In any era, money cannot solve all problems, but it can solve most problems.

This is the case in peacetime, when a large number of people are concentrated in the vicinity of the Dinghai Navy, and just eating and drinking is a huge expense.

The Privy Council has always pushed for a quick handover, and there is no idea of throwing off the burden.

According to an army, if the daily food and other standards are about 20 yuan, the daily expenditure will exceed 500 yuan, and the army will always be a large consumer of funds.

Witnessed by this middle-level official, a small ceremony was held on the afternoon after Zhao Xin's arrival, and he was responsible for the handover.

More than 25,000 van troops, after the handover, are no longer inferior to the establishment of the army, but because of Zhao Xin's identity, the Privy Council still left enough to support two months of various materials, of course, only simple, even inferior to the regimental training of weapons.

Zhao Xin didn't plan to ask for the weapons of the center, this was useless for him, sitting on the blacksmith workshop, it can be said that in the entire Northern Song Dynasty, and even in Asia, the strongest forging was with him, and it was not easy to get a weapon.

If Zhao Xin wanted to, he could even build an army made entirely of stainless steel.

The silver-white armor is extremely reflective, which is the bright armor of the Eight Classics, and at the same time, the hardness index reaches 6.1, which is also the strongest in this era.

Just the hardness of stainless steel, you can use thinner steel plates to achieve the previous protective strength and reduce the weight of soldiers.

In the era of cold weapons, the weight of soldiers is a very important thing, one or two catties less, for combat effectiveness, there is a lot of improvement, not to mention a minimum reduction of more than 40%, the heavy infantry of the Northern Song Dynasty will be stronger, more durable, and more combative.

It's a pity that the heavy infantry is not the focus, not to mention, the appearance of the longbow completely changed the arms of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Even if there is no industrialization and no blacksmith workshop, the longbow is the most suitable type of military for the Northern Song Dynasty.

All the consumption of the longbow that can be supported by the Northern Song Dynasty, countless raw materials, silk, these can support the large number of longbows, as for the consumption of the longbow on logistics, this is not too much of a problem for the Northern Song Dynasty.

With the projection ability of the longbow team, unless it touches the opponent's elite, it is all complete, even if it is an elite, the armor-piercing bow that is facing it, specifically for heavy armor weapons, plus projection weapons such as gunpowder packs, is enough to gain the upper hand.

Except for a slight lack of mobility ability, in the field battle, the combat effectiveness of the Northern Song Dynasty has been greatly improved.

Not to mention, Zhao Xin has already prepared, and in the future, in a considerable period of time, Zhao Xin has prepared to gradually eliminate cold weapons.

Thermal weapons are the direction of future development, whether in history or in understanding, this is the case, this is the weapon with a generation gap with this era.

For example, Yuanmeng has developed the cavalry to the extreme, and the rebel army of the Ming Dynasty was able to defeat Yuanmeng because of the spirit of hard work, only muskets.

The formed musket battalion, after being used flexibly, has a huge lethal effect on the cavalry.

Zhao Xin surpassed this era, and may not be able to make modern machine guns and artillery, but relying on the card system and the excellence of steel, the Ming and Qing dynasties, and even the muskets in the early days of the first industrial revolution, should be fine.

There are three factors that restrict muskets, one is the quality of steel, and the original muskets and cannons were made of copper.

Although there is a big gap between copper and steel in terms of overall performance, the only disadvantage is that it is too expensive.

An ordinary copper cannon may cost more than a thousand guan, which is the price of a fortress, let alone a red-coated cannon.

This thing is just a front-mounted heavy smoothbore gun, which is shipborne and heavy, and it is infinitely powerful, but the weight is also terrifying, and the weight of 2 tons is almost impossible to reach in China.

The weight of 4,000 catties is still copper, according to the price of 300 wen per catty, the copper used in the artillery itself is as high as more than 1,200 yuan, this price, expensive is too scary.

But if it is steel, even if the hardness and performance of stainless steel are used, the price of 25 wen a pound is almost 12 times that of copper, that is to say, a simple material, 150 guan is enough.

The development of iron and steel is the root cause of the breakthrough in thermal weapons, and only enough cheap steel, coupled with sufficient output, can promote the emergence of the entire era of thermal weapons.

Now, Zhao Xin already has, even if it is 6.1 grade stainless steel, there is no way to achieve mass production, but it can also be produced on a small scale, and more than 5.5 can be produced in large quantities in the workshop, and the output is even more so, which is the innate condition for thermal weapons.

On the other hand, Zhao Xin knew the most perfect formula for the most important basic gunpowder of thermal weapons, and even knew the manufacturing method of granular gunpowder, which was enough.

Although TNT was more powerful, before the advent of TNT, throughout the 19th and 18th centuries, when thermal weapons were popular in the world, most of the black powder was used.

Not to mention, Zhao Xin has nitric acid here, nitric acid is the basis of all gunpowder, no matter which kind of gunpowder, it is a compound or variant of nitric acid, the most suitable for firearm propellant, is nitrocellulose, this is easier, planting cotton, nitrifying with nitric acid, it doesn't matter if you don't know the indicators, let's explore it slowly.

There are advanced, can be loaded with ammunition powder guns, can already be with cold weapons, open a huge generation gap, if there are some small infantry guns, that is, in the modern sense of the thermal weapons army, in this way, the army of the Northern Song Dynasty, can have an overwhelming advantage.

These are all visions, in the beginning, except for a simple escort unit, Zhao Xin was not prepared to build an army on a large scale, and even thermal weapons were not prepared to start with guns, but from artillery.

Super heavy artillery like the redcoat cannon, in the beginning, was only suitable for warships, and a strong navy was indispensable for the navy as a harbor, which could provide sufficient mobility and attack power.

The officials of the Privy Council, after the handover, left directly, and completed this task, and he also made a lot of contributions, 25,000 troops, and various inputs every year, more than 300,000 yuan.

300,000 is not a large amount for the Privy Council, but in this case, it plays a role in icing on the cake.

This is not a one-off, but long-term, and even this is the first batch.

25,000 people are just the first batch, as long as the development of the navy is appropriate, in the future, it will gradually accept more van troops, until the van army is kept at a healthy number, not to mention anything else, it is possible to abolish 300,000 van troops, and the cost may be reduced every year, just more than 3 million, which is the big head.

Zhao Xin didn't stay in the barracks for long, and the barracks just needed him to go through a formality and accept the personnel.

In itself, Zhao Xin was ready to leave the original generals and then control them to work, but they had just been transferred and left the camp of the Xiang army, and it was under the premise that the people were panicking, Sun Ji stayed and could still stabilize the morale of the army.

However, instead of arranging nothing as before, a series of tasks were arranged.

The main task is to put on the construction here, the territory here is relatively large, and relatively remote, before the sea and other transportation, before the replacement of water transportation, Hongze Lake, will become a necessary node.

Before, I told the court that a piece of land would be set aside on this side of Hongze Lake to be used as a transit station for the navy.

In this era, people have not yet realized the importance of land, and it is not a good field, a wasteland by the lake, nothing at all, as long as the place is the same.

Although the feudal society is dominated by land, most of those lands are two days, by the lake, because they are often flooded, unless some people who can't survive, they will grow some vegetables and the like here, which are easy to harvest, and most of the others are barren.

With the consent of the local government, there is no problem at all, Dingjun supports so much money on Huainan East Road, and at the same time receives more than 200,000 Zi Aimin, such a relationship, demarcating a wasteland by the lake, what's the problem, and finally almost occupying a piece of 5,000 acres of wasteland.

25,000 middle-aged laborers, plus Zhao Xin provided a large number of advanced tools, the most important use of iron tools, is in the project, other things, may not be high, but shovels, hoes, these things, contact with the ground, if there is not enough strength, it is easy to be worn by complex environments and stones.

Suitable tools, adequate food, and a monthly salary no less than the previous Xiangjun can make them feel at ease.

In fact, except for a small part, most of the rest of the Xiang army are doing all kinds of work, and part of their salaries are obtained through labor, where to do it or not.

These jobs, far less arduous than the work they had previously undertaken, were nothing more than digging up the earth, leveling the land, and, with the help of professionals, starting the construction of the port and the large warehouse.

They can only do some simple, labor-intensive work, and the rest will be transferred from the navy.

In the future, Hongze Lake will form an important transit station.

The first is the river port, which will be larger, that is, larger than the blacksmith workshops of the daimyo prefecture.

On the side of the lake, the territory is larger than next to the canal, and the port can be built larger, but before, there was no need for this.

In addition to the port, it is a large number of warehouses and buildings, by the way, a huge market will be built, a node for the development of the Dinghai Navy inland in the future, and some sales meetings that are not very convenient to hold in the Dinghai Navy can be placed here, and the transportation is more convenient.

In a reed thicket, no one will know that in the future, the largest commercial center and transit warehouse in the Northern Song Dynasty will appear here, and the peak transaction volume here even accounts for 60% of all the transaction volume of the Dinghai Navy, which is the largest and most important base of the Dinghai Navy in the outside world.