But the bow is not done, it has a very troublesome production process, and on average, a qualified bow cannot be made in a year and a half. And the climate also has a great influence on the bow and crossbow, dampness is its natural enemy, even if the recurve crossbow made of whale baleen is not afraid of moisture, but it is afraid of dryness. The range and power of a single crossbow are also far inferior to that of a flintlock rifle, which is a good thing to use for self-defense, but it is very difficult to use it in large-scale combat.

Training a qualified archer will not take a few years to form combat effectiveness, and you have to pick people, not to pick a person to be an archer, that thing requires a lot of strength. Even if you are a qualified archer, you can't fire too many times on the battlefield, and after a dozen times in a row, your arms will be weak and you need to rest.

But musketeers don't have this limitation, as long as they still have ammunition on their bodies, as long as the barrel is not overheated, there is no difference between one shot and twenty shots. Even if a woman like Bo Zhu is trained and trained on the battlefield, the shooting effect will not be much worse.

This advantage is not visible in normal times, but if it really enters a long-term war, it will immediately rise to the position of the first to affect the final victory or defeat. Without a qualified source of soldiers, the war cannot be fought, and the archers have too many casualties to make up for it, and the musketeers are much easier in this regard, as long as they can wield their rifles, they can go to the battlefield at any time.

Of course, this is only a theoretical assumption, it is useless to just go to the battlefield, you have to be able to listen to commands, don't see the enemy charging and turn around and run, then it is useless to go up. However, this problem exists at the same time as archers and musketeers, so in terms of training difficulty, training time, and training cost, musketeers have an absolute advantage.

Would the Southern Song court buy flintlock pistols against the Mongol cavalry in the north? Hong Tao didn't know, but they were really interested. In view of the excellent artillery of the Jinhe Empire, Zheng Qingzhi agreed to Hong Tao's request and allowed the Jinhe Empire to send an army of more than 600 people along the river into the Han River to launch a small attack on a Mongol army north of the Han River. On the one hand, these armies belonged to the Golden River Empire. He didn't feel distressed when he died in the whole battle, on the other hand, he also wanted to see what kind of magic weapon Hong Tao had come up with. If it is really as easy as Wen Nan said, the Great Song Dynasty will not be stingy with money, as long as it can go on the Northern Expedition, there will be no one in the court who will oppose it.

Hong Tao did not go to this army exercise in person, he was afraid that the Great Song Dynasty would block himself in the Han River and not be able to come back. It was still Kong Pei who was responsible for transporting the army north. He took the transshipment fleet to run this route a lot, and he was familiar with it. In his fleet, in addition to the three hundred Imperial Army, who had been trained for less than four months, there were three hundred marines.

They will be responsible for vigilance, intelligence, and escort work for the exercise. The musketeers belong to the class of troops that can be far but not close, once the enemy breaks through to the front of them, they can only draw out the hand-to-hand combat with their short knives, and their combat effectiveness will drop by ninety percent. The task of the Marines is to protect these musketeers with spears and crossbows, and in case something happens, they always have some melee ability, as long as they can evacuate people to the river. Naval guns will be able to provide cover for them.

Zheng Qingzhi has lived too comfortably in the past few years, no one can shake the position of Prime Minister Zuo, and a large group of senior generals of the Southern Song Dynasty have gathered around him, not only have a high prestige in the court, but also are very supported by the military. Because he led the Southern Song Dynasty sailors on the sea to defeat the Southern Invasion fleet of the Mongol Empire in one fell swoop, and defeated the Mongol Empire, which was invincible on land, he was not much more reckless than the Duke of Yue back then. Of course, the decisive role played by the royal fleet of the Jinhe Empire in the naval battle of the Three Kingdoms was deliberately concealed and weakened by the Southern Song court. This is also a political necessity, and there is nothing inappropriate about it.

This time, the army of the Golden River Empire was going to ask the Mongol army to demonstrate the new weapon. He wanted to go to the front line to see it in person out of selfishness or public intentions, so he also came with the new warship of the Southern Song Dynasty Naval Division, and by the way, it was also to show the Royal Navy the current strength of the Great Song Naval Division.

Among the Great Song generals who came to watch the battle this time, in addition to Zheng Qingzhi, the main ones were Meng Hui and Wu Jue, who were also firm main battle factions like Zheng Qingzhi. These two former are the envoys of Jinghu and the latter are envoys of Sichuan and Shaanxi. They are all commanders who are fighting on the front line of the anti-Mongolian resistance, and they are more eager for new weapons and have more right to speak.

"General Kong, there are often Mongol cavalry harassment near Junzhou, and the enemy of Tangzhou does not often go south. We might as well go further west and go to Junju to wait for the opportunity. "The one who spoke was Meng Hui, a famous general of the Southern Song Dynasty who was born as a soldier, and he had a good impression of the Jinhe Empire. Because it was Hong Tao who killed Zhao Fan with a cannon on the Lisi Islands, he made room for the position of the envoy, so that he could reclean up this war zone that was tossed by Zhao Fan. At this time, Xiangyang City, where the fleet was anchored, was also within his jurisdiction, he was considered a landlord, and he was clear where there were Mongolian soldiers and where the Mongolian soldiers were strong or weak.

"Your Majesty has already instructed before coming that this exercise is mainly a field battle, and only by defeating the Mongol army in a field battle can this weapon be valuable and can be used as the support of the Northern Expedition of the Great Song Dynasty. General Meng's kindness Kong Pei understood, but His Majesty's will could not be violated, and asked General Meng to help find a Mongol army with no more than 1,000 people and within a day or two of Hanshui. Kong Pei's attitude towards Meng Heng is obviously much better, which is inseparable from Hong Tao's advice, Meng Heng and Wu Jue are one of the few generals in the Southern Song Dynasty who are not on paper, although Hong Tao has not seen them, but he knows.

In this way, the enemy of Tangzhou is also suitable, there are more than 300 cavalry and hundreds of infantry stationed here, and the person who commands the army is Wang Shixian, the general of the Jin State. This man has been fighting with us for many years, and he is very cunning and difficult to deal with. He echoed the enemy of Dengzhou and Caizhou from afar, attacking one point, and the other two points could rush to help, and he tried many times, but he returned in vain. "Although Meng Heng is the master, it is not easy to forcibly ask Kong Pei where to fight, as soon as he heard that Kong Pei also received an order from Emperor Hong that he must fight in the field, he immediately did not persuade him. This is a state affair of another country, and it would be better for him, a foreign general, to intervene less.

"Brother Meng doesn't have to worry, General Kong can lead people straight to Tangzhou, and Brother Meng can send troops across the river to directly supplement Dengzhou and Caizhou. In this way, Wang Shixian could not concentrate his forces to deal with General Kong, even if there was an accident, the troops on both sides could quickly move closer to the middle, and it would not be difficult to retreat with their whole body. It was expected that Wang Shixian would not dare to push too much, after all, the troops in his hands were limited. At this time, Wu Jue also expressed his own opinion, this civilian general is good at planning and mobilizing superior forces to lure the enemy, and has taught the invading Mongolian army many times in the Sichuan-Shaanxi theater, relying on the strength of one person to firmly stabilize the battle line, and can also counterattack from time to time, which is very powerful.

"Jin Qing's plan is very good, Puyu, I think it is feasible. However, General Kong still has to be careful, the Mongolian soldiers are good at field warfare, coming and going like the wind, and if they are not careful, they will be poisoned. In the end, it was Zheng Qingzhi who made the decision, since Meng Heng was willing to send troops to protect Kong Pei's troops, he was also willing to let Kong Pei take risks. Even if there is really an accident in the end, Hong Tao can't blame the Great Song Dynasty, the Great Song Army has done everything that should be done, it is your own soldiers who will rush in, and no one will do it.

The direction and route of the attack were determined, and the Imperial Army, which had not been seen all along, finally got out of the cabin and began to land on the north shore in small boats in batches. This appearance made Meng Heng's brows tighten a little, those troops called musketeers by Kong Pei had neither heavy armor nor sharp blades, and the protection of the whole body was that each person wore a metal hat the size of a pot lid on his head, plus leather armor on the torso, and the only weapon was a large stick in each person's hand, less than five feet long, black as if it was made of iron.

The Royal Marines who came down afterwards made Meng Hui feel a little more comfortable, these soldiers were still holding spears of about ten feet and wearing half-body metal armor, and they looked much more effective than the soldiers just now.

"The Jinhe Empire is really rich enough, three people and a war horse, they are all good horses, and they are actually used as pack horses, it is convenient to march in this way, and the soldiers basically don't have to take things." Standing on the deck and watching the soldiers and horses being sent ashore by boats, Wu Jue was the first to sigh.

"General Wu misunderstood, these soldiers each had a horse, and they were all trained in horsemanship, but due to the limited carrying space of the boat, it was compressed into a horse for three people. Our Majesty has a penchant for escape, and he has deployed his army this way mainly for the convenience of travel, but also for another reason. According to his theory, if you can't beat the enemy, you should run first, and as long as you are alive, you will have a chance to fight back, and you will fight again next time. Kong Pei actually made a joke about Hong Tao, he didn't know much about army operations, so the task of this trip was to transport the soldiers over and back, so that he could stand and talk without backache.

"Hey, hey, hey......" Kong Pei can use Hong Tao to play cymbals, but Zheng Qingzhi and Wu Jue can't go too far, they can only laugh quietly.

"No, Your Majesty the Emperor is a very good way to use soldiers! Well-trained soldiers are precious, and with them, the war is not lost. The Mongols did this better, they were always a stick-and-go, and rarely put on a desperate posture when they were not absolutely sure of victory. Therefore, there are a lot of veterans of a hundred battles in their troops, and a large part of the reason for their strong combat effectiveness is here. Meng Hui did not agree with Kong Pei's statement, but he supported Hong Tao's point of view, but he didn't use such a straightforward word as running away, and said it more tactfully and better.

In the end, whether Hong Tao has obtained the way to use troops or not, no one will say that it is useless, and it depends on the results of this exercise. The Imperial Army was quickly assembled, they had warships to travel, the weight of the baggage could be reduced to a minimum, and with enough war horses and all kinds of convenient field food, they quickly finished organizing their ranks and sent flags to the battleships ready to leave. Then the scouts in Meng Hui's army led the way and drove north.

(To be continued.) )