Three days later, 1,500 soldiers of Operation Tooth Extraction boarded ships and set off for their first target: Redwater City.
At the same time, according to the policy set in the strategy meeting, the other soldiers of the First Army also escorted ammunition and food to the Northern Region. They would follow the inland water network, pass through Redwater River, King's City Canal, and Sanwan River, and finally arrive at Deepvalley Town.
In order to cope with such a large-scale deployment of troops, in addition to all the paddle steamers in Neverwinter, Roland also rented 30 sailing ships from Margaery's Chamber of Commerce to transport war materials.
In this way, he could deliver 3,000 soldiers and corresponding artillery ammunition to the Northern Region within a month, that is, before the arrival of July. If it was in the future, the transport scale of thousands of people would probably be completed by three or four river liners. But in this era, it was already an incredible pioneering work.
After the Operation Tooth Extraction obtained enough God's Stones of Retaliation, the vanguard would also go to the Northern Region. Eventually, 4,500 soldiers would be gathered in Deepvalley Town and the church would be forced to fight in Coldwind Ridge.
Of course, there were contingency plans. One was that the church moved extremely fast, such as sending a small number of God's Punishment Army along the Impassable Mountain Range all the way to the south and directly to Neverwinter. The other was that the enemy abandoned the Holy City and entered the kingdom from the border between the Kingdom of Dawn and Graycastle.
The 500 soldiers staying in Neverwinter were to guard against the former. Defending the city would always give them a certain advantage, especially with the support of 152 mm Longsong Cannons. But the latter was a lose-lose situation. The First Army had to turn to a war of attrition, the church would lose the Holy City of Hermes and suffer a heavy loss of faith and status, and Graycastle would also lose a large number of people.
Fortunately, the possibility of the second situation was very small. Without the Holy City, the church would completely lose its foundation, and Graycastle would still have a chance to recover after losing its population. As long as the pope was not crazy, he would not use such a suicidal method.
Edith Kant, the Pearl of the Northern Region, also left with the first fleet.
"Please rest assured, Your Majesty. I'll write to my father and ask him to take out half of the stored food in the Northern Region for the soldiers. The lord of Deepvalley Town will also fully cooperate with all the requirements of the First Army."
"Aren't you going back to the North?" Roland asked.
"Compared to going home, I'd rather follow the First Army and participate in the upcoming battles." Edith stood at the side of the ship and raised her hand to flutter her long hair. She then placed her hand on her chest and saluted. "I'll leave my brother in your care."
"I'll take good care of him."
"Thank you, Your Majesty. Then, I will wait for you in Deepvalley Town — when the real war comes."
After the ship left, Nightingale's dissatisfied voice sounded in Roland's ear, "Tsk tsk, this is obviously a battle of life and death, but she makes it sound like a lover's date."
"Ahem … really?"
"You can't tell? That action of raising your hair … It's not like there's a strong wind blowing right now, it's practically unnecessary. " Nightingale snorted coldly. "Of course, we can't rule out the possibility that she's already used to behaving like this to men. It's already an instinct."
"Are you still worried about that letter?" Roland shook his head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "I told you it's impossible. By the way, is what she said reliable? "
Nightingale replied reluctantly, "Basically, there's no problem. At least when she expressed her loyalty and discussed those battle plans, she was telling the truth."
"That's enough." Roland exhaled. "Let's go back to the castle."
During this period, although Neverwinter was facing the pressure brought by the war, there was also a lot of good news — the projects planned during the Months of Demons were gradually coming to an end, and the basic construction had ushered in a period of explosive results.
The most important thing was that the Western Region finally had its own estuary.
After receiving the news, Roland immediately informed the Ministry of Construction, and soon a batch of houses, warehouses, and temporary docks would be built on the Shallow River. With a natural deep-water port as the foundation, larger ships could also be built — however, considering that Anna had already focused on military production, these shipbuilding plans had to be postponed until the end of the war.
The supporting hub project, Route 67, had also been started. It set off from the Redwater River Bridge and connected the industrial area with the Southern Shallow River. The construction team consisted of the original workers from Kingdom Avenue. At the same time, Roland fulfilled his promise. Nearly half of the workers with excellent performance received official residency in Neverwinter and were issued identity cards.
In addition, the first coke oven on North Slope Mountain had been put into operation.
To be exact, it could have been put into operation earlier, but during the trial period, it had stumbled. For example, when the furnace was first turned on, the air in the furnace was not emptied, which caused the coal used for dry distillation to burn directly. Another time, the temperature and time were not controlled properly, which led to the failure of coking. Later, there was a serious accident where the exhaust pipe was blocked by smoke and dust, and the flame suddenly burst out of the furnace when the coke was released. Fortunately, with Summer's playback ability, the causes of these accidents were quickly found out and a series of improvements were made. A new batch of coke ovens was also being built in full swing.
In addition to the infrastructure, military production also ushered in a breakthrough.
The trial production of the howitzer, which could add an important weight to the war, was finally successful.
Although the size of the whole shell was limited and the charge of the warhead was limited, it could still cause a fatal blow to the enemy within half a diameter of 10 meters. After the shell fragments were installed, this distance could be doubled.
It was conceivable that if several 152mm cannons with a range of nearly 10 kilometers were deployed on the battlefield, they could bypass the preset position and directly hit the enemy's rear. People in this era had never experienced the terror of the King of War. The shock wave and shell fragments of the howitzer were absolutely destructive to the mass of enemies without any cover.
Unfortunately, such a heavy thing could only be transported by Hummingbirds. In the absence of hard roads, only two howitzers could be deployed at a time.
Even so, Roland was not willing to give up such powerful firepower.
In contrast, the news of the successful operation of the steam turbine model was not so important.
After all, there were not enough people to research and develop new steam ships or thermal power generation. In a sense, the moment Neverwinter received the intelligence from the Kingdom of Dawn, it had already entered the wartime system. All plans had to make way for the war, and Anna was no exception.
Now, her daily work was to process shells and fuses in the morning and cut the key parts needed for the heavy machine guns in the afternoon.
The munitions factory produced bullets and revolving rifles in three shifts. Thanks to Mystery Moon and Candle, all kinds of machine tools could run at full capacity without any major problems.
Not long after returning to the office, a messenger flight delivered a secret letter from the Fjords.
This is … Tilly's reply?
Roland quickly tore open the note and quickly scanned through the contents of the letter. After pondering for a while, he asked Nightingale to find Maggie.
"Take Sylvie and catch up with the fleet. Ask Iffy to do as the letter says."
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