Fifth Hundred and Fifteenth Chapter: The Day of Departure

Three days later, the one thousand five hundred warriors who would execute the Tooth Extraction Operation boarded ships and set sail for their first raiding target: Redwater City.

At the same time, according to the strategy decided at the strategic meeting, other soldiers of the First Army also successively escorted ammunition and grain to the Northern Region. They would travel along the inland waterway network, passing through the Redwater River, the King's Canal, and the Three Bay River in turn, finally arriving at Yougu Town.

In order to cope with such a large-scale military deployment, in addition to all the paddle steamers of Neverwinter City being put into the task, Roland also leased thirty sailboats from the Margaret Chamber of Commerce to transport war materials.

In this way, he could transport three thousand soldiers and corresponding artillery ammunition to the Northern Region within a month, that is, before July arrived. If it were in later generations, the transfer scale of several thousand people could probably be completed by three or four inland river passenger ships in one trip, but in this era, it was already an incredible feat.

When the Tooth Extraction Operation obtained enough God's Stone of Retaliation, the advance troops would also go to the Northern Region. Finally, Yougu Town would gather an army of four thousand five hundred people, forcing the Church to start a group battle at Coldwind Ridge.

Of course, there were also contingency plans. One situation was that the Church dispatched troops extremely quickly, for example, letting a small number of God's Punishment Army make a light-armored assault without logistics, going south along the Misty Mountains all the way, directly reaching Neverwinter City. Another situation was that the enemy abandoned Holy City and entered the kingdom from the border between Dawn and Graycastle.

The five hundred people left behind in Neverwinter City were to guard against the former. A siege could always gain a certain advantage, especially with the support of 152mm fortress guns. As for the latter, it would be a double loss. The First Army would have to switch to a war of attrition, the Church would lose Hermes Holy City, and both faith and status would be severely hit, and Graycastle would also lose a large population.

Fortunately, the second situation was unlikely to occur. Without Holy City, the Church could be said to have completely lost its foundation, while Graycastle could still have the opportunity to revive even if it lost population. Unless the Pope was completely insane, he would not adopt this suicide-like combat method.

Edith Kant, the Pearl of the Northlands, also left with the first fleet.

"Please rest assured, Your Majesty, I will write to my father and ask him to take out half of the grain reserves in the Northlands for the soldiers to use. The lord of Yougu Town will also fully cooperate with all the requirements of the First Army."

"Aren't you going back to the Northlands?" Roland asked.

"Instead of going home, I would rather follow the First Army to participate in all the subsequent battles," Edith raised her hand to lift her long hair while standing on the ship's rail, and then saluted with her hand on her chest, "I will entrust my brother to you."

"I will take good care of him."

"Thank you, Your Majesty. Then, I will wait for you in Yougu Town—when the real great battle arrives."

After the ships left, Nightingale's dissatisfied voice sounded in Roland's ear, "Tsk tsk, it's clearly a life-and-death war, but she said it like a date with a lover."

"Cough cough... is that so?"

"Can't you tell? That action of tossing her hair... there's no strong wind now, it's simply unnecessary." Nightingale snorted coldly, "Of course, it can't be ruled out that she has long been accustomed to making such gestures to men, and it has become an instinct."

"Are you still dwelling on that letter?" Roland shook his head with a wry smile, "I've already said that it's impossible. By the way, is what she said reliable?"

Nightingale reluctantly replied, "Basically, there's no problem, at least when she expressed her loyalty and talked about those combat plans, she was telling the truth."

"That's enough," Roland exhaled, "Let's go back to the castle."

During this period, although Neverwinter City was facing the pressure brought by the war, there was also a lot of good news—the projects planned during the Months of the Demonic Abyss were successively completed, and infrastructure construction ushered in a phase of concentrated results.

The most important thing was that the Western Region finally obtained its own outlet to the sea.

After receiving this news, Roland notified the Construction Department immediately. Soon, a batch of houses, warehouses, and temporary docks would be added to the shallow beach. With a natural deep-water port as the foundation, larger seagoing ships could also be built—but considering that Anna was already focused on military production, these shipbuilding plans had to be postponed until after the war.

The supporting hub project—Highway 67—had also started construction. Starting from the Redwater River Bridge, it would connect the factory area and the southern shallow beach. The construction team was the same one that built Kingdom Avenue. Roland also fulfilled his promise. Nearly half of the workers who performed well were granted formal resident status in Neverwinter City and issued identity cards.

In addition, the first coking furnace on the Northern Slope Mountain was put into production.

To be precise, it could have started operating earlier, but it had been stumbling during the trial period. For example, when the furnace was first opened, the air inside the furnace was not emptied, causing the coal used for dry distillation to burn directly. Another example was that the temperature and time were not controlled properly, leading to coking failure. There was also a serious accident in which the exhaust pipe was blocked by soot, and flames suddenly窜out of the furnace chamber during coke discharge. Fortunately, with the help of Asha's playback ability, the cause of these accidents was quickly found out, and a series of improvements were made. A new batch of coking furnaces was also being built in full swing.

In addition to infrastructure, military production also ushered in a breakthrough.

The howitzer, which could add an important weight to the war, was finally successfully trial-produced.

Although the ammunition load of the combat unit was limited due to the volume limitation of the fully assembled shell, it could still cause fatal damage to enemies within a radius of ten meters. After adding shrapnel, this distance could be doubled.

It can be imagined that if several 152mm guns with a range of nearly ten kilometers were put into the battlefield, they could cross the preset positions and directly strike the enemy's rear—people in this era have never experienced the terror of the king of war, and the shock wave and shrapnel of the howitzer would definitely cause devastating damage to clustered enemies without any cover.

Unfortunately, such a heavy thing could only be transported by Hummingbird in coordination. Without hard roads, only two guns could be deployed at a time.

Even so, Roland was unwilling to give up such a powerful firepower.

In comparison, the news that the principle model of the steam turbine was successfully running was not so important.

After all, whether it was a new type of steamship or thermal power generation, there were not enough people to develop it for the time being. In a sense, from the moment he received the intelligence from the Kingdom of Dawn, Neverwinter City had entered a wartime system, and all plans had to give way to the war, and Anna was no exception.

Now, her daily work was to process shells and fuses in the morning, and cut key parts required for heavy machine guns in the afternoon.

The arsenal was producing bullets and revolvers in three shifts, thanks to Mystery Moon and Candle, various machine tools could operate at full load without major problems.

Not long after returning to the office, a flying messenger delivered a secret letter from the Fjords.

This is... Tilly gave her answer?

Roland quickly opened the note and quickly scanned the contents of the letter. After thinking for a while, he asked Nightingale to bring in Maggie.

"Take Sylvie and chase after the departing fleet, let Iffy do as the letter says."

"Goo!"

Ermu said

Happy Valentine's Day everyone~ If you don't have a Valentine, Ermu will accompany you!