Leaving Yuhuangling and heading towards Chushan, it rained continuously, and the streams along the way gradually became fuller. Although the road was a bit muddy, the scenery was excellent when looking at the mountains full of new greenery and half-broken mountain flowers hidden in the haze of mist and rain.
Surrounded by many guards and horses, Xu Huai stayed at Hengquyi, about forty miles away from Zhouqiao, to take shelter from the rain.
Niu Er and Xiao Xuan were fighting in the courtyard with fine iron shields and short halberds. Within a few moments, they used an iron mace to crack the fine iron shield in Xiao Xuan's hand. He stopped and looked at the fine iron in his hand.
The shield also had slash marks. He threw it aside and shouted to Xu Huai who was sitting on the porch:
"After all, this shield is a little less interesting!"
The fine iron shields held by Niu Er and Xiao Xun are all made of hot-rolled iron plates. Whenever there are new improvements in the armor of Jingxiang, or new forging methods are adopted, they will be continuously trial-produced in small batches.
A batch was given to the military for trial production - the generals had high expectations for hot-rolled iron plates. During Xu Huai's stay at the Yuhuangling Iron Works Workshop, he urgently ordered nearby workshops to trial-produce hot-rolled iron plates.
The first batch of fine iron shields will be given to Niu Second Class for trial use first.
It is too heavy to make a shield directly from two-cent thick hot-rolled iron plates. A fine iron shield weighs at least fifty or sixty pounds. Except for Niu Er, who is born with supernatural power,
Xiao Xuan, Wu Sanrong, Wu Tiehai and others are all a bit overwhelmed and unnecessary.
The first batch of trial-produced fine iron shields were further hot-forged on hot-rolled iron plates - hot forging is much easier than cold forging, and the finished product can be produced faster. Even so, a fine iron shield still weighs
Twenty-five or six kilograms, which is beyond the reach of an ordinary strong and brave warrior.
It's just that time was too hasty and the performance of hot-rolled iron plates was not fully explored. The first batch of trial-produced fine iron shields naturally had various shortcomings.
Xu Huai was not dissatisfied. He took out the fine iron shield that Niu Er had thrown on the grass and took a closer look. He smiled at Xu Wuqi and said, "It's better than expected!"
"What's so good about it? Is it as strong as this shield?" Niu Er took out the cold-forged refined iron shield that he had put aside and asked arrogantly.
"I'm here to fight with you!" Xu Zan sat on the steps in front of the corridor in boredom. He was about to get up and fight with Niu Er, but Xu Wuqi gave him a fierce look.
Before Chi Hu reduced his troops from the Rucai front line, he launched three major offensives on Ma Jianhe. Each time, Xu Pang led his troops as the vanguard, and several times he was injured by enemy generals with blunt objects on the battlefield. In order to continue to advance
On the battlefield, everyone gritted their teeth and said nothing.
In the last battle, Wang Xian saw Xu Tan suffering from many arrow wounds on the battlefield and ordered him to be forcibly dragged off the battlefield. In fact, his injuries were much more serious than they appeared.
After Xu Tan's injury was almost healed, Xu Huai transferred Xu Tan back to his side as a bodyguard and military attaché, merged his soldiers with Su's troops and incorporated them into the vanguard army.
Xu Huai ignored Xu Zangji's unbearable itch and scolded Niu Er with a smile:
"You idiot, do you know how much manpower was used to make this shield in your hand?"
The shield used by Niu Er is to take a whole piece of fine iron ingot weighing more than 200 kilograms, which is first hot-forged into a quarter-thick plate and annealed, then cold-forged, and then forged to about one and a half minutes thick.
Because there were no hydraulic forging hammers in the early days, no matter how skilled the craftsman was when forging a large area of deck with a heavy hammer, there was no way to maintain uniform force output for a long time. Therefore, the yield of cold-forged refined iron shields was extremely low.
In comparison, the armor pieces of monkey armor are as small as leaves. No matter how laborious the cold forging is, the yield is much higher. Therefore, in the early years, every cold-forged fine iron shield could be regarded as a top quality, and its value was even Far above the monkey armor, it is much more valuable than the hot-forged refined iron shield.
Although they are similar in appearance, in the hands of brave generals like Niu Er and Xiao Xun, the difference between the cold-forged shield and the hot-forged shield is huge, which directly involves the changes in the moves when engaging the enemy.
However, after the advent of the water-powered forging hammer, cold-forged fine iron shields became completely cheaper. Compared with cold-forged plate armor, in addition to fitting the body shape, the weight of the entire set of armor must be reduced as much as possible, and the thickness of the deck must be treated differently. , relatively speaking, the preparation is much more complicated.
Therefore, before cold-forged armor, generals above the level of generals in Beijing and Xiangdu, as well as middle and low-level military officials such as team leaders, were the quickest to have a cold-forged fine iron shield in their hands. Niu Er was also lost for this for a long time.
What Xu Huai and the others are considering now is to use hot-rolled iron plates to replace refined iron ingots and use them for cold or hot forging to make shields. Is it possible to go further? Save manpower investment and speed up.
Xu Huai's goal is to expand the Tianxiong Army and the elite vanguard army to 100,000 infantry and cavalry, but this depends on how quickly the production department can prepare enough high-quality armor - soldiers and other aspects are no longer a problem. In the next two or three years, the production department's annual income will become even more abundant, and it can barely support a hundred thousand elite soldiers.
Xu Wuqi, Wu Chihai, Xiao Xuan and other accompanying generals also yearned for the day when one hundred thousand elites from Beijing and Xiangyang could be equipped with cold-forged shield armor.
"I'm afraid the rain won't stop for a while!" Han Gyu walked out of the room, looked up at the drizzle of rain falling in the gloomy sky, and said with a frown.
Han Gui joined the army as a reporter. Dozens and hundreds of documents flew in every day. He had to sort them out for Xu Huai. He also drafted all the orders with his officials, so he was better than Xu Huai and Xu Wuqi. They are much busier.
At this time, his face was pale and his eyes were swollen, just like a tired cow.
At this time, he was not in the mood to enjoy the mountain scenery in the rain, but was worried that the rainy season had arrived, and the construction of settlements, roads, bridges, and weirs would be greatly affected or even interrupted; he didn't even know how many roads there would be in the flood season. Jinqiao, weirs, houses, and cultivated land will be destroyed by floods.
After Chi Hu withdrew his troops, the Production Department ignored the objections of the frontline soldiers and kept reducing the frontline troops and horses. He did not think of launching a counterattack at all. He just wanted to restore as much production as possible before the flood season.
In such a high-intensity confrontation in the past two years, the prefectures and counties south of Nanyang have only stopped many construction and construction plans and stopped new expansion in order to transfer more young people to Rucai and other places. However, the original production has not had much impact.
However, Rucai and other places have been harassed by enemy cavalry infiltration for two consecutive years. Even during the period when the water in Ruying and other places was frozen, the enemy's troops from the west of Beijing relied on their absolute advantage in strength to move south in large numbers to attack Dengtaijia Mountain and Jinding.
Mountain and the walled city at the northern foot of Dafu Mountain.
In order to avoid unnecessary losses and clear the country as much as possible, the Zhisi evacuated 100,000 people mainly located in the northern part of Caizhou to Huaiyuan and temporarily resettled them in Nanyang - and now they have just moved this part of the people back.
On the one hand, the production department has increased a lot of extra money and food expenditures, and the people themselves have also suffered from the displacement. At this time, when we return to the original place, the spring plowing has not been made up, and the rainy and continuous flood season is ushering in, which is really worrying.
of.
Of course, the entire Beijing-Xiangang University will be further improved this year.
The construction plans of all states (prefectures) and counties are all ready-made. They all stalled or progressed slowly due to the intense war two years ago. In the past two years, they have been more rationally refined and adjusted, and now they are seizing the time to implement them.
Now Tianxiong Army's troops in various towns, selected vanguard armies, and prefecture-prefecture armies have been reduced to less than one-third of the level of the highest vanguard army. Not only have nearly 400,000 young men returned to the ranks of the supply troops, but they have also absorbed many landless people in the past two years.
included.
At present, the scale of the engineering and military personnel under the jurisdiction of Jingxiang has been further expanded to 600,000.
The early casualty compensation work of the Production Department is almost completed, and then the finance can be completely tilted towards construction.
The transfer envoy headed by Shi Zhen plans to reclaim two million acres of cultivated land and build new villages in Nanyang, Xiangyang, Jingbei and Nancai counties this year.
There will be 400 villages and 400 villages and 400,000 new houses. It will not only realize the preliminary resettlement of the Dongjing refugees, but also initially complete the construction of the Zhangshan-Fantai Canal, the north bank of the Jingjiang River and the west bank of the Han River for flood control.
In Lizhou, before the end of this year, based on the completion of Sihu City, the Qionglai Mountain Road will be initially built, and scarce supplies will be transported to Dajianlu on a small scale to support the remnants of the Khitan in resisting the counterattack of the Tubo tribes in Duogansi.
Of course, tens of thousands of money and grain are invested in Lizhou every month - and then the monthly investment plan is increased to 100,000 to build Sihu City, plank roads, and post stations (goods yards), and nearly 6,000 troops are transferred to Lizhou.
It is in itself the greatest support for the remnants of the Khitan.
In terms of manufacturing, the main reason is that the technology in Beijing-Xiangxiang (Chushan) has been iterating very quickly in recent years. The Yunyang Iron Works and the Porcelain Factory have realized centralized production based on new hydraulic turbines. However, the Shibalipu Iron Works and Xinyang Shihe
The production levels of iron yards, Lushan porcelain factories, etc. are still at the previous stage.
Next, Shibalipu Iron Works, Xinyang Shihe Iron Works, etc. must undergo corresponding transformation and upgrading. Those that can be transformed will be transformed on site. If they cannot be transformed, new smelting furnaces will be built in other places to integrate the craftsmen and craftsmen.
Use them together to exert greater effects, and strive to double the iron smelting production capacity of Beijing and Xiangzhou within two years, and the total production of porcelain will exceed four million pieces.
In addition to Biyang, which has built its first small-scale water-spun yarn car with a total employment of just over a thousand workers, the loom and weaving institute has been put into operation, and will be expanded to employ five thousand people in the future, Huaiyuan, Chushan, Lushan and Wuyang,
A new hydraulic weaving yard with a workforce of two to three thousand people will be built in each city, making cloth the second largest commodity exported after iron in the next two years.
In line with this, the cotton planting area in Beijing and Xiangzhou prefectures and counties will be gradually expanded from the current 700,000 acres to 1.5 million acres or even higher; the development of weaving among the private sector must also be vigorously promoted.
The newly planned factories are mainly located in Nanyang, Ruzhou, Caizhou, and Shenzhou. They also consider strict military management and hope to delay the leakage of new turbine technology as much as possible.
