With the help of the night, a small boat floated down from the upstream quietly, without lighting the lights or paddlings, and was quietly anchored on the shore.

In the darkness, Winters crossed the river bank and walked towards the boat, with Mason and Bart Shaling following behind.

In the distance, in the north and northeast, there are faint lights flashing.

It was the Bishop's Fort on Magit Island, and the "Castle" turret at the southernmost end of the new city, which was conveying messages.

Both fortresses are currently in the hands of the enemy, and they are horns and guard each other.

On the river beach below the castle turret, the wreckage of a barge can be vaguely seen.

The part above the hull waterline has almost been burned, leaving only a charred bottom left, which has fallen on the mudflat without vitality, like a stolen tombstone.

Among the seven warships of the new army, three were also suffering the same fate.

However, with the efforts of the crew, they did not float to the enemy's defense zone, but ran aground on the river beach controlled by their own side, and were then recycled by friendly forces on the shore and turned into part of the fortification.

The warship transformed from cargo ships is still too weak in front of real warships.

The New Army's muskets hit the hulls of the United Provincial people, leaving only a little flesh and blood wounds.

The cannons equipped by the United Provincial warships have devastating power for the new military ships.

Even dragging the Unionists into hand-to-hand combat was very difficult - the new army warships had a very short side, only a little higher than the lower deck of the Union warships, so they had to use a ladder.

Not to mention that there are sterns and forecastles on the Union Provincial Warship.

At the critical moment, Samujin, who was responsible for commanding the New Army Navy, made an amazing decision.

He ordered the command ship he was riding to beat the war drums and rushed straight towards the enemy ship.

The incident happened too quickly and there was no time to communicate in flag language. When the other six new warships saw the command ships rushing towards the enemy ships, they stopped retreating and turned to fight.

This made the United Provincial Sailors chaotic. They fired several rounds of side volleys, and saw that the "rebels" boat was riddled with holes, but they could not slow down the opponent's speed at all.

Finally, the captain of the United Provincial warship decided to retreat and distance himself from the "rebels" boat.

It was not that the captain of the United Provinces was afraid of the battle on the shore, but because of the madness of the boat rushing towards him, he thought it was a fireboat.

The decision of the captain of the United Provinces gave the new army a glimmer of hope on the water.

Because not only firepower and tonnage, in terms of speed, the New Army's inland barges are not as good as the United Provincial Navy's galloping warships, and the wind direction is also unfavorable to the New Army.

If you just escape, you will only be caught up by the warships of the Union Provincial People, and you will clean the decks with artillery one by one.

On the contrary, the new army's small boat took the initiative to fight, caught the Union Provincial people off guard, forcing the latter's large boat to retreat.

Taking advantage of the temporary retreat of the United Provincial warships, Samujin ordered the abandonment of the four seriously damaged warships and instructed the other three less damaged warships to retreat upstream.

With the efforts of the New Army sailors to rescue, three seriously damaged warships successfully rushed to the beach on the west bank of the Shijian River and stranded in their own controlled area. The most important thing is that the crew members evacuated safely and even the wounded were carried to the shore.

But there was still a ship that was in too much fire and had to give up directly.

The abandoned ship drifted under the "castle" turret at the southernmost end of the new city of Kings Castle.

Perhaps in order to mock the "rebels", the United Provincial People did not recycle it and left it on the beach.

And all this is just the beginning.

As the United Provincial Navy made its debut, the inland fleet that the Paratus had worked so hard to deal with was severely damaged by just one warship.

Therefore, the confidence of the people of the Union Province also seemed to expand.

The next day during the day, they dispatched warships again to intercept the new army boats transporting supplies to the island, and tried to completely destroy the "rebels" ships stranded on the river beach.

However, this time, Richard Mason, who was prepared, taught a good lesson to the United Provincial Navy.

Although the new army artillery suffered considerable losses in the artillery battle the night before, the gunners who could still go on the battlefield were still all hung up; but the earth wall faced with wooden walls, long-barrel gun faced with short-barrel guns, fixed casualties against floating positions, and finally the wooden wall, short-barrel gun, and the moving turret could not hold on.

After several large holes were taken out of the hull, the [Marco Good Luck] exited the battle in a panic and fled to the Pier of the Kings in a hurry.

If this warship called "Good Luck" had not been hit by the part below the waterline, perhaps this United Provincial warship, which was still powerful the night before, would have been on the river beach to accompany her the next day.

From then on, the United Provinces never dared to expose warships to the range of the New Army's cannons - at least during the day.

At night, the Southern Front would still send surface troops to go upstream from the waterway on the east side of Magit Island.

Sometimes large ships carrying artillery were sent to harass the New Army's positions on the West Bank; sometimes small boats filled with combustible materials were sent to destroy the floating bridges that the New Army was building.

Obviously, the Southern Front Army knew very well that if we watched the new army build a floating bridge, it would only be a matter of time before the complete loss of Magit Island was completed.

Therefore, even with considerable risks, the Southern Front Army insisted on dispatching ships to interfere with the New Army's operations, especially slowing down the construction progress of the pontoon bridge.

Influenced by it, the new army's pontoon bridge has not been completed yet.

Mason also had a headache about this.

The new army's fortress is located on the west bank of Shijian River, which can block the river channel on the west side of Maggit Island to a certain extent.

But Maggit Island is a river island with navigability on both sides.

For the river channel on the other side, the cannons set up on the west bank of the Shijian River were powerless.

Mason considered moving the cannon to the island so that the water surface in both directions could be blocked at the same time.

But in the end, he gave up on the idea.

First, it is because it is too difficult to move the cannons to the island, and second, it is because once you move the cannons, it is more difficult to move them down than to move them up.

Considering the risks, Mason did not act rashly.

So when Winters arrived at the front line, Mason was preparing a second plan - the iron rope Hengjiang.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content behind! That is, use an iron chain to cross the river surface and completely block the waterway.

If this plan can be really achieved, the new army can construct between Magit Island and the West Coast without interruption.

The problem is that the iron material needed to create chains can only be transported from the rear.

But the people in the besieged troops had already put a huge burden on the supply line, and it was simply a difficult task to transport iron materials.

In fact, Mason has also tried to make ropes with materials that are easy to obtain in front lines such as linen, leather, and bark.

However, after the Southern Front Army was overturned by a hemp rope the first night, it immediately responded the next night, and instead sent a small boat carrying a manned to cut the rope, and then dispatched the arson boat to burn the pontoon bridge.

So after going around, Mason finally found out that he still had to use iron ropes.

But the iron material cannot be transported.

The only solution that Mason could think of was to solve the food and grass on the front line and free up the transportation capacity of the baggage troops.

At the same time, collect iron materials on the front line as much as possible.

However, the new army marched all the way to the Kings Fort, and then sieged the city, and almost no effort was invested in "reception".

Many towns in Xilin Province just changed their flags and everything was as usual.

There are still many towns, but they haven't even changed their flags and are still watching on the fence.

So Mason had to try to communicate with local towns, collect, purchase supplies, coordinate and arrange routes.

On the way to the Kings Castle, Winters met Andre.

Andre complained a lot with Winters, complaining that during this period, he returned to the "old business" of escorting the baggage.

In Winters' view, Senior Mason has actually fallen into a vicious cycle of "egg first or chicken first":

In order to rule Palathu, the royal forts need to be built; in order to build the royal forts, resources need to be drawn from the Xilin Province; in order to be able to draw resources, effective rule in the Xilin Province needs to be established...

For Winters, the more serious problem than the vicious cycle of "beating the kings' forts first or governing Paratu first" is that "establishing effective rule" is not only completely beyond the capabilities of a front-line command, but also exceeding the authority that a front-line command should have.

In other words, in order to solve the endless new problems, Senior Mason has turned the "siege command" into the de facto government of the New Republic in Xilin Province.

Before the National Assembly in the rear decided how to accept the commanders from the siege front line, the commanders from the Xilin Province were already issuing orders to the autonomous cities in Xilin Province.

And all of this is just for a "chain", which makes Winters not sure what to say.

But Winters did not have the idea of ​​blaming the senior, because just seeing Mason's haggard face, he knew that the senior was trying to solve problems and solve one problem after another.

In fact, he believes that Geisa Adonis should check on Mason.

But the problem is that Geisa Adonis doesn't think it's a problem at all - and this, it may be a bigger problem.

However, no matter how big the problem is, it has nothing to do with Richard Mason, because in Mason's view, his mission is to solve the problems in front of him.

In fact, in addition to "moving cannons to the island" and "crossing the iron chain", Mason has a third plan:

The artillery position moved forward and moved to a position where the Ten Arrow River, which was divided into two by Magit Island, was reorganized into one, and directly blocked the route between Magit Island and the Kings Fort.

But after just taking a look at it, Winters understood why this seemingly simple and reasonable plan was ranked third.

Because the ideal location of "blocking the route between Magit Island and the Forts of the Kings", there was already a fortress on it - the "Fortress" fortress, which was built by the Union Provincial People at the southernmost end of the new city.

In other words, this has become a question of "there are chickens or eggs first".

To block the waterway, you have to first hit the "fortress" turret; to hit the fortress, you will be side-hit by the Bishops Fort on Magit Island; and to defeat Magit Island, you have to first block the waterway.

For a moment, Winters couldn't help but feel sorry for Senior Mason.

On the other hand, he became increasingly convinced that the Unionists had not chosen a few locations at will and repaired several forts.

It is very likely that the dilemma facing the new army is designed by the enemy.

This has to talk about the battle situation on Maggit Island.

If Magit Island and Shijian River are regarded as two independent battlefields, then the degree of anxiety in the battle situation on Shijian River is simply "a big witch" compared to Magit Island.
Chapter completed!