This weapon has been born since the cavalry appeared on the battlefield, the most famous of which is the Mo knife used by the Tang Army. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Because the Mo knife was not allowed to be buried in the Tang Dynasty, it was not unearthed in later generations, but according to records, the Mo knife was seven feet long, of which the blade was three feet long and the handle was four feet long - one foot in the Tang Dynasty was about 30 centimeters in later generations, that is to say, a Mo knife was nearly one meter long just by the blade. It is said that this weapon is "held by the wrestlers, and those who are blocked by waist force are all powder", especially used against cavalry, and it is a great weapon for the Tang army to ride with foot.

However, at that time, each capital was equipped with its own weapons, and the Mo knife was also very different in shape, coupled with the old problem that there was no unearthed, and later generations did not have a conclusion about its style, and even on the mural of Guo Ziyi's tomb, the Mo knife was completely in the shape of a three-pointed and two-edged knife. However, the drawings brought by Zheng Tai are more like those described in the history books of the Tang Dynasty, except that the length of the blade has changed from three feet to two feet, and that's it.

In fact, the equipment of the horse chopping knife also existed in the Ming and Qing armies, but Chen Wen started with the mandarin duck array from the beginning, and there was no horse chopping knife in the mandarin duck array, so there was no equipment in the army. However, a lot of them have been captured in the past, and most of them are still adhering to the dogma of the noble soldiers, so that when facing the army of the ZJ Ming Army, which is far lower than the number of cavalry of the Qing Army, he still brought a lot of swords.

The reason why Chen Wen was shocked that the drawings of this weapon appeared in Zheng Tai's hands was that the armor drawings he brought with him, a kind of heavy armor made of large iron armor leaves, in addition to the helmet with an iron mask as speculated, the cuirass, arm armor, skirt, and iron shoes were all there.

If it is used together with the horse chopping knife, it is very likely that it will be the last hoplite group in the history of China-Iron Man Army will appear on the Chinese battlefield four years in advance!

According to records, the Iron Man Army began to be built by the engineer Feng Chengshi, and Zheng Chenggong's selection of candidates was a matter of the twelfth year of Yongli.

At that time, it was not far from the Battle of Nanjing. In fact, the Iron Man Army was also Zheng Chenggong's biggest killer weapon in the Battle of Nanjing, and the first appearance gave the Eight Banners Army led by Guan Xiaozhong a big hemorrhage. Even a year later, due to the heavy losses in the Battle of Nanjing, the armor of the Iron Man Army could only barely make up the cuirass, but the only remaining remnants of the elite army still cooperated with the fleet of the FJ Ming Army to achieve that great victory.

The Iron Man Army is Zheng Chenggong's biggest killer weapon in history, because he is not able to form a large-scale cavalry, he chooses to use hoplites with firearms to overcome cavalry is Zheng Chenggong's idea. In that period of history, Zheng Chenggong not only put it into action, but also achieved excellent results, and even in Chen Wen's opinion, this idea is at least more reliable than the war elephants and Luo Luo used by the Ming army in the southwest.

According to Yang Ying's record in the "Records of Congzheng", Zheng Chenggong at that time was influenced by the Ming army in the southwest, and the style of the horse chopping knife he chose was similar to the YN horse chopping knife. And now, Zheng Chenggong is still relatively little affected by the Southwest Ming Army, but in the adjacent FJ Chen Wen used the "eliminated" Mandarin Duck Array to achieve good results on the ZJ battlefield, so it was prompted to a certain extent, or stimulated, but the ZJ Ming Army was not equipped with this weapon at all, so it would find another way to equip the Iron Man Army with a variant of the Mo knife.

Whether this is the case, as an unscrupulous arms dealer, Chen Wen said that as long as this thing is not used on him, everything else can be ignored, especially after coming to the conclusion that the arms industry should be a profiteering industry, he is already hungry and thirsty, and his mind is full of the Zheng family's small money, well, silver.

5,000 sets of full sets of armor piercings in addition to helmets, not only from the neck down to the whole body protection, but also the thickness of the armor lobes is also required; 1,000 Lumi guns, all of which are the standard equipment of the ZJ Ming Army; In addition, there are 3,000 swords with a total length of seven feet and a blade length of two feet. For these arms, Zheng Chenggong will pay up to more than 1 million taels of silver in April next year.

Rich is capricious, I just made a big purchase this year, and I can even take out more than one million taels next year, the Zheng family's wealth is really not for fun. It's just that Chen Wen actually ignored a problem, with his fierce battle in ZJ, Zheng Chenggong now not only has one more Zhangzhou Mansion in the occupied area, but also did not suffer the fiasco of Fengchao Mountain, and most of this procurement, most of which are not used by the FJ Ming army at all, but are directly used by sea ships to conduct sea trade, in exchange for real money.

Zheng Chenggong has a foundation in maritime trade, routes, sea vessels, and now there is Chen Wen as a supplier, which is naturally smooth sailing, which is understandable. As for Chen Wen, the matter of sea trade is just a plan for the time being, and it cannot be exchanged for silver just by thinking, so for the time being, it can only rely on the sale of raw materials and finished products to obtain more resources.

Arms have now become a major item for Chen Wen to earn extra income, but unfortunately, the military industry workshop of the ZJ Ming Army, according to the current scale, is already extremely reluctant to support the expansion and daily consumption of the army, and it is difficult to increase production for sale. In terms of raw materials, due to the blockade of Hong Chengchou, there is also a growing shortage.

From this point of view, at this moment, Chen Wen has received such a large amount of orders, which seems to mean that some people are not willing to swallow elephants.

"Master Xu, have you already succeeded in this matter?"

Chen Wen didn't know how much production capacity the workshop of the Military Industry Division was, but he still took over this large order, Xu Yi didn't even dare to fart about it, who let Chen Wen's status be there. But I don't know if it's because I can't speak, or because I'm overwhelmed by the task, since Zheng Taixing left happily, this young director of the Military Industry Department seems to have immediately aged a few years.

"If you return to the country, Xia Guan has calculated, even if you stop the task of building the weapons and equipment of our ZJ Wang Division, and let the blacksmiths go to build armor, horse swords and Lu Mi guns, they may not be able to complete that order."

In the past two days, Xu Yi can be said to have broken his heart, in order to be able to increase the production speed, he is short of a handful of hair, and it can even be said that if the hair can increase the output, it is estimated that he will not hesitate to use this method.

It's a pity that the output is not something you want to have, for today's handicraft industry-based environment, the most important factor in determining the output is the craftsman, whose number and craftsmanship are the key, and there is no use for lewdness alone. According to common sense, the best way now is to recover more lost territory as soon as possible and recruit more blacksmiths to craft weapons, and probably only this seems to be the most reliable way.

Chen Wen could naturally hear the meaning of Xu Yi's words, and in fact, he was also very clear about the current situation of the Military Industry Department. However, he is not completely unconfident about this order, and the answer will be revealed at this moment.

"The idea of putting the building task on hold is right, but it's not about producing those products directly, it's about making more hydraulic machinery."

Chen Wen's bold words made Xu Yi scorched on the outside and tender on the inside, the use of hydraulic machinery in military manufacturing can indeed greatly increase the output, sharpen the knife and not cut the wood, this method is not unthinkable. But the machine is hammered out by hand, and the military industry workshop of the ZJ Ming Army has always done this, and he has calculated the time, and it is even better to let the craftsmen make armor and chopping swords.

"Guogong, the lower officials have calculated, the time is simply not enough, and even worse."

Although there are only two of them in the official room at the moment, Chen Wen is already a prince of the country, and the difference in status, it is easy to cause dissatisfaction with Shangguan by disobeying Shangguan's orders so bluntly. However, the number of this order is too huge, and he can't help but come and pour these cold water in advance.

"How do you make those hydraulic machines now?"

"Let those masters build it according to the records in the book."

"Everything?"

"Yes." Chen Wen's knowingly asked questions, which really made Xu Yi feel a little dazed.

"Then you don't need those hydraulic boring machines, hydraulic forging hammers or something to directly create spare parts for other hydraulic machinery, and then those masters will correct them according to the tolerances to complete the assembly, which is not faster than all hammering out?"

Chen Wen was born in that era of great industry, even if he was not one of those industrial demons who could copy a complete set of modern industrial systems in a few months or years, he still knew some conceptual things.

It is well known that machines can make products faster than humans, but what is industrialization?

Industrialization is to use machines to make machines, and to produce more products through the manufactured machines, so that productivity will grow exponentially like chickens laying eggs and eggs laying chickens, and dumping and overcapacity in later generations can occur!

It is precisely because he understands this truth that Chen Wen will ask the Military Industry Department to manufacture all the useful machinery on those books according to the script, and then use these to make new machines to further expand the scale of production. However, these subordinates are still being occupied by the old-fashioned area, and the larger the area, the more craftsmen there are; And the more craftsmen, the greater the scale of production and output, which is controlled by inertial thinking, which is also no way.

looks like he hates iron but not steel, in fact, Chen Wen more or less wronged Xu Yi and those craftsmen.

Putting aside the inertial thinking, the ZJ Ming army has to carry out a round of expansion almost every few months, and almost every three months to half a year will have a large-scale battle with the Qing army, the expansion and consumption of the military production pressure is amazing, and the machinery created will be used in military manufacturing immediately, only in this way can the needs of the army be guaranteed. But even so, output is barely keeping up.

In such a situation, who has the time to worry about anything else.

Xu Yi is not such a stubborn fool, Chen Wen thought about it for a while, and quickly explained the truth in it, once the old and inherent thinking pattern was broken by the new thinking, the spirit of the whole person was immediately excited. If it weren't even for Chen Wen's presence, Xu Yi would probably immediately summon all the masters involved in making the machine and spread this new mode of thinking.

"Xiaguan will go and discuss with other relevant people."

As he spoke, Xu Yi was about to turn around and run out of the office, obviously devoting himself wholeheartedly to it. Chen Wen, a subordinate official, is very satisfied with being willing to do things, can do things, and can really drill into and study the doorway, but now is not the time to let him continue to study inside.

"Director Xu, next year will be a year for us to make great strides, which can be said to be very important. Everything must move forward at full speed from now on, and release the accumulation of these years. I don't have time to watch you meet here, and if you still have any questions about military production, it's better to say now, there are already a lot of reports and applications waiting to be reviewed in my office, and you will only delay more time if you take them slowly. ”

Xu Yi knew everything Chen Wen said, sat down again, thought about it carefully, and then he turned to say: "The matter of using machines to produce machines, the lower officials will go to study with relevant people, if it can be done, not only can the order be completed within half a year, but our own weapons and equipment needs will not be too much of a problem." ”

"It's a must!"

"That's what Guogong said." After giving up the peace, Xu Yi frowned, revealing a look of embarrassment. "It's just that in addition to the speed of production, the raw materials are more important. Now that the blockade order and relocation order of the Tartars have been issued, almost all the bulk goods from outside have been cut off, and we are afraid that our six prefectures will not even be able to make up the iron ore. ”

Raw materials are the most important existence in production, and it can even be said that production is the process of reorganizing and matching raw materials.

This batch of orders, such as wood, cloth, leather and other raw materials needed, can be said, are all able to produce, but ZJ has never been a major iron-producing province, and none of China's large-scale iron mines in later generations are in ZJ, let alone limited to the territory of these six prefectures.

The normal way of thinking is to fight out as soon as possible and recover more lost ground, especially those with large iron mines, such as Ma'anshan in Nanzhili.

It's a pity that this idea seems to be even more nonsense, now his problem is that the troops are insufficient, if he can fight out, do you still need to count on the Zheng family's batch of money, he has long relied on the strongest combat effectiveness in the southeast battlefield to snowball, isn't it easier than manufacturing?

If there is no money, there are no soldiers, and if there are no soldiers, you can't fight, this seems to have entered a dead loop, but Chen Wen has already figured it out when he should have signed Zheng Tai's contract before.

It is true that ZJ is not a large iron-producing province, and there are no large iron mines in later generations, but Chen Wen remembers that when the Republic was first founded, there was a period of trying to catch up with the two strongest capitalist countries in the world by relying on its weak industrial foundation. During that period, in addition to the iron products of the common people's families to be handed over to iron smelting and steelmaking, they also organized people to explore iron mines in the four places, among which ZJ explored many small and medium-sized iron mines, such as Yanzhou Mansion and Chuzhou Prefecture.

The current era is not the era of large industry in the future, and the handicraft industry and today's demand do not need much output for the time being, as long as these iron mines can be found and effectively mined, let alone orders, the ZJ Ming army may not be enough to expand the army significantly.

After appeasing Xu Yi, Chen Wen issued an order to recruit talents to explore the mining site, and if the manpower is insufficient, you can use machinery, and if the machinery is insufficient, you can produce, and if you can't do it, you can use the lives of those prisoners in the coolie camp to fill it.

Blood-stained ore was not uncommon in later times. Industry and capital are born with blood, and stories similar to sheep eating people abound. If he could exchange the blood of those Ertars who did not want his ancestors for more weapons and equipment to equip his ZJ Ming army, and regain the lost territory more quickly and drive the Manchus out of China, Chen Wen felt that there was nothing he could not do. (To be continued.) )