Although the three types of plate armor made by those engineers who Li Xuan personally instructed and consolidated were all considered plate armor, the difference between them was still quite large, because this was prepared for different types of troops.

The first is the whole body armor, which is ready to participate in the melee hand-to-hand combat of the heavy armor sword and shield soldiers or other heavy armor troops in need, a plate armor is basically from head to toe, this is because when the heavy armor sword and shield soldiers fight, it is all melee, it is easy to be attacked by the enemy before and after, protect the front chest people cut your back, you defend for half a year, people cut your legs, so they need comprehensive protection, the armor of the heavy infantry in the past, whether it is chain mail or cotton iron armor, is actually full body armor.

The second is the half-body armor, which is simplified from the whole body armor, focusing on the protection of the upper body and crotch, canceling the protection of the legs, especially the lower legs, and reducing the weight.

This is because the heavily armored spearmen are fighting in formation, and their enemies are directly in front of them, and most of them are also enemy spearmen, so the frontal protection of the front chest is very important, and the other parts can be simplified.

The third is to give the cuirass needed by the cavalry and other arms, only focusing on the defense of the front chest, hands and feet and other places are all abandoned, so as to reduce the weight of the armor to the greatest extent, so that the Mongolian horses and even the southwest horses belonging to the Tang cavalry can barely support.

Because the cuirass of the third type is small in size and light in weight, it can be equipped not only for cavalry, but even for other classes, such as archers and musketeers.

After the concept of cuirass was proposed, some generals had suggested that the musketeers should also be equipped with cuirasses, in view of the danger faced by the musketeers of the Tang Dynasty at present, the archers and musketeers of the Ming army were able to cause them intensive casualties, so some generals believed that the musketeers could be equipped with cuirass to reduce casualties.

However, Li Xuan believes that this will greatly weaken the mobility of the musketeer, although the protective ability of the cuirass is good, but if it is worn, the mobility of the musketeer will inevitably be affected.

And there is also a very important point, although vigorously developing musketeers is the established policy of the military system of the Tang Dynasty, but why should it be vigorously developed? In addition to the great power of the muskets they are equipped, there is also an extremely important reason, and that is because the musketeers are a consumable that can be called cheap.

The cost of training a musketeer is quite low, and after three months of training, a farmer can become a musketeer and go to battle.

If it is converted into a monetary cost, even if you add the musketeer's musket and other configurations, the money spent is at most more than ten taels of silver!

However, if the musketeers are equipped with armor, then the cost of the musketeers' equipment will be greatly increased, which will greatly increase the financial pressure on the Tang Dynasty.

While this may sound inhumane, it is actually extremely important.

However, since someone put it forward, and it also came up with a lot of reasons, Li Xuan was not good to refuse directly, and agreed to prepare to make a simple attempt first, choose a few musketeers with cuirasses, and try the effect of actual combat.

Of course, this is all for the future, and now the plate armor has not yet come out, and even if the plate armor begins to be mass-produced on a small scale, there are still many hoplite infantry waiting to be replaced, and if it is the turn of the musketeer to equip the cuirass, I don't know when I will have to wait.

By that time, maybe the Ming Dynasty will have made heavy muskets, and then the plate armor will withdraw from the stage of history.

War is always the best catalyst for all kinds of technologies, especially armament technology, for the Tang Dynasty, and the same for the Ming Dynasty!

Decades ago, the first time the Franc machine man and the Ming army fought, the Franc machine artillery made the Ming army suffer enough, but as soon as it turned around, the Ming Dynasty began to prevent the Franc machine artillery on a large scale.

Now the rise of the Tang Dynasty and the large-scale use of arquebuses and artillery, the Ming Dynasty suffered a lot, but also began to imitate and equip arquebuses and artillery.

Although the Ming Dynasty has been peaceful for a long time, and the local guards in the interior have long been reduced to scum, the heritage of a dynasty is still there, especially the Zhengde Emperor has controlled the government for more than 40 years, even if he is already in the sickbed, but the Emperor Zhengde is originally a soldier, and he is also the emperor who has led the army to conquer several times.

Therefore, in the context of the rise of the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yue and other civil and military officials of the Ming Dynasty were dispatched to control Huguang, Jiangxi and Fujian, and at the same time, they began to imitate firearms on a large scale, trying to establish a firearms force that has always been more powerful than the puppet Tang thief army.

The puppet Tang Dynasty just stole the land of the projectiles, and it was already able to get so many guns, the territory of the Ming Dynasty was thousands of miles, and the subjects were thousands, there was no reason why it could not cause more guns than the puppet Tang Dynasty.

And now, these guns created by the Ming Dynasty have officially landed on the Huguang battlefield!

In Hengyang City, Xu Xinchang had a straight face, and threw the letter in his hand directly to the ground in a huff!

"Waste, it's all a bunch of waste, tens of thousands of troops, surround the puppet Tang thief army from many sides, they can't even cut off the supply line of the puppet Tang thief army, and they also lose their troops, and even Yizhang is lost, these are all ruins, this official wants to join them, and he will join them ruthlessly!"

The people next to him saw Xu Xinchang jumping like thunder, and they all lowered their heads, and then closed their mouths, for fear of annoying Xu Xinchang.

Xu Xinchang, this person is not simple, but Zhang Yue's confidant and favorite general, of course, Xu Xinchang is naturally not a rude general, but a civil official, but also a civil official from Hanlin, who served in the Inspectorate before, is Zhang Yue's old department, the Tang thief rebellion came, Guizhou Liangguang fell, in order to suppress the thief, Zhengde appointed Zhang Yue as the governor of the four provinces, and later changed to the governor of the six provinces.

Zhang Yue is the governor of the six provinces, and he is fully responsible for the extermination of the Tang thieves, which can be described as a high power, and he has basically reached the peak of the feudal minister, but if he wants to take office smoothly and control the forces of the six provinces to exterminate the Tang thieves, he naturally needs a henchman.

After Zhang Yue came to the south to take office, he recommended a large number of henchmen, including Xu Xinchang, who was recommended by him as the governor of Huguang, mainly responsible for military affairs in the southern region of Huguang.

Well, although Huguang is big, but Xu Xinchang is not responsible for military affairs alone, the head is naturally Zhang Yue, the governor of the six provinces, and the war in the southern region of Huguang is in charge of Xu Xinchang, the governor of Huguang, and the war in the west of Huguang and the northeast of Guizhou is in charge of another general under Zhang Yue, that is, Tan Rong, the commander of Huguang who suffered a defeat in Xingquan Mansion and fled north.

Interestingly, after Tan Rong suffered a defeat in Xingquan Mansion and fled north, instead of being demoted, he was promoted and made a fortune because of 'severely injuring Tang thieves and beheading tens of thousands', and now he has the title of Biyuan General Soldier, and this title is basically the highest level that a military general can achieve.

As for the governor, the governor and even the governor, it is the patent of civil officials, and it has nothing to do with military generals!

In addition to these old ministries and cronies, even Song Zhiwen, a criminal minister who was fished out of the prison by him, has now put on his official hat again, and he still has no official position at first, but just follows Zhang Yue to participate in military affairs, but Zhang Yue soon recommended Song Zhiwen as the prefect of Wuchang Mansion for his meritorious service in military affairs.

Now Song Zhiwen has become the lord of the mansion again, but after Song Zhiwen took office as the prefect of Wuchang, his mind was naturally not on any civil affairs, but on the commission of Zhang Yue, to build a workshop in Wuchang to build guns, and then help Zhang Yue recruit soldiers to train the army.

After Zhang Yue trained 20,000 governors in Changsha and Hengzhou, he still felt that the troops were insufficient, especially the combat effectiveness of the local guard soldiers was weak, and he was not able to fight at all, so he asked Song Zhiwen, another civilian official under him who could be regarded as a soldier, to continue to recruit soldiers for training in the rear.

In fact, it can be seen from Zhang Yue's deployment that Zhang Yue is also aware that the war to suppress the puppet Tang Dynasty will inevitably become protracted, and in this long-term war against thieves, there is no way to distinguish the winner in a few months or even a few years, and the defeat of one or two battles cannot completely determine the outcome of the battle.

Therefore, he is also preparing for a protracted war, and in the long-term war, those local guards are of no use except for wasting the precious money and food in his hands.

If you want to exterminate the Tang thief, you have to rely on the newly recruited superintendent and the border army, and Yu Dayou's musket army is not bad!

But now these new recruits, armed with firearms-based troops, are still too few, but only twenty or thirty thousand people, and even the number of real thieves in the pseudo-Tang thief army is less, so Zhang Yue is now working hard to expand the scale of the superintendent, not to mention practicing hundreds of thousands, but as long as you have to practice about 100,000, so that it can barely be enough!

Song Zhiwen is one of the important personnel sent by him to train the army!

Song Zhiwen was the first senior civil official to fight with the Tang thief, and Song Zhiwen was also good at military training back then, in a group of civil officials who only knew what to do, he was a rare civilian officer who knew the soldiers, otherwise, Zhang Yue would not have fished Song Zhiwen out of the prison.

If it weren't for his Zhang Yue's contribution, even if Song Zhiwen's master was an old man in the court, it would not be so easy to fish out Song Zhiwen.

You must know that Song Zhiwen's crime is not small, the defeat and loss of ground are still small, and more importantly, this pseudo-Tang thief army rose from his Xingquan Mansion, and the pseudo-Tang thief army can develop to this point today, which is directly related to Song Zhiwen's inaction at the beginning.

But now that the situation is difficult, Zhang Yue doesn't have any competent people at hand, so even though Song Zhiwen has these stains, Zhang Yue still chooses to reuse him.