The Central Plains is located in the southern hemisphere, and the province of Posong is located in the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere, and even in summer, the maximum temperature rarely exceeds 30. In particular, human activities are still in the era of slash-and-burn farming, industrialization is almost zero, there is little damage to the atmosphere, and the average temperature in the southern high latitudes is low.

Previously, according to Figos's confession, the Kannai area was covered with heavy snow all year round for 2,5600 miles to the south, and half of the year was dark night, and the other half was half a day.

According to the rough estimate of Bailiyan, this continent is probably the only continent in the entire southern hemisphere, excluding Antarctica, its total area is inhabited and uninhabited, and the conservative estimate of land area is no less than 80 million square kilometers, which is scallop-shaped.

The area where the Central Plains countries are located is the largest outer edge of the scallop, and the Jinxuedi people are located in the smallest part of the fan, and the Qianyue Mountain lies between the two.

Considering the effectiveness of the territorial rule of the Central Plains princes, the maximum administrative radiation area of the actual inhabited areas of the Central Plains regime is between 40 million and 45 million square kilometers.

The maximum radiation area of the Qianyue Mountain coalition army is at least more than 15 million square kilometers, and the territory area of the vassal states of the Central Plains should be 30 million square kilometers, in view of the fact that there are plateau grassland uninhabited areas south of Weiguo, Xu State, and Song Kingdom, and there are a large number of uninhabited areas in Qianyue Mountain, there should be at least 10 million square kilometers of uninhabited areas. [Note 1]

In the south, due to the higher latitude, the temperature is not very high throughout the year, but the temperature in winter is much lower than in the north. Even in June, it still gives people the feeling that the spring is cold and the snow is beginning to melt.

The clipper traveled on the lake and quickly approached the west entrance of the lake for fifteen miles, and as the temperature rose, the water vapor on the lake gradually dissipated, and the Jin Xuedi people lined up to collect them in the telescope.

It lined up the ships, blocked the mouth of the river with a width of several miles at the entrance, and the warships were more than 20 steps away from each other, and there were fast boats and small boats before the big ships, so as to prevent the coalition forces from blowing up and sinking their ships with small boats full of gunpowder.

"Brother Sikong, what do you think of the enemy's naval formation?"

"It's quite a doorway, is it the general of the Jin Xuedi people who is good at water warfare?" Sikong Nan guessed.

"No, the general expects that the commander of the enemy's infantry army will command the water and land armies here to compete with us, and he wants to use the method of advancing by land and water to confront our army and train his troops in order to train his naval army."

"According to the general, the one who has such wisdom among the enemy generals is none other than the commander of the army south of the Derangi Pass, Mooney?"

"Hehe, there's no one else but him. Although this person is not accustomed to water warfare, he can be good at making decisions and thinking diligently, and it is not impossible to lead the naval army to fight. You and I are both from the infantry army, and when the water warfare mage inherited Chen Fei, it was not a great achievement, but you and I are both good at research, so we can also use the water army to resist the weak division.

Looking at its formation and configuration, the sailors are in front, the fishermen are in the back, and the front is lined up to block our army from rushing into the river and waterway, which shows that it is trying to drill the navy with the infantry formation. In the past, our army attacked Jin Xuedi's naval army several times, and its naval army was in no order, but now it suddenly learned to form a formation and wait for battle, which shows that there are high-ranking people to guide them.

If it had been a good general of the naval army, it should not have been easily attacked by our army earlier, but now its momentum is completely different from the previous one, and it must not be underestimated. ”

"Then is our army fighting or withdrawing?"

"If we retreat at this time, their army will set up pontoon bridges in the lower reaches to block our army, and even if they are blown up, our army's speed will be affected, and its fleet will go down the river and catch up with our army sooner or later. Even if it is unable to defeat our army, it has achieved the purpose of training, and in the long run, if our army is used for training, how can our army withstand their attrition. ”

Bai Liyan concluded that the main general who commanded this naval army must be Mooney, who had been killed in the dark by Delangi and Gongliangwen before.

This person is resourceful, the strongest opponent he has encountered since the battle of Baili Yan Qianyue Mountain, and he is a rare wise general among the people of Jin Xuedi. According to the confession of the prisoners of war, this man is only 40 years old this year, and he became the commander of the corps at the age of 35, which shows that his ability is recognized by the generals.

Bailiyan's clipper continued to sail back and forth in the center of the lake, catching his every move in the Mooney telescope. The head of his subordinate regiment, Nolunga, said at this time:

"Your Excellency, why don't you kill that ship?"

"Do you really think we can take out their ships?"

"They are dozens of miles away from the brigade, and it is easy for several large ships of our army to rush up and overturn them."

"Huh!" Mooney sneered, put away the binoculars, and scoffed: "If we really do this, all that awaits us is black fire powder, which will send all our warriors to see the moon god." ”

"Did you just watch them plunder our village and go away like that?"

"So what! Do you think we're the only ones trying to annihilate them right now, I'm sure they're also thinking about how to crush us! ”

"They only have less than 10,000 people, and we have more than 100,000 people on land and water, which is more than ten times that of them, so what does Your Excellency have to worry about."

"Stupid!" Mooney scoffed: "Tens of thousands of lives in exchange for thousands, do you know how many women will become widows, and how many mothers will lose their sons and husbands."

You have all seen it yourself, and in the face of the poorly equipped northerners, we are no match for them at all in a fair fight. What's more, they are not what they used to be, the water surface is the battlefield they dominate, and their naval army in the north is several times larger than our naval army. Land warfare is still difficult, and in terms of water warfare, we are no match for them at all.

I don't want our warriors to die needlessly, and the Moon God doesn't have the right to do that, you know! ”

The ignorance and impulsiveness of his subordinates made Mooney angry, he knew very well that he was no match for the coalition in water warfare, even though his surface forces were more than ten times that of the coalition army, and the gunpowder of the coalition army had already shown him the incredible power. Attacking rashly, even if you can defeat the coalition forces, it will be the end of the fish and the net. Even the coalition forces simply abandoned the ship and went into the water, blew up the ship, and everyone died together.

Suppressing his indignation, Mooney continued:

"Let the vanguard fleet stay in formation, go five miles forward, and give me the mouth of the river, where we now need to build a dock and a water wall, to prevent them from attacking our rear next time through this place."

"But they can still go around the south, through other waterways, and invade our hinterland." Norrengar Road.

"I've inquired and the other waterways that go south to west are so narrow that if they pass through there, we can fill the river, and they just have no return. I trust that their commander-in-chief will not be so stupid as to kill himself and will do as I tell him to do immediately. ”

"Yes!"

Mooney had planned to build a dock at the mouth of the lower reaches of Lake Boglath to prevent the next westward advance of coalition forces through it. Baili Yan is now blocked in the downstream estuary, and Mooney has to change his plan to build a dock water village at the upstream estuary first.

"Look, general, the enemy ship is out in front of you," Sikong Nan said nervously.

"Order the ship to turn around and retreat quickly!"

"No!"

The Clipper turned its bow and rowed quickly towards the flotilla, with a jaw-dropping speed. Mooney pointed to the Bailiyan clipper who fled in panic and said:

"Look, their clippers are faster than ours, and if we attack rashly, we can only be wiped out by them!"

"They must have cast a black spell on the ship!"

"Come on, Norenga, if the black spells are useful, the priests should go to the front to shed the blood of our warriors. I'm sure they must have done something to the ship, we just don't know. ”

The clipper that Bailiyan took came from the seizure, and the structure was no different from other clippers, the difference was that this clipper was used as a reconnaissance ship, and it was not loaded with cargo, in order to increase the speed and reduce its own weight, Bailiyan let people remove the redundant structure, strengthen the part, open up the cabin, and remove the wooden wall of the compartment.

In order to maintain the firmness of the hull, blindly increase the cabin structure to strengthen the hull crossing, in fact, many places are not necessary.

The structure that can be strengthened with ribs must use beams, the structure that can use stiffeners, must use columns, can use columns to bear the load, can use the column to bear the load, can use the triangular structure to bear the load, must be a wooden wall. In the end, the space of the ships piled up was small, and the loading capacity could not go up. With a hull of similar size, the Central Plains can hold 200 people, and Jin Xuedi's ship can only hold 1350 people.

Due to the scarcity of metal resources in the Central Plains, shipbuilding generally adopts mortise and tenon joint splicing and wooden structure self-tightening fixing, supplemented by copper hoop bundling. Most of the structures of the Jinxuedi ships were fastened with iron nails, which again increased the weight of the hull.

As a fast vessel, as long as the reconnaissance ship is unsinkable, speed is the first, and the speed is bound to be faster than the traditional fast ship when the redundant structure is removed. So in the eyes of Jin Xuedi, Bailiyan took this fast boat and rowed fast as if she was enchanted.

For the next two days, the two armies continued to confront each other at the east and west ends of the lake, and Mooney ordered the ships to advance from the initial five miles forward to the middle of the lake every day.

Seeing that he did not control the lights at night, Bailiyan ordered people to drive a small boat overnight, loaded it with gunpowder, and that night blew up and sank more than a dozen small boats on the periphery, seriously injured a warship, and killed more than 200 people. The next day, Mooney resolutely retracted five miles, not daring to continue advancing.

On the fourth day of the confrontation, Bailiyan suddenly found that a camp had been erected at the mouth of the upstream river, and tens of thousands of Jin Xuedi soldiers took turns to ram the ground, and there was a great tendency to build a port and water village, and it was entrenched here.

"General, if this Shuizhai wharf is repaired, it will be a huge trouble in the future, and our army will have to detour the narrow river section upstream as it advances westward."

"Our army is in trouble, aren't they in trouble?" Bai Liyan asked rhetorically.

"What does the general mean?"

"Brother Sikong, think about it, they built a water village here just to hold the waterway here, forcing our army to be unable to advance westward from here in the future and attack its hinterland. But they also don't want to think about how our army will be able to enter its hinterland through here again in the short term after this burning, killing and looting.

The next attack of our army must be to go south to the periphery of Posong Province and plunder the people of the Central Plains. ”

"Then that's all I have to do this time?"

"I can only give up for the time being, I originally planned to eat a part of it, but now it is a battalion step by step, with the current strength of our army, even if we pay heavy casualties, it is just a fish to death, and it is extremely worthless. Tell the boats, keep in formation, and slowly retreat eastward, so that the boats and boats are ready, and if they dare to pursue, let them remember for a long time. ”

"The last general obeys!"

The previous plan was to annihilate a ship of Jin Xuedi in Boglath, but Mooney's caution made Bailiyan decisively abandon the plan and lead the ship to the east and return to the West River. As soon as the coalition fleet left, the barbarian generals shouted for pursuit, but Mooney flatly refused.

[Note 1] In order to have a concept and a measurement scale, I will take the earth as a reference. The earth's land area is about 150 million square kilometers, including 44.56 million square kilometers in Asia, 10.16 million square kilometers in Europe, 42.07 million square kilometers in North and South America, 30.2 million square kilometers in Africa, 8.97 million square kilometers in Oceania, and 12.39 million square kilometers in Antarctica.

(End of chapter)