"Alas-" Conrad sighed, as the king of the Medenor, he has a lot to worry about, because the scale of Medeno is getting bigger and bigger, and there are more and more people, the scale of the sea city is also forced to follow the bigger and bigger, in recent years, the rate of early death of children born in the sea city has begun to get higher and higher, and even if the child goes well, many women will break out of puerperal fever after giving birth, and die within a month or two after giving birth, such a mortality rate has begun to be as high as ten percent, So much so that women have a great fear of marriage and childbirth. For this reason, his favorite youngest daughter, Jacqueline, is now in her early twenties, and he has never been willing to marry her off. You must know that his eldest daughter is a princess in Yaning, even if she has such a noble status and the best medical support in Yaning, she still encountered puerperal fever when she gave birth to her first child, but fortunately she had the best doctor and medication at any cost to save her life, and he didn't dare to imagine that his youngest daughter would be so lucky if she married to other countries.

Also because of the gradual increase in population, the per capita area of the maritime cities is declining sharply, and a low-level family can often only own one house, eat only in a restaurant near the palace, and other conditions on the ship do not allow fire cooking. Once the child reaches the age of fourteen, he must leave the family, and at the age of sixteen he must leave the sea city to travel around the world, and only those who have made outstanding contributions to Medenor are allowed to return to the sea city, but not to his home city, but to settle in other sea cities. It is not a pleasant thing to return to the sea city to settle down, because when you are allowed to settle down, you must only live at the bottom of the floor, and you need sufficient contribution or financial resources to gradually climb up, which is definitely not an easy thing in such a large number of people in the sea city. But even so, the people of Maidno who want to return to the sea city are still flocking to it, because the sea city represents their country, especially in the capital city of Ocean City, and the chance of meeting Maidno officials is much higher than that of traveling outside, so that they can find out the country's policies more clearly, so as to make more money and change the trajectory of their lives.

Of course Conrad knows this, but he can't help it, these are the rules that his ancestors have continued, you must know that when he was driven out of the Western Continent by the Clay Statues, his ancestors had already made a heavy oath that if they couldn't return to the Western Continent, they would drift on the sea forever, so even if they had become overlords at sea and occupied some of the small islands on the sea for crop planting, they still couldn't fully immigrate to the mainland, in order to be ready to recapture the Western Continent at any time.

The preparations made by the Medenor people in order to recapture the Western Continent are also quite powerful, first of all, they have prepared a strong land army, and the dragoons commanded by Russell have carried out large-scale campaign-level battles in Nanban and other places during Conrad's reign, and even once withstood the siege of more than 60,000 Nanban at the trading post in Jakarta with one enemy and ten, and completely subdued the Nanban to subdue them. Secondly, the clay people can not enter the sea, because the body of the clay people is mud, once they enter the water, it is easy to soften directly and disappear in the water, so whether it is the sea or the river, it is an area where the clay people cannot exert their might, the Maidno people flexibly use this advantage, fiercely develop naval forces, and use artillery to bombard the cities and villages along the coast, the clay people have no way to fight back, they can only choose to retreat inland, and the entire western continent is about two miles away from all the clay people. The clay figures would not even set foot for a mile or so on both sides of the river.

But what displeased Conrad was that the Medenor people could only do that, according to the recommendations of the Medenor military advisory group, they should first land in the north of the relatively narrow western continent in winter, and then establish defensive positions and facilities, as we all know that the clay people are slow to move in winter and are easy to be directly broken, so as long as the castle with artillery cover can be established before the arrival of spring, the clay people will basically not be able to capture the castle. But the problem is precisely because in winter, the temperature there can reach more than minus 50 degrees, and in a world where dripping water turns into ice, let alone building a castle, it is impossible to dig artillery bunkers. They had to wait until spring to dig up, but when spring arrived, they would be greeted by a huge army of clay figures.

The clay statue is a clay sculpture humanoid driven by the magic core, they have no emotion and no fear, only the crazy hatred of the Meedno people, their production is far more than a hundred times simpler than people, or when the Medenor people occupy the Western Continent, it only takes about ten days to produce a clay figure, as long as the magic core is implanted, it can be directly driven to work, and the clay figure accidentally got intelligence and the ability to copy the magic core from a magic mistake, which led to the clay figure riot, According to reports from the Medinor scouts who observed the clay figurines' self-replicas, it took less than five days at most to produce a clay figurines, and they defeated thousands of Meednor soldiers with such horrific fecundity, eventually driving the Meedanors out to sea, leaving them adrift for hundreds of years and unable to return. It is precisely because of this terrifying fecundity that the Mudmen counterattack against the Medenor Landing Force after the arrival of spring also relies on the tactics of the sea of people, using lifeless clay figures to consume the ammunition of the Medenors, forcing the Meedanors to return to the sea in disgrace after even the last bullet and a cannonball, and they only need to pick up the magic core that has not been damaged to be able to re-produce new Clay Figures. Conrad's grandfather and father tried more than ten times in such repeated defeats, and in addition to paying the lives of thousands of Medeno warriors each time, they could only see that the clay man's counterattack was getting stronger and stronger, and the time for the Medeno people's defense was getting shorter and shorter. Therefore, when it came time for Conrad, he completely abandoned this futile way of fighting, and devoted himself wholeheartedly to the development of financial resources, because every such battle was a complete defeat caused by the absence of shells, and if more money could be used to fight the war, more naval firepower and logistical support would definitely be guaranteed, so that victory would be more likely.

However, after the last time a number of capital ships sneaked up on the Chinese's small fleet and failed miserably, he was stunned to find that he was wrong, although the Medeno people have been fighting for hundreds of years, but the weapon itself has not changed, almost standing still, it is still quite good to bully the primitive natives in the past, basically winning more with less is not a problem at all, but they are not at all good in the face of such advanced weapons that exceed their imagination by the Chinese. Conrad also wants to use the clay man's sea tactics to deal with the Chinese, but the problem is that the clay man's production cycle is only a few days, and after a few days, he can change from a pile of debris to a murderous clay man, and the cultivation of a Medeno person must pass at least fifteen to twenty years, and he must not die in the process of cloud travel, and even if the huge exchange ratio is a miserable victory over the Chinese, there is no benefit to the Chinese, then the conquest is meaningless. In addition to this, there is a problem, mud people are not afraid of death, and people are afraid of death, the Medeno soldiers are heroic when fighting smooth battles, but when the situation is unfavorable, the Medeno people will rush under artillery fire and rapid fire, no different from the indigenous people they despised before, which also led to the fact that the battle could not be carried out in a predetermined way, resulting in a series of deflated and wall-to-wall in front of the Chinese.

He doesn't care about the victory or defeat of one or two battles, let alone how much money he will need to pay the Chinese, as long as the Chinese do not set foot in the sea, sooner or later they will earn this money back from the bulk maritime trade, he sees the Chinese in the extremely advanced places in science and technology, the first is those large ships that do not need sails to emit black smoke to run around the field - this is too important for the Maidno people who are at sea all year round, sailing ships are good, but only when there is wind, Once there is no wind, it is like a dead dog at sea and cannot move, and although the Chinese ship is not as good as a sailboat when the wind is strong, they can also run at this speed at sea when there is no wind, so the route will not be affected by the monsoon and climate at all; The second is of course the weapons of the Chinese, the powerful rifle with a long range, which does not emit smoke when fired, but can burst out with huge power when hit, the wooden flying birds that can fly freely in the sky and the sky battleship, which are all good things coveted by the Medeno people. What made Conrad's eyes hungry was another piece of intelligence mentioned that the Chinese conducted a landing exercise in some places south of the port of Champong, and in just one day they set up a very large camp on a barren beach with only mangroves, and built the prototype of the fortress the next day - this is too much for Conrad to see, if this kind of thing is done by the Medeno people, let alone the first day, even if it is a month, it may not be able to set up a camp on the ground, and the soldiers are also prone to illness, Infectious diseases can break out as soon as they get sick, especially in the western continent in winter, where non-combat attrition caused by cold and disease is much higher than combat attrition. Thinking of this, Conrad couldn't help but scratch his somewhat itchy scalp, and quickly grabbed a lice that was still dancing around from inside, and threw it on the small copper plate that was roasted red on the candle on the table.

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The Foreign Legion on Orchid Island has completely recovered its previous posture, and is no longer as if it had just landed and hid in the container every day and did not dare to come out to let others see the ugliness, the container that loaded the personnel has been sent to the beach at the moment, and someone on the steam speedboat is connected to the pumping machine, and is using a canvas water pipe to wash the vomit and other household garbage accumulated in the container with seawater, but this water will not be discharged directly into the seawater, and the wastewater will first be discharged into a wastewater collection pit, and then regularly disinfected with lime, It will not be discharged into the sea until the sampling test determines that there is no source of infectious disease, and the last thing that is needed at this time is a large-scale infectious disease to destroy the foreign army that was originally preparing to rush to the battlefield.

"We've been delayed for the past few days," Ito said with some anxiety, as they discussed the next move in the command tent in the center of the camp that had been built on the shore. "According to the plan, we should have at least reached Jiaozhou Bay at this time, even if it is worse, we should have reached the vicinity of Dinghai Zhongzuo, and now we have been delayed for at least six days."

"It's worth the delay." It was Zhan Jie who spoke next to him, "Although I am not from a military unit, but I still have a certain understanding of the physical fitness of the soldiers, the Foreign Legion is not very good due to the complex source of soldiers, so the physical fitness is not very good, it is not uncommon for such a large-scale seasickness to occur in this voyage that only lasts a few days, although the temporary docking on this Lanyu Island is unplanned, but it also has to be carried out, otherwise even if we forcibly rush to Jiaozhou Bay regardless of the soldier's situation, no one can land, camp construction, etc., and in that case, even if they rushed to the predetermined place as planned, the soldiers did not even have the strength to stand up, so should we still carry them off the ship one by one? By then, we'll probably all be seasick ourselves. ”

"That's it, Turpan has been vomited like that, and it will definitely die halfway by then," Hong Jie definitely didn't forget to squeeze Guo Hao, Guo Hao glared at Hong Jie with a pale face and defended, "Am I not okay now?" All you need to do is rest for a few days, so there's no need to worry about it at all. ”

"Yes," Zhan Jie said, "all we need is a few days of rest, and besides, haven't we traded on Orchid Island these days?" And also received so much saltpeter. As he spoke, he pointed outside, where a mountain of saltpeter and brimstone was piling up in an open field near the camp that had just been carved out not long ago.

"yes, you didn't let these natives trade at the time!" Hong Jie hurriedly mended his sword, "If these natives didn't send these ores over by themselves, we would have to go to the mainland to mine and collect these ores, don't you think it's better?" ”

"Okay, don't talk about it," Yang Muqin patted Hong Jie's shoulder on the side, "Now the Dongfang Port has returned to Dongfang Port with the goods, and they are accompanied by the Iron Fist and the Naval Engineering Brigade, the Joint Staff will let them return to Dongfang Port first to unload the goods we have acquired, and then directly return to Lanyu with the personnel and materials that were originally going to come to the second batch, exchange with us here, and continue to go north, according to the telegram received today, they have already set off yesterday afternoon, and they should arrive at Lanyu in the next few days, The Foreign Legion and all other units must be ready to board the ships and be ready to go to Jiaozhou Bay to participate in military operations at any time. ”

"Okay!" "No problem!" "Always be ready!" Multiple voices in the room replied at the same time.