When the sky gradually brightened, the superiority of the guns and firearms was finally able to be fully brought into play in the defense, more than 100 steps deep, more than 20 miles in a row, and tens of thousands of three-two-shell guns within a radius of four or five miles formed a firepower network that could concentrate on each other's firepower system at a distance of at least one mile.

The night's engagement and the early morning losses caused the coalition army with 150,000 mobile troops to suffer losses of 30,000 or 40,000 men, although the ratio of strength did not change much, but the morale fell unprecedentedly, and the arrival of such a strong reinforcement seemed to mean that it was impossible to temporarily take the defenders in the new city.

At this time, even Jiang Hai didn't know that although the coalition forces were not stingy in the use of firearms and gunpowder in the first round of confrontations, this was almost the last round of overdraft. In the previous battles, although he had won several victories in the attack on the Xindu defense system, the gunpowder he carried was consumed. If another heavy blow were to be fired by artillery, the regular army would undoubtedly revert to the methods of warfare of the fifteenth century or even earlier. In that case, the impact on the lethal output may not be too large, but the impact on morale is difficult to assess.

At this time, the commander of the coalition army also clearly realized that it was impossible to directly attack the remnants of the more than 10,000 defenders in the new capital and even the 50,000 or so reinforcements that had come over, but it would greatly damage the cost, and the only breakthrough and the apparent loophole was that the reinforced groups could not carry too much supplies in the rapid march, even if they fed on horse meat, it was limited, as long as they were besieged for about half a month and a month, they could make these reinforced opponents fall into a state of food starvation.

Perhaps it was because of this realization that the battle in the southwest of Xindu began to rage again after a brief pause of less than two days and nights.

At this time, the Catholic coalition group lacked gunpowder, but the Catholic coalition army did not expect that the reinforcement group, which basically relied on cavalry mobility, did not boldly carry too much provisions, but gave a considerable part of the logistics space to the 1 million catties of black powder and lead bullets raised in the previous capture operations. Although the coalition forces stationed in the southwestern area that had just been contributed also used to build many fortifications in the occupied areas, they were still on the verge of collapse in a short period of time in the face of fierce attacks, and the defenders in the city were gathered together with the reinforcements at this time.

Of course, the reinforcements will undoubtedly increase the food supply burden of the defenders, but the total ammunition of nearly one million catties allows the 50,000 or 60,000 officers and soldiers to use firearms to fight as much as possible in the subsequent battles, and the consumption of food is reduced to the greatest extent. According to estimates, under the minimum standard of extreme maintenance of firearms combat effectiveness defense, people's food consumption will be reduced to about 30 percent of the normal standard, and about half of the standard for comfort. Therefore, although the strength of the 11th Army Group increased to about three times the original strength, Chen Xin was still confident that he would hold out for at least a quarter or even a little longer.

The Catholic coalition forces that began the siege did not know these things, and without much information about the supply of the defenders, they estimated it according to the method of "anticipating the enemy leniently". Usually there is a danger of one way or another for people to eat more than a year's grain reserves, and the rate of loss is too great, so it is estimated that it may be possible to hold on for about four months if the number of people increases by three times.

If four months is enough time to decide the outcome of a general war campaign, but at this time the situation on the entire European continent is that the garrison forces in the east are almost completely compressed within a few data points, or there are only two main strongholds in the Rhine Barrier and even the new capital, and the other is a few strongholds in the British Isles, and in most areas new strongholds of various rebels are gradually established, and the enemy's reinforcements are likely to be far away or thousands of miles away. In this case, even if the remnants of the eastern enemy in the Paris area hold out for more than half a year, it does not seem to be a big deal. Thus, having consolidated the defensive line around the periphery of the new capital, at least tens of thousands of Catholic groups marched eastward and joined forces in Germany to attack the remnants of the Rhine Line, which were already small in number. Obviously, after losing a lot of human resources in Europe, the most scarce thing for the rebels in Europe at this time was firearms and even related ammunition, even if there was little ammunition left, artillery was valuable.

Compared with the new capital, the Rhine barrier, which had already drawn most of its troops at this time, was not as strong as before. During the day, each artillery fort may be able to rely on strong firepower to resist a large attacking enemy, but after all, it is inevitable that the enemy forces will be attacked by concentrated forces in the night battle, and the fate of each one will be broken by the concentrated attack.

However, at the same time, as many as 50,000 reinforcements suddenly landed in southern France by sea, which instantly put tremendous pressure on the rear of the empty coalition army, and almost at the same time, the westward army from Moscow to Smolensk finally arrived in Central Europe.

If the previous 100,000 troops stationed in Europe had no means to influence the local area in the face of the turbulent uprising, and could only effectively control part of the dotted line, then the arrival of reinforcements around the scale of 100,000 troops changed the balance of forces in an instant, and the coalition forces remaining on the periphery of Xindu soon faced the crisis of being counter-encircled, and the main force of the Catholic coalition forces in the west had to retreat to prepare to resist the enemy's reinforcements.

"What's going on? How could the Turks possibly allow the Orientals to pass through the Strait of Constantinople? ”

"Perhaps, the situation is not so bad, it is just a compromise that the cowardly Turks had to make in order to prevent the attack on Safibopol from being interfered with by a powerful enemy in the Far East...

It was also at this time that Gustav II, who did not die in battle as in history, made a final decision: not to participate in the war in Europe for the time being. Although the 100,000 reinforcements may not be able to change the tide of the war immediately, there is no doubt that the opportunity for the West to recover was lost in the first place.

(End of chapter)