"I don't believe it. You...... You must be lying to me. Frightened, Carlos sat down in his chair, his head bowed, his hands pressed his forehead, and muttered to himself in despair: "The fire certainly had an impact on the price of food, but it could never be as exaggerated as you say." Mercador...... Yes, the price of food in Mercado has only doubled. You're lying...... You're lying! ”

Viscount Moneo stood still, his calm gaze mixed with a little pity: "You have been staying in the palace, staying in the capital, you should leave the city to take a look outside." You don't seem to understand anything, and as soon as the people below unite, you will become blind with open eyes, deaf with ears, or even an idiot with sound intelligence. ”

"How dare you insult me?" The king was furious.

"If you want to kill me, do it now." There was no fear on Monio's face: "History will tell who is the most loyal to this country." I admit I lost the battle, but I still mustered up the courage to come back. I am much more noble than those bastards who have been hiding from your majesty, racking their brains to empty out the country. ”

Carlos is not the kind of person who seems stupid on the surface. If he did not have even the most basic judgment, he would not have ruled Plantagenet for more than twenty years, let alone become a king recognized by the majority of people.

After a brief period of venting, he gasped and looked the viscount up and down with puzzled eyes: "You...... You ......"

The latter words lingered in the king's throat. He was hesitating, but he was also thinking.

In all fairness, Carlos did not trust Viscount Monio, who had been taken prisoner, and that was the biggest stain on him.

However, past experience has taught Carlos that compared to other nobles, Viscount Monio is one of the best, especially in terms of talent, which is more significant and prominent.

There's no reason for him to lie to me about Hakata-gun.

Could it be that those officials and nobles have joined forces to keep me in the dark?

Looking at the viscount standing opposite, Carlos asked sullenly, "What other advice do you have besides surrendering to the northern giants?" ”

This is to ask the Viscount to answer from the side of the Plantagenet Kingdom.

Monio thought for a long time and said cautiously, "Ask the Holy See for help." ”

The Viscount wasn't playing Infernal Affairs, and as a spore transplanter, he couldn't have rebelled.

It's part of the plan.

……

East of Gabriel, Third Secret District.

"Secret zone" is the Holy See's name for a special zone. That means that a certain plot of land that is heavily guarded by the Holy Church Army and the Papal See Army is equivalent to a military control zone in the era of civilization.

Dressed in the black robes of the referee and accompanied by two technicians, Joseph stood at the top of the improvised tower, holding a telescope and observing the test vehicle in the distance.

There is a lot of information about the weapons of the age of civilization in the underground ruins, and one of the most interesting and feasible for Joseph is the tank.

More than 100 years ago, the theory of steam was proposed, and then similar experiments to Watt were secretly completed. Unfortunately, he was discovered by agents of the Holy See and imprisoned forever in the city of Gabriel. In the last years of his life, the researcher, who did not leave a name in history, built the first steam engine of this era.

It's primitive, it's crude, but it's an epoch-making machine.

Joseph sealed the machine, and after the inventor's death, he handed over the relevant materials and objects to other prisoners of the same type to continue to study and improve.

Over the past sixty years, many experiments have shown that the steam engine can fundamentally replace animal power, and build a huge mechanical kingdom on this basis. However, out of psychological fear of the tragedy of the destruction of the Age of Civilization, Joseph rejects anything with the prefix "advanced". As a direct result, the steam engine could not be miniaturized in subsequent studies and could only exist in the form of paper data.

The rise of the northern giants made Joseph feel threatened like never before. As a last resort, he lifted the ban on some mothballed technologies, including the steam engine.

The process of converting heat energy into kinetic energy is not complicated, and a pot of boiling water illustrates its principle. However, translating theory into practice was not so simple, and although Joseph had drawings in his possession and detailed drawings of the structure of the first machines, it seemed to the blacksmiths and craftsmen who had been secretly assembled that this drawing was undoubtedly a blasphemy against the Great Lord.

"Oh my God, what do I see? This is a machine that can move itself by using coal...... No, it's witchcraft, this must be damned, evil witchcraft! ”

"How is it possible for the force of water to push a heavy piece of iron? This must be a joke. ”

"This is heresy, this is disrespect to the Holy Lord. I'm going to report you to the Tribunal! ”

Joseph's mind was full of endless thoughts of wanting to kill, and his comical helplessness, crying and laughing thoughts took up the entire brain space. He never imagined that he had been hiding behind the scenes for so many years of secretly guiding and controlling the Holy See, and in the end he would unknowingly dig a huge hole, and now it was time to be forced to fill the hole.

Ignorance forms habits, especially for the population. When all advanced, novel, and imaginative sprouts are stifled, or even uprooted from the depths of the soil of thought, there can no longer be any talk of so-called "science".

It's not the blacksmith's fault. The Gospel of the Lord makes it clear that any metal object of strange shape can be used in witchcraft rituals. For example, hollow and twisted pipes, large sheets of thin smooth iron, and cylindrical metal components (bearings) with various grooves, which blacksmiths are not allowed to create without permission. In particular, the first type, that is, hollow metal pipes, except for licensed arms factories and enterprises specializing in the production of alcohol (condenser pipes), once it is found that they are privately manufactured, the Tribunal will immediately intervene to investigate the specific use of the object.

Entering the investigation process means death. The black-clad priests didn't care whether the metal pipes were used to make guns or wine, they would just take out the Gospel of the Lord and declare in public, "You are the devil's helper." A sentence at the scene of the arrest can lead to a conviction. Of course, it's very simple to want to not die, as long as you honestly hand over all your possessions, and then take the initiative to give your young and beautiful wife, you can leave a life.

In the city of Gabriel, and in the sphere of influence ruled by His Majesty the Pope, the worship of the Holy Lord by the common people reached its extreme. In order to guide and make better use of this habitual thinking, Joseph has used the power of faith to the fullest in the past long years, successfully brainwashing the people in the papal district.

In this seemingly holy land, the devil will never find a safe place to hide.

A certain man farted while eating, and the neighbor who happened to be from the door saw and heard it, and immediately reported it to the court under this pretext. The reason is very simple: normal people will never fart when eating, which must be the code of agreement with the devil of hell. As for what kind of evil deeds they want to carry out between them, only the Holy Lord knows.

A guy with evil desires fell in love with a young girl, but he was not able to be rude to her, but was beaten by her boyfriend. So with a grudge, he ran to the court to report that she was a witch. The reason is just as simple: it was Ramadan, and the demon, disguised as a maiden, passed through the church without bowing to the sacred rice frame or marking the sacred symbol on his chest.

The reasons and excuses for these reports are ridiculous, but the magistrate of the court believes that they are evidence of fornication. So the farting man was arrested and thrown into prison, and the family spent money desperately to save him, until they paid enough money to fill the priest's wallet, and the poor man finally left the prison and returned home. He was devastated, and his once wealthy family became impoverished, his wife couldn't stand it and ran away with other men, his father was angry to death, and his mother hanged herself in despair...... The final outcome of the fart man is to go to the madhouse, he is stimulated to lose his mind, no matter who he sees, he will laugh silly, puff out his cheeks anytime and anywhere, and constantly make a "pop" sound in his mouth.

As a whistleblower, the neighbor was rewarded with ten gold pounds.

The young girl was arrested and imprisoned in the court for more than a month. It's the scariest place in the world, especially for young and beautiful women. She was reduced to the human body of dozens of priests, and the cruel reality torn the last dignity in her heart. In order to survive, she is willing to do anything. By the time the black-clad priests had enough of playing and were tired of playing, and finally let her out, the white dove that had once been full of hope for life and the future had long since disappeared, and had become a crow with scars all over its body. She gave up on herself and chose the profession of a bar girl, greeting her once-beloved boyfriend with a smile: "Ten pennies, that's what I'm offering." ”

It is a very terrifying world, a world ruled by cruel precepts and the Gospel of the Lord. Because the devil has infiltrated the human world, it is necessary to be vigilant and detect abnormal movements from around you at all times. In this land full of fanatics, the Holy Lord is the true emperor. As his spokesman, the Pope can decide everything with just a few words.

Joseph was the spokesman of the Pope.

If there is no damn war...... No, it should be said that if it weren't for the damned Somson's indiscriminate command, which led to the defeat of the kingdom's coalition forces in the north, things would not have turned out the way they are now.

Unlike illusory slogans and fantasies, reality is touchable. Without a strong army and advanced weapons, the northern giants would soon break through the borders and enter the Holy See.

Joseph urgently needed to raise the military science and technology of the Holy See. However, he reluctantly found that in this land covered by sacred rice frames, it was difficult to find the people he needed.

Many of the clergy of the Pontifical Research Department can be considered scientists. However, there is a specialization in the art industry, and those people have no problems in theoretical research, such as the "No. 6" that was successfully manufactured before, which is the experimental result of the Biological Research Department. However, the key to determining the outcome of the war is not the emergence of one or two superweapons, but the mass production of some powerful weapon.

When Joseph was in the underground ruins, he had read a lot of books about warfare in the era of civilization. He was deeply impressed by the outcome of World War II, especially the turning points of the Soviet-German war, the Battle of Moscow and the Battle of Stalingrad, which Joseph regarded as classics. He did not believe that the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had changed the course of history, after all, nuclear bombs were expensive in those eras, and even if they destroyed two cities, they did not have a fundamental impact on the war itself. The key to determining the outcome of a war is still the military.

Joseph believed that the key to the outcome of the war between the Holy See and the Northern Giants was the steam engine, which was equivalent to the battle between the Tiger tank and the T34. Quantity is the key, and although the former has excellent performance, it is too small to withstand the flood of the latter.

Leonardo da Vinci once left a sketch of the structure of the "special tank". It was a disc-shaped, rotating, mechanical giant. It is surrounded by ring-shaped musket holes, divided into two layers. Below is the power layer, and above is the weapon platform. The entire machine can accommodate thirty-fifty soldiers and is suitable for use in plain areas. Thick enough armor to hold off the giants' shells, neither their large-caliber muskets nor their sharp tomahawks could hurt them in the slightest, making them the key weapons that would determine the outcome of the war.

The Age of Civilization left a lot of legacy, but Joseph couldn't use it and couldn't put it into practice. The reason why he racked his brains to find the ancient design of Leonardo da Vinci was completely out of desperation———— petroleum refining is not as simple as words, and it takes a long time for the internal combustion engine to be successfully developed and put into practical use. In contrast, the steam engine is much simpler, easier to operate, and more importantly, can be mass-produced once the experiment is successful.

The experimental vehicle in the distance was far less agile than Joseph had imagined. Round, to be precise, it should be a heavy saucer. The lower power section, up to three meters high, was wrapped in thick steel armor, and the flattened upper layer had ten shooting holes. The war machine, dubbed the "Wrath of the Lord", looked extremely heavy. There are two thick chimneys at the top, constantly spitting thick black smoke, and even if you stand far away, you can still hear the roar of machinery, as if an old man with bronchial asthma is crawling with difficulty.

It's too slow. Visually, you can travel up to 10 kilometers per hour, and only if the terrain is flat and there are no big ups and downs.

But in any case, in terms of combat performance, it was barely passable———— several rounds of infantry salvos had been organized before, and the bullets fired from the arquebus could not penetrate the outer armor of the "Holy Lord's Wrath", and the soldiers who stayed inside were safe and no one was injured.

A slight smile spread across Joseph's face, quickly replaced by a deep gloom.

This is indeed an advantage, but there are too many disadvantages in comparison.

The carrying capacity of coal is not large, and it can only last more than three hours on the battlefield.