Now Zhong Hao has completed the reorganization of the Pingxi Army in Jingqiang Village, and it is still an establishment of five battalions. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info As a soldier, the main ones are the middle battalion of the original battalion and the left battalion with Han Hu as the commander. The other three battalions were basically used as miscellaneous soldiers and baggage soldiers, and the right battalion was mainly responsible for the weapons workshop; Coal mining requires a lot of manpower, so the front and rear battalions are the main laborers.

The middle battalion is mainly used as the main battle soldier, and the left battalion of Han Hu as the commander is mainly trained as a guard, if the middle battalion is not in Jingqiang Village, or after the middle battalion attacks in wartime, the left battalion will be used as the main force to guard Jingqiang Village. The left battalion was mainly composed of strong soldiers from the prison camp and young and strong soldiers selected from other battalions of the Pingxi Army.

This prison camp estimates that Lao Cheng of Yincheng County probably doesn't want to go back. The main reason is that it is useless for him to go back, and he has to spend rations to support him, of course he just wants it, and Zhong Hao will not let the prison camp go back. The shortage of the Pingxi army is serious, and there is no one around this Jingqiang village, even if you want to recruit troops, you can't recruit them, so you rely on these young people in the prison camp to supplement the soldiers of the Pingxi army. Therefore, in this reorganization, Zhong Hao added the prison camp to the army of the Pingxi Army.

As for the right battalion and the front and rear two battalions, most of them were older soldiers, and there were many people who dragged their families with them, and they had long lost the spirit of killing the enemy on the battlefield in order to win the rank of officer. Most of them just wanted to have something to eat, so they could live, and it was very much to them that they were allowed to work in the workshops to earn food.

The highest officer of the Pingxi Army is still Du Yu Zheng Wentao, but Shuai Si has already written, and the Pingxi Army is subject to the control of Jingqiang Zhai Zhizhai. Zhong Hao wants to reorganize it, Zheng Wentao only has to cooperate.

However, Zheng Wentao is happy to listen to Zhong Hao's command, and now the Pingxi Army has food and salary, all of which Zhong Hao has managed to get, so he can save himself from worrying about the Pingxi Army's food. Besides, his ability is also limited, in the past, the Pingxi Army was used as a military barracks, and he couldn't let Zheng Wentao command the battle.

Zheng Wentao has not been promoted for many years, but he has been in Jingqiang Village with the Pingxi Army for less than a year, although he is still sent to the Pingxi Army, but the official rank and rank have been upgraded by one level, and he is very happy. Zheng Wentao is now mainly responsible for the right battalion and the front and rear battalions, mainly focusing on logistics work. As for the front camp and the left camp, he gave power to Cui Feng and Han Hu to toss.

After Zhong Hao reorganized the Pingxi Army, he reported the roster to Shuai Si, who naturally had no opinions. The imperial court basically left them to fend for themselves, basically no military salaries were paid, and they would not pay attention to any small changes, anyway, no matter how many people you compile, the military salaries are just a little bit. Of course, the handsome minister of the Shuai Division is his own father-in-law, and even if others have opinions, they will basically not mention it.

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Of the twenty sabers built in the first batch, except for five, which were sent to Shuaisi, the rest were quickly divided up by the heads of the officers and officials of the Pingxi Army.

Of course, it is unrealistic to expect these swords to be equipped with the Pingxi Army for the time being.

The equipment of the middle battalion is relatively complete, but the weapons and equipment of the left battalion are too small, and even the basic combat weapons are not missing.

Zhong Hao asked Shuai Si to apply for a batch of weapons, but Shuai Si replied that let Jingqiang Village overcome it first, and now the arsenal in Hedong is out of stock, and we will talk about it next year.

After a while, the middle battalion will go to suppress the bandits, and then it will naturally need the left battalion left behind to guard the village. Although the walled wall mainly relies on long-range weapons such as bows and crossbows and wooden rolling stones and other defensive equipment, it is estimated that this walled wall will be difficult to defend during hand-to-hand combat, but it is always unreliable without weapons. Besides, if the enemy goes up to the wall, we have to fight and see if we can drive them off the wall. There are not enough weapons, and the enemy is on the wall, and there is no room for resistance.

Zhong Hao really racked his brains about how to solve the weapon problem.

After Jingqiang Village's horse chopping knife was sent to Shuaisi, Fu Bi quickly replied, saying that he had already won it, but the approval of Jingqiang Village to build weapons was impossible. The Great Song Dynasty has very strict control over the creation of weapons, in fact, when Zhong Hao put forward this request, Fu Bi already knew that it was unlikely that he would be able to apply for it.

Do you want to build weapons privately? Do you want to rebel? The Great Song Dynasty has always nipped everything that might involve rebellion.

However, after Fu Bi saw the horse chopping knife made by Jingqiang Village, he signaled that Zhong Hao could build the weapons used by Jingqiang Village, and then Fu Bi could help Zhong Hao go out of the warehouse and enter the warehouse from the arsenal of Shuai Si, so that the weapons of Jingqiang Village could be legalized.

Fu Bi felt that he couldn't give anything in essence, so he could only show favoritism in policy and give Jingqiang Village a little help.

However, Zhong Hao's application for approval to build weapons was originally just to create some weapons for Jingqiang Village's own use, and he didn't think of anything else. This weapon is nothing else, not coke, you can sell it at will, if this weapon is sold indiscriminately or given to each other privately, I don't know how to die in the Great Song Dynasty. This thing has been built too much, and Zhong Hao has no other use for the time being. Fu Bi gave a way to meet his own requirements.

Although Zhong Hao felt very sorry that he could manufacture high-grade weapons in batches, he could only make a little, if the Great Song army was equipped with weapons made of steel, the combat power should be improved.

However, although Zhong Hao regretted it, he couldn't help it for the time being. After all, he is just a small eight-rank official, not a person in power, and he has no ability to promote it on a large scale.

However, Fu Bi said in the letter that when he offered potatoes and sweet potatoes next year, he would play this steelmaking method together to increase Zhong Hao's credit.

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Shuai Si didn't allocate weapons, so he could only solve it by himself.

The weapon of the horse chopping knife, one is time-consuming to build, and the other is that the iron material is not large, that is, the iron embryo purchased by Jingqiang Village itself and the iron embryo sent by Shuai Si are all melted and built, and hundreds of knives cannot be made, so it is impossible to count on this own weapon workshop to make horse chopping sabers and equip the left battalion, I am afraid that it will be impossible for a while! Besides, even if you create a horse chopping knife, you must first equip the middle battalion to suppress bandits.

However, the number of iron embryos for making horse choppers is not enough equipment, but the head of a large spear should be enough. With a sharp spear head, it is possible to make some big guns to equip the Pingxi Army.

The big gun belongs to the stabbing weapon, which is relatively lower than the steel requirements of the chopping weapon, and only casts the gun head, which is smaller in size, so the forging time can be shortened a lot, and a hydraulic forging hammer can forge four or five gun heads a day.

In a few days, a lot of guns were made.

However, although the gun head is easy to make, the material for making the wooden handle is difficult for Zhong Hao. At this time, the wooden handle of the big gun, which is generally a rattan pole, is made of old rattan tanning, and then soaked in tung oil and then dried. There are not so many rattan poles in Jingqiang Village, and they need to be exchanged everywhere, and they can't get much for a while.

Zhong Hao was worried about the gun again.

But that night, after Zhong Hao saw Ke Yao lighting candles in the room, he suddenly thought of the ash rod.

Compared with oil lamps, candles do not have so much smoke, but also brighter, these candles were bought by Zhong Hao when he merged with the state a while ago, because Zhong Hao really couldn't stand the smoke of oil lamps. At this time, candles are still relatively expensive.

The candles of the Great Song Dynasty are made of natural ash, which is secreted by ash worms, which need to be stocked on ash trees.

The ash tree has a straight trunk and is very tough, it is a very easy wood to obtain, and it is cultivated in many places in the northern part of the Great Song Dynasty, but it is rarely used to make large guns, probably because this ash rod is not suitable for making the handle of large guns. At this time, in addition to being used to stock ash insects, the ash tree was mainly used to make wooden products. The widespread promotion of ash pole guns was a matter of the Ming Dynasty, and when Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, he had asked the Northern Guard to plant ash trees widely for the production of large guns.

Zhong Hao sent people around to ask where there were ash trees.

Not to mention, there is really one near Jingqiang Village, and the people of Han Huzuoying passed a passing merchant at the Hehejin Ferry, and found out that there is a village specializing in making ash in the neighboring Lan County, and many ash trees are planted in the village.

Zhong Hao immediately asked Hou Quan to take people to buy a batch of ash rods, which were thick and thin, as long as the trunk of the gun, not branches, and the branches were too soft to make the gun shaft.

Soon, Hou Quan led people to transport back hundreds of ash tree trunks the thickness of gun barrels, and Zhong Hao commanded the soldiers of the right battalion of the weapon workshop to make gun handles.

The ash rod is steamed and peeled, but the knots are dropped, then straightened, soaked in tung oil, and then dried in the shade, it is a gun handle.

Of course, like the handle made of old rattan, the ash rod is flexible enough, but the texture is slightly soft, and the hardness is slightly worse, and the poor hardness will affect the accuracy of the stab.

Therefore, if you want to increase the hardness, you also need to soak the tung oil more and dry it several times in the shade, so as to increase the hardness.

It is best to line the handle with bamboo soaked in tung oil, and then wrap it tightly with leather belt or rattan bark to ensure both hardness and flexibility, and it is easy to grip.

At this time, it was generally believed that the handle made of hardwood was more useful, but hardwood was rare and expensive, and it was difficult to install it on a large scale in the army.

Yang Huaiyu is also an expert in making guns, and Zhong Hao asked Yang Huaiyu to try the newly made ash pole gun.

After Yang Huaiyu tried it, he was very satisfied with the ash pole gun, saying that it was harder than the rattan pole gun, and the flexibility was good, and it was very easy to use. In particular, it is lined with bamboo pieces and wrapped with leather belts, which is more easy to use, not worse than hardwood pole guns.

Yang Huaiyu said: Although the hardwood pole gun is harder and the stabbing accuracy is higher, the flexibility is not as good as the ash pole gun. People with strong martial arts or strong strength are more suitable for using hardwood poles and large guns, and ordinary soldiers are more suitable for using this ash pole.

Because a strong shot stabbed on the opponent's armor, there is a great force of anti-shock, especially the cavalry, they use high-speed galloping horses, the force of the stab is quite large, the force of the anti-shock is also quite large, if the strength is not enough, with a hardwood gun may be the force of the anti-shock to crack the tiger's mouth or shock numb arm, so that you can't grasp the gun, and the flexibility of the ash pole gun is better, can better dissipate the force of the anti-shock. Therefore, it is still very suitable for ordinary soldiers to use ash pole guns.

Listening to Yang Huaiyu's words, Zhong Hao was very happy, although the short weapons could not be solved for the time being, the long weapons of the Pingxi Army could finally be equipped. (To be continued.) )

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