At this time, London's population had reached 300,000 in the core sense of the word, which was largely more than that of other major cities in the continental region, and this was done when the population of Britain was significantly smaller than that of countries such as Russia, Poland, and France. When more than one-fifteenth of a country's population is concentrated in the capital, it has largely become the central capital of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. From wealth to arms manufacturing to the upper ruling class population, London was largely at the center of its core interests.

Although after a series of defeats in the Dover area from the sea to the road, the strength of the coalition forces gathered in London at this time still reached as many as 70,000 or 80,000, and tens of thousands of London citizens and even retired officers and soldiers were fully armed at this time with the weapons and equipment in stock, so that the main force of the volunteer army and the main force of the revolutionary army after the landing had to face a major battle of no small scale again.

However, through the previous series of confrontations, both Xiao Xuan and the various officers and generals in the army were full of confidence in this battle. Although the troops that landed did not have a clear advantage, they should clearly surpass the enemy in terms of combat power and firepower.

On the first afternoon after the landing, when the army approached the vicinity of London from both land and sea forces, the rumbling of artillery like war drums or thunder began to come out one after another, and it was estimated that at least 2,000 medium and heavy artillery pieces deployed on land made a terrifying sound with heavy shotguns, causing serious casualties of 3,000 or 4,000 men to the officers and men who were not ready for defense outside the city for a while. The allied cavalry in the city took the opportunity to launch a fierce assault in an attempt to break the encirclement once and for all, but the attacking team also had terrifying firepower. In addition, the cavalry infantry of the team also reacted, and finally repelled the counterattack of the defenders in the city.

However, this heavy artillery fire has also begun to make people face up to the strength of the defenders, perhaps this "final decisive battle" will cost a lot after all, and it will not be as easy as before.

When the troops outside the city were busy preparing for battle, Xiao Xuan also began to ask about the scale of gunpowder and even ammunition that the team still had, and the situation still seemed to be more optimistic than expected. Although a lot of the money captured in the European battles was consumed in the night battles and even in the duel at sea, in the decisive battle on the beachhead, the army still captured a lot of artillery and ammunition in the counterattack, and the net loss in gunpowder was only about 200,000 yuan, and the heavy shotgun or artillery shells increased to a great extent because of the capture and recovery. However, even so, the scale of gunpowder, because of the limited carrying capacity at the time of landing, does not seem to be to the extent that it can be squandered without scruples, and it is still about the scale of gunpowder of artillery and demolition units other than about 600,000 catties of infantry firearms.

Recalling the reports and evaluations of the previous blasting attacks, Xiao Xuan finally decided to treat this combat method cautiously. At least in many operations in Western Europe, when faced with a prepared defensive enemy, relying solely on the lethal effect of the blasting attack itself does not seem to be too decisive, and the victory is often determined by the infantry charge that accompanies the blasting attack.

At this time, the English in the city finally sent an envoy to the peace talks, proposing that the British could pray for an armistice if they chose to pay 100,000 pounds of gold equivalent to 2 million taels of gold, and 1 million pounds of silver equivalent to about 20 million taels of silver, as well as a lot of territory in the British region.

At this moment, Xiao Xuan had no intention of meeting with the other party's peace mission, but only told those people that conditional peace talks in the true sense were often meaningful when the strength of the two sides on the battlefield was not far apart. It is clear that it is still too early to talk about conditional surrender before the real setback of our army's offensive is achieved. Because our army feels that the condition that our army can put forward is to demand that the entire armed forces in the city of London completely lay down their arms and surrender unconditionally, which is not like what you can finally accept.

On the second morning after the landing, the army besieging London was ready for a general attack, but in order to avoid excessive casualties and losses under artillery fire, Xiao Xuan did not order an immediate large-scale attack. Instead, at least a dozen or so children who operated small hot air balloons, their well-crafted telescopes rose into the sky and began to observe the city's defenders.

Sure enough, in an area near central London, although the gunners also used civilian houses and makeshift fortifications to provide some basic cover, they still exposed a sizable artillery position. After all, thousands of medium and heavy artillery pieces and even tens of thousands of gunners themselves also take up a lot of space, and in addition, many gathered armies can be vaguely seen near the royal city. What made Xiao Xuan somewhat fortunate at this time was that perhaps it was because the number of equipment was not too much, and he was more cautious in using it. The fact that the main force of the Volunteer Army often has reconnaissance hot air balloons to assist in the battle does not seem to have leaked out yet, which undoubtedly provides a glimmer of possibility for the team to win the expedition at a modest cost, and in what is likely to be the last or penultimate or third large-scale battle of the expedition, at a modest cost.

Artillery is not easy to eliminate equipment, since the Cold War production of tanks and armored vehicles eliminated proportion is not large, M109 series of various self-propelled artillery production of up to 9000 or so, there are a lot of M110 and so on; plus a wide range of self-propelled guns produced in the USSR and in other countries; The scale should be around 20,000; And 122 of the two or three thousand self-propelled guns in Chinese mainland still accounts for a significant majority. Most of the spare equipment is backward;

More than 80,000 M113 series armored vehicles have been produced, most of which have not been eliminated, and China's infantry fighting vehicles and armored vehicles should account for less than 10% of the world's troops; The same should be true of light weapons.

Overall, China's active military stock is about 6 or 7 percent of the world's total;

Of course, in terms of military increment: the annual global arms transaction volume (including domestic procurement by various countries) is about 400 billion US dollars; Chinese mainland's domestic purchase of about $50 billion, taking into account some foreign trade weapons price problems, on the whole, the military increase is equivalent to the economic proportion, about 10 percent.

Judging from the military objectives of Chinese mainland, it is also relatively clear: not to seek military strength that does not match its economic status, and not to engage in Cold War confrontation. But it also seeks to build a military that is not the constant subject to homeland security concerns as it has historically.

China's entire stock of arms and military equipment should be at the level of about $400 billion

(End of chapter)