Xuzhou's affairs should be the best choice for Xu Shu.

Although he brought few soldiers, he also had Tao Qian's potential to borrow, and the situation was not too unfavorable, but the opponent was relatively strong. However, with Xu Shu's ability, even if he can't succeed immediately, he shouldn't continue to deteriorate.

In order to ensure everything, Wang Yu also deliberately transferred Guan Hai back from Licheng and went south to Xuzhou with Xu Shu. Guan Hai can't beat Tai Shici, but he can be regarded as a fierce general, with him holding a knife to support, at least Xu Shu's personal safety factor has been greatly increased.

Solved the matter of Xuzhou, although there are many things left, but they are not a moment or three, they can be solved with a slap, Wang Yu is not in a hurry.

Little Bie is newlywed.

In the next few days, Wang Yu had an extremely nourishing life.

Either get tired of being with Diao Chan, say something that only two people understand, and do something that makes each other happy. or find Cai Yan together, listen to songs, play music, and flirt; Or pull the two daughters together, the piano and the song, happy with each other.

Of course, he is not intoxicated with gentleness and doesn't care about business, but he has to do a few big things, which involve a wide range of things, and they can't be solved just by patting his head.

The counter-plot against Jizhou requires Jia Xu to give advice, and Tian Feng is the counselor, after all, the latter is most familiar with the situation in Jizhou, and he has a good personal relationship with Fu Zhu.

That's right, what Wang Yu wants to solve is not only Lu Yi, but also one of his goals. Without this article and martial arts, although the rest cannot be said to be incompetent, it is much easier to deal with than now.

The matter of rebuilding the White Horse is more complicated.

To rebuild the cavalry, you need war horses, and you also need good riders, although Gongsun Chan agreed that Wang Yu sent people to Youzhou to recruit troops. But it takes a long time to go back and forth. In addition, Youzhou is vast and sparsely populated. Although the percentage of elites recruited is high, it is difficult to form a scale.

What's more. Gongsun Zhan's own losses were also very heavy, and it was not difficult to get war horses from him, but it was difficult to imagine that the supply was open like before.

For this reason, Wang Yu must find one more channel for purchasing war horses.

Liaodong, an ally who had only been pulled by chance before, had a sudden increase in the status of Wang Yu's heart. However, since the naval battle at the beginning of the year, the ships of Liaodong have not reappeared, and I don't know what the situation is.

But the rebuilding of the White Horse is imperative. Wang Yu pursued the strategy of elite soldiers, relatively speaking, the cost performance of cavalry is the highest, Wang Yu naturally put the reconstruction work first.

Again, it is to prepare for the next Hebei war.

Compared with the Qing, Youyou coalition army and Jizhou army, each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

The elite of the coalition army is relatively high, especially the cavalry, and Wang Yu's sharp counterattack began with cavalry battles.

The advantage of Jizhou lies in its strong supply capacity. As well as the advantages of equipment, especially the bow and crossbow with a very high deployment rate.

In the Battle of Jieqiao, due to the relationship between the formation, this advantage of the Jizhou army could not be fully exerted in the stage of Wang Yu's charge. But after the late change of formation. In the process of Gongsun Zhan's charge, the Jizhou army gave full play to the restraint of the bow and crossbow on the cavalry, and blocked the onslaught of the Youzhou army.

Therefore. In the next battle, no matter who the chief general of the Jizhou army is. Presumably, they will play to their strengths and avoid weaknesses, and no longer use cavalry to compete with the coalition forces. Wang Yu also had no chance to win in the chaos.

Wang Yu's original plan was to mobilize the forbidden Imperial Forest Army and Xu Huang's hoplites to cross the river at the right opportunity and flank the invading Jizhou army with the Youzhou cavalry.

However, now that the situation has changed, Yu Ban's troops need to be transferred to the southern front in case there is a change in Xuzhou.

In this way, the Jizhou army has the upper hand in terms of numbers and equipment. In the Battle of the Array, a strong crossbow can negate the advantage of cavalry; The advantage in numbers and armor can offset the advantage of the more elite of your own soldiers.

In the case of no obvious advantage, the outcome of this Hebei battle is likely to be similar to the battle of Jieqiao, or worse.

Fighting a war of attrition is not what Wang Yu wants, he set up such a game, just to attract Yuan Shao to attack, take the opportunity to give the other party a heavy blow, let him slow down for a long time, and give himself time to develop and breathe.

At this juncture, it is impossible to expand the army, simply increasing the number of troops is useless, and conscription will also weaken the development potential of the territory. The best thing to do is to find a way to restrain the strong crossbow and bring the advantages of the cavalry back into play.

This is a difficult problem, and it is not impossible to do so, but it is very difficult to implement.

The heavy cavalry itself has the effect of restraining bows and crossbows, the Youzhou cavalry are all elite, and the war horses are also good horses, and the only thing that is bad is the armor. If there is enough iron armor and horse armor to arm the Youzhou army into a heavy cavalry, Yuan Shao will have no crossbows, and he will step on them directly, and he will trample them flat.

However, that is impossible, let alone building five thousand iron armor and horse armor, even if it is only one-fifth, it is an unbearable pain for Qingzhou.

Iron armor is a militaristic tool, and it takes a skilled craftsman years to build one, regardless of consumables. A fish scale armor weighs about forty catties, and the area covered by the horse armor is large, and the weight is not below the iron armor, or even exceeded. The weight of iron armor is basically iron.

A cavalry will cost hundreds of pounds of fine iron, and the cost of building a heavy cavalry can be imagined.

Therefore, even with the wealth of Jizhou, there are only more than 1,000 people with a large number of halberds, not that Yuan Shao does not want to expand the scale, really

It's too expensive.

Yuan Shao, who is not bad for money, was stumped, not to mention Wang Yu and Gongsun Zhan, the two difficult brothers who are still struggling on the food and clothing line?

Considering the number of craftsmen needed to build a large number of iron armor in a short period of time, it is enough to make a prince feel dizzy. It is precisely because of this that Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty at that time, with the respect of the emperor, still solemnly hid hundreds of fine iron armor in the treasure house.

There is no doubt that in this day and age, this thing is a treasure.

The heavy cavalry engaged by Wang Yu was only two hundred, and the riders were not wearing fish scale armor, but inferior armor. The horse armor of the war horse is not as comprehensive as the horse armor of the euphorbia. That's it, he still treats him like a baby. When I went to battle, I didn't take it with me at all.

Right now. Let him get thousands of horse armor to arm the Youzhou cavalry, he really has more than enough heart but not enough strength.

Fight. In addition to subjective factors such as morale and training, it depends on the strength of the armor and the soldiers. If you don't have armor, you can also find a way to use weapons, Wang Yu is also a veteran of using a strong crossbow, and it is also a way to return the other body in the other way.

But in this way, the problem is back to square one. The cost of building a strong crossbow is slightly lower than that of iron armor, but the labor required is not much less than that of iron armor. All fall under the category of the arms race.

Therefore, before making a formal decision, Wang Yu must first fully understand the economic situation in the territory, so he must wait for Mi Zhu, Guoyuan, and Gong Tian to arrive before he can start.

War, in the final analysis, is the economy.

“…… Including several new salt farms opened in Donglai and Beihai, sea salt production has reached a considerable scale. Ninety percent of the salt works along the coast of the East China Sea are under the control of our army. At present, what the subordinates are doing is mainly to use various means to severely crack down on those heroes who do not understand the overall situation. It is a way of saluting first and then soldiering......"

With the distribution channels of the Mi family, coupled with Gong Tian, a well-known private salt dealer, Qingzhou's salt policy has officially been put on track. Although the time is still short. Failed to completely achieve a monopoly and manipulate the price of salt in the market. But just for the current output of the salt farm, the income is already quite huge. In the foreseeable future, the benefits in this area will become more and more huge, and it will become a pillar industry in Qingzhou.

The technical content of the production of sea salt is not high, so in the salt policy, Wang Yu adopts the method of dividing according to the division of labor, the Mi family mainly provides information and distribution channels, and the production is included in the unified management of the Thorn Mansion, and at the same time, the Thorn Mansion is also responsible for eliminating competitors.

Mi Zhu still doesn't look at the profits generated by the effective salt administration, but he values Wang Yu's attention in cooperation. To put it bluntly, the proportion is as high as 40%, which makes him full of confidence in the future.

Of course, Wang Yu's efforts are not without rewards.

The potential of the Mi family is not just to be a distributor, among the tens of thousands of servants of his family, thirty percent are various craftsmen!

The Han Dynasty was extremely popular in folk martial arts, and it did not limit the use of civil force. Therefore, when Wang Kuang recruited private soldiers, he was able to create a strong crossbowman, although the strong crossbow is a big killer, but as long as there is money, you can get it.

The financial resources of the Mi family in the East China Sea are several times higher than that of the Taishan Wang family, and there are 800 blacksmiths who can build armor.

In the tuntian, the main productivity of these craftsmen was on agricultural tools, and now, as the tuntian is slowly on the track, the output of the supervisor is also back on track.

Of course, its efficiency is still far from Wang Yu's expectations, and the monthly output of armor and strong crossbows is only a dozen, which is still a drop in the bucket for the Qingzhou army with 20,000 troops.

"The situation in Xuzhou is turbulent, but it does not affect the scholars' pursuit of Qingzhou paper...... "The Mi family is involved in a lot of industries, long before contacting Wang Yu, there are technicians in his family who know how to produce paper, so Wang Yu has given this task to the Mi brothers with full authority.

"The acquisition of tea, the subordinates also carried out a part, according to the guidance of the lord, the purchase of a large number of inferior tea, and made a situation of tea bricks, however, there has been no news from Liaodong, so ......"

In the familiar business field, Mi Zhu's work efficiency is extremely high, and he has done almost everything that Wang Yu explained before leaving.

After listening to the situation, Wang Yu had a rough idea of the current economic situation in Qingzhou.

Except for the trade with Liaodong, everything else is running on a good track, but most of everything is still a prototype, and it cannot be expected to fight with Jizhou to get rich.

If you want to solve the problem of armaments, you can only come up with another cardinal. Fortunately, he had an idea a few months ago, and now he is ready to put it into practice.

"Mr. Zizhong, can the output of paper be further increased?"

"Yes," Mi Zhu nodded subconsciously, and then hesitated: "However, even if you add the use of the academy and the Thorn History Mansion, the current output is still surplus, this paper is not easy to preserve, and it is really not suitable to expand production before it is fully promoted." ”

"Hmm." Wang Yu nodded and explained with a smile: "Expanding production is not for sale, but for making armor. ”

"What? Making armor? With paper? Mi Zhu and the others were all taken aback, looking at Wang Yu dumbfounded, their minds were in a mess, and they all felt that they had heard it wrong.

Then, what they saw was that Wang Yu replied with certainty: "Yes, it's paper armor." (To be continued)