Wei Zheng groaned for a while, and said to Ling Yun: "General, I think there is such a sharp weapon, and it should be reused." We should go all out to produce this longbow, select a large number of suitable longbowmen, and build an elite longbow army. ”

Ling Yun knew that he had the point, and he made a longbow, naturally because he saw that the longbow was cheap to produce, and at the same time, it was convenient to make a longbow, and it was also powerful. Especially in the current Huaihuang Town, there are people, but there is a lack of swords and armor, especially a powerful Turkic enemy who may be fought at any time, Ling Yun is also worried all day long. Even if the bandits and horse bandits take turns to train every day, they are still sharpening their guns. The most important thing is that most of the Turks are cavalry, and even if Lingyun has 2,000 cavalry, it is too difficult to train to be an elite who can compete with the Turkic wolf cavalry for a while. Not to mention the infantry, which requires the most elite and brave infantry, and secondly, these infantry must have strong armor. None of them are indispensable, and the infantry of the Huaihuang Army is not elite, and the second is not armored, how to face others.

The Longbow Troops are long-range troops, which can greatly compensate for the shortcomings of the new army in Huaihuang and its lack of experience and courage in frontal combat.

And the bow and arrow, which was originally the natural nemesis of the cavalry.

When Ling Yun immediately announced on the school field that he would recruit longbowmen from the entire army, the entire Huaihuang City and other soldiers and horses rushed to sign up. They were vying to sign up, of course, not only because they saw the longbow shoot so fiercely, but also because Ling Yun announced that all the longbowmen selected for the archer battalion could eat one meal of meat a day and a monthly salary of three thousand. This condition is attractive enough. After the reorganization of the Huaihuang New Army, in addition to the rewards for military merits in wartime. In peacetime, each person was given two liters of grain per day, and in wartime, three liters of grain per day. In addition, the pro-army in the account is paid five times a month. There are four soldiers in the outer battalion, three in the outer town, and two in the garrison and the garrison. Now, as long as they can enter the longbow battalion, they will not only be paid three times a month according to the salary of the soldiers from other towns, but also be paid three more yuan, which is equivalent to doubling the salary. What's more, you can still eat meat once a day. This one alone is attractive enough.

However, it is not possible to sign up to be selected into the longbow camp, and there are three conditions for the selection of longbowmen.

First. You must be at least five feet eight tall, and second, you must be able to shoot at least one stone bow. Thirdly, thirty arrows were shot from the inside of a pillar of incense. And there is no off-target 30 steps away.

Three rules are laid out there. Most of the Huaihuang soldiers who wanted to get double pay and eat meat every day were dumbfounded, retreated in the face of difficulties, and did not come forward in vain, and were embarrassed. Of course, there are many people who are full of self-confidence, thinking that they have the ability to eat meat and get double pay, and stride forward. For them, the officers who are responsible for considering them do not refuse to come, and measure their height first. Test your strength again, and finally shoot your bow and arrows. Anyway, the conditions are clearly there, and they can't be fake.

However, the people who signed up this time were basically people from other towns, and there were many archers in Ling Yun's tent, all of whom were qualified, but Ling Yun had already notified them and did not let them sign up. This time, the longbowmen were only recruited from the outer battalion and the outer town soldiers. This is also to keep the strength of the soldiers in the tent from decreasing, and at the same time, work hard to build a new elite army.

Although the longbow is sharp, it is not much stronger than the ordinary bow, and the real strength is the longbowman.

Without elite longbowmen, no matter how cheap the longbow is, no matter how simple it is, it is useless. Moreover, the most advantageous part of the longbow is the dense upward shooting, which has the strongest striking effect. Therefore, Ling Yun planned to form a longbow battalion for training first, and then put them together for centralized use.

Eight thousand soldiers from outside the town, three thousand soldiers from the outside battalion, a total of 11,000 men and horses, after several days of selection, Ling Yun finally selected a thousand longbowmen from them. Originally, Ling Yun wanted to pick more, but very few of them were qualified in the end. In the end, he had to recruit a thousand men first, form five regiments of longbowmen, and make up a battalion. However, although there are only 1,000 qualified longbowmen, Ling Yun will not let go of the longbow's high performance. He asked the newly built Longbow Workshop to give each of the 1,000 archers of the Longbow Battalion two longbows custom-made two longbows, and also to all the other infantry to make longbows, requiring them to make one for each person. Of the 22,000 Huaihuang army, in addition to the 1,000 cavalry and the 1,000 longbow battalion, the remaining 20,000 people must have a longbow.

This requirement for the longbow workshop means that there is no pressure, after all, one person can make a longbow in one hour, and each person can make at least five or six bows a day. And this longbow is not very technical, and even the soldiers themselves can make it. It's the arrows that are a little more troublesome!

The cost of making arrows is simple, but the arrows are not simple at all.

Iron arrowheads, wooden poles, feathers, dipping and assembling are required, almost all by hand. Not only carpenters, blacksmiths, but also a large number of craftsmen were needed.

The consumption of arrows is enormous, and according to the two pots of arrows each archer carry, a battalion of 1,000 archers must be equipped with 60,000 arrows at most. And there are still 20,000 men in the whole army who will be equipped with longbows, and even if one person is equipped with a pot of thirty arrows, it will be 600,000 arrows. And that's not counting the combat reserves, which is really a big problem. Although it is impossible to make so many arrows for a while, the United Ordnance Workshop can help solve it, making zuò arrows is not as troublesome as making zuò bows, but the process is cumbersome, but there is no technology. As long as there is demand, Wang Bodang and they can solve this problem in the mainland, and all they need to worry about is how to transport the arrows out of the customs.

"Well, for the time being, I will make these three kinds of arrows, flying arrows of five coins, long arrows of one or two two, and armor-piercing arrows of two by two, each longbowman with two pots of arrows, and ordinary infantry with one pot of arrows. Twenty flying arrows for five dollars per pot, fifteen long arrows for one, two, two, and two, and five heavy arrows for armor-piercing, all according to this ratio. Ling Yun pulled Wang Bodang and explained, with a good bow and elite archers, of course, there must be enough arrows. If you match all the arrows according to Lingyun's requirements, then millions of arrows are needed. This is naturally impossible to complete for a while, but the arrows, semi-consumables, although the order is placed, the more the merrier, as many as you want. Huaihuang's own arrow workshop, the production capacity is too low, and in the end it has to rely on the United Ordnance Workshop to solve this problem. This also made Ling Yun have to sigh, the war is really fighting for comprehensive national strength, a five-dollar heavy flying arrow is worth 30 Wen, a long arrow of 122 is worth 50 Wen, and an armor-piercing heavy arrow is actually worth 300 Wen, almost all of which can be used as an ordinary horizontal knife. This high price made Ling Yun unable to directly cross out half of the amount of heavy arrows that he originally planned to have ten in one pot.

The archers shoot out all the money, it seems that there are only dozens of dollars, but the number of times an arrow is shot out and recycled is not much. A pot of arrows is forty, twenty flying arrows are six hundred Wen, fifteen long arrows are seven hundred and fifty Wen, plus five heavy arrows are one thousand five hundred Wen, one pot of arrows is two thousand eight hundred and fifty Wen, and two pots per person are five thousand seven hundred Wen. The total weight of forty arrows is not more than five or six catties, but his value is two thousand eight hundred and fifty wen, at this time the copper coin has always weighed four catties and three taels, and two thousand seven hundred coins can weigh more than ten catties, this arrow is much more expensive than itself.

Just two pots of arrows for the longbow battalion, and one pot of arrows for each of the infantrymen, would cost 60,000 yuan. If you reserve some more, you will have to pay more than 100,000 yuan.

Ling Yun suddenly had a headache, he had just barely found a solution to the problem of food, and in the blink of an eye, he encountered the trouble of lack of money.

"Bodang, this Longbow Battalion is newly established, and there is still a lack of a commander, I plan to invite you to serve as the commander of the Longbow Battalion, I wonder if you are willing to accept it?" Ling Yun looked at Uncle Wang.

Uncle Wang as a young master of a green forest villa in Henan, the family is also a small influence in the local area, especially many green forests in Henan are different from the green forests outside the pass, most of them have dual identities, on the surface they are a strong place, the first good family, has a good reputation in the local area, builds bridges and paves roads, and has close contacts with the local government. On the other hand, he secretly has an illegitimate armed force and does some underworld business, for example, the Wang family has a large private armed force, and it is also the owner of the largest underground bow and arrow workshop in Henan. Wang Bodang has been practicing martial arts since he was a child, especially the bow and arrow shooting in one hand is superb, what a hundred steps through Yang, it is just pediatrics. To let such a professional serve as the commander of this newly formed Longbow Battalion is to make the best use of his talents.

"Thanks to Saburo, I dare to disobey my fate." Wang Bodang was both surprised and delighted by Ling Yun's appointment, and did not hesitate for a moment, and directly agreed. He was an archer, and he was excited to lead a battalion of longbows.

After handing over the newly selected 1,000 longbowmen to Wang Bodang, Ling Yun selected a group of young officers from his own tent. As for how to train the troops, Ling Yun only mentioned it slightly, and it was up to Wang Bodang and others to figure it out on their own.

A few days later, Ling Yun led his 1,000-tent hussars out of Huaihuang City and began to inspect the thirteen branches.

At this time, the inspection of the branch halls is to inspect the relocation and defense work of each branch hall, and the second is to investigate the terrain on the dam to prepare for future battles. Ling Yun left Huaihuang City, and his first target was to go straight to the Salt Lake rudder.

The original Salt Lake rudder has been renamed Salt Lake Castle at this time, and more than a dozen nearby cottagers have withdrawn here. The salt lake rudder was originally the territory of Tuoba Hengdao, and Tuoba Hengdao's original base camp was in Baimapi Lake, which was closer to Huaihuang, and this side of the salt lake was just a branch hall. The salt lake is also known as the White Sea, it is the largest salt lake in the area of the dam, because of the salt production, Tuoba Hengdao sent people to operate this place, and then gradually prospered, and there was also a small village. Later, the walls were constantly strengthened, making it a castle. The last time the fort was built, it was originally planned that the rudder castle in this direction would be set on the shore of Baimapi Lake, but later Lingyun considered the important value of the salt lake, so he upgraded the salt lake village to one of the thirteen rudder fort cities. The nearby men and horses withdrew into it, and sent people to start renovating and expanding the castle and strengthening the city defenses.

At this time, the Salt Lake Castle was inhabited by 10,000 horses and had a garrison of 500 men. (To be continued......)