Qu'a, the camp of the Chu army.

Xiang Tuo was inspecting the armory workshop surrounded by dozens of generals.

After the end of the last court meeting, Xiang Zhuang personally raised 20,000 elite soldiers to leave Wuzhong, and took the small road directly to Fanyi, Xiang Tuo took his headquarters to Qu'a and set down a large camp, and at the same time ordered all counties and counties to gather strong men and gallop to aid Qu'a camp, and now, the Chu army gathered in Qu'a has exceeded 50,000 people.

Among the 50,000 people, 20,000 are Xiang Tuo's headquarters, 20,000 are Xiang Guan's remnants, and the remaining 10,000 are the strong men who have just been gathered in Wuzhong County.

The armory is located in the valley near the camp of Qu'a.

Thousands of huts have been erected along the stream of the valley, thousands of blacksmiths are bare-chested and bare-backed, and are forging weapons in the huts, mainly ring-headed knives, three-edged arrow clusters and flying spear heads, behind the huts, hundreds of earthen blast furnaces have been built along the mountain, and thousands of strong men are sweating like rain, and they are desperately agitating the bellows to blow the air to the earthen blast furnace.

On the side of the blast furnace, there are piles of ring knife rough embryos, these are just cast, and they have not had time to be sent to the blacksmith shop for forging, Xiang Tuo picked up two rough embryos from them and hit each other fiercely, only to hear a sound of explosion, the two ring head knife rough embryos are intact, Xiang Tuo couldn't help but light up, praised: "Good iron!" ”

The accompanying bus lane next to him: "General, this is a good fine iron!" ”

Since the appearance of the bellows, the furnace temperature of the iron smelting furnace has been greatly improved, and the increase of the furnace temperature has promoted the quality of iron to improve substantially.

Xiang Tuo nodded. When I turned my head, I suddenly saw a strange blast furnace, the other blast furnaces were built on the mountain, and they were above the ground, but this blast furnace was buried in the ground, and the top was also open, and a frame was set up on the top of the blast furnace, and four strong men with bare chests and backs stood on the rack, stirring a long iron rod together.

"Mr. Gongyi, what kind of furnace is this?" Xiang Tuo said curiously.

"It's a steel oven." The bus bus is quite self-satisfied. "In the past in the country of Lu, Lao Yu once saw a famous blacksmith master in the world use such a steel furnace to fry extremely fine steel, and its hardness is far better than ordinary fine iron." Speaking of this, the bus said with some regret, "However, the old decay has not been able to fry the steel for the time being." ”

Xiang Tuo stretched out his hand and patted the back of the shoulder of the public loss car, and said: "Mr. Gong Yi is a Mo Jiaju, and he is also a famous craftsman master in the world, this general believes that you will one day succeed in frying high-quality steel, then." {zzzcn/.com first text} Mr. must build a steel horizontal knife for this general! ”

The bus waved his hand and said, "The old man is doing his best." ”

Saying that, everyone came to the bow workshop again, only to see that piles of old mulberries had been stacked in the open space in front of the bow workshop, and there were still strong men carrying old mulberry trees that were decades or even hundreds of years old to come here, in the bow workshop. Hundreds of carpenters are working around the clock to build a single longbow, and although the composite horn bow is better, the single longbow is simpler and suitable for a large number of equipment.

Xiang Tuo walked into the workshop, took a longbow that had been made from a craftsman, tried to pull it, the pulling force was about one stone, and an adult male could easily pull it away, and took a heavy arrow and tried the test range, which could shoot more than 100 steps away at a 45-degree angle. Moreover, the falling heavy arrows can easily pierce through a heavy iron armor.

But if you take the mulberry longbow for accurate shooting, it will not work, and twenty steps away is basically ten shots and nine misses.

This is actually reasonable, these mulberry longbows are actually as simple as cutting the mulberry wood strips and tying hemp rope, and their bow-making skills are not as complicated as those of later generations, of course. This also has to do with the way the archers fight, because the rain of arrows suppression of the archers has always been won by numbers, so accuracy is not so important.

Xiang Tuo put back the longbow. He turned back and asked the accompanying arsenal Ling: "How many such longbows can be made in a month?" ”

Arsenal Ling replied: "There are a lot of mulberry trees nearby. There is also plenty of hemp to store, if there are enough manpower. You can make at least 5,000 of these longbows a month! ”

Xiang Tuo immediately turned around and shouted: "Alpaca, transfer another 800 strong men to the bow workshop!" ”

"Whoa!" The alpaca, the subordinate general who followed Xiang Tuo, agreed to the promise and immediately took the order.

Xiang Tuo said again: "So, how much can the ring-headed knife, flying spear and wolf's tooth heavy arrow be built in a month?" ”

Arsenal ordered: "The wolf's tooth heavy arrow only needs to be opened simply after casting, and it is easy to make, so it is not a problem to make more than 100,000 branches a month, but it is extremely difficult to build the ring head knife and flying spear, except for the skilled blacksmith, the general blacksmith and the ordinary strong man cannot intervene at all, so there are not many ......"

Xiang Tuo frowned and said, "How many are the numbers?" ”

Wu Ku Ling sighed and said, "Five hundred ring-headed knives and two thousand flying spears every month. ”

"So little?" Xiang Tuo couldn't help frowning, five hundred ring-headed knives a month, six thousand a year, it would take almost ten years to equip sixty thousand people, it seems that in addition to recruiting a large number of blacksmiths from various counties and counties to come to Qu'a, a large number of bamboo knives and wooden halberds must be made for emergencies, otherwise, the Chu army can only use its fists to fight with the enemy.

The southern suburbs of Guangling, the Huainan Army camp.

As early as more than half a month ago, Yingbu personally brought 30,000 elite soldiers to Guangling, and set up a large camp on the outskirts of the city, the distance from Guangling to Wujiang is even less than 100 miles, as long as the ships are enough, the Huainan army can even cross the Wujiang River south in one day and night, and the rapid march only takes five days at most, and the Huainan army can kill the city of Wuzhong.

In the light footsteps, Kuaicher Shi Ran came to Yingbu's line.

Before entering, a dusty general of the Huainan Army had already come to the outside, and when he saw Kui Che, the general of the Huainan Army hurriedly bowed his hand and paid a big salute.

Kui Che returned the salute and said indifferently: "Is there any news from Jiang Zuo?" ”

The general did not dare to slack off, and replied: "Back to the Prime Minister, about ten days ago, Xiang Zhuang, the king of Chu, personally raised an army of 50,000 troops to enter Qu'a, and there are more strong men from various counties and counties in Jiangdong to gather in Qu'a. ”

Kui Che nodded and said, "Got it, you better hurry back to the other side." ”

"Whoa!" The general agreed and turned away, for him, a little scout general, it made no difference to report the news to the king or the minister of state.

Seeing the figure of the scout general disappear away, a faint smile suddenly bloomed at the corner of Kui Che's mouth.

Xiang Zhuang personally raised 50,000 troops to enter Qu'a? The little carving insect skills that are hidden from the world and the sea also want to deceive him Huainan army? Is it true that there is no one in Huainan who deceived me? If nothing else, Xiang Zhuang had already personally raised the army to take the small road to Fanyi, as for Qu A, at most it was just Xiang Tuo or Gao Chu bluffing there.

Just as he was thinking about it, there was a sudden sound of footsteps behind him, and when he looked back, he saw that Yingbu had already strode out of the hall of the line.

Yingbu waved his hand and said, "Prime Minister, it seems that the scout general has just returned?" ”

Kui Che nodded and said: "Exactly, the scout general also brought back the news that Xiang Zhuang has personally raised 50,000 troops to enter Qu'a, and there are more strong men from Jiangdong counties and counties are continuously gathering in Qu'a, looking at this posture, Xiang Zhuang obviously regards our Huainan army as the number one enemy." ”

Yingbu couldn't help but shake his head and smile bitterly when he heard this, a little complacent and a little annoyed in his heart.

can be regarded as the number one enemy by Xiang Zhuang, which makes Yingbu feel proud, but Xiang Zhuang personally raised the army to go out of the song, and it will be difficult for him Yingbu to bargain for anything, in this way, wouldn't it be cheap Zhou Yin, Jin She, Li Zuoche, Ji Wuzhu, Ji Luo Shao and Mei Kai and the like?

Kuaicher's eyes flickered, and he said, "King, for the sake of today's plan, let's wait and see what happens." ”

Yingbu sighed and said, "If it comes to this point, it can only be like this, so let's wait and see what happens." ”

Kuaiche smiled slightly and said: "In the past, Emperor Yi decreed that the first person to enter the customs was the king, but Liu Bang, who entered the customs first, did not become the king of the Guanzhong in the end, and this time, the one who went down to Jiangdong first may not be able to become the king of Jiangdong!" ”

Yingbu's eyes lit up when he heard this, and Kui Che's meaning was already very clear yesterday, even if others took Jiangdong first, they might not be able to become the king of Jiangdong, because whoever should be allowed to be the one has to speak with strength, he Yingbu is like Xiang Yu at the beginning, although he is the last to enter the Guanzhong, who can be the king of Guanzhong, or Xiang Yu has the final say.

In Yixian, 20,000 elite cavalry of the Chu army were hurrying west along the path.

In order to conceal the traces and achieve the effect of hiding from the sky and crossing the sea, the Chu army did not take the galloping road, but specially selected remote roads to march, from Wuzhong to Yixian, more than 700 miles of mountain roads actually walked for ten days, which can be said to be an unprecedented marching speed for cavalry, of course, the slowest marching speed.

It must be admitted that Jiangnan is indeed not suitable for cavalry combat.

In the mountains and mountains, it is very difficult for the cavalry to even find a suitable road for marching, let alone carry out a large-scale cluster charge, but fortunately, Xiang Zhuang did not plan to use cavalry to fight in this expedition, and the 20,000 war horses requisitioned were also the inferior bantam horses, which were just used for transportation, in order to save the physical strength of the soldiers as much as possible.

On the big stone on the side of the road, a marching map was opened, Xiang Zhuang and Gao Chu, Pang Yu, Xiao Kai, Tian Heng generals were clustered around the map, Baili Xian pointed to the map, and said loudly: "King, less than fifty miles west from Yixian is the boundary of Lujiang County, and four hundred miles west is Fanyi, and the infantry can arrive in two days after a rapid march!" ”

Xiang Zhuang nodded, then turned his head and instructed Jin Xiang: "Order, the whole army abandons the horse and walks!" ”(