A succession of good news came from the mouths of Zhang Ruoming, Yang Yi and Lin Bida and others, most of the land of the Holy Alliance is plains, which is naturally excellent in peacetime, a large number of plains are the most suitable for human habitation, fertile land can cultivate a large amount of food, so that more people can eat enough, and at the same time, the construction of the railway is much easier, unlike the Black Iron City, a large number of mountains make the construction of the railway in the Black Iron City very difficult, but the construction of the railway in the Holy Alliance has become very simple, The Black Iron City can only advance a few dozen kilometers a year, while the Holy Alliance can build more than two hundred kilometers of railways a year.

If it weren't for the fact that the Black Iron City holds a part of the railway discourse and restricts the development of the Holy Alliance for the railway, I am afraid that the Holy Alliance would have already used the railway to link all the major cities in its own country and complete the network, if it reaches that point, the army of the Holy Alliance will be mobilized more rapidly, but even so, with the more than 1,200 kilometers of railways in the Black Iron City today, the business of the Holy Alliance has become extremely developed, and it can be said that in the era of peace, the development of the Holy Alliance is changing with each passing day, Far surpasses Black Iron City and Guangyuan Kingdom, which is also the capital that Qiao Xuan is proud of.

At the same time, it is also the reason why Guangyuan Kingdom and Black Iron City have to go to war, if the Holy Alliance continues to develop like this, the result is very certain, it can be said that Black Iron City and Guangyuan Country are impossible to compare with the Holy Alliance, they occupy the plains, they are extremely rich in materials, and the upper limit of the population is far better than their places in these horns, like the land of Guangyuan Country is the most broken, and raising a population of 10 million is already close to the limit, unless it breaks through the foundation of agriculture and enters modern industrial agriculture, It is possible to raise more people, as for the Black Iron City, although there are a few plains, the largest Black Iron City Plain is only 6,000 square kilometers, and the Huajin City is only 3,000 square kilometers, and the remaining plains are larger than 1,000 square kilometers, and the smaller ones are even only a few hundred square kilometers, and there is not much room to play at all, even if it is slightly better than Guangyuan Kingdom, the limit is only about 15 million people.

And the land occupied by the Holy Alliance, its vast East China Plain is more than 60,000 square kilometers, as far as the eye can see, almost all of it is plains, only a few gentle small hills, such a geographical advantage, as long as the Holy Alliance is given a little time, it is fifty or sixty million people can afford it, and even if Guangyuan Kingdom and Black Iron City are tied together, it is impossible to oppose the Holy Alliance.

At the same time, the plains also brought the Holy Alliance a very convenient transportation network, which made their material exchanges and personnel exchanges very smooth, and at the same time, a large amount of fertile land allowed them to feed more full-time farmers into the city, thereby promoting urbanization, in order to promote the development of science and technology, it can be said that the potential of the Holy Alliance is unlimited, so it is naturally impossible for Black Iron City and Guangyuan Kingdom to sit back and watch the Holy Alliance grow, and they must be eliminated now.

However, this is a time of peace, if it is in the time of war, now the terrain of the Black Iron City has become very passive, the huge plain, there is no geographical environment that can block the attack of the Black Iron City, and at the same time, the developed railway network and road network make the march of the Black Iron City army become extremely smooth, in just one day, the Black Iron City has taken more than five cities from the hands of the Holy Alliance, with a population of about 700,000, of which the population of the city is more than 200,000, this data is undoubtedly very satisfactory to Shu Han, And at this moment, his most important purpose is the Lanjia City in front of him, as the entire Holy Alliance, the top three cities, gathering more than 500,000 people, of which 300,000 are out of production, is the urban population, including one of the four universities of the Holy Alliance, and it is also a railway hub, where the railway leading to the north and south and the east and west meet, forming a crossroads, it is the most important commercial hub in the southwest of the Holy Alliance, and now Shu Han must occupy this place to be able to continue to move forward, in order to obtain Bishan City, so as to establish a defensive chain.

However, compared to the success of other places, the defensive strength of Lanjiacheng is undoubtedly beyond Shu Han's imagination, Zhang Ruoming and others reported that those cities almost did not even resist, and they immediately surrendered when they saw the army of Black Iron City approaching, and Lanjiacheng is obviously not so simple, there are many reasons for this, but there are mainly three.

The first is that the status of other cities in the Holy Alliance is relatively low, and the status of Lanjia City in the Holy Alliance system is relatively high, which leads to the fact that the people in other cities do not have any burden to surrender after seeing the army of Black Iron City, because they themselves do not have any loyalty to the Holy Alliance, and the reason why they obey the orders of the Holy Alliance is just because of Qiao Xuan's might.

Lanjia City is different, as a hub business center, this city obviously has a relatively high status in the Holy League, it can be said that it ranks second, second only to Blue Pigeon City and that group of old city-states, it is a very important city, so they are in the Holy Alliance system, they are the one who profits, naturally they will not feel that the Holy Alliance system is not good, people all look at their own position, slaves feel that the slaves are not doing well, and the slave owners often feel that if it is not for themselves, these slaves will live more miserably, this is a different person, When faced with the same thing, the perspective judgment is different.

Because in the final analysis, everyone's identities are different, and this is naturally the case, just like increasing taxes on enterprises, entrepreneurs are naturally complaining, but ordinary people often laugh and laugh, this is the truth that the ass decides the head, and the people of Lanjiacheng have benefited from this system, so they naturally will not give up easily, so they have no intention of surrendering, which makes Shu Han have to storm and defeat the city.

The second point is that the strength is different, the population of other cities is generally only 130,000 or 40,000, of which only 30,000 or 40,000 really live in the city, and the rest of the people live in the countryside.

Lanjia City is different, as a central city, the number of their farmers is even less than the urban population, which is undoubtedly a unique phenomenon that only industrial and commercial center cities can have, and because of this, Lanjia City has an urban population of more than 300,000, and at the same time, the excellent hub location also makes the Holy Alliance attach great importance to this city, with more than 3,000 soldiers to defend this city.

And that's not all, the people of Lanjia City themselves don't hate the Holy Alliance, and there are even many people who are loyal to the Holy Alliance, in this case, if Shu Han attacks, it will inevitably make the citizens in Lanjia City more united, and when the time comes, organize the people to go directly to the city wall for defense, Shu Han really may not be able to hold on, after all, as a hub city, Lanjia City naturally has a lot of equipment, ordnance, and food are very sufficient, and the armed forces, feeding these troops, is a very simple thing, It is not impossible to even directly assemble a force of 20,000 people, but the combat effectiveness is very weak.

But this obviously makes Lanjiacheng very difficult to overcome, this is the second difficulty, the third point is that Lanjiacheng has two channels connected to the outside by land and water, and at this time, in the hands of Shu Han, there are no ships that can block the merchant ships in these ports, which makes Lanjiacheng's contact with the outside world, especially in materials, still very close, Shu Han wants to use such a method as besieging the city, it is definitely impossible.

These three points made Shu Han feel very tricky, but he didn't really have no choice, his idea was very simple, that is, to mobilize the masses and let them fight in their nests, it is true that Lanjia City is a big city, and within the system of the Holy Alliance, it has indeed gained great benefits and become such a huge city.

But not everyone in Lanjiacheng has benefited, after Shu Han let the army station, he immediately recruited a few literate and knowledgeable people from the surrounding countryside to tell the story of Lanjiacheng, under Shu Han's coercion and temptation, these villagers naturally did not dare to deceive Shu Han, not to mention that one person can deceive, Shu Han found dozens of people, it is difficult for them to collude, so Shu Han quickly understood the future of Lanjia City.

Lanjia City did get benefits from the Holy Alliance, but the only people who got the benefits were those who were originally Lanjia City, and the number of these people in the entire Lanjia City was about 170,000, of which 40,000 still lived in the vast countryside outside the city, and the rest of the people gathered here because of the railways, roads, and docks.

According to the current statement, most of the people in this city are not locals, but migrant workers, and among these people, more than ninety percent, are from the small city-states that are discriminated against in the Holy Alliance, which is also inevitable, people in large city-states often do not leave their city-states, and small city-states have no development opportunities, so they naturally want to come to these commercial centers to see if there is an opportunity, and Lanjia City is one of their choices.

Especially in recent years, the Holy Alliance has vigorously developed railways, Lanjia City has used the two points of railways and land and water docks, and has grown rapidly, almost two-thirds of the buildings in the entire city have been newly built in recent years, and a large number of migrant workers have brought prosperity and wealth to the city, but these migrant workers, among them, can only get benefits, in fact, only a few, most of them can only engage in the most lowly and heavy work, and are looked down upon.

They come from small city-states, in the Holy Alliance, a country with a very serious hierarchy, birth often represents your upper limit, and it is very difficult to change, which is also the most fatal flaw of the Holy Alliance, although he has brought huge benefits to those city-states that have gained benefits, but these interests are undoubtedly based on the heads of those small city-states, and the same is true in the cities, their social status is very low, and through hard work, they often cannot be promoted, of course, on the bright side, the Holy League is against these discrimination, They will use education, experience, referrals, etc., to make it impossible for those in small city-states to be in high positions.

Just like the university, in the Black Iron City, as long as you have the ability, you can go to study, there is no problem at all, even if it is the foothill city and the city, or even the wild people have nothing to do with it, but in the Holy Alliance, only those people in the upper state have the quota to send their children to the school, as for the others, even if the grades are against the sky, it is difficult to enter, every year in the university enrollment, the people of the upper state often occupy more than eighty percent of the places, and the remaining medium-sized city-states and low-level city-states occupy sixty percent of the population of the Holy Alliance, but only less than two percent of the places are given to them, which naturally makes it difficult for them to be in a high position.

Isn't there resentment in the hearts of these people who are at the bottom of the chain of contempt who are confined to death? If you don't say no, then Shu Han doesn't believe it, after all, it's the same hard work, other people can work for a year or two to rise layer by layer, and work hard to see the rewards, but you can only bury your head in one thing, watching the people around you go up, and you are stagnant, and the reason for this is not because of yourself, but because of the damn city-state system, of course you will have hatred in your heart.

It's just that they don't dare to break out, and now the arrival of Shu Han's army has undoubtedly given them a chance to break out, the trade hub of Lanjia City, which is very good, but at the same time, it has also brought huge trouble to the defense system of Lanjia City, with three thousand people who want to defend the city like an iron bucket, this is obviously impossible, as for those recruits who have been recruited temporarily, it may be possible to guard the city wall, let them patrol, it is better to kill them, especially at night.

So at this moment, Shu Han's strategy is very simple, that is, let some eloquent people enter the city to build momentum, and let those who are dissatisfied with the Holy Alliance system stand up, whether they are discovered by Lanjiacheng or not, it will greatly divert the attention of a large part of Lanjiacheng's defenders, which is of great benefit to Black Iron City's attack on Lanjiacheng, and at the same time, Shuhan quickly prepared offensive measures outside the city, but he did not take the lead in attacking, the reason is very simple, he galloped all the way, didn't carry much heavy weapons at all, there were not a few artillery, and it was obviously not easy to bomb and break through this heavy city gate, so Shu Han had some time, first of all, let the people in the city brew, and some of the workers would contact them, and then the inside and outside might be able to capture the city faster, and the other point was to wait for the arrival of artillery.

In addition, Shu Han wrote to Guangyuan Guo, asking them to delay Qiao Xuan's return to China as much as possible to buy time for themselves, but Shu Han did not have much expectations for Guangyuan Guo, not that Shu Han thought that Guangyuan Guo could not even delay the footsteps of the Holy Alliance, but that Guangyuan Guo was afraid that at this time, he would like to let the Holy Alliance return to China as soon as possible to block Shu Han's march.