So now that he has the assistance of Chang Ke and Lin Pida, it makes it easier for him, plus the others, although they don't have the ability to command ten thousand armies, but they still have the talent of a thousand armies, and Shu Han can also worry a little less, on the other hand, it is the problem of the Holy Alliance itself.

Compared with the loss of the south bank of the Yangtze River caused by the sudden attack, the Holy Alliance today does not have any extraordinary strategy, almost all of them are Black Iron City taking the initiative to attack, and the other party is mainly defensive, which is obviously not conducive to the Holy Alliance, after all, the Holy Alliance does not have so much time, time is on the side of Black Iron City, as long as Black Iron City drags the army here, then the rear of the Holy Alliance will fall into a state of no troops, and what should be done when Guangyuan Kingdom's attack comes?

Shu Han knew that Qiao Xuan at this time was probably the most entangled time, whether to defeat Heitiecheng in one go, or simply lead the army back to help, on these two points, it was already time to make a decision, in this regard, Shu Han was not in a hurry, he ordered the soldiers not to attack, and gave the soldiers on both sides a day to rest, and at this time, the Holy Alliance seemed to have finally made up its mind, and in one night, taking advantage of the fog everywhere above the river, directly withdrew the large army, Leaving only 20,000 people as a defensive force, Qiao Xuan led most of the troops to the border of Guangyuan Kingdom.

It's not that he wants to give up, it's really that the front line is about to be unable to support, he led most of the troops this time, all of them are the elite of the country, and now these elite troops are being dragged in the Black Iron City, and the side of Guangyuan Country can't support it at all, as five days have passed, the army in the hands of Guangyuan Country has grown from 50,000 to 100,000 people, if it continues to fight, it won't take a few days of effort, the front line will inevitably collapse, and then the local area will be violently shaken.

Most of the area of the Holy Alliance is plains, if Guangyuan Guo breaks through the border line, then the rear will be a flat river, the defense capability is extremely weak, tens of thousands of villages, hundreds of villages and towns will be directly exposed to the enemy's soldiers, even if Qiao Xuan leads the army to be placed on the front line, the soldiers will completely lose the will to fight, so Qiao Xuan must go back to support.

And this side has already won the defense line on the south bank of the Yangtze River, the Holy Alliance has controlled the entire north and south banks of the Yangtze River, and at the same time controls the state ships to block several tributaries close to the Black Iron City with iron cables, so that the sailors of the Black Iron City are trapped in the Fuchun River and can no longer come out, and there is no naval army to make trouble in it, the entire north and south banks are under the control of the Holy Alliance, one hundred and fifty cannons, plus 20,000 defense troops and 15,000 sailors, Qiao Xuan thinks that it is foolproof.

And it is true, Qiao Xuan is worthy of being a master of the art of war, the fortress and fortifications built before leaving are very solid, in this regard, the Black Iron City is obviously incomparable, in the scientific research of the Holy Alliance, the use of cement and reinforced concrete has been achieved to a higher level, in just six days, a large number of fortresses and pillboxes have been built in various places on the south bank of the Yangtze River, and a series of mounds and soil layers have been established on the surface to prevent the cavalry of the Black Iron City from directly breaking through, in this case, Shu Han organized several attacks, but it was difficult to break through the defensive positions.

Even Shu Han also has some artillery in his hands, but the power of these cannons is very small, this has to be obedient to the road near Asakusa Castle, because it is a mountainous area, there is no way to build a wide road, the narrow road can only transport some 30 mm small guns, can not transport particularly huge artillery at all, when these cannons hit the opponent's fortifications, they can often only lift a small layer of cement ash, but can not absolutely destroy the fortifications.

After noticing this, Shu Han did not let the soldiers continue to attack, but chose to hibernate, which made the originally cloudy battlefield suddenly become much calmer, but Shu Han did not intend to stop the war, he was waiting, waiting for his ironclad ship.

Since he instructed Joaquin City to hurry up and manufacture the ironclad ship six days ago, the craftsmen of Joajin City and Black Iron City have been transforming the merchant ships day and night, but even if they are fast, their speed is limited, Shu Han let them complete it in a week, which is obviously beyond their ability, after all, there is no crane here, nor any modern tools, the transformation of the ship has to be completed by hand, and the loading and unloading of cannons takes a lot of time, and cannons cannot be manufactured in Joaquin City at all, Most of the cannons installed on these ironclad giant ships are some seventy-millimeter cannons, which are relatively easy to make, and it is not difficult to manufacture them with today's technology, but now the largest artillery in Black Iron City, one hundred and fifteen mm cannons, can only be produced by Black Iron City.

This kind of cannon is the secret weapon of the Black Iron City, except for the Black Iron City, almost no country has it, even if it is the Holy Alliance, its artillery caliber is also below a hundred, but at the same time, this kind of artillery is too huge, in this era of manpower and animal power, it can only be used as a city defense tool, can not be dragged, and the manufacturing price is very expensive and difficult, often a month to be able to make one, so now the entire Black Iron City is only twelve, six of which are placed in the Black Iron City, the remaining six gates are three each on the front line of Foothill Castle and Asakusa Castle, and it is obviously difficult to build a new one now, so it is necessary to transport it directly from Black Iron City to Joajin City to install, and most of the time in the middle needs to be wasted.

There is no main waterway from Black Iron City to Huajin City, and the involvement between the two sides needs to cross several rivers, which takes more than five days or so, which is slower than walking on the road, but with such a behemoth, a cannon of more than ten tons, it can only be transported by relying on rivers, and at the same time, it is very difficult to install such a huge gun on a warship, so it is impossible to do it in a week's time.

At this point, after Shu Han calmed down, he also understood the truth, so he did not continue to urge after that, but asked the engineers and workers to build carefully, just take your time, especially after there was no pressure on the front line, Shu Han was not worried at all, the war between Guangyuan Kingdom and the Holy Alliance still needed some time, and without the help of ironclad ships on his side, he would not be able to capture the enemy's city in a short period of time, at this time, he had free time to wait.

This also allowed the engineers to have more time to go to the flaws of the warships at night, these warships are not tailor-made, they are all modified from the previous merchant ships, although the warships and merchant ships are made of iron, but the structure is completely different, the main consideration of the merchant ship is the cargo capacity, designed to carry more cargo, and the warship is different, need to consider the speed and defensiveness and other issues, and the placement of artillery These have a lot of doorways, even if there are some drawings left by the Mu Ge era, It is also difficult to integrate with reality in a short period of time, and fortunately, Shu Han had considered the idea of combining military and civilian before this, so long before the start of the war, he had arranged for engineers to conceive a transformation plan based on the existing merchant ships.

According to their ideas, a merchant ship can have more than 30 guns under reasonable modification, of which more than 14 guns on both sides, and the remaining six are installed in the middle of the warship, of which two main guns and four auxiliary guns, and four more fire points can be set up to set up muskets to shoot at the enemy, so that the power of a warship can be reflected, and in the face of the enemy's wooden ships, it is completely able to defeat the enemy.

Shu Han is also very concerned about the construction of warships in Huajin City, these two ships will change the current predicament of Black Iron City to a large extent, and at the same time, he is also paying attention to the war between the Holy Alliance and the Guangyuan Kingdom, after Qiao Xuan supports the border of the Guangyuan Kingdom, the offensive on the side of the Guangyuan Kingdom is no longer so fierce, after the Holy Alliance has sufficient reserve forces, it is not just a retreat to defend, but begins to go out of the city to fight with the enemy's troops, most of the troops of the Guangyuan Kingdom are some private troops, which the Holy Alliance is very clear.

These private armies have a very important feature that they can still cooperate with each other when attacking, but if they encounter defensive battles, they often only care about each other, and are unwilling to let themselves lose more troops, and take advantage of this, when Qiao Xuan leads the army to counterattack, he often only attacks the army of one city-state, so that the other party retreats for thousands of miles, and the surrounding troops rarely appear in a state of protection, unless the friendly forces on their side collapse, they will support, This made the Holy Alliance quickly regain its foothold on the verge of collapse, and at the same time, Qiao Xuan mobilized the people in the surrounding city-states to let them strengthen the defensive line, so that there was a counter-attack.

However, Guangyuan Country is backed by 100,000 mountains, even if the Holy Alliance's attack is effective, as long as the soldiers of Guangyuan Kingdom hide in the forest, it will be difficult for the Holy Alliance to make any progress, after all, in the deep mountains, the terrain is changeable, and wild monsters are infested, no one knows if they will encounter any magical beasts or the like, without clearly knowing the terrain, no one dares to act rashly, so the two sides are also in a stalemate.

This made Shu Han also look very relaxed, which meant that he had more time to deal with the Holy Alliance, but this comfort did not make Shu Han last long, on the tenth day after the war, Shu Han was sorting out the information and manuscripts around him, and suddenly there was a bustling sound outside the door, followed by the sound of soldiers ringing, Shu Han frowned and walked out of the door, only to see Zhang Song quickly walked in, holding a blank paper in his hand, and said: "Guangyuan State front line emergency, Qiao Xuan attacked the Guangyuan State military tent last night, and returned with a big victory, There were many soldiers who killed and injured Guangyuan State, and now Dai Wuxian is leading the remnants of the soldiers and horses to retreat to Liangwu City. ”

"What? Dai Wuxian was defeated? His 120,000-strong army stretched across the north and south of the mountains, how could he be suddenly defeated? Shu Han was completely unable to understand this, and he hurriedly took the telegram in Zhang Song's hand, which was sent by the envoy of the Black Iron City who followed the army of Guangyuan Kingdom, and in the letter, he explained in detail the reasons for this defeat.

It turned out that after four days of fighting, after Guangyuan Guo saw that the reinforcements of the Holy Alliance rushed to his side and could no longer take advantage, like Shu Han, he began to slack off, and the pace of the attack began to slow down, and at the same time, more often he cowered in the barracks, in their opinion, he occupied a favorable position, and at the same time had a large number of soldiers, and he was not afraid of the enemy's attack at all.

But they didn't expect that just when they thought that the next war would be a tug-of-war, last night, the Holy Alliance suddenly sent a hot air balloon that could float in the air, which was filled with cannonballs and explosives, and threw it from the sky, setting the entire camp on fire, and at the same time, four or five thousand cavalry rushed out from the surroundings, Guangyuan Guo did not expect that the other party would find where his camp was.

After all, in the deep mountains and old forests, as long as the 100,000 troops are hidden, no one can find out at all, but they didn't expect the enemy to have a hot air balloon, directly in the high altitude to carry out reconnaissance, so that Guangyuanguo's position has nothing to hide, through the first reconnaissance to determine the location of Guangyuanguo's camp, and then at night, directly carry out a sneak attack, the entire camp is blown to pieces, and then the cavalry rushes out, the people of Guangyuanguo are still in a panic, and it is night, it is impossible to distinguish who is the enemy and who is the comrade-in-arms.

The cavalry of the Holy Alliance shouted and shouted, so that the soldiers only thought that they were already under the enemy's vast sea, surrounded, and because it was night, the officers and non-commissioned officers did not sleep in the same tent, they were separated from each other, and now in the chaos, it was impossible to let the superiors and subordinates contact each other, which directly allowed the enemy's cavalry to find an opportunity, after a rush to kill, the military camp of Guangyuan Kingdom was even more chaotic, and there was already a tendency to bomb the camp, and finally the soldiers of Guangyuan Kingdom began to rout, and many people were killed directly, Some of them were captured by the Holy Alliance, and the remaining only 20,000 or 30,000 people fled from the forest, relying on their knowledge of the terrain of Guangyuan Kingdom to the cities in the rear, and the rest of the people, most of them died and were wounded, and the whole battle situation can be described as miserable.

In the end, he could only retreat to the Cool Vortex City to resist, and the Holy Alliance had been marching all the way to directly surround the Cool Vortex City, Shu Han read the entire battle report, only felt that his body was about to be cold, he originally thought that it was only a matter of time before he united with Guangyuan Kingdom and defeated the Holy Alliance, but he didn't expect the enemy to use the wind direction and hot air balloons at this time to achieve such a victory, Shu Han immediately said to Zhang Song: "The Holy Alliance has mastered the technology of high-altitude reconnaissance, since it can be used to view Guangyuan Kingdom, it must also be able to be used to view us, Inform the barracks of all the departments that as long as all the lights are extinguished at night, and not a single light is allowed, go and notify them immediately, and at the same time send an order to the generals of all departments to come to me at once and discuss strategies. ”