After the autumn sowing, Li Qi began to ask Yuan Xingqin to recruit and select a thousand stronger generals in several military manors to form his own pro-army.

Since ancient times, the pro-army of military generals in the army has been the most trusted force in their hands, and they are usually well-equipped and well-paid. The generals relied on these pro-armies to suppress the three armies and maintain their prestige. On the battlefield, this pro-army unit not only needs to ensure the safety of the main general, but also many times, it is used as an important assault force on the battlefield.

The combat effectiveness of ordinary pro-army units is more than two or three times higher than that of ordinary troops.

He needed to equip these men with good enough weapons and armor.

In the era of cold weapons, equipment is also very important, and it is the guarantee of the army's combat effectiveness. It is not much of a problem to fight the first battalion of armored soldiers and the fourth or fifth battalion of ordinary auxiliary soldiers without armor.

It is said that eighteen kinds of weapons, in fact, knives, guns, bows, and crossbows are the most common equipment, and other weapons have different degrees of restrictions on the use of weapons, as for swords, except for short swords, this thing was eliminated on the battlefield during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Li Jiqi didn't want to make any moths, so he came out with a whole army with strange equipment.

Li Qi's pro-army equipment is still in accordance with the regulations, and sabers, riding spears, riding bows or riding crossbows are these four types of equipment.

The helmets are almost the same, as for the armor, he originally planned to make scale armor from forged steel sheets, but later found that the scale armor made weighed more than forty catties, which still seemed too heavy, which greatly affected the mobility of the troops. So, in the end, a slightly lighter chain mail was chosen.

The chain mail of the fifth dynasty at the end of the Tang Dynasty was made of iron rings, which were interlocking, which was actually a layer of circular wire grid. Li Qi's choice is simpler, using steel to heat and draw, then directly weaving, and finally forging under a forging hammer to form steel wire mesh, and then connecting with lined silk linen.

It is only necessary to be able to defend against bows and arrows from a slightly longer distance.

As for the crossbow, in fact, even the scale armor can't withstand the direct fire of the steel crossbow at close range.

In this way, the man-hours required to make the chain mail are greatly reduced, so that a skilled craftsman can complete the weaving of a chain mail in two days. In fact, even an ordinary woman can complete the entire production process of this chain mail.

The earth was yellow, and the caravan sent from Jinyang drove back a large group of fat and strong cattle and sheep from Yunzhou in the north. Since it is not yet freezing, it is not yet the slaughtering season, and these cattle and sheep are temporarily grazing on the harvested grass.

The cattle and sheep came, and the wolves in the mountains and forests followed.

Therefore, Li Qi sent out the newly formed pro-army troops in batches to clean up wild beasts in the wilderness and mountain forests.

He had always believed that the best way to train cavalry was to let them hunt.

It's a pity that there are not enough military horses, and I just barely scrape together a thousand horses, but most of them are not suitable for war horses.

A thousand pro-army cavalrymen divided into dozens of squads to attack in turn, and soon, the roe deer, wild boars, and the like that had been haunting the country were gone, and the wolves, raccoon dogs, foxes, and leopards hiding in the mountains and forests and grasses also ran away, and pheasants and wild ducks suffered, and even the rabbits that had the most in the field were much less.

The hunting team ran farther and farther, and even ran into the uninhabited deep mountains and old forests of Yunzhong Mountain and Zhoushan Mountain......

As for wildlife protection, it is not something that Li Jiqi is thinking about at all.

After the first snow fell in northern Jinbei, Li Qi, who had been busy for more than half a year, finally had a rare leisure.

After returning from the inspection of Fenshui Pass, Li Qi did not stay in Jinyang for more, but went to Gujiao City again, where he stayed, and the iron workshop being built outside the city was the real basis of his future career.

The site of the new iron-smelting workshop is near the mountain pass at the intersection of the original Pingchuan and Tunlan rivers, about a dozen miles south of Fenshui. The construction of cofferdams began in the summer, but it was not until the autumn that the water was officially put into use. However, the dam is still being raised and construction has been going on until the snowfall.

More than a dozen lime kilns, cement kilns and brick kilns on the nearby hillside are emitting black smoke almost non-stop, trying to destroy the area's otherwise beautiful natural environment.

There are several holes in the lime kiln that are specially used to burn a kind of "ash powder", and at first everyone did not know what it was used for, and when the barrage began to be officially built in winter, many craftsmen learned that this "ash powder" was called "cement" by the prince. This "cement" is mixed with sand and gravel and stirred together, and the poured dam foundation seems to become a whole boulder after solidifying, which is very hard and firm.

Cement had been fired in small quantities in lime kilns, but it had not been discovered.

Li Yonghe, the head craftsman who was the overseer and foreman, was full of pride, such a miraculous thing could only be made by the prince who was a master of his own "Taoism", and many people were amazed after seeing the lock chamber poured out of this thing.

Li Qi spent a few days in his study, thinking about how to carry forward and disseminate technology and knowledge, and finally decided to establish a academy and train some specialized talents himself.

In the pre-Qin era, the Mo family and the public losers were places that specialized in cultivating technical talents, but unfortunately, after the first emperor ruled the world, Baigong was strictly included in the management and monitoring of the government. In the Han Dynasty, "Confucianism alone" placed the status of craftsmen at the lowest level of society, even inferior to merchants.

What he needs to do now is to improve the status of artisans, and second, to make them literate.

The inability to read and write has caused many great inventions to be cut off from the inheritance and completely disappeared in the long river of history.

After several days of hard work in the study, after working on the first draft of the whole project, he finally felt tired and decided to go to the workshop.

After the frost fell, the water in the Fen River became very shallow, and in many places, the water was only waist-deep.

The red horse ran along the potholed dirt road on the east side of the river slope, and as far as the eye could see, the valley was flanked by large fields of green wheat seedlings. Under a thin layer of snow, it still shows its vitality tenaciously. Turning a hillside, the construction site of the water storage dam under intense construction is in front of you.

Due to the limited production of cement, several of the dams built by the Gujiao Iron Workshop are still dominated by traditional masonry dams, and concrete is only used for the construction of culverts and hydraulic workshops, as well as for some of the dams that need to be reinforced. Except for the two culverts under the workshop, the five- or six-foot barrage does not have any gates, and the flood discharge method is also in the form of a traditional overflow dam.

This type of overflow dam has a certain flood storage capacity, but in the event of a large flood, it has a very limited role in mitigating the disaster. Fortunately, the main purpose of Li Qi's construction of the barrage dam was to store water for irrigation and to provide some necessary power for the iron-smelting workshops.

In the riverside iron-smelting workshop, the two tall chimneys are smoking green smoke, straight into the blue sky, such a thing that destroys the environment, so that Li Qi now seems to have a sense of accomplishment in his heart......