Lijiazhuang. War Department.

"This is a report from the 3rd Assault Rifle Brigade." Jia Xu had just returned from outside, holding a report in his hand and saying this to Shang Wu.

"Oh. What did they say? If you want a cannon, a musket, I don't have it. It depends on the production of Wang Ming's factory. Shang Wu said with a wave of his hand. The situation of the Second Infantry Brigade was relatively poor, so a large number of weapons and equipment were prioritized for the First and Third Brigades. This made the 2nd Infantry Brigade very unhappy, they felt that they could win battles, and they could also fight tough battles, but their tactics were more flexible, and they felt that with muskets, their combat effectiveness would be even more powerful. They kept making reports, and even came here to ask Shang Wu for some muskets. But the problem now is that the production of muskets is very limited, and it cannot meet the requirements of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, and Shangwu can only supply the 1st and 3rd Brigades to a limited extent, because they have to fight a tough battle, and the 2nd Infantry Brigade is too cunning. They can't cope with such tactics yet.

"I want a weapon, but I don't. Not really. "Shang Wu knows that his subordinates are all goblins, and they know that they can't get it from themselves. Let's start with Jia Xu, because they know that this is a military advisor, and the military advisor has a lot of suggestion power, and if they can do the work of the military division, many of their things will be much simpler. Therefore, they began to follow the Jia Xu route, the Third Infantry Brigade not only wanted muskets, but also artillery, and Shangwu also planned to establish a professional artillery unit, which belonged to the troops directly under the command to use. They all hit the idea.

"Hehe, it's not these things, it's some operational advice from the 3rd Infantry Brigade." Jia Xu said with a smile. He knew that Shangwu was very sensitive now, and there was no way to do it. There is so much production of weapons, but the war obviously cannot wait so long. Neither did Shang Wu. It seems that in the future, such weapons will have to be relied on for export. Earn money to upgrade your weapons.

"Let's talk about it. What else could they think? Shang Wu said. As long as he doesn't need weapons, he thinks it's still acceptable.

"Exercises, they felt that it would be better to practice the possibility of muskets and artillery before engaging in battle, and they wanted to learn about the tactics of fighting against cavalry." Jia Xu said.

"Oh. It seems that Ma Heng pays attention to the changes on the battlefield. "Shangwu also had some accidents, Ma Heng was born in the regular army, so he was more like a professional soldier himself.

"Yes. Ma Heng thought like this, he knew that in this battle, he might face the impact of the enemy's heavy cavalry, and they still didn't know how effective our muskets and artillery would be. If you can't stop it, the whole situation will collapse completely. Jia Xu was also very worried about this, after all, they had never used such a tactic before, and everyone felt that it was tricky to face such a situation.

"Yes, but we can only use empty cartridges to shoot, and after practicing the combat formation, we will go to the front line to fight." Shang Wu said. Because it was impossible to replenish the cavalry in time. Most of their horses came from captured, but last time, the cavalry of the officers did not collapse, they withdrew in formation, on the contrary, because the force of the impact was too fast and too hard. The cavalry units of Shangwu suffered extremely heavy losses, they reduced half of their cavalry, and the remaining cavalry still needed to be dispersed to various units for communication. This in itself is an extremely unfair thing for Shangwu, but Shangwu has no choice, most of the cavalry in this era come from the north, and unless they open up Youzhou and several counties in the north, otherwise, they can't go there at all. The lack of cavalry became a shortcoming of the Red Turban Army. In order to make up for this shortcoming. The only way to do this was to use muskets, sharp muskets against cavalry fighting at high speeds.

"But we still have a new weapon that we can try, and we need to see when and where we can use it." Shang Wu said with a smile.

"Don't think I don't know, you asked Zhang Qing to mobilize several carpenters, find a lot of good wood, and take out Uncle Zhang's coffin." Jia Xu said. Actually, Jia Xu was also very curious, he didn't know what Shangwu wanted those things for, what was the use of it? Jia Xu was very curious about this.

"Hehe, you come with me, you can come and see. I guess it won't take a few days. About three days, three days to fly into the sky. Shang Wu said mysteriously.

"Three days, can you really go to heaven?" Jia Xu asked curiously.

"Yes, really. Or you come with me. Shang Wu said. Then the two of them went to the arsenal. The staff officers all knew that if they were looking for their commander these days, they would definitely be able to find him in the arsenal, because Shangwu went there early in the morning.

"What is this?" Jia Xu looked curiously at a large wooden frame that Shang Wu had taken him to see, some of which were made of bamboo, and the middle girder was made of a piece of fine wood. This piece of wood is Uncle Zhang's coffin wood. Because only such a material can withstand the weight of an airship. Shang Wu found out by accident, and it took him a long time to convince Uncle Zhang and exchange it with cement and reinforced concrete. This is the best piece of wood, but although this piece of wood is strong, there are some problems, that is, it is heavy. This will cause great disadvantages for the take-off of the airship, and Shangwu is worried about this problem.

However, Shangwu has a solution, that is, to punch holes, make round holes in some beams, so as to maximize the bearing capacity of the wood and reduce the weight.

"Hot gas airships, here, we don't have hydrogen, it's a gas that's lighter than air, we can only use hot gas. After making the hot air airship, we made two artificial propellers in the back, so that there was a certain amount of power and one person to control the direction. Throw a lot of hands at the same time**. In this case, we can attack from heaven. Shang Wu said.

"Can something like this work?" Jia Xu asked.

"Of course. I designed it, and if it didn't work out, that's it. Anyway, we have an air force. Is this a killer feature? Shang Wu said. Jia Xu nodded, he didn't know how such a thing could fly, but he felt that it was feasible, really feasible.

"With such a weapon, the officers and soldiers will be shocked." Jia Xu said.

"Of course. After all, the wars of this era are still only flat, that is, wars are all fought in one space and one plane, for example, they are all ground wars, and it doesn't make much sense to fight them, but if we develop into the air, this significance will be very great. The first is to shock the other party, and then you can scare them to death. Shang Wu said.

"This thing can't be built on a large scale at the moment, which is our biggest shortcoming at the moment. But it will be, not yet. You say, what happens if we sell something like this? Sangwu asked the question.

"If the officers and soldiers use it to bomb us, we really have nothing to say. This thing can't be sold for the time being. Jia Xu said.

"I agree that if it is possible, the first thing we will build up is a reconnaissance force, which is one of the most important means for us to maintain deterrence and reconnaissance." Shang Wu said.

"And then there was a massive bombing force. Of course, we have to have a new weapon to emerge. Shang Wu said. Shang Wu refers to airplanes, he knows that in this era, the use of airships is already a black technology among black technologies, that is, when other people's troops are still fighting on the ground, you have already opened the plug-in and run to the sky to fight. This is obviously cheating, and there is no way for Shang Wu to do it, so it can only be like this. You can look around him, there is no famous famous general of the Three Kingdoms, most of them are still in the lower level of the official army, and the quality of the officers is not comparable at all, if they don't use some technology, they can't beat the official army at all, which will make them suffer, and it will be a big loss.

"I have a question, though. I want to ask you. Jia Xu asked Shangwu at this time.

"Why do you have to sell these things?" Jia Xu asked. Jia Xu didn't know what arms exports were all about, which could greatly stimulate their military industrial production, and at the same time stimulate their ongoing research. This is good for Shangwu and the base of the Red Turban Army.

"Why? It's very simple, when we're done fighting, look at the IOUs and see why we're doing this. Anyway, this war is not only to be fought, the officers and soldiers who are fighting, but also to negotiate with the officers and soldiers to make them realize our strength, and at the same time, let them know that they must buy our weapons, otherwise they will be in a state of being beaten, which can be regarded as a disguised advertisement. Shang Wu said.

The expansion of the Red Turban Army needs funds, the establishment of a government after the Red Turban Army needs funds, the establishment of banks, the development of industry and commerce also needs funds, the construction of schools, roads, and the protection of people's lives also need funds. How does the government work, Shangwu still relies on some money obtained from the county town, and the support of enlightened landlords to barely get through the current predicament, but it is still very difficult to completely get rid of the current predicament, so Shangwu can only sell some weapons and cooperate with the official army.

Fighting, is not the goal, nor is it the fundamental solution to the problem, in the end it is still necessary to rely on the economy to speak, Shangwu wants to develop industry and commerce, his factory must have orders, but also must have profits, paper, clothing, and soap, these are all daily necessities, there is no market, there is, but in contrast, in the natural economy to make such things to expand the market, it is very difficult, because some people are very poor, they can't afford such things, the market naturally does not exist, they have demand, But without purchasing power, it is still impossible to solve the problem, and there is only one thing that can be demanded and have purchasing power all at once. Ammunition. This also determined that Shangwu could only use commodities such as arms to open the market.

Because in the case of war, the demand for arms will become very large, which is related to survival, and at the same time, it is also the beginning of another kind of arms business demand, only in this way can Shangwu open the current situation, otherwise, it is impossible for him to break all the natural economic order and promote his daily necessities.

Naturally, Jia Xu didn't understand this, because these seem very simple today, but in ancient times, this involved a philosophical problem, which was not broken or established.

The economic order of the Eastern Han Dynasty is a natural economic order, they are based on agriculture, this agricultural economy, stable and orderly, so the philosophy of the ancients was very stable during this time. A lot of ideas are also generated here. But Shang Wu developed industry, and although industry also needed development and order, his pace was obviously faster than that of the agricultural economy, especially his astonishing expansion. The industrial economy, which pursues speed and profiteering, will inevitably destroy this order of the agricultural economy, and then establish its own economic order, which will be more destructive and faster.

Jia Xu had such a feeling, and he felt that this rhythm gave him a sense of urging him to keep speeding up.

"The economic characteristics of this era are agriculture, and we have transformed agriculture, we need to develop industry and commerce, so we need a lot of human resources, and at the same time we also need more land, this is the purpose of our fighting, to solve the problem of the Yellow Turban Army in Xiaquyang in the north, agricultural civilization, once there are unstable factors, they will inevitably not exist, because they can't digest so many unstable factors for a while, especially in the case of reduced grain production, more people are difficult to survive, and we canAfter all, the population of the base area is limited, and we have developed into various industries, and the manpower needed by each is also very large, and in such a situation, the best way is to absorb those Yellow Turban Army. Then expand our staff. Shang Wu said.

"I understand, I understand." Jia Xu said.

"You mean to say that everything we have must be built on a situation where an old and abandoned order cannot function before our order can develop, right?" Jia Xu asked.

"Yes. First it was destroyed, and then it was rebuilt. That's all we have to do, export arms and weapons, probably for that. Shang Wu said. Jia Xu nodded, which coincided with him.