The murmurs of the Duke of Wing Nest's eting blended into the June waters of the Nao'an River, diluted in the clear river bay.
The river seed to know everything but had changed nothing.
The Thousand River Valley and the Shattered Stone Plain officially entered a state of war.
With the help of fortified vehicles and rapid marches, as well as a highly efficient military system, the Thousand River Valley Army achieved remarkable results on the Shattered Stone Plain.
After the Battle of the Iron River, the over twenty thousand troops of the Thousand River Valley split into two directions.
André's Iron Fist Corps advanced northeast along the Iron River, while Moliat led the Thousand River Valley Knight Order northward along the Nao'an River.
Their eting point was Salt Beach Gathering.
Subsequently, many battles erupted, featuring Moliat's straightforward breakthrough tactics and André's classic outer encirclent strategy.
In mid-June, André even advanced to sixty kiloters outside of Salt Beach Gathering.
Unfortunately, the follow-up troops did not keep pace in ti, missing an excellent opportunity.
After entering July, Moliat stopped advancing due to over-extension and instead turned back to clear the originally occupied areas.
With crisscrossed frontlines, intertwined and overlapping, Horn could not determine the actual territorial control of both sides.
Overall, the Thousand River Valley Army still held the advantage.
In the Empire's public opinion sphere, aside from the already opposing Leia Kingdom to Moliat, even the Imperial Council and many Falan scholars labeled Moliat as an aggressor.
In contrast, within the Thousand River Valley.
The pride brought by territorial expansion, the massive expansion of the wool trade, and the market prosperity brought by military orders elevated Moliat's status higher and higher.
Major newspapers even praised Moliat as "the second Emperor Alexander the Great."
Even the Truth Newspaper had to begrudgingly acknowledge the benefits of Moliat's military actions.
With the middlen gone, the wool price almost halved. Moliat imposed a tariff, bringing the price back to seventy or eighty percent of the original.
The reduced costs were generously converted by Horn into finished garnts flooding the Leia market.
Laborers on the fringes of towns and rural areas found livelihoods.
A portion of Horn-sent Holy Path monks and Cheka specifically led these laborers in smuggling cloth and white sugar.
These smuggling cliques surprisingly had large numbers of laborers converting to the Holy Path.
Horn didn't know if this was good or bad.
Because the rumor from Windmill Land was that when vagrants joined the Saint Father's Association, they had to swear eternal devotion to Horn's image.
If both sides were to make any vow, they too had to swear before the Saint's Grandson.
Not to ntion, in Leia and Falan, vagrant rebel armies everywhere were filled with Saint's Great-Grandson, often invoking Horn.
On the Leia Kingdom's side, apart from daily condemnation of Moliat and the excommunication of Horn, there weren't many significant actions.
Horn could basically conclude that King Jiji temporarily had no intention or ability to deal with the Thousand River Valley.
So he had no reason to oppose Moliat's actions.
However, recent unfavorable intelligence from Cheka indicated that rumors in Hotam County suggested Moliat was a witch.
Horn wasn't sure if this was Moliat's preparation for future revelations or a simple secret leak.
He chose not to care; with the blessing of war bonds and victories, these rumors did not cause much stir.
It was rumors like "the two tribunes being rivals by day and spouses by night" that needed corrective action.
"Let it be," Horn said, sitting in the office at the Holy Seat Mansion, throwing Cheka's intelligence to the side.
René then stepped forward, tidied the disorganized information, and inserted it into the locked file cabinet.
"Is the itinerary arranged?" Horn, after reviewing the last docunt, stretched and leaned back in his chair.
"The car and boat are ready."
"Good, let's set off tomorrow morning," Horn stood up and approached the gear-shaped glass round window.
Since the Leia Kingdom couldn't launch an attack in the short term, he would bring forward his planned trip to North Mangde County.
The trip had two purposes.
The first was to console Moliat; he had to make a political gesture to show support for the autocratic duke's decisions.
Otherwise, if the two tribunes had a small rift, it would appear as an abyss to the people below.
Previously, during the Shattered Stone Plain War, the two had a severe fallout, with rumors of a rift between the autocratic duke and the Great Shepherd erging in various places.
Thus, Moliat first extended goodwill, introducing Holy Path monks into the Shattered Stone Plain, assisting Moliat in stabilizing the rear.
The specific asure was forming a Defensive Army with Shepherds and Holy Path monks, helping Moliat secure grain routes and eliminate bandits.
They would even help Moliat attack small monasteries and churches.
Anyway, she had basically torn open with the Church, so what were a few more sins?
It's just that, regarding the castles of the most exploitative local nobles, the Defensive Army couldn't be allowed to run amok.
These middle-ground nobles were Moliat's targets for alliance.
Horn didn't want to see the political alliance break down at this ti—at least not until after the war.
Watching his reflection in the glass, he oddly felt like swaying his body as if pretending the carriage was moving.
The second purpose was to visit the mine owners in North Mangde County.
The Lightning Furnace project had yet to make progress, and he had an urgent need for mountain copper and steel.
Since new technology hadn't been developed yet, refining the old one was the only option.
The wet thod of slting iron had already reached its limit, but Horn's presence brought the latest breakthrough.
That was peat and the spring-driven engine.
The forr provided a rich heat source, and the latter brought relatively reliable automatons.
Given this, it called for replacing manual hamring with hydraulic hamrs and using conveyors and mixers instead of transporters and mixers.
The spring-driven water pump could dig deeper mines, concrete supports heavier tunnels, and rail trucks transported ore faster.
As for the manpower freed up, they could be retrained as operators, allowing further expansion of slting workshops and even factories.
With the technical and manpower issues solved, only the material issue remained.
All right, so where to obtain raw materials?
In May, with public security returning to normal in Black Snake Bay, the first batch of slting potions from Black Snake Bay arrived.
anwhile, Kasha County and Lower Reif County vigorously cleared fallow lands, and the Saint Scythe Monastery signed contracts with various farrs to purchase their cultivated potion ingredients.
This basically established the material foundation, leaving the sole challenge of the unwilling-to-expand Steel Guild in front of Horn.
After all, for the Dwarves, expanding like this ant extensively training operators in their techniques.
With the technology publicized, the original Dwarf craftsmanship system would collapse.
The negotiations between the two sides dragged from May to July, with no resolution in sight.
This ti, Horn intended to personally confront these stubborn Dwarves and mine owners.
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