Infrastructure Throne

The scorching sun in midsummer.

On the wasteland in the south of Moon Lake, hundreds of craftsmen are sweating in the roaring steam machinery.

Some distance away from the lake, a long and wide tunnel is deeply embedded in the dark brown soil. Workers are constantly operating thick and heavy steam excavators, shoveling soil on both sides of the tunnel, digging and widening the tunnel.

The long iron mechanical boom and the shovel arm are staggered and fixed in the middle, and the top is equipped with a pulley. The hanging steel cable drives the shovel to do mechanical movement. The operator is in the wooden working room of the rear compartment. One person is responsible for pulling the operating lever, and the other Responsible for sending fuel to the steam furnace.

The efficiency of steam machinery is more than a little bit higher than that of manual excavation, but at the current level of technology, the mechanical work is relatively slow, high noise and high temperature are unavoidable, accompanied by unpleasant smoke from time to time.

However, compared to expropriating tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people, it takes several years to manually shovel and dig rivers, and the operators on the excavators are simply too relaxed.

It has been more than half a month since this huge engineering team arrived at Moon Lake by boat to dig an artificial canal connecting the two lakes.

Moon City kept sending out scouts to linger nearby, the movement of the engineering team was too big and the scope was too wide, there was no way to hide it, Shen Qingze didn't intend to cover it from the beginning, just like this, he was building a large-scale construction near Moon Lake.

The sentinel boats of Moon City peeked out from a distance on the lake. Under the telescope, those unimaginable steel machines tirelessly repeated their digging actions.

Dozens of steam excavators started working at the same time. Under the gray chimney, the majestic roar caused ripples on the lake. understand.

They even thought that this was the result of a certain wizard manipulating witchcraft behind the scenes.

A steady stream of information was passed back to the City Lord's Mansion. From the Moon City Lord down, the nobles in the city were still dubious, and the abilities displayed by Beiyuan were far beyond their cognition.

Just for firecrackers and cannons, the artisans of the whole city have been forced to study day and night until now, but they have only imitated some plausible iron bumps, and the scrap rate is astonishingly high.

Some even exploded when ignited, causing complaints from the craftsmen, and almost no one dared to touch such a high-risk thermal weapon.

Now there is an iron boat floating on the water, and an "iron house" that automatically digs soil?

The nobles had to start worrying, if Beiyuan really built a steel bridge across the Chiyuan River as the city lord said, those orcs who were "enslaved" by Shen Qingze in the neutral zone would not need to know how to swim and fly The orc tribe took it with them, and they could rush out along the bridge at any time, pointing to where to hit...

That picture is creepy just thinking about it!

The sense of urgency was like a mountain, weighing down the nobles of Moon City. Even if they were afraid of the orcs protecting the engineering team, Moon City could not continue to sit still.

As a commercial city built along the river, Moon City does not have a large army, but there are many fleets and sailors. It has always been rampant in the Moon River, and the upper reaches are their territory. Almost no water bandits who don't have eyesight dare to come here. robbery.

Under the call of the Moon City Lord, the nobles quickly established a huge water fleet.

They didn't dare to attack the engineering team protected by a large number of orcs, but they were confident in robbing the material fleet from Beiyuan on the tributary of the Chiyuan River.

First, the material fleet is mainly used to transport goods, with relatively few armed forces. More importantly, it carries a large amount of important resources such as salt, grain, briquette, and various just-needed supplies.

Once the robbery is successful, and then disguised as a water bandit, you can get huge benefits immediately. Who can avenge the wronged souls underwater?Beiyuan is far away from Moon City, so could it be possible that they will attack for some unfounded guesses?

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Hundreds of high-masted sailing ships were lined up densely on the Moon River, and the wide white sails were full and swollen by the strong wind. The river was filled with the shouts of sailors and the friction of chains when anchors were lifted.

The merchant ships in the port have long been expelled. The huge fleet sailed from south to north, and the long oars paddled one after another in the river. The river was full.

The well-known water bandits along the tributaries had heard the news early, hurriedly assembled the fleet, and retreated back to their stockade obediently. This kind of "robbery" on this scale is not something they can get involved in.

Due to the long construction period of the engineering team and the huge amount of materials needed, the material delivery fleet sent by Beiyuan goes back and forth every half a month. This is the information that the Moon City scouts have already found out. The material delivery team must pass by the gate of the Moon City. , I can't hide it if I want to.

The fleet sent by Moon City traveled unimpeded along the road, and even got the support and participation of other small and medium-sized cities along the river.

Seeing that the team was getting bigger and bigger, and the surface of the Moon River could hardly be filled, Beiyuan's logistics fleet finally entered the mouth of the tributary and slowly went upstream.

The black and gold flag fluttering high appeared on the other side of the river, and the huge black and white steel ship came into the sight of the sailors.

Looking at the hard and sturdy iron bow, the sailors in Moon City were a little apprehensive at first, but then they realized that the opponent had only one warship, and the rest were flat-bottomed iron transport ships with a lot of supplies on them. The crew is pitifully small.

On the other hand, our own side has a hundred times the fleet and sailors, and we don't even need to sink the steel warship, we only need to surround it and send others to drag the flat-bottomed transport ship away.

No matter how you look at it, Beiyuan has no chance of winning!

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On that side, when the captain of the Beiyuan Fleet suddenly noticed the dense fleet ahead, he instantly understood his situation. Although the enemy didn't raise a flag, it was clear at a glance what their intentions were after looking at the menacing posture.

The Moon City fleet lined up on the river, occupying the entire river channel in a mighty manner. Each ship was at least three stories high, and the fleet had more than [-] crew members.

Compared with them, the armed personnel of the Beiyuan transport team were pitifully shabby. The snake-like transport team hovered alone on the river, like a group of fat sheep about to fall into the tiger's mouth.

The captain of the Beiyuan Fleet sneered, and immediately ordered: "All transport ships stop sailing, put the sampan down!"

It is said to be a "sampan ship", but it is an armored collision ship the size of a sampan. The bow is in the shape of a sharp triangle. The interior is a wooden structure, the exterior is tightly wrapped with a layer of iron, and the tail is equipped with turbine blades.

There is no steam power, and all rely on sails and manual oars. The crew on the sampan boats are all armed with flintlock guns. There are not many people, but they are dexterous, convenient and fast.

On the command ship of the Moon City fleet, the noble captain who was in charge of the robbery was talking and laughing with other crew members.

From a distance, they noticed small movements on the opposite side through the binoculars. Nearly ten small iron-gray sampans were lowered from the sides of the warship and were heading towards their own fleet.

And the steel warship was slowly turning around.

The noble captain laughed loudly: "I'm afraid this is for negotiation. I didn't expect that Beiyuan, who is rampant in the Northland, will take the initiative to show weakness to us one day!"

Soon, the aristocratic captain couldn’t stop laughing. The odd-looking small sampans were getting faster and faster, and they seemed to have no intention of stopping. Instead, they rushed straight towards their own fleet in a posture of dying together. come!

The sharp triangular conical prow, embedded with hard steel thorns, is like a sharp sword, cutting off the Moon City fleet one by one!

No matter how strong the wooden sailboat is, it can't withstand such a terrible impact. Even if it fails to sink for a while, it will leave a big hole in the belly of the boat.

There were dull crashing sounds, followed by the screeching sound of gunfire, mixed with screams and fighting, which fundamentally disrupted the rhythm of the Moon City fleet.

When the noble captain came back to his senses and ordered the pursuit and strangling, the small sampans ran away after the collision, taking full advantage of their small size and flexibility to shuttle back and forth between the ships.

The crew of Moon City simply drew out their swords and jumped onto the sampan boat, trying to start a side-to-side battle that they are good at. Unfortunately, what greeted them was a round of bullets.

The noble captain's face was livid with anger, and he didn't intend to let the opponent go: "Rocket salvo! Let them all be burned to ashes!"

On the broad moon river, arrows burning with crimson flames began to be thrown continuously, and the dense rain of arrows almost lit the sky into golden red. The number was as numerous as a cow's hair, as if gathering to form a fire dragon that was about to devour each other.

Under such an intensive offensive, the Beiyuan Fleet immediately suffered casualties, and the sampan boats that had no time to escape began to catch fire, and the iron sheet protecting them became a high-temperature oven, and the burning crew had no choice but to abandon the ship and flee.

Taking advantage of the rockets, the Moon River Flotilla approached the opposite side little by little. On the nearest tall ship, the sailors with swords were waving their hook claws wantonly.

Once they are allowed to climb onto the warship, the advantage of nearly a hundred times the number of people can completely wipe out the disadvantages of weapons in the narrow cabin and deck, and Beiyuan will almost certainly lose!

Flames shot up to the sky on the river. Fortunately, steel warships were not as afraid of fire as wooden ships. In this short period of time, the large and heavy warships completely turned around.

The muzzle of the black hole protruded from the window string, and the tongue of hot flames gushed out. Accompanied by a huge roar, the black shells poured unscrupulously towards the Moon City fleet, and sparks soared into the sky!

With the strong wind, the flames quickly spread to most of the fleet, and the front became a sea of ​​flames. Seeing that the situation was not good, the big ship at the end turned around and fled frantically.

The entire river surface was deeply stained with bright red blood, and it was clearly separated from the dark blue river surface of the Beiyuan Fleet. Looking down from the sky, it looked like an asymmetrical oil painting.

The menacing Moon City fleet began to flee first, and the river was crowded and chaotic. The Beiyuan fleet set sail again, followed unhurriedly, and slowly drove hundreds of fleets back.

Going upstream along the Moon River, the city defenders around the river watched from a distance from the top of the city, stunned by this terrifying scene.

The other party only transported supplies, and neither took the initiative to attack the city nor landed for combat. As long as any defenders who were not afraid of death dared to shoot arrows at the Beiyuan transport team, they would immediately hit their heads with shells, blasting all the cities along the river. Take the lead, dare to be angry but dare not speak!

The nobles of the Zhucheng Alliance could only watch Beiyuan's steel warships showing off their might in the Moon River, almost jumping their feet in anger.

Sending semaphore questioning to the Beiyuan Fleet will only get a flimsy self-defense.

The city lords of the various cities had no choice but to protest verbally. A letter of protest with fierce words flew into the palace of Yuanliu City like a snowflake. Shen Qingze, who was dressed in a royal costume, didn't even look at it, and returned it intact, along with a bill :

"In a certain month of a certain year, the Beiyuan Transport Fleet cleared your city of water bandits that have plagued merchant ships for a long time. Please pay the following rewards..."

Shen Qingze and Yan Zui happily drew up a list of the rewards they would ask for from the cities in the north.

Looking at the long list of "rewards for suppressing bandits", the young monarch raised his eyebrows expressionlessly and sneered—if you have the ability, put a lid on the Chiyuan River!

No matter how incompetent and furious the nobles of the northern cities are, the artificial river between Moon Lake and Pearl Lake is still under construction day by day, advancing in an orderly manner...