance the relationship, whether you like to play or not.

In fact, because the two sides have highly complementary needs, the trade has long been more than just salt. Coal and iron ore have also been traded with each other - the Free Confederacy provides the goods, and the ships of the Jihadi Army are responsible for transportation and sell them to the mainland at high prices. .

Because the ports on both sides have been blocked, the local pirates in the New World can only be responsible for "smuggling" to the Black Reef Port - Sail City has too many forces to do it - and load it into the returning ship.

The ones responsible for transactions and negotiations are the Faithless Knights and the bank branches left in several colonies; these banks are still, at least on the surface, under the auspices of Sophia Franz, the colonial governor of Clovis. As long as no trouble is found, It can continue to be maintained.

In other words, trade in the New World not only did not decrease due to the war, but also tended to increase - of course, Anson would not tell Honest Louis about this unless it was a last resort.

"I just want to know a question right now..."

Suppressing the shock in his heart, the young knight gritted his teeth and looked at Anson: "Since the beginning of the implementation of the elastic defense plan, how many arms have we purchased from the Holy War Army?"

"Well, it's not a lot." After casually flipping through the account book, Anson said calmly: "It's not difficult to guess that the Jihadist Army is not blind. How could the loss of large quantities of materials go unnoticed - I Is that true, Allen?"

"Exactly, Lord Anson!" The little secretary who followed closely behind said with a smile:

"It is a pity that although we very much hope to purchase more weapons from the Jihadi Army, the transaction volume has never increased much. We only agree to keep it at about one-tenth of the trade volume each time. The main commodity is still gunpowder. Buckshot and various artillery shells.”

"However, because the New World can hardly produce gunpowder independently, and the production of lead bullets has never been able to increase significantly, it is still beneficial to us to maintain the current trade method."

"How much is that?" Louis still asked reluctantly.

"What specifically do you mean..."

"Weapons, rifles and artillery!"

"Ah... as I just said, these only account for about one-tenth of the trade volume. It is really difficult to give accurate figures before getting specific accounts." The little secretary showed a troubled expression:

"But if you insist on asking, I can only give an estimate, which is probably..."

"Twenty thousand rifles of various colors, sixty artillery pieces, plus two three-masted sailing ships...right?"