"The snow has stopped." Shu Han looked at the outside world through the bunker gun, and said softly, Lin Bida on the side stood next to Shu Han and echoed: "Yes, this snow can be regarded as over." In Lin Pida's words, there was both some excitement and a hint of nervousness.

On top of this heavy snowfall, any party, even if ambitious, must also put out the fire, the heavy snow has brought rare peace to this land, but at the same time all parties are actively preparing for war, now that the snow has stopped, the war is obviously in the not too far future, as a general, Lin Bida naturally has a trace of excitement in his heart.

As for Shu Han, it is more nervous, but it is a good thing that the heavy snow has stopped, I don't know why, this year's weather seems to have changed a little more than in previous years, more than 100 people were frozen to death in the sphere of influence of Black Iron City, even if Shu Han asked the coal department to ensure the demand for coal from poor families, but in the end there were still so many people who stayed in the winter forever.

It's a cold winter night, and it's hard to hear any sound even in the dense forest, enough to freeze people's hearts, and now, the winter is finally over, and in the next ten days, the weather begins to warm up, and the bright sun shines on the earth again.

And the Holy Alliance also resumed the offensive, obviously, they planned to take advantage of the time when the ice above the river had not been unsealed, to give Black Iron City a heavy blow, and take advantage of the situation to regain control of the Yangtze River, in this regard, Shu Han naturally would not let them get their wish, the two sides fought dozens of fierce battles on both sides of the Yangtze River, and Shu Han was dissatisfied that Guangyuan Kingdom did not have the slightest intention of launching a counterattack after the snow stopped.

Sure enough, Shu Han's worries came true before, after being defeated by the Holy Alliance, Guangyuan Kingdom now only has the intention of shrinking to protect itself, and has lost the idea of expanding outward at all, and now he only knows how to live by guarding his own one-third of an acre, and he doesn't want to fight with the Holy Alliance anymore.

In this way, the pressure on Shu Han's side rose sharply, Qiao Xuan unconditionally transported a large number of weapons and ammunition manufactured by the rear arsenal to the front line of the battle against Black Iron City, which doubled Shu Han's pressure, and the ice and snow on the river have not yet melted, making the water power that Black Iron City originally had an advantage in at this time cannot achieve a large amount of output at all, and can only rely on the strong fortresses on both sides of the bank to counterattack, in this case, the casualties of Black Iron City are undoubtedly very heavy, fifteen days, More than 10,000 people died because of this, especially on the seventh day, because of the loopholes in the defense, a fierce attack of the Holy Alliance, almost broke through the defense line of the Black Iron City, in order to resist the cavalry of the Holy Alliance, Shu Han sent almost all the reserves out, which resisted the attack of the Holy Alliance.

In the end, more than 4,000 people and fifteen Skywalker lives were lost to block the enemy, such a huge loss doubled the pressure on Shu Han, but fortunately, the defense line of Black Iron City was already solid, and as the ice on the ice gradually melted, Black Iron City gradually regained the initiative.

In the winter, the Black Iron City did not give up its efforts, after a winter of time, the shipyard of Huajin City has successfully transformed two merchant ships into warships, and at the same time there are two warships built according to the new drawings, a total of four warships, plus a warship already on the front line, which makes the naval strength of the Black Iron City greatly increased, and after successfully mastering the control of the water, the Black Iron City will naturally not be willing to be passive defense, Shu Han with the help of the surface force, put forward a very bold offensive plan.

The power of the Yangtze River water system is complex, the black iron city of the navy is always threatening the holy alliance of the cities along the river, and these cities, is often the holy alliance of the big cities, after all, in this era, the means of transportation is not as rich as modern times, the speed of the railway is only a few tens of kilometers per hour, shipping is undoubtedly the cheapest, affordable and fast mode of transportation, so these cities along the river, are very prosperous, and the ships of the black iron city in the tributaries of the Yangtze River at any time to sail and attack, Bomb the cities inside the Holy Alliance, and when the other side is not aware of it, directly land the city, occupy the city, take all the books and experts and scholars in it, and rush to retreat before the Holy Alliance arrives.

This made the Holy Alliance have to divide its troops to defend its own city, so that the Holy Alliance army on the front line can only maintain less than 30,000, and the rest of the troops all rush to the major cities to ensure that their cities are not lost, for this move of the Black Iron City, Qiao Xuan obviously hated it very much, but after mastering the control of the water, the Holy Alliance really had no way to take the Black Iron City.

In the winter, the Holy Alliance occupies the offensive, and now, it is obvious that the offensive and defensive forces are different, and the purpose of the Black Iron City is also very simple, the naval army will leave with one blow, and do not want to occupy the cities and key passes of the Holy Alliance for a long time, and try to avoid sacrifices, while in the army, there is a selective choice to attack, even if the troops of the Holy Alliance are elite, there are only less than 30,000 people, and the Black Iron City has more than 60,000 troops in its hands, which is fully doubled, so it is natural to occupy the position of the attack, but Shu Han is also very clear, It is not possible to carry out a strong attack, which is not good for Black Iron City.

Because in terms of population and resources, Black Iron City is inherently disadvantaged, the Holy Alliance is undoubtedly double or even twice as much as Black Iron City in terms of population or resources, on this basis, Black Iron City has no qualifications to lose, as long as a defeat is enough to make Black Iron City crumbling, while the Holy Alliance can have a great margin for error, even if it loses, it doesn't matter at all, the huge population and resources can completely allow them to re-establish an army in a short period of time.

Therefore, Shu Han tried to avoid the frontal battlefield as much as possible to ensure his strength, otherwise if he fought hard, even if he laid down this base, it would not be of any help to the Black Iron City, because of the attack of the water army, the Black Iron City has now obtained more than 50,000 people from the Holy Alliance, plus the previous one, it is almost more than 200,000 people, these people need a lot of time to completely digest it, if they go to capture the city of the Holy Alliance and obtain the population, there will undoubtedly be more contradictions, the volume of the Black Iron City is too small, Will it take time to turn these Holy Alliances into your own?

Unless the Holy Alliance is completely wiped out in a war, and the power is used to speak, it can only be temporarily stopped, so even if Shu Han uses all his strength to eliminate the line of defense in front of him now, it will not make any sense at all, but it will kill a lot of soldiers, and the gap in the size of the two sides, resulting in the loss of these people, will greatly hurt the vitality of Black Iron City, and for the Holy Alliance, it is irrelevant, so Shu Han can't gamble, he must use other means to win.

So from the current point of view, although Shu Han is on the offensive side, but in the army is active defense, and in the navy attack and harassment, this strategic direction is undoubtedly very correct, now is not the time for the general decisive battle, this is actually thanks to Guangyuan Kingdom, their turtle shrinkage, so that the Black Iron City bears too much pressure, Shu Han has written several handwritten letters to Dai Wuxian, hoping that he can cheer up, but it is obviously useless.

Since Dai Wuxian's own descendants were wiped out, in addition to relying on his prestige and the support of those hardcore Skywalkers, Dai Wuxian has not yet been overthrown, for those princes under the territory, he has lost any initiative, it may be possible to defend the territory, but there is no hope of launching an attack, so although it is now said to be an alliance, it is already a country in Black Iron City to fight against the Holy Alliance alone, which is what makes Black Iron City very angry.

In fact, Shu Han's heart has already flinched a little, hoping to end this war as soon as possible, after all, if such a war continues, it will be very unfavorable for Black Iron City, because your opponent is much stronger than you, he can make mistakes, but he can't make a single move, this kind of battle is very dangerous for Shu Han, and because of this, Shu Han has wanted to negotiate many times and make peace with the Holy Alliance.

But obviously Qiao Xuan didn't want any peace, now he had suppressed the entire Guangyuan Kingdom, taking advantage of this time to beat the Black Iron City was undoubtedly the best opportunity for Qiao Xuan, if he missed this opportunity, and waited for the Guangyuan Kingdom to regain his vitality, then he didn't know how much time it would take to conquer the Black Iron City and the Guangyuan Kingdom, so of course he would not waste this opportunity.

Now if it is not for the lack of troops, I am afraid that Qiao Xuan has already entered the time of the decisive battle, the winter has passed, and now it is the time of spring, no matter which side, it should be planted first, after all, this is related to the food problem of the whole country in the coming year, in this era without mechanization, farming is undoubtedly the most important thing, if you miss it, the consequences are unimaginable, so whether it is Guangyuan Kingdom or Black Iron City, they all regard farming as a top priority, and the matter that was originally going to recruit troops is also temporarily put down, He even planned to let some people go back to the fields to plant first, and then deal with the war after the ridges were served.

But Qiao Xuan obviously didn't plan to do this, he directly issued a conscription order after the beginning of spring, asking more young men to enter the army, and planned to expand the army from 220,000 today to 350,000, which is seriously beyond the limit that the Holy Alliance can carry, in this era of underdeveloped productivity, often a hundred people can afford to raise a soldier who is out of production, and now Qiao Xuan uses an army of four million people to raise an army of nearly 400,000, which is equivalent to ten people raising a soldier, This will be a huge burden on the population.

And Qiao Xuan didn't care about the life or death of the people at all, anyone who dared to oppose it was all executed by him in an extremely cruel way, plus Qiao Xuan's own status as a god in the Holy Alliance, no one could shake it at all, even if Shu Han repeatedly promoted Qiao Xuan's tyranny in their land, but as long as Qiao Xuan did not die, no one dared to stand up against it, and the name Qiao Xuan seemed to have become the master of this land.

As for the task of farming, it was directly handed over to the women, children and the elderly who stayed behind, if they did not farm, Qiao Xuan issued a very cruel release order, which sounds very good, but in fact, it is to drive those who are unable to work out of the village directly, let them go to those primeval forests, which is equivalent to sentencing them to death, so as to reduce food consumption, and at the same time increase the labor of these people, Qiao Xuan's cruelty can be seen.

Through this method, Qiao Xuan quickly recruited an army of 130,000 people, these troops are obviously used to deal with Black Iron City, and now these people are being trained in various recruit camps, with the ability of the Holy Alliance, I am afraid that within a month, these recruits will go to the battlefield, and then it will be a decisive battle between the Holy Alliance and Black Iron City, which makes Shu Han very worried, the strength of Black Iron City has reached the upper limit, and maintaining an army of more than 70,000 people on the front line is already the limit for Black Iron City, if it is increased, Unless he does it like Qiao Xuan, but Shu Han does not have the prestige of Qiao Xuan, if he wants to implement Qiao Xuan's set of policies, I am afraid that it will not work, and these Skywalker families are enough to make Shu Han die without a place to be buried.

So he had to think of some ways before this army was assembled, so during this period of time, Shu Han's strategic policy was gradually changing, but obviously Qiao Xuan didn't care about Shu Han, he directly changed his original combat strategy, and began to act as a shrinking turtle, defending his own territory with all his might, obviously planning to wait until the strength was assembled and trained, and directly fight to the death with Black Iron City to determine the future overlord of this area.

This is the ability with abundant resources, no matter what move Shu Han makes, it is useless, Qiao Xuan only needs to gather troops and wait for the last moment, which makes Shu Han very worried, but there is no way at all, Qiao Xuan is too stable, there is no flaw in the defense at all, now the only thing that makes progress in Black Iron City is the water army, relying on the advantages of the water army, Black Iron City is crisscrossing in the waterways of the Holy Alliance, but after all, ships are limited, and the roads of the Holy Alliance are built, It is much better than the Black Iron City, under Qiao Xuan's deployment, there are defenders in all major cities, and the surrounding reinforcements can rely on railways and electric vehicles to arrive quickly, and the Black Iron City can't take advantage of it at all, and in the end it can only attack those small cities.

And those small cities also adopted the strategy of fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness, all the people were concentrated in the castle, and they couldn't let the Black Iron City get a little benefit at all, in the face of Qiao Xuan's policy, Shu Han had no choice, he finally decided to call everyone back, and announced that he would abandon the Yangtze River defense line and withdraw to the area of Asakusa City to ensure the safety of the troops.

Shu Han did this, there are several main reasons, the first is very simple, that is, the Yangtze River defense line is too long, and it is too difficult to use 70,000 people to block Qiao Xuan's 170,000 people, even if Shu Han has these warships in his hands, but there are only five of them, and although the Holy Alliance has not researched the ironclad ship now, it already has heavy artillery to deal with the ironclad ship, and these shells are enough to greatly reduce the power of the ironclad ship, so this layer of advantage is actually not big.