When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 1088 Crown Furnace
On September 23, the very night Jeanne defeated Kennard, two thousand friars captured the south gate of Scholastica.

On September 24, the Okinawa Army was delayed due to heavy rain and muddy roads overnight.

The delayed arrival of the troops from Owen City forced the Longbow Fortress Guards to retreat.

Surprisingly, Putzillo's central army, which was supposed to be supporting Square Wolfenstein on time, was also delayed by a whole day due to the heavy rain.

Jeanne and Piastu were extremely annoyed when they saw the battle report; they should never have retreated.

Nevertheless, the general strategic objectives have been achieved.

Of the 6,000 soldiers in the vanguard of the Kingdom of Leia, the 1,000 most combat-effective cavalrymen defeated the prisoners, and of the remaining 5,000, nearly a third fled and were lost.

This achievement alone is enough to make Putzillo waver and stop moving forward.

Not long after, Horn, far away in the Holy Trinity, received a diplomatic note delivered by the Franco people.

"What do you mean?" Horn tossed the diplomatic note onto the long table in the Bucks' meeting room. "How should we respond?"

At this time, Busak was still cultivating relationships in North Norn, so it was still Permanent Deputy Minister Alfonso who handled the affairs.

As for the contents of the note, the cardinals had all seen it beforehand.

It was nothing more than an angry rebuke of Horn for his lack of martial ethics and for secretly sending the Holy Alliance army to support him; the words were quite harsh.

The cardinals, their faces stern, their eyelids and cheekbone muscles twitching occasionally, all stared at Horn, who was trying hard to appear solemn.

The cardinals remained silent.

Alfonso coughed once and picked up the diplomatic note: "...This envoy from Leia wrote in the letter that if we do not withdraw our troops, we will be met with their fierce retaliation, and asked, 'You don't want Cold Spring Fortress to be attacked by our secretly sent troops either, do you?'"

"Pfft-"

"Cough cough cough cough."

A burst of suppressed laughter immediately erupted from all around, and Exorcist Master Hakuto made no attempt to hide it, his mouth agape to his back teeth.

"Alright, alright, stop laughing, we're in a meeting." With a smile on his face, Horn slammed his fist on the table.

Unlike worldly people like Hakuto, Horn's smile wasn't a mockery of the Kingdom of Leia, but a smile of victory... truly!
This devastating blow to Putzio successfully made him doubt his strategy of attacking Owen.

Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so easily breached.

"In this way, the Five Cities Alliance, which was previously on the verge of collapse, has achieved a great start," Alfonso said with a smile to Thomas beside him.

The establishment of the Holy Communion was entrusted to Cardinal Thomas, the great-grandson of the Father of the Holy Communion, who was in charge of the matter.

Of course, the specific details of the matter were handled by Thomas's Privy Councillor Jonard.

Hakuto looked at Horn: "Now that we've opened up the situation, we can delay it for another two or three months, which adds up to almost half a year."

"I wonder what Your Majesty thinks Princess Jeanne should do next?"

If you recall the map of Dawn Island in your mind, you'll know that the Five Cities Alliance is roughly distributed across three counties: Waterwheel County, Develland County, and Woking County.

Longbow Castle in Dovershire, Wonneville and Mallerby in Waterwheelshire, and Silver Castle in Wokingshire.

Of course, there is also Silver Sprout City, located in the upper reaches of the Four Cities Alliance, in Xianshidian.

Between the four cities of Dawn Island lie numerous towns and villages, as well as knights' manors.

Originally, these small towns, villages, noble knights, and others were still at opposite ends of the spectrum.

If the Five Cities Alliance had shown signs of weakness from the start, they might have defected to Leia at the first sign of trouble.

Now, Lady Joan of Arc nearly captured Skullcrum in a single battle. While it may not have forced the other nobles to surrender, it has at least deterred them from making any rash moves.

“Next, I think we should proceed in three steps.” Horn pulled out three documents that he had prepared beforehand and threw them on the table one by one, speaking as he did so.

"Treat them to a meal, behead them, or take them in as dogs."

The purpose of hosting a dinner was to allow diplomats from cities like Braddak and missionaries from the Church of St. Doctrine to win over neutral towns and villages from a diplomatic perspective.

The beheading was a holy war launched by the Longbow Keep Guards to judge nobles, knights, or bishops who had a bad reputation or were of questionable character, based on reports received.

Accepting dogs means establishing a common piety committee under the common defense committee.

The main content of piety is doing business with the Holy Alliance.

The Holy Alliance, with its initial piety, spurred the later piety on Dawn Island, tightening the bond of mutual benefit. As for the source of these benefits, the Holy Alliance granted the five-city alliance on Dawn Island a low-tariff policy and a continuous increase in the production of various products.

All members of the Common Piety Committee are entitled to vote on the allocation of tax credit vouchers.

The Common Piety Committee can also act as a bridge between merchants and artisans from various regions, establishing relationships and cooperation with merchants and workshops on the Holy Alliance side.

Don't think that the Holy Alliance has no demand for Dawn Island; they do.

For example, Dawn Island is world-renowned for its wines, and its various cash crops include medicinal herbs, flax, vine oil, and so on.

As a semi-landlocked country (the leased Pearl Harbor), the Holy Alliance could not be completely self-sufficient in raw materials.

Taking Dawn Island wine as an example, the wines are harvested at different times and in different regions, and are made using different winemaking techniques. There can be hundreds of subcategories within a single major category of wine.

The expensive ones cost hundreds of pounds, while the cheap ones cost only a few dinars.

This only covers civilian consumption. The various materials and metals needed for manufacturing machinery in the Holy Machinery Court all need to be imported from all over the world.

For example, the ether-powered cast iron furnace [Crown Furnace], which was deciphered from the "Secret Scroll of the Celestial Maiden", uses a crucial material called Brocade Seed, which can only be produced on Dawn Island.

Thinking of the Crown Furnace, Horn temporarily put aside Jeanne's matter: "How is the construction of the Crown Furnace progressing?"

“All eight iron furnaces are operating well, and it is expected that the number can be increased to more than thirty by the end of the year.” Madelan handed a document to Horn. “A single furnace can produce 250 tons of pig iron in three months, which is 25 times that of a traditional medicine furnace and 10 times that of a dwarf furnace.”

The Guanlu is also a type of medicine furnace, named for its long, straight, cylindrical body and tree-canopy-like top.

The main ingredients used in the Guanlu medicine are two kinds: one is sulfanilamide and the other is jujube seed.

However, unlike traditional furnaces, it can be accelerated by alchemists or by the resonance of broken dragon bones.

The material cost is three times that of a traditional medicine furnace, but the output is 25 times that of a traditional medicine furnace.

According to the most extreme case submitted by the Holy Church, using etheric resonance to forcibly accelerate, the output of a single furnace can reach 1000 tons.

However, that would require importing neutral white sand refractory clay from white sandy soil, otherwise the impurities in the pig iron would be very high.

"That's good. In this way, about four pig iron furnaces will be enough to supply pig iron for one lightning furnace!"

The lightning furnace requires about 300 tons of pig iron per month, and 900 tons in three months.

The output of 3.6 Ether Furnaces is just enough to supply the steel produced by one Lightning Furnace.

"So, that's what we'll do?" Horn picked up Madeleine's report and looked around.

Sisi spoke up at this moment: "I think we should wait and not rush to expand production capacity so quickly."

What kind of production capacity are you referring to?

"Of course it's iron ore." Sisi rolled her eyes, her slender fingers fiddling with a hair clip in her short hair. "You've increased production capacity, but haven't you thought about how to transport the iron ore? Do we have enough ships?"

The Bucks' room, which had been buzzing with discussion, fell silent instantly.

Yes, because the Crown Furnace requires etheric resonance to accelerate, it is normally driven by alchemists' magic, and at most, the output is only three to five times that of the original.

That would mean that a massive amount of iron ore, almost three times the weight of pig iron, had to be transported to the Holy Machine Court.

Based on the production capacity of thirty furnaces, approximately 8000 tons of iron ore would need to be transported from North Mand County every month.

The Ibe River is wide enough to accommodate so many boats.

The problem lies in transportation costs and the number of ships.

Although it's more than before, it's still too much of a loss compared to 25 times the output.

Before the meeting, Sisi's Saint-Court received the plan to increase production and immediately began to calculate the costs.

The results of the calculation were handed to Horn, who immediately hissed.

After a moment, he scratched his head: "Is there an even faster way?"

"Unless you can invent an ether field relay tower this year, it won't work."

After a moment of silence, Horn could only close the two plans: "Go to the French embassy and ask if there are any discounts for my next ship order, maybe 15% or 10% off..."

(End of this chapter)