Sword of Dawn

Page 177

"We can use river water to cool down the device. I have seen Kamel's prototype and talked to him. This solution should be feasible."

Rebecca was stunned, and her eyes gradually brightened up: "Oh! This idea is good! I will discuss it with Master Kamel when I go back!"

Gao Wen smiled, and then put his hands on the table in front of him, his eyes slowly swept over everyone present: "There is one more thing - this time I will go to the front line in person."

As soon as this sentence was said, the people at the scene looked at each other in blank dismay. Obviously, they really didn't expect this.

Although in this era, it is normal for aristocratic lords to go to the battlefield in person, Gawain was not present on the battlefield of the Crushed Stone Ridge bombardment and the Baishui River blockade. Only when the aberrations attacked the city before, did Gawain personally go to the battlefield twice. The second battlefield—in other words, except when defending the homeland, Gao Wen did not have the habit of leaving the territory. His attitude and self-positioning have always been clear: the ruler should sit in the rear and charge as little as possible at the front. .

So everyone still habitually thought that the ancestors would stay behind this time, and never thought that Gao Wen had plans to conscript himself.

"A maturely functioning government office can maintain good order during the lord's short absence, and I believe that Hetty can also take care of the rear when I leave, and the army left behind in the local area can also defend against the threat of the dark mountains," Gao said. Wen explained his thoughts, "Attacking the Rock Fortress will be a very important battle, even more important than dealing with Earl Hosman's [-] motley troops, which determines whether we can obtain a stable and unaffected battle. No matter what, I will not allow any accidents in this battle, so I will go to sit in charge in person."

Gawain paused for a moment, and then said: "And there is a more important meaning - each of you should know the original intention of the establishment of the Rock Fortress."

Hetty looked at her ancestor with a complicated tone: "In order to lock the Cecil family in the southern border..."

"So, when the Rock Fortress is broken, I must be on the battlefield."

Gao Wen himself may not care about these symbolic meanings and facade projects, but the basic rules and public opinion of this era care about them.

That being the case, Gao Wen didn't mind "symbolizing" such an important event.

This pre-war meeting lasted until late at night, and when it finally ended, Amber was already yawning, looking at Gao Wen who was still looking very energetic, she couldn't help curling her lips: "I really don't know what your brain is made of. Yes, there are always so many ideas..."

"Just pretend you're praising me," Gawain said casually, then got up and walked towards the door, "I'm going to talk to Tyre next, will you come with me?"

Amber froze for a moment: "Is it appropriate for you to find someone in the middle of the night? You must be sleeping..."

Gawain turned his head and glanced at Amber: "Do you think there is a difference between day and night for Tyre? It's not the time for her to sleep when I find her!"

Just like what Gawain said, Tire, the sea monster that has left the sea, basically only has one thing to do on the shore, sleeping. When Gawain and Amber came to her room, the mermaid lady was floating on her belly. In his own big pool, he looked as if he was dead—to be honest, this saltwater fish had too many problems with his style of painting, not only did he walk in an unrecognizable posture, but he also slept in an arrogant and domineering posture. It also took a long time for the maid who changed the water in Tire to get used to the fact that this "Ms. Mermaid" is not dead when she turns her belly, but is swimming on her back...

It was very difficult to wake Tire up. Amber stepped forward for a long time and the fish was still sleeping soundly. At the end, when Gawain was hesitating whether to jump up and get the salty fish spirit up, Till finally woke up slowly.

When Miss Mermaid opened her eyes, she saw Gawain and Amber standing in front of her. She was startled, turned around and slapped Gawain with a face full of water: "Why don't you knock on the door!"

"Nonsense! We just blew up the door outside and you're amazing if you wake up!" Gao Wen wiped off the water on his face rather annoyed, and turned his head to look at Amber who was hiding behind him for the first time, "You Do you know that we almost poured boiling water into the pool just to wake you up?"

"What's boiling water? It's not like I haven't been near a submarine volcano before." Tire glanced at Gawain, "Tell me, what do you want me to do at night—by the way, it's night, right?"

Till looked around as he spoke, and when he saw that it was indeed dark outside the window, he was sure that it was night: "It's really night...then I just fell asleep..."

"You fell asleep last night!" Gawain said with his eyes wide open, and began to deeply doubt whether it was a mistake for him to come looking for this saltwater fish, but he still explained his reason for coming, "I came to look for it." You're telling you something—we're about to attack Rock Fortress."

Although Tyre was sleeping most of the time, at least she still knew that Cecil was fighting outside, so she was not at a loss at the moment, but showed a little confusion: "So?"

"Are you interested in going to see it?"

Till was taken aback for a moment, then the fish tail swayed gently in the water, and said unhurriedly while rolling up the water splash: "Have you forgotten what we said at the beginning——I can tell you about the deep sea, you can Help out when those so-called 'aberrations' attack the city, but I won't intervene in the battle between you humans, this kind of thing is too boring for me."

"Of course I remember, and I didn't intend to let you participate in the battle between humans. I just asked you to help carry some things to the north, and then you just watch."

"It's that simple?" Tyre looked at Gawain suspiciously, "I know it, you are very cunning, have you dug a hole?"

Gawain didn't answer Tyre's question, but reminded: "Aren't you interested in magic technology on land? Isn't your siren encountering a bottleneck in your own technology system? Maybe you can see the magic technology that makes people in Rock Fortress. What you are interested in will be the scene of the collision between human traditional magic technology and Cecil magic technology. I believe that even for advanced civilizations like Kraken, this level of technology collision is worth seeing of."

Tire's eyes changed slightly, as if she was moved, but after a while she still shook her head slightly: "To be honest, I still want to sleep more..."

"I thought about it carefully, the giant deer Amon is so big, it's not impossible for you to take a few bites..."

"make a deal!"

Gao Wen & Amber: "..."

Chapter 0428 "Taking Over"

Gawain should have thought that no amount of nonsense with Tire, a saltwater fish, would be as effective as letting her eat a bite of "snack". Seeing Tire's full of interest, he felt that all the saliva just now was wasted .

But it's not bad, the process is not important, as long as the saltwater fish is willing to help.

The verified Hongguang device is a very large weapon, and compared with its own huge size, the supporting energy modules required by the Hongguang device are even more daunting. According to the technical report provided by Kamel, the Hongguang The device needs a long-term stable supply of energy to operate effectively, and the current magic capacitors used in various magic crystal railguns cannot meet this requirement, which determines that a Hongguang device must be built on a fixed magic net to become a fixed fort , or you have to "drag" a large magic net battlefield, and with the current transportation technology of Cecil, it is very difficult to transport the Hongguang device from land to the front line and ensure that it can be turned on.

It’s not that it can’t be done—it’s possible to send the parts piecemeal and in batches and then construct them on the battlefield, but that would take too long, and it doesn’t meet Gao Wen’s “taking down the rock in a short period of time.” "Fortress" requirements, and with the skill of slowly assembling the rainbow light device, Philip's slow bombardment with the magic crystal cannon should also be able to blast away the city walls of the fortress, so that the new weapon will completely lose the meaning of appearance.

The best option is to use a boat to send the rainbow device directly to the foot of the Rock Fortress by using the natural waterway of the Baishui River.

In any case, the transportation capacity of a large cargo ship is far superior to that of land vehicles, and the size of the ship itself is large enough to facilitate the installation of various magical mechanisms inside. In addition, it can be transported through rivers, which Gawain conceived to use It is also easier to implement the solution of using the water from the Baishui River to cool the Hongguang device, so no matter how you look at it, water transportation is the best solution.

In fact, even without the "Rainbow Device", Gawain had long been arranging to build his own surface combat force - after annihilating Earl Pepper's army on the White Water River, he captured a group of "warships" of the southern nobles. ", and then arranged for a group of craftsmen and magicians to try to modernize and renovate those ships—it's not that he didn't think about building a new batch, but shipbuilding is really a technical job. He himself was a keyboard warrior in his previous life. The accumulated written knowledge is not enough to make modern ships that are actually usable, and the existing shipbuilding technology in this world has experienced serious technological disruption and regression. "Fleet" ships are of the same level as inland river ships, so he had to choose to carry out modernization on the basis of the warships captured by his own side. On the one hand, it saves time and cost, and on the other hand, it accumulates technology.

But those ships haven't been reworked yet—even recently, they've run into technical difficulties with power.

The rock fortress is about to start a war, and he has no time to wait for his battleship to be slowly remodeled, so after much deliberation, he decided to seek help from the ready-made "water transport expert" in the territory. Till called himself "tide master", she It should be trustworthy in this regard.

Of course, Gawain didn't put all his hopes on Tyre in a prudent and prudent manner. In case this saltwater fish decides to sleep in the pool forever, he also has a backup plan: In the worst case, give Philip a few more cannons, are you afraid that you won't be able to open the door of the Rock Fortress?

No matter how strong the magic shield of Rock Fortress is, it can't withstand the continuous bombing of heavy artillery.

After promising to help and repeatedly confirming that she really has snacks to eat, Tire's excitement slowly receded, and she yawned big, with sleepiness appearing in her eyes again: "By the way, you still have something to do." No? If it’s okay, I’ll continue to sleep... I’ll go to the pier when I wake up..."

Gawain glanced at the sea monster that was slowly sinking in the water, and suddenly remembered something: "By the way, there is a real thing - the son of the storm is fighting the sea monster again, you Do you know what's going on?"

"Ah? Fighting again?" Till floated up from the water again with bubbles, his face full of cute circles, "Isn't this season not long after the return of the stars? My sisters should all be digesting on the seabed. That's right... we don't go digging for giant squid, and we don't wander around the islands and reefs of the Son of the Storm, why are those brain-destroyed humans going crazy?"

Gao Wen looked at Tier's confused expression from the bottom of his heart, and frowned slightly: "So, you don't know what happened."

"Of course I don't know," Tyre shook his head, "I've been staying under your nose, how can I know about the deep sea—but then again, how did you know about it?"

"I have my own news channel," Gao Wen didn't directly answer the other party's question, but said something perfunctory, then he noticed Tire's indifferent face, and couldn't help asking curiously, "Aren't you worried?" What's the situation at home?"

"There's nothing to worry about, those sons of the storm can't handle any big waves, the ocean belongs to the sea monster," Tyre said casually, and then yawned, "And it's a long way to swim back from here, I'd better save up my energy Alright...when will I get stronger...I'll think about going back and have a look..."

Looking at the appearance of this salted fish essence, Gao Wen felt that this guy might not be able to go back in this life.

He shook his head helplessly, turned around and left Tyre's pool together with Amber, but when the two were about to reach the door, a sound of water suddenly came from the pool, Miss Siren leaned on the edge of the pool, watching Gao Wen: "Ah, I just thought of a possibility..."

Gawain turned and looked at her: "What's possible?"

"The endless sea is shrouded in a storm of magic power. The sea is the first place to observe the change of magic power, and it is also the place most susceptible to the influence of magic power," Tyre said with a thoughtful expression on his face, "Those sons of the storm are on the sea It's been too long, maybe...they can feel the tide of magic coming."

Gawain's expression became serious, and after a serious silence for half a minute, he nodded slightly to Tyre: "Thank you for your reminder."

Till didn't say much, he just waved his hands in the pool, and then his upper body fell backwards, and he continued to sleep with his stomach turned over in the water in that arrogant and domineering sleeping position.

After leaving Tyr's room, Amber couldn't help muttering: "Magic tide, magical tide... It would be great if such a thing didn't exist... Every time someone reminds me, I feel hairy all over."

"It's good to get used to it. We were closer to the evil tide back then," Gao Wen said indifferently. "No matter how the evil tide comes, as long as people are still alive, they have to live as usual."

"Okay, as you often say, anyway, if the sky falls, there will be a tall one to hold it up - you are so big, you will definitely be able to hold it for a long time," Amber's ears trembled, and she put aside the matter of the magic tide for the time being. , "I'm so sleepy, don't you have anything else to do today?"

"I'm fine today," Gawain nodded, "but I have something to do tomorrow—you and I will go to Gelenling together."

Before the army goes out, it's time to "receive" Glenn with great fanfare.

……

Gawain Cecil's army marched into Glenland.

The Cecil combat soldiers with clear flags and bright armor entered the Gelen region without any resistance, and quickly planted Cecil's flag on the wall of the Cracked Rock Fortress, which is located on the top of the steep cliff. In the castle, the nervous attendants and retainers finally waited for the "final result" of this "noble war"-they ushered in the new master of this land.

At least in the eyes of ordinary people who don't know the whole truth, that's how it is.

Since the outbreak of this war that completely changed the situation in the southern border, and the whereabouts of the mistress of the territory was unknown, one-third of the people in the Cracked Rock Fortress have fled, and the remaining two-thirds of the people are still under the strong control of the housekeeper. There is order in the city (of course, the help of military intelligence officers and Iron Rangers hidden in the castle is indispensable), but under the relatively stable order is the tension that pervades the entire territory.

For those who don't know the truth, the news of the disastrous defeat of the noble coalition is bad news, which means that they will soon become Cecil's captives and slaves, their land will be plundered, their wealth will be looted, and when will the looting come? And how far it goes depends entirely on when the "raged ancestor" will be free.

Now, that old ancestor seems to be free.

But the "looting" they are worried about is destined not to come.

Wearing armor, Gawain entered Rockbreak Castle with a majestic attitude. He recalled the uneasy Gülen retainers and servants he saw along the way, and he couldn't help shaking his head secretly: Ropeni Glenn is obviously impossible. Make her and Cecil's secret covenant known to the public. The people in this castle still don't know that their mistress is standing with Cecil at all. Naturally, it is unexpected that Cecil will not touch them at all. A modicum of wealth.It's a pity that even now, Gawain can't explain this to most people in the castle, and he has to completely control the entire castle, and even the entire Glenn Territory, to prevent the real situation after Cecil's army enters the territory. The details spill out.

Although the group of traditional nobles in Rock Fortress almost didn't have any intelligence system, he couldn't allow any accidents to appear.

It's just this subtle tension...it's a bit dumbfounding.

But fortunately, he didn't care much about these things. After leading the soldiers into the city and doing some superficial work, he came to the depths of the castle and came to the door of the room with the big windows.

The maid guarding the door of the room had met Gawain once, but the last time they met, Gawain was still a guest of the castle, but this time he was standing here as a "conqueror", the maid inevitably became nervous, She looked at Gawain as if facing an enemy, and tried to muster up that little bit of courage, as if she wanted to protect her little master - but the courage was almost gone when Gawain opened his mouth.

"Open the door," Gao Wen said, "I'm here to see Patty."

"...Miss is resting..."

"Don't be nervous," Gawain smiled, "I'm Patty's friend."

The maid who guarded the door seemed to want to say something, but at this moment the door was opened from the inside, and another personal maid who was in charge of taking care of Patty came out and looked at Gawain with a little awe: "Miss wants to see you."

Gawain nodded, before stepping into the room, he gave the maid who guarded the door an approving look: "You are very brave."

In the room, Patty was sitting in her special chair, basking in the brightest sunshine of the day.

Her complexion was much better than when we first met, and it was obvious that Pittman had come to treat her several times with great results.

"It's Uncle Gao Wen!" The moment she saw Gao Wen, the little girl became excited, she showed a big smile, tried to support her head, and shook the only arm that could move, "You come to see me !"

Gawain came to Patty, smiled and bent down: "It's agreed, I will come to see you."

The little girl seemed very happy. This sunny room seemed to be a different world from the tense castle outside. Here, it seemed that the cloud of war had never appeared for a moment. Patty talked a lot with Gawain excitedly. , and finally asked: "Uncle Gao Wen, when will Mommy come back?"

"Soon," Gao Wen squatted in front of the little girl, and said with a smile, "I'll bring her back this time."

The little girl's head was trembling. She was nodding, but she couldn't control the amount of nodding well: "Oh, I miss her a little bit."

"You don't seem to be scared at all." Gawain gently touched Patty's hair, he didn't dare to use too much force for fear of hurting the child, "You know, your mother is actually fighting with me."

"I know," Patty said, and then paused for a few seconds before a small, sly smile broke across her scarred face, "but... Uncle, are you actually Mom's friend? Uncle, are you Don't worry, I won't tell anyone!"

Gao Wen was stunned for a moment, and then laughed helplessly.

Then he stood up, said goodbye to Patty, and left the room into the hallway.

The middle-aged housekeeper who loyally served Ropeni Glenn and maintained the order of the castle after the Viches "disappeared" stood waiting for him in the corridor.

"I heard from Luo Peini that you are trustworthy."

Chapter 0429 Cecil's "Battleship"

There are not many people that Countess Ropeni Glenn can trust, and the housekeeper in front of her seems to be one of them.

"I am honored to serve my mistress."

The butler of Glenn Castle bowed his head deeply in front of Gao Wen, with all manners, respect and demeanor.

"Then serve your mistress again," Gawain nodded slightly to the housekeeper, "You are going to the Rock Fortress..."

The butler kept his head down: "What do you want me to do?"

"Go and send a message, saying that Cecil's army has occupied Gelenland..." Gawain said, and changed his tone in the middle of speaking, "By the way, how is your acting skills?"

The butler raised his head and said calmly: "11 years ago, I was there when the robbers rushed into the castle. I hid the burned little master in the woodpile, and then leaned on the woodpile to load the body - in those robbers Under the eyelids is a dead body for a day and a night."

The housekeeper paused when he said this, with a confident smile on his face: "My acting skills are very good."

……

Cecilland, north bank of the Whitewater.

Two large inland river vessels are mooring in a newly built dock. The scaffolding that can be seen everywhere on the ship and the busy craftsmen in various places in the dock show that the two ships are undergoing intensive transformation. On the platform, Tyre in the form of a sea snake was propping himself up into the air with his long tail, watching the details of the two ships curiously.

She saw that these two ships were not newly built, but remodeled on some basis. Their prototypes were not much different from the large cargo ships she usually saw in the Baishui River, and those so-called "cargo ships" came from The siren's vision doesn't seem to be something that can be put on the table, and what she is interested in at the moment is only the remodeled and newly added structures on the ship.

She saw that the craftsmen were using metal skin and alloy skeleton to strengthen the key structures of the ship, and also made large holes on the deck of the ship to install various metal brackets and piping systems with unknown uses. She also saw the ship's Most of the sails have been dismantled, and many open metal frames that look like wings have been installed in the free space. The frames are covered with human magic runes.

It was a strange transformation, and Tyre was very curious about it.

Knight Byron was also inspecting the transformation of the ships in the dock. This knight was full of pride. He pointed to one of the ships and showed off to Tyre: "These two ships were bombarded by us in the Whitewater River. Captured at that time—almost all the ships captured at that time were wounded, only these two survived intact.”

Tyre saw the ostentatious expression on Knight Byron's face, and looked curious: "Is this very powerful?"

"This is a ship built in the Pepo region, the place that knows how to build ships in the southern region!" Knight Byron waved his arm, "They built the largest ship in the southern region! Don't you think these two ships look great? ?”

"Ha...probably," Tire waved the tip of his tail perfunctorily, and continued to look curiously at the structures on the ship that spread out like wings, "I'm more curious about how Gawain is going to modify them..."

"I'll take you up there to have a look," Byron remembered what the lord told him. He knew that the Kraken in front of him would be the "power source" responsible for sending these two "monster ships" to the north, so he behaved rather awkwardly at the moment. Enthusiastically, "Look at me while explaining to you."

After boarding the ship, Tire realized that Gawain's modifications to the two ships were more severe than she had imagined: she saw that the decks of the ships had been covered with thin metal plates, and the metal plates There are magic lines all over, and they are connected with those spread wings. You can also see many pipes, alloy skeletons and magic organs under the deck. Although the whole ship looks like a traditional inland cargo ship, in fact, it has long been Turned into some kind of magical creation.Obviously, this level of modification was not completed within a day or two, and she couldn't help but wonder: "Did you start modifying this ship after it was towed back?"

"To tell the truth...it really is," Byron did not hide anything, "After the bombardment of the White Water River, the lord ordered the two most well-preserved ships to be magically refitted, but at the beginning he planned to turn the magic crystal track The guns are installed on the ship - for this purpose we specially strengthened the deck and added a lot of extra skeletons inside the ship, look over there - some small secondary guns have actually been installed. But now we have to replace the original main guns As for the 'Hongguang device', the volume of the rainbow device is larger than the largest magic crystal rail gun, and the weight is also very scary. The two main guns had to be reduced to one, and half of the installed secondary guns had to be removed. to keep the ship from sinking..."

As Byron was talking, he led Tire to the lower deck, pointing to the modified parts around him: "Fortunately, the magic net interface is universal, and the energy of the magic crystal rail gun can also be used in the rainbow light. On the device. Have you seen these magic net units? Not only the deck and this cabin, but even the bottom of the cabin is covered with a layer. The whole ship is equivalent to laying the magic net of a small factory in the belly, so that It can provide energy for itself..."

Till followed Byron one after another, staring curiously at the advanced magical structures stuffed into the belly of this "backward wooden boat", and finally couldn't help it: "How do you Why don’t we just build a new ship? It’s so awkward to put such an advanced thing in such a backward ship.”