In April of the old calendar, when May was approaching, even in the capital of the Xiaoice River era, the scene of the sunny spring season finally came. After two consecutive years of disasters and droughts in the seventh year of the Apocalypse and the first year of Chongzhen, although many signs of winter show that the second year of Chongzhen is likely to be still not very good, the first relatively large spring rain in spring has finally come. This also made the people in the vicinity of the capital, who had been living in a tense and murderous atmosphere for several months, feel a lot of good signs.

After many months of busyness, all preparations for war have gradually moved on the right track. At the time of the first month, it could only be said that the new army was barely decent, and after about a month of basic discipline training, plus three months of training in various formations and gun skills, whether it was earthwork, firearm loading, or artillery use, at least all relevant arms seemed to be quite orderly. It is an archer whose combat effectiveness is relatively slow to form, under the training of parallel bars, single bows, and stone ropes. Although there were not enough resources to make the archery skills of these new archers as outstanding as those of the Guards and Brave Guards, the number of people who could barely march on horseback and even use the five-bucket bow effectively increased.

Since the time of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming army has not been good at bows and arrows. Being able to open four bucket bows meets the standards of archers in Zhu Yuanzhang's era. The five-bucket bow is very much a threshold: it means that against unprotected horses, it can inflict no small damage on light horses at a distance; If the opponent does not have a good and perfect iron armor protection, only some makeshift wallets or even armor that has rotted into light armor protection from the military department, or some temporary makeshift "table shields" and "door breaking shields", then it can still have a considerable combat effect. In the Ming army of this era, the people who could open five bucket bows, even among the provincial and town battalion pacesetters and even the main forces in various places, were only more than one percent.

What made Xiao Xuan even more relieved was that the original 2,000 or so archers in the Guards Battalion and the Brave Guard Battalion who still had a certain foundation, after a year and a half of concentrated resource training, not only did their archery skills be comparable to those of ordinary archers, but many of them also had the ability to shoot a strong bow with one stone and two fights to meet the basic requirements of martial arts bows and arrows. This means that even if you use some easy-to-use bows and arrows with eight buckets to about one stone, you still have a certain degree of medium and close-range killing ability against targets carrying heavy wooden shields or iron armor. If you use the Extreme Bow, you will now have the ability to threaten well-protected ironclad targets at medium to close range in defense. According to the experience of the main force of Houjin, there is no doubt that there will be a significant improvement in combat effectiveness and role.

In addition to the seemingly satisfactory training situation of the troops, the Guards Battalion and the Brave Guard Battalion have recruited many apprentices who already have a certain technical foundation and understanding for more than half a year or so, and many of them are also direct relatives or sons of the younger generations of the craftsmen in the army. I am not worried about what "the apprentices of the church starve to death of the master", and there are enough materials for training and special experience. The number of craftsmen who meet the standards for making weapons has also more than doubled, and after having tens of thousands of craftsmen under the direct jurisdiction, the progress of making artillery and various iron shields has also been greatly strengthened.

These signs seemed to make Xiao Xuan convinced: even if all the forces in the world rebelled against the whole country under his own instigation, with the 40,000 or 50,000 soldiers and 70,000 horses in his 20 battalions, the strength of a strategic direction group could easily defeat the opponent in the field. Not to mention that in addition to himself, the "Son of Heaven Anti-Thief", there is another group of anti-thieves who will definitely not be tolerated by all kinds of bulls, ghosts, snakes and gods.

At least in the entire Ming Dynasty, Xiao Xuan does not think that he will have four or five hundred thousand combat troops that are really worthy of war, and even if there is, it will be as stated in the "National Policy of Conquering the Qing Dynasty": even if there are hundreds of thousands of troops, the troops may not be able to be effectively used in one place in a war. Tens of thousands of people or so who are stronger than their opponents can be defeated individually by strategic groups like the main forces of Houjin. Later Jin entered the main pass, and there were various concerns such as limited military resources, corrupt army, and lack of siege methods and tactics. However, as a member of the same ethnic group as the Han people, it is obvious that he does not have these considerations.

Thinking of this, Xiao Xuan felt more and more that his rashness was correct to a large extent. At least in just a few years, it seems that there is a possibility that the whole country will be completely renewed. In this way, when he is in his early twenties, he will be able to have unimpeded government and military orders that can be used for the modernization of the whole world and the development of a new culture. If you can have at least the longevity of Qianlong's level, and the New Deal lasts for at least one Jiazi, maybe it is possible for modern society to enter the level of the early twentieth century ahead of schedule...

Zhang Yan, who had been out of the capital for more than a month, seemed to have a great change in her attitude after returning to the city, and decided to follow Xiao Xuan's arrangement without spending too much effort, preparing to completely reform the world and fight a decisive battle with the world's heroes. At first, Xiao Xuan didn't know what was going on, but only later did he learn about it briefly from the guards who followed. Because Zhang Yan still can't hide the rare appearance in the world after makeup, she really caused a lot of trouble along the way. I also saw that behind the few officials who were quite upright and upright, there was a northern society that was poor and decayed to the limit.

Zhang Yan, like many writers in the late Ming Dynasty, believes that the peasant rebels and other rebels were poorly disciplined, how they coerced the displaced people, did not know how to operate and build, how they brutalized the people, and how they were compared with the Jin and others after the establishment of slaves.

After all, if a person's standard of living and income status are as close to the big families or civil landlords of the old era as the common people of modern China, then seven or eight times out of ten they will only consider the problem with the logic and emotional tendencies of the common landlords, and may not care about the good words and positive descriptions of the peasant rebels in the Ming Dynasty historical materials, even the Ming court and even the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which were hostile to them. However, what I have seen and heard in Shandong and other places where the legend has been plagued has completely denied this kind of "class likes and dislikes" like that of modern petty-bourgeois historical writers.

Of course, finally agreeing to act according to Xiao Xuan's arrangement is largely a manifestation of Sanguan's discouragement after being hit hard. Zhang Yan, who may not explain this matter, completely agrees with her own set, but this is enough.

Of course, Xiao Xuan still didn't dare to include Zhang Yan in his harem, who knows if all this was pretended or if there were any hidden dangers? Therefore, the choice of sleeping with a woman for several days in a row for the first time was also Tian Xiuying, Yuan Guifei and even Zhou Yufeng and other people around them.

However, one day near the fifth month of the old calendar, when Xiao Xuan fell into a sweet dream in the gentle countryside, the painting style in the dream suddenly changed: when Xiao Xuan was riding a high-headed horse and leading tens of thousands of troops to cross the river on a sailboat, the reeds on the south bank of the Yangtze River suddenly burst into a loud cannon, and a strong bow and arrow like the main force of the Houjin Dynasty were shot. The deadly firepower of countless cannons of no less power was like rolling thunder. Shortly after crossing the Yangtze River, the army suffered a defeat.

In the process of his team fleeing all the way north, Xiao Xuan in his dream seemed to open the perspective of God and saw that the fierce and powerful army that was not inferior to himself at all was far from the level and scale he imagined. Xiao Xuan also dreamed that a raging fire broke out in the capital after being besieged by the army, and some hoarded food was also burned, and it seemed that the entire new army, including himself, was in a desperate situation, and couldn't help but wake up from the dream abruptly.

(End of chapter)