"Everybody thinks this is an opportunity?" Li Pu asked the people around him in a low voice, and everyone nodded silently. Although there was no sound in the study, everyone had a look of surprise on their faces.

Li Pu turned his gaze to Shi Tianze, and he smiled: "Your Majesty, rest assured, our new army in Hedong has expanded to 40,000 people, plus the veterans originally brought from Henan, there are no less than 80,000 soldiers on the Hedong Road side alone, as long as the autumn harvest is over, we will be able to go south and north immediately."

Before Li Pu could look at him, Wang Wentong, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, smiled and said, "Your Majesty, the military expenses have also been raised." These days, relying on the donations of Jiechi Yantian and the powerful Hedong family (in fact, it is selling officials), the military expenditure of 1.3 million yuan can be regarded as accumulating. When the autumn grain is harvested, the military rations will also be gone. ”

When everyone heard the figure of 1.3 million, they didn't speak. It was not easy for Wang Wentong to get this money when Luo was poor. However, the 80,000 army, of which 30,000 or 40,000 are Long March soldiers who must be paid (including the soldiers of the Shi family and the Zhang family, as well as the Tang army who cannot go home in Hedong Road, are considered Long March soldiers), and they also need to buy some armor and equipment, and purchase some military horses, which all cost money. In this way, the money to support the operation of 80,000 soldiers for a month or two is very reluctant. If the attack on Yanjing fails, the consequence will probably be the disintegration of the whole army.

However, as long as Chen Dexing's main force is attracted by Mongolia and the Great Song Dynasty, there is basically no problem. Besides, in this battle, Datang is actually a bystander, if the Ming army wins a complete victory, then don't attack Yanjing, just grab the territory of Guannei and Henan. In this way, everyone is more at ease. At least there is no hard battle to be fought. When everyone thought of this, they couldn't help but hope that Kublai Khan had failed. It's more comfortable to grab land than to fight Yanjing Jiancheng, right?

Li Pu hummed and smiled at Wang Wentong to express his appreciation. He stood up. A slight stumble. Everyone found that Li Pu was much older than when he was in Yidu. Although there is still a light flashing in his eyes, the whole person has already declined, as if he has aged ten years old.

Thinking of the Li family's tradition of fratricidal brothers, as well as the Zhao King Li Yanguo, who stayed in Yidu and controlled half of Henan Province, everyone couldn't help but think in their hearts, when would this "Li Yuan" be gone. Will the future Datang be divided into two?

This thought flashed in the hearts of these high-ranking officials of Li Tang, and they all quickly gathered their minds and concentrated on watching Li Pu walking around in the study.

He suddenly said in a deep tone: "The next battle is directly related to who belongs to the heavens, we Datang must go all out, not only from Hedong, but also from Yidu...... We have to send someone to Yidu to help that kid in Yanguo get an idea. ”

He walked up to Wang Wentong, and Wang Wentong immediately stood up and looked at Li Pu. Li Pu patted him on the shoulder: "Yidao." You are Yanguo's grandfather, and you are also Cuixian's grandfather, so Yidu will work hard for you. I will give you the sword of Shang Fang, and there is no one in Yidu who will not listen to you. Just cut it off...... This time the matter was successful, and there was no one Yan king in Yan Kingdom. When the time comes, I won't be the emperor. A good return to Yidu's hometown will raise a few days, this world. It's up to the two brothers, Yan Jian and Yan Guo. ”

Li Pu is painting cakes for his third son, Li Yanguo. Chen Dexing's current core territory is the territory of the Yan State during the Warring States Period. Let Li Yanguo be the king of Yan, so that he will take over Chen Dexing's plate after the war. And Li Pu's abdication is naturally to let Li Yanjian take over in advance. With an old man in charge, Li Yanjian can be imprisoned on the throne. That's a good idea. But whether Li Yanjian has Li Shimin's ability, and whether Chen Dexing is Dou Jiande, it's hard to say.

The people in the room are all complicated, and no one has the confidence to win the future war, so they can only take one step at a time, if they can really put Li Pu on the throne of the co-lord of the north, it is not bad, if not......

Of course, Wang Wentong worked hard for Li Pu wholeheartedly, and he nodded heavily, "Your Majesty, don't worry. Chen will definitely seize the opportunity when he goes to Yidu this time! ”

When these ministers of his own had left the palace, Li Pu really sighed tiredly, and naturally someone from the palace came up to help him beat his back and pinch his feet. His two sons also brought ginseng soup and came over, he took a sip, and said tiredly: "Prepare the carriage and horses, I have to go to the barracks to have a look, it is always uneasy......"

Of course, the heart can't let go, and no matter how perfect the plan is, it will ultimately depend on the army to carry it out. Although Li Pu's army in Hedong was also quite numerous, there were not many that were really useful and reliable. In the last battle of Jingcheng, the Yidu soldiers of Li Pu's family were completely damaged, although tens of thousands of them were replenished in Hedong, but where were the Yidu soldiers trained by him in Hedong to be useful? And the weapons and equipment are not good, iron armor and leather armor cannot be equipped at all, so they can only use paper armor to make up the number.

As for the bow and crossbow with excellent quality, it is too late to produce, so it can only be so-so and cut wood into a bow - a really good composite bow is the same as a horse lance, and it is very time-consuming and laborious to produce, just processing wood It will take a year or two, Li Pu can't wait at all, so he can only replace it with a long wooden bow. Although the long wooden bow is easy to produce (a skilled carpenter can sharpen a bow in an hour), the requirements for the archer are extremely high, and they have to be a strong man of Chen Dexing's number to play (not only is it difficult to draw the bow, but the long wooden bow itself is also heavy, and it is tiring to hold), and the recruits recruited by Li Pu in Hedong can only barely use it. However, against Chen Dexing's steel armor soldiers, there is not much difference between the long wooden bow and the compound bow......

……

The birth of Nanfen Steel has obviously had a huge impact on the military in this part of East Asia.

This is the first time in human history that steel has been mass-produced, and the carbon content of steel can be artificially controlled. Although compared with the steel output of tens of millions of tons and hundreds of millions of tons in later generations, the current output of Nanfen Steel is so insignificant. But less than 2,000 tons of crucible steel a year was enough for tens of thousands of soldiers to wear improvised plate armor, and the bows and arrows and scimitars that the Mongols were proud of were useless.

However, this does not mean that the Ming army with steel armor can sit back and relax and go to the battlefield with the mood of an outing. Because offense and defense complement each other, with a strong shield, someone will then make sharper spears. The Ming army has a strong defensive steel armor, so as the most powerful enemy of the Ming Dynasty, Mongolia naturally has to go all out to find a weapon that can break through the steel armor.

In a newly opened school field near Kaifeng, the senior generals of the Inner Mongolia Army, the Semu Army and the Han Army in Kaifeng City gathered together. Each of them was neatly draped, with scimitars in their hands, hugging Kublai Khan, carefully examining a large number of strange-shaped weapons. Most of them are stupid and rough stuff. There's mace, there's mace, and there's a spiky meteor hammer. They are all slamming weapons, and they are much easier to use than the Uzi steel scimitar against steel armor, and they are not expensive.

But the most striking thing is the two tubular weapons that sit on top of a wooden frame.

The two tubular weapons are not the same size or color. One of them was jet-black, apparently not made of bronze, but a wrought iron pipe, slender in shape, about five feet long, the thickness of an ordinary adult man's arm, and at the end of the wrought iron pipe was tied with hemp rope a wooden handle that could be held by hand—it was clearly a rifle, a very primitive rifle!

The other tubular weapon was a small bronze cannon, five or six feet long, the thickness of a large bowl for rice. Mounted on a wooden shelf that can be rotated back. The bottom of the wooden frame is made in an arc, and it seems that it is to be mounted on the back of some animal to carry it on the battlefield.

Several Han Chinese and Semu craftsmen were sweating profusely to fill the two tubular weapons with H medicine and lead. About twenty paces in front of them, there were two wooden stakes, and on each stake hung a pair of shining silver steel armor.

The Mongolian generals whispered.

"Both of these are firebolts, aren't they? It seems to have been used in the battle of the Daqing River last time, and it can break the steel armor! ”

"It seems that I heard that the Great Khan ordered the Semu man Zhan Siding to secretly build a fire gun in Jingzhao Mansion, and it has been several months, these two fire guns should have been sent by Jingzhao Mansion, right?"

"Why is it different, as if the material is different?"

"There's something special about this, do you see that fire gun with a wooden handle? That should be in hand. The firebolt with a wooden frame like a saddle underneath it was supposed to be pressed on the camel's back. ”

"This man has such a good brain! How did he come up with it? ”

"It seems that he is not the only one, Hulegu Khan's side also sent a group of color craftsmen a while ago, all of them are the best craftsmen in the Great Food Country, and a few of them are quite capable......"

"If these two weapons can break the steel armor, we won't be afraid of rebellion......"

Kublai Khan also looked at the guns and camel cannons in front of him with his hands behind his back, and the generals' discussions did not pay attention. These two weapons, but he used them to restrain the Northern Ming, and maybe he could use them to sweep the Western Regions in the future!

In fact, it is a miniature version of the Beiming bronze cannon. The imitation of bronze cannons has not stopped, but it has not been completed for a long time - mainly because the yield is too low, and there is often only one person who can make ten cannons, although the loss can be reduced by recycling bronze, but the loss in the process of smelting and casting is not a small number, and the loss is obviously too great for the financially constrained Dayuan. Moreover, the Mongols did not work on H medicine, and the secret of granular H medicine was still not discovered by them, so a small number of bronze cannons could not exert their due power at all, and it was better to make light and mobile camel cannons and carry guns and equip them with highly mobile Mongolian cavalry. (To be continued......)