The cold of the early spring seemed to have dissipated somewhat, and the construction of the fortifications on both sides of the Rhine was just coming to an end, not too far from the spring season. Despite the greater number of people invested, perhaps because of the shorter total construction period, the total amount of fortifications on both sides of the river to defend against threats from both directions does not seem to be as large as the total number of fortifications in the new metropolitan area, but in a few months it has reached a considerable scale. More than 3,000 captured and self-possessed artillery pieces were used to form more than 400 artillery forts that were gathered about two miles apart, forming a defensive system with batteries, a trench system, and enough cavalry and horses. Although the standard of the defensive line in charge is thin even according to the principle of defending the city, it is still quite resistant, especially when the river is used as a supporting obstacle.

When the construction of the fortifications was gradually completed, and the news of the war seemed to be heard in the distance, the officers and men in the fortification system finally had more energy to devote to combat readiness patrols. At this time, Jiang Hai, who was in charge of the commander-in-chief of the Xihe Defense Line Force Group, also received the news of the coalition army's general attack on Xindu, and had to hold a military meeting temporarily.

"I heard that the size of the enemy's forces this time is not small, and according to the situation that has been reconnoitred on the front, there are at least ten times more than the remaining forces in Xindu. I don't know what's going on there. ”

"The construction of the fortification system in Xindu started last year, and we have helped a lot, and you are well aware of the situation there. Even if the enemy is very well prepared and has the advantage of attacking the fortification, it is not possible to attack it in a short period of time. ”

"It's just that no one knows if it can hold out for more than half a year...

The result of the discussion, of course, is that there may not be a need for reinforcements for the time being, but it will be difficult to say in a few months. However, many people know that with a distance of 20,000 or 30,000 miles, it is impossible to pray for domestic reinforcements to arrive in such a short time. Jiang Hai had to consider another possibility, whether to give up reinforcements to Xindu. Therefore, in the end, Jiang Hai said solemnly: "Avoiding problems is always not a way. If the enemy is about to break through the new capital, we do not have enough troops to play an effective role in reinforcements. Or if reinforcements are to risk the defense line being breached by the opponent, then do we take this risk? Should we abandon the new capital if necessary, but also ensure the safe consolidation of the West River and the local strategy of annihilating the enemy west of the West River? What should we do in terms of the merits of the strategy rather than the responsibility? ”

"What if Xindu sends us a distress signal?"

Hearing this, Jiang Hai also had to say solemnly: "If that's the case, of course it's another matter." If necessary, we can only abandon the defense line along the West River... ”

Originally, Jiang Hai was going to make up his mind to abandon Xindu and ensure the Xihe defense line, but at this time, two pieces of news suddenly came from the signal troops around him: First, the vanguard of Central Asia had arrived in Eastern Europe. The second is that Xindu finally has news sent over.

Jiang Hai did not hesitate too much at this time, gathered about two-thirds of the troops left behind in the entire Xihe, and about 50,000 troops, and launched a westward march. In the absence of a cavalry cavalry and horses, it was only a matter of a few days that it was on the verge of being only forty or fifty miles away from the new capital.

At this time, most of the entire Xindu had already fallen, and if it weren't for the unique rocket signal communication method that Jiang Hai could still be sure that the entire Xindu had not completely fallen, it would almost be considered that the Catholic coalition forces had occupied the entire Xindu.

The offensive operations inflicted heavy losses on the attacking Catholic coalition forces, but at this time there were still as many as 150,000 mobile troops that had a certain combat effectiveness and could be used, and a decisive battle was effectively fought on the periphery of Xindu.

At this time, Jiang Hai was of course very aware of some of the previous information, after more than a year of preparation, these Catholic coalition forces were far from being comparable to the ranks of ordinary peasant armies, and if they had a head-on duel with an opponent with several times the strength, they would definitely suffer serious losses. Therefore, they could only choose to find the southwest where the enemy's strength was relatively weak at night, and launched a night battle assault attack.

Unlike the elite main force of the volunteer troops, the troops in the Xihe defense line did not have many elite troops who had been sufficiently trained and invested in the real sense, and at night compared with the effectively armed enemy forces, they probably only had the advantage of mobility and initiative, and even more black powder ammunition. Therefore, soon after the initial offensive began, when the whole army approached the outskirts of the original Xindu, the troops could only concentrate as much as possible, cover with a part of the force, and do their best to carry out earthwork.

The rumbling of artillery suddenly rang out at this time, not only from the Catholic coalition forces outside the city, but also from inside the new city, which made the participating troops feel a lot of pressure, because to a large extent, it seemed to indicate that the gunpowder of the coalition forces had not been consumed as expected in the previous offensive battle, but still had a lot left. However, fortunately, when the 50,000 or so troops had at least the shelter of the tunnels and prepared special shields for covering, they did not suffer too many casualties under the enemy's night artillery fire and shotgun attacks.

The sound of horses' hooves like a tide began to sound on the ground outside the new capital again, and tens of thousands of coalition cavalry also began to mobilize and reinforce at this time. Although a lot of civilian military horses have been recruited in the entire western region, because horse farming is adopted in many places, it seems that it is still very easy to lower the standards and require the local mobilization of cavalry and horse teams of the nature of peasant troops, which also makes Jiang Hai feel a lot of pressure.

The ensuing attack after the heavy artillery fire still put a lot of pressure on the team, perhaps to make up for the crisis and shortcomings caused by the lack of gunpowder after the defeat a few years ago, or perhaps it was too much pressure in front of the elite of the original volunteer army, so the Catholic coalition army was also equipped with a lot of single longbows at this time. It's just that perhaps without much capital investment and training cycles to retrain elite archers, there seems to be some threat from night battles, but it seems that they can barely cope with it, after all, most of these people have not experienced long night combat training, and the arrows fired cannot cause fatal injuries to people equipped with iron masks.

The decisive battle at night greatly avoided the probability of casualties, so that although the coalition forces had a large advantage in strength and broke into the formation until dawn, it did not bring decisive results after all.

(End of chapter)