The people in the Armaments Research Department have always looked like crazy people, some of them have their hair dispersed, some of them have filthy clothes, and some of them have flowers like vegetables, as the most peculiar institution of this era, Li Congjing inevitably makes their work the most tangled, which is also something that cannot be helped.

However, Li Congjing stubbornly believes that this is what scientific research veterans should look like.

Armaments can be broadly divided into five categories: swords, guns, armor, bows and crossbows, horses, and siege and defense equipment.

In the Tang Dynasty, the iron-smelting technology was improved, and the steel filling method replaced the hundred refining method, making the iron war knife of this period more sharp, and the use of horizontal knives and horse lances has reached a peak, and it is not easy to break through.

The armor is known as the heavy weapon of the country, the Xuanjia of the Han Dynasty, the armor of the Wei and Jin dynasties, were replaced by the Tang Thirteen Armor represented by the Mingguang armor at this time, the Mingguang armor and other armor are lighter, but the defense power has been improved, and the craftsmanship is also the best.

Armor varies depending on the equipment of cavalry and infantry. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, due to the increasing maturity and extensive use of stirrups, the cavalry developed from light cavalry to heavy cavalry in the Han Dynasty, and the men and horses were protected by heavy armor. However, because the main opponent of the Tang army was the cavalry of the steppe nomads, all the battles were mainly long-distance attacks, because although the Tang army also had heavy cavalry, more light cavalry.

After the Huangchao Rebellion, the feudal towns competed for power, and most of them used heavy cavalry as a killing move. However, the Central Plains has been suffering from internal friction for many years, making it more and more difficult to form heavy cavalry, and the current cavalry, whether it is Zhuang Zong's Congma Zhi, Li Siyuan's Left Shooting Army, or Junzidu, are all light cavalry.

The light cavalry's demand for armor is much lower than that of the heavy cavalry, although the knight is completely armored, but the skirt armor and shoulder armor are shortened a lot, and the war horse only protects the chest and face, in order to make up for the defense, the cavalry also uses belts to fix the armor on the legs and hands.

"The improvement of armor should start from the forging process, change hot forging to cold forging, if this mutation can be obtained, the armor will not only be lighter in weight, but also stronger in defense." When Li Congjing gave his opinion to the Armaments Research and Development Division, he said, "Of course, it will be more troublesome to manufacture, but this is exactly where you can come in." ”

Li Congjing said that the cold forging armor, the earliest for the Xixia people to master, a pair of armor pieces up to 3,000 pieces, but the weight can drop by one-third to two-thirds, the defense power is even greater, at the same time, even if it is the Song Dynasty proud of the foot armor, it is difficult to compete with it, it is definitely the peak of armor skills.

"If you can get cold forging armor, General Lone will reorganize the Mo Dao Great Array in the army!" In the end, Li Congjing said, "Once this is the case, the power of the Mo Sword Formation in the coming day will definitely be even more powerful than before." ”

After the Tang Dynasty, the influential Modao Array did not reappear, and the reasons were of course many. But its power can be called unprecedented, people can not help but be fascinated, history said that its array "into the wall of light, people and horses are broken, guard like the city wall, Mo knife like a wall", the role can be compared to the tank of later generations one or two.

The two old men of the Armaments Research Department, Xu Banxian and Liu Laoshi, were shocked at first after hearing Li Congjing's statement of "cold forging", and then showed doubts: "The method of iron smelting, high-heat iron is soft, so that the shape can be changed, if the iron is cold, the shape has been determined, but how can it be forged again?" ”

This is to ask Li Congjing, his poor knowledge of physics in later generations has long been returned to the teacher, where do you remember the details, it is rare to know such a thing as cold forging, it is really a book to use the time to hate less, groaned for a long time, Li Congjing said: "Cold forging is the forging of materials below the recovery heat, copper, iron, aluminum forging under ordinary heat, that is, cold forging"

After talking for a long time, I didn't feel that I had said it thoroughly, so I said: "How to do it specifically, you have to think about it, and you have limited knowledge, so you can only use this to lead the way, and I hope you can live up to the high expectations of the court." Once the method of cold forging is completed, the Tang Dynasty armor should stand alone in the world, which is a meritorious achievement in history. ”

Since it is not clear, they can only use righteousness and fame and fortune as a temptation to let them figure out their own way.

Xu Banxian and Liu Laoshi opened their mouths wide when they heard that they could leave a name in history, it has always been the patent of scholars, and now they can do the same, how can they not be very moved, and they don't care about asking anything at the moment, and nodded again and again to make a guarantee.

Li Congjing smiled and nodded, indicating that he was very satisfied.

After talking about swords, guns, and armor, let's talk about bows and crossbows.

In addition to the small crossbows such as the brigade arm short crossbow, the large crossbows are generally projectile, the Qin and Han dynasties Chinese crossbows have been unique in the world, the disadvantage is that the rate of fire is low, so the army is generally bows, crossbows are available.

There are generally four kinds of crossbows in the Tang army, the Fuyuan crossbow with a range of 300 steps, the arm open crossbow with a range of 230 steps, the horn bow with a range of 200 steps, and the single bow crossbow with a range of 160 steps. As for the brigade arm short crossbow, the range is about 100 steps, short and easy to carry, quick to use, and most of them are scout equipment.

In addition, there is the car crossbow, also known as the bed crossbow. Twelve stones of the crossbow of the car, open the bow with the pull of the car, there are seven arrows on the crossbow arm, a huge arrow is placed in the center of the arrow, three feet five inches long, five inches thick, the iron leaf is the feather, three slightly smaller arrows are placed on the left and right, when all the arrows are fired together, "the city fortress in the center is all destroyed, and the building is also upside down", it is definitely a weapon of mass destruction.

Previously, when he was in Youzhou, Li Congjing had asked Liu Laoshi to develop and improve crossbows, requiring a range of 300 steps, which could speed up the launch and shoot more arrows in battle.

This matter is simple, but it is extremely difficult to do, it took several years, when Li Congjing entered the Bohai Sea, it was quite eyebrow-raising, and later it turned out that the process was not stable, and often caused the crossbow to collapse, and the matter was stopped. After that, Liu Laoshi turned to the study of strong crossbows, focusing on increasing the range.

Now, the matter has an eyebrow again.

"If you want to fire more than one shot, if you focus on increasing the fire speed of your crossbow, you can't do it, but if you focus on increasing the range, you can also get this effect, and the effect is much greater." At that time, when Liu Laoshi said these words to Li Congjing, he was so ashamed that Li Congjing couldn't wait to find a crack in the ground to drill down, which was really too embarrassing and too big, as the saying goes, interlacing is like separating mountains, which is really true. If you are afraid, you are afraid that you don't know, but you have to pretend to know, and the result can only be self-inflicted.

"How's the new crossbow being developed?" Li Congjing decided not to say much this time, but only asked this question.

"The shooting range has been increased to three hundred and twenty paces before, but the old man thinks that there is still room for improvement, and he is improving. It is expected that after molding, the firing distance can reach 340 steps. It's just that the process is complicated, and it affects the whole body, and there are still some problems that have not been solved. Liu said honestly.

"Three hundred and forty steps?" Li Congjing and Mo Li glanced at each other, and they both took a breath of cool air.

Don't look at the difference between 300 steps and 340 steps, but this is the difference between 1005 and 106, a qualitative change, and the two are not the same.

"Have you ever named it?" In addition to the excitement, Li Congjing asked with concern.

Liu Laoshi should be a bamboo in his chest, and he felt that it would not take long for the development to be successful, so the old god was saying: "I am waiting for His Highness to give his name." ”

Li Congjing pondered for a moment and said: "Three hundred and forty steps, it is really like divine help, it is better to call it a divine arm crossbow, how about it?" ”

Mo Li and the others smiled: "Good! ”

After talking about the bow and crossbow, it is the horse, the city offensive and defensive equipment.

Datang now has the land of Hetao - Feng, Sheng and other states, which has always been a horse breeding resort, with this horse farm, Datang has no shortage of good horses for the time being, and horses can be said needlessly. As for the offensive and defensive equipment of the city, it was not the focus of the Armaments Research Office before, so it was brushed aside.

The next thing to talk about is the last study, and it is also the one that Li Congjing values the most - gunpowder.

Gunpowder was used in the military, and it was available in previous years. In the first year of Tianyou, Yang Xingmi attacked Yuzhang and used gunpowder, but the focus was on combustion, not explosion.

At that time, gunpowder was black fire, and it could burn, but it was barely enough to explode. What Li Congjing wanted was to improve gunpowder into explosives. In order to improve the explosive performance of gunpowder, it is necessary to promote the transformation of black fire into yellow powder, the key of which lies in two points, one is to develop nitrate-glycerine-oil, change the formula of gunpowder, and the other is to improve safety, and use the combination of guide-fire-cable and detonator-tube.

It took the Europeans more than thirty years to do this. Li Congjing can't wait for 30 years, not to mention dying on the battlefield, he is not sure that with the level of hygiene and medical treatment in this era, he will be able to live for another 30 years.

As for what is nitrate-sweet-oil-Li Congjing doesn't know how to improve the gunpowder formula, he has never heard of it. If you had known that you were going to travel through this life, not to mention anything else, you would have to memorize the formula of the explosives first, this is definitely the supreme weapon that swept the world!

With this stuff, the way of war will all change radically.

Before leaving, Li Congjing could only pat Xu Banxian on the shoulder and chat with comfort and encouragement. How to improve gunpowder, he really can't help, he can only provide such a thought, direction. Anyway, after Xu Banxian believed in the power of gunpowder in Li Congjing's mouth, he had already regarded it as the only career in his life, and he would not stop for five or ten years.

In this regard, Li Congjing can only sincerely hope that in Xu Banxian's lifetime, in his lifetime, he can see this thing come out. What Li Congjing can do is that he will give Xu Banxian whatever he wants, except for women - he thinks that giving women will only make Xu Banxian die earlier, and there is no nitrate-sweet-oil on women.

After inspecting the Martial Arts Academy, Li Congjing returned to the dean's office, where there was a military assessment waiting for him to see.

This military assessment, the title alone is shocking enough, "Raiders of Shu".

This is a strategy formulated through the cooperation of the Military Intelligence Department, the General Staff Office, and the Exercise and Martial Arts Academy, which took half a year. This strategy is based on the military intelligence department's detailed investigation of the topography of the mountains and rivers in Shu, the route to Shuzhong, the deployment of troops in Shuzhong, and the defense situation of the main passes and cities.

Correspondingly, in the palace of King Qin, Li Congjing has a similar military assessment on his desk.

The name of that assessment is called: Dingjingnan.