Just when Liu Xin and Jiang Xinzhou were fighting with the old generals in full swing, Qingtu County, thousands of miles away in the mountains and forests, was also in full swing, not a battle but a huge construction site, the engineer battalion, the Japanese slaves, including the 2,000 soldiers drawn by Hao Zhao were busy strengthening the city defense. Hao Zhao knew that the other party would not give him too much time, and he would try his best to use the county seat to fight for the longest time, so as to facilitate General Zhang's army to come and break the enemy army.

In front of the county seat, half of the strength of the engineer battalion brothers was concentrated, and each of them had a tool similar to a puff and a big axe, and they were constantly digging potholes on the originally flat ground, and that tool seemed to be particularly easy to use and labor-saving in excavation, but after a long time, the open ground in front of the county was full of devastation. Perhaps these small pits, which are less than a foot long, do not do much damage to the enemy soldiers, but simply reducing their speed allows the defenders to inflict more damage on the enemy, which is a great synergy between the two.

"Dig thirty zhang further, Xiao Du, take people to the left, Zhang Sima, what do you think?" On the earthen wall of the main gate, the commander of the engineer battalion, Kuai Shan, was shouting at the top of his voice, and after shouting, he didn't forget to ask the people around him, this person's surname is Zhang, and he is the commander of the archers in the army, Sima.

"If you can, dig ten zhang farther, our batch of bows and crossbows are newly transported from Beiping equipment, and they can be farther than before, and the accuracy is better." Zhang Sima replied that he could not be idle when the brothers of the engineer battalion were busy, first, to inspect the position and find the best place to shoot in order to facilitate the subsequent arrangement of troops, and second, to cooperate with the engineers was also the usual before the battle.

With the influx of a large number of Japanese slaves into the Han Dynasty, the mining of various mines has been greatly developed in the past five years, and the casting level of iron tools has also made a lot of progress under the intensive research of the Instrument Institute, with these as the basis for providing more exquisite equipment to the Han army, enhancing their combat power, and also the basis for Liu Yi to advocate "strengthening the army with science and technology".

Take the most ordinary soldier of the Tiger Guard as an example, he will have three sets of single cloth military uniforms and two sets of cotton clothes, at this time the cotton clothes are different from later generations, the filling is not cotton but kapok, although through the efforts of the Western Regions Mission brought back cotton seeds, five years of planting has also achieved a certain success, but limited to the relationship between the yield it is more of a luxury product, only the Lang General above in the army can be distributed with a cotton clothing filled with cotton, the price is also extremely expensive.

Two pairs of cloth shoes, a pair of leather boots, in addition to leggings, bandages, wound medicine, etc., the latter are generally issued in wartime, and everything is in the backpacks of the soldiers. Playing backpack is also a concept that Liu Yi has introduced into the army in recent years, requiring all soldiers to pass the test, and in this way, it has a huge effect on strengthening the army's ability to run and adapt to the field, and some simple wound medicine in the backpack can also reduce non-combat attrition in some specific situations, it can be said that in this relatively stress-free army, Liu Yi has done all the details he can think of.

Next is the blade and protective gear, after soliciting a lot of opinions and combining the experience of countless wars and many practices, the standard weapons of the soldiers were set as "Zhang two guns", "three-foot knives" and "seven-inch daggers", the two guns are one zhang and two inches long, the total weight is seven catties and three taels, the three-foot knife is a waist knife, weighing four catties and eleven taels, in addition to adding a dagger, the crossbowman is to replace the "Zhang Ergun" with the "Kaiyuan bow", and the sword and shield hand is also similar.

At this time, the busy soldiers in the county town are only wearing military uniforms, once they enter the wartime state, they will put on the armor, ordinary soldiers are half-body leather armor, which is this small leather armor, which contains the painstaking efforts of countless craftsmen of the utensils, especially Xiao Tong, a craftsman who was personally appreciated by His Majesty two years ago, it is he who combines the craftsmanship from the Western Regions with the handiwork of the Han Dynasty and the intensive nitrification process to have the tough and light half-body leather armor on the soldiers.

The leather armor of ordinary soldiers weighs four pounds and three taels, and the toughness has been greatly improved compared to before, if the original leather armor can cause damage to ordinary archers within seventy steps, then this kind of leather armor must be at least twenty-five steps closer! These figures are by no means speculation or approximation, but the conclusion of the experiment of the equipment and the ordnance department again and again, the Kaiyuan Emperor's requirements for data and details are very high, and it is impossible to deceive here.

All the equipment in one place plus the water carried in wartime, the total combat weight of an ordinary soldier is twenty-seven catties and thirteen taels, and in all the main forces of the Han army, their daily weight-bearing training is at least thirty-five catties, and the previous increase of the Tiger Guard Army has reached forty-five catties.

The above is the data of ordinary soldiers, and then look at Hao Zhao, who is in command of Qingtu at this time, he has three sets of armor, and most of the battles to defend the city are foot battles, so the light and tough chain mail is the best choice, and when the city was attacked, a captain was only slightly injured and did not affect the combat power after being slightly bandaged! As for Hao Zhao's whole body armor when he fought with Ling Tong that day, it was made of fine iron and leather, with a total weight of thirty-one catties and fifteen taels, and when Liu Yi fought against the Yellow Turban, the general's whole body armor would never be less than forty-five catties, and the former's defensive power would exceed that of the latter, which was the embodiment of science and technology in the army's combat effectiveness.

However, the best smelting technology to train the refined iron is not equipped in the hands of the combat soldiers, but precisely these engineering shovels in the hands of the engineer battalion, at first some generals did not quite understand, but after the power of the engineering soldiers in the southern war was fully exerted, no one would doubt it, the output of that kind of refined iron was originally small, and it can be said that it is good steel used on the blade of the engineer battalion.

In addition to the most eye-catching new configuration of the engineer battalion, each main force also has its own mule and horse team, Youzhou Horse Farm has been deepening communication with Wuhuan Huns for several years, learning from each other's strengths, not only the production of horses and mules has been greatly improved, the relative weight durability has also been improved, or take the Tiger Guard as an example, his mule and horse team has 800 black mules, as well as 400 donkeys that are good at walking mountain roads and rugged trails, of course, these numbers are more than the standard configuration of the general main army, for the "rich" in the army Of course, Zhang Junyi is nothing.

Speaking of the Tiger Guard, the whole army has 60,000 soldiers, but that is only the number in peacetime, and when the war comes, the number will be around 80,000, more than 3,000 wheelbarrows of all kinds, and more than 2,000 mules and horses. After the completion of the whole training, all the equipment was distributed in place, and Emperor Kaiyuan once sighed that a main force at this time could defeat all the troops of his decisive battle against the wolf, not to mention the equipment.

All this comes from the various industries and technologies that the Han is constantly thriving, and it is inseparable from the contribution of private wealth and commerce, it is with an unprecedented wealth of the Han as the foundation, Zhang He's Tiger Guard Army, including the rest of the Han army, will have such neat equipment, many generals also have a lot of sighs, look at the present and look at the past, at that time it was really called Huazi.

At this time, Dahan has a special arsenal, but most of them are used for scientific research, in Liu Yi's view, it is not appropriate to take a special arsenal to provide equipment for the whole army, so most of them still take the way of cooperation with civilian businesses, as for how to choose, it is similar to the method of bidding in later generations.

After the whole army, all the standard military uniforms of the Han army are all from the Qin family in Shuzhong, in terms of the relationship between them and His Majesty, they are far inferior to the Zhen family, the Zhao family, the Mi family and even the Wei family, and can win this large amount of business depends on the quality of the military uniform and the extremely high cost performance, Liu Yi showed great fairness here, if you want to make money, you can, come up with a good reason, otherwise you are my brother and there is no one to talk about, this time if you can't work hard, the next time you change clothes still pass the bidding, As long as your things can outperform others, there is no need to worry about other aspects.

"Only when the people are strong can the country be rich, and only when the country is rich can the army prosper." This is Liu Yi's words when he opened the martial arts academy back then, and from the current point of view, he has indeed achieved this, and it is still developing. However, in the past five years, Emperor Kaiyuan has not participated in any battles, but compared to the previous Rong Ma Xuan, he is more tired, the current situation of the country is rich and the people are strong, and the current situation of prosperity is not without a price, Liu Yi also has to say that in the past six years, he has been the busiest man in the Han Dynasty and has not been one of them.

But as long as you can see the Han flourishing in his own hands, that sense of satisfaction and accomplishment will make him forget all the fatigue, this is only a stable development of five or six years, now he is forty and three, in this life can be called old but in the future life can still be said to be in the prime of life, give him another twenty years, what kind of height can he push the Han down? Liu Yi is also very much looking forward to this, especially as long as he wins the big battle in front of him, the Han country will be truly complete.

For Liu Yi, the battle of Chibi, a battle related to reunification, is much easier than being in Beijing, and his habit of being comfortable and excited as soon as he enters the military camp has not changed because of the political affairs of the past few years, and the Kaiyuan Emperor, who controls the overall situation in Xiangyang, sometimes feels that the current battle of unification can be regarded as a kind of leisure, and the concerted efforts of his ministers and generals make him no longer need to spend more energy in the battle situation, but will spend more thinking on things after the unification of the Han Dynasty.