When Xiao Tianjian left this small courtyard, he was in a good mood, although Lu Xiangsheng finally did not agree to Xiao Tianjian's invitation to go out of the mountain to be the official of the Xingtianjun, which made Xiao Tianjian somewhat regretful, but he accepted Xiao Tianjian's suggestion and decided that for a considerable period of time, he would be Xiao Tianjian's behind-the-scenes senator to help him make suggestions, if one day Xiao Tianjian and Jiannu will fight again, it will be the time for him to go out of the mountain to put on his robe again, and then he will personally carry a knife into battle and fight with Xiao Tianjian side by side!

And Xiao Tianjian and Lu Xiangsheng also discussed his plan at the moment, Lu Xiangsheng also expressed opposition to the wave of Shaanxi, the reason is basically the same as Xiao Tianjian's consideration, that is, the population of Shaanxi is too bad, but it is impossible to raise troops when it is taken, but it will first consume a lot of energy and troops of the Xingtian Army, and then invest a lot of strength to defend it, and it is not in the interests of the Xingtian Army at the moment.

In his opinion, Kaifeng City is really a strong city, and the number of troops is not small, it is difficult to conquer it in the short term, once it is not defeated, it will hit the morale of the Xingtian army, and if the seal is opened, the court will not sit idly by, and it may cause the official army to come to the aid from all sides, it is better to go to Huguang first, and after obtaining the rich Huguang, take Nanjing first, so that Beijing will also collapse if it cuts off the support of the south!

However, Xiao Tianjian still insisted on his own opinion, to open the city first, as for the strong city of Kaifeng, it is indeed true, in history Li Zicheng surrounded Kaifeng City three times, and finally failed to take Kaifeng, which he knows better than anyone else, but history has become the history of the past, his Xingtianjun's ability to attack the fortification is not Li Zicheng can be compared, not to mention that the Xingtianjun itself has already established a large-scale workshop for artillery production, and now not only Jinnan can cast various types of cannons, but also Lushi, Wuyang, Ruzhou and other places in Henan, New artisan battalions have been established, which can cast a large number of artillery pieces and create new types of self-generated firearms, which are used in a steady stream of equipment armies, and recently they have also captured a lot of heavy Hongyi cannons from the officers and Tartars in the north, plus they have a special engineer battalion to help the main force to attack fortified battles, and the combat effectiveness is comparable to those rabble under Li Zicheng in history!

So he is sure enough to open the seal, this is also the best time for him to show the world that his Xingtian army is invincible, and he is not even more worried about the matter of the imperial court sending troops to help, he is afraid that the official army will not come, as long as he comes, he will be sure to leave them behind, not to mention that the current situation in the Central Plains is under his control, and the official army is not able to come if he wants to, Zhu Youzhen, don't you want to take advantage of Lao Tzu to come north to take advantage of Lao Tzu? This time, I will also give you a battle of Kaifeng, so that you can steal chickens again and not lose rice! This Kaifeng is conquered by Xiao Mou!

After Xiao Tianjian came out of Lu Xiangsheng, he immediately went to the craftsman camp outside Ruzhou City to inspect, the craftsman camp here is a newly built craftsman battalion under the logistics department, and the main source of craftsmen is the master drawn from the Yangcheng craftsman camp, as well as the craftsmen recruited from the north, it is a newly established craftsman battalion in the second half of last year, to put it bluntly, it is an arsenal.

Many places in the central and western parts of Henan were originally coal-producing places, and the iron output of Jinnan increased sharply year after year, and Jinnan itself could no longer consume such a large amount of iron production, so a large number of refined iron produced began to be transferred to Henan through the Yellow River, so iron was no longer a factor restricting the development of the military strength of the Xingtian Army.

In addition, now Jinnan not only produces iron, but also has initially begun to use the newly built original blast furnace to make steel, although the output is very low, sometimes the quality is not too high, but at least a big step has been taken, so that when building the firecracker, some of the newly smelted steel has been applied, so that the firearm of the Xingtianjun is more sharp.

However, in addition to the production of artillery, the craftsman battalion here in Ruzhou is also responsible for the production of a very important thing, that is, the armor that the Xingtian Army has always lacked, Xiao Tianjian almost requisitioned most of the armor in the army in this northern expedition, and the armor is still an indispensable thing in the current war, so he also reminded Xiao Tianjian to strengthen the construction in this regard.

In fact, Xiao Tianjian did not deliberately ignore the production of armor over the years, mainly because of his limited ability, the steel required to build an armor is more than the fine iron needed to make an iron gun.

But last year, after several battles with the official army, some veterans in the army fell under the enemy's swords, guns, arrows and bullets because of the lack of armor, and the loss of a veteran was very big for Xiao Tianjian, so Xiao Tianjian began to change his mind and decided to produce a large number of armor to arm his soldiers and horses.

And this time in the Northern Expedition, he saw that the Tartar soldiers after years of accumulation, relying on snatching from the hands of the Ming army and their own production, the amount of armor and equipment in the army is very large, even far more than the Ming army's equipment for armor, if it is not for the unified mobilization of a large number of armor by the Xingtian Army, the Xingtian Army will lag behind them more, when the hot and cold weapons alternate, the armor is still a necessary equipment, so as to give full play to the stronger combat effectiveness of the soldiers, and at the same time can effectively boost the morale of the army, Therefore, after his return, he strictly ordered the craftsmen in various places to expand the production scale of armor.

And in the choice of armor, he thought about it, decided not to have any tricks, the armor produced more pay attention to practicality, based on the eight-petal helmet among the various iron helmets used by the Ming army, as much as possible to simplify the process, but to ensure the quality of the premise, to create a larger area of protection for the head of the iron helmet, and at the same time learn from the steel helmet of later generations, with padding and hanging cloth belts, so that the iron helmet is more practical.

As for the armor on the body, he paid more attention to the protection of the torso of the soldiers, so after thinking about it, he still chose the kind of cuirass that is somewhat similar to the West, one is to effectively protect the vital parts of the officers and soldiers, and the other is also convenient for the movement of the limbs of the soldiers, weakening the protection of the heavy legs and arms, there are gains and losses, so as to improve the production speed of the armor, but also simplify the production process and cost, and effectively improve the combat effectiveness, so the craftsman battalion in Ruzhou has recently begun to follow his instructions, The first batch of more than 100 sets of unified armor of the Xingtian Army was created.

Xiao Tianjian came to Ruzhou this time, in addition to seeing Lu Xiangsheng in person to see this national hero he admired, and also came here to see the new armor here.

When he entered the craftsman camp, the person in charge here seemed to know, and when asked, this person turned out to be an apprentice of Yang Changshou in the Yangcheng Shuangfeng Village Craftsman Camp, and had seen him before, although Yang Changshou was still in the Yangcheng Craftsman Camp at this time, but his apprentices began to be gradually transferred to the newly established craftsman camps in various places to act as a master craftsman, if according to later generations, that is the chief engineer.

So Xiao Tianjian first asked about the living conditions of these craftsmen, and only after learning that the local officials and the logistics department had arranged their lives quite well, he asked about the production situation here.

The master here's surname is Luo, when he knew that Xiao Tianjian was here to see their work, so he immediately offered their products out, first a black and swarthy self-generated firebolt, these self-generated firebolts have a unified serial number, you can see from the number of which craftsman is produced in the product, once a serious accident occurs, then you can immediately find the producer accountable from the serial number.

And the self-generated fire guns produced here, from the perspective of shape, whether in terms of process or quality, have been improved, and the key parts have been built more finely, it can be seen that the craftsmanship of these craftsmen is also constantly improving, without test firing, Xiao Tianjian can also feel that the power of this guy should be quite good, so he nodded and praised while watching, and he was happy that this master Luo had a big mouth on a black face.

After Xiao Tianjian looked at these well-made self-made firearms, he touched the beard on his chin and wondered if it was time to try to get a rifled gun since the craftsmanship level of the craftsmen had reached such a height, even if it was to start with the front-loading minion rifled gun, and slowly develop a more powerful rifled rifle, but when he thought of their limited manpower and material resources at the moment, he had a helpless feeling that the production of rifled guns was far more difficult than the current smoothbore guns, and the requirements for craftsmen would be very high. Even if it is energy production, the output will be quite low, and if at the current industrial level, a large number of rifled guns will be produced, and it is estimated that he will be able to bankrupt.

So even if it is to make rifled guns, at the moment can only be selected a few high-level craftsmen for a small range of trial production, the specific method he also knows a little, can guide them to do, but in a short period of time, can not be mass production, after all, the flintlock pistol they use is already quite sharp weapons in this world, beyond the times too much, it is not necessarily a good thing, many process technologies need to go hand in hand, want to unilaterally develop a thing by leaps and bounds, not necessarily a good thing, Sometimes it can be self-defeating.

So Xiao Tianjian temporarily pressed this thought and continued to look down.

The Ruzhou craftsman battalion was established not long ago, the foundation is still relatively weak, and the cannon has not yet been put into production, so the casting of the cannon of the Xingtian Army is mainly provided by the cannon work of Gaosu in Yangcheng, and the cannon work on Lu's side has now begun to be put into production, but because of the problem of iron production, the cannon produced there is far from meeting the needs, so this time in the Ruzhou craftsman battalion only saw the iron mold of those cannons being cast, only after the iron mold is cast, the production of iron cannons can officially begin, although a little anxious, Xiao Tianjian also knew the truth that he couldn't eat a fat man in one bite, so he patiently told Master Luo to let him hurry up as much as possible and put artillery into production, but the premise was that he couldn't ignore the quality because he was in a hurry, and everything had to be stepped up step by step.

Master Luo nodded again and again and said that he would do everything possible to put the artillery into production as soon as possible, and at the same time sent a set of armor to Xiao Tianjian, this set of armor is very simple, it can even be said to be a little simple, it has not been painted, and the whole body is the primary color of iron, but Xiao Tianjian immediately laughed when he saw it, what he wanted was this style of things, simple iron helmet, simple cuirass, not much material, simple process, but the protection was not weak, especially the vital places were covered by the entire piece of iron armor, It is estimated that it is more difficult for the bird gun used by the general officers and soldiers to penetrate, and as for the strong bow against the Tartar, it is estimated that it is impossible to shoot through such a cuirass, and the force on the shoulders is relatively even, and it is easy for the soldiers to wear, which is very conducive to the soldiers to march after wearing them.

So he immediately ordered a guard to put it on and try it, this guard put it on and did some movements back and forth, found some small problems, some places are very uncomfortable after wearing, so he brought it up, but on the whole wearing this kind of armor, it is still relatively comfortable, the overall weight is not large, roughly about twenty pounds, basically after the soldiers put it on, it does not affect their actions very much, and it also makes people feel at ease, although the protection on the limbs is not high, but it is much more reassuring than wearing cotton armor.

"Good! That's what I want! Hurry up and revise it, try to make the officers and soldiers dress more comfortably, you people must remember that the soldiers fight, sometimes they have to march for a long time, and if there is a little discomfort, it may make them consume more physical strength and weaken the combat effectiveness of our army. How long does it take you as a craftsman to build a pair of such armor? Xiao Tianjian nodded with satisfaction and said.

"Follow the Lord's instructions! The little ones will revise it well! As for this kind of armor, it is much simpler to build than the common iron armor and scale armor, but the labor consumption is higher than that of the cotton armor hanging iron, a craftsman can create a pair in about half a month, after being proficient, plus the application of a large number of forming molds to build, plus the kind of assembly operation we use, the fastest can be created in ten days, compared to the scale armor to build a pair in a year and a half, it is much easier! This Master Luo hurriedly said.

After listening to this, Xiao Tianjian was slightly taken aback, but he was immediately relieved, this thing has been modified by him too simple, basically there is no redundancy or complex process, everything that can be saved is saved, and it is all riveted with large pieces of armor, and the iron armor used in China in the past is compiled after the small pieces of iron armor are built one by one, of course, it is time-consuming and labor-intensive, so their craftsmen can create a pair in such a short time, I am afraid that even if it is cotton armor, I don't think it will be built so quickly.

After a silent calculation, there are more than 1,000 craftsmen who have been dispatched from all over the country to create this kind of armor, and three sets of armor are built by one person a month, which is 3,000 sets, and nearly 20,000 sets of such armor in half a year, and in only one year, he can arm a large number of well-equipped generals, thinking about who will still be his opponent in the future, so he feels a little like laughing.

This is also the most powerful place in China, the advantage of many Chinese, in this era can be fully played, and in the current troubled times, labor costs are extremely low, there are people to work, iron can be self-produced, coal they have to dig, coke also people will burn, although the manpower is not sufficient, but the population in their jurisdiction is now millions, and there are thousands of blacksmiths recruited, otherwise, it is really difficult to do this.

(Dear readers and friends, now I am participating in the "China Mobile Mobile Reading Flower Outbreak Chapter" activity, starting from 3.16, as long as the number of flowers in my book on the China Mobile mobile phone reading platform can increase by 20 on that day, the next day I will update seven chapters (more than 3000 words per chapter) to give back to you.) The event lasts for three days, that is, the reader gives me 60 flowers, and I return the reader 21 chapters in three days. I hope you will support me. Hurry up and pick up your mobile phone, log in to the China Mobile mobile reading platform, and find "Funeral Ming" to cast flowers! Today's thanks for the reward of the Northwest Wind and Dream Watch Brothers! ）