In addition to guiding the daily construction, the craftsman battalion also registered all the horses owned by Lanzhou and established a horse breed pedigree, Wu Yingying has forbidden the riding camp war horses to breed without authorization, and this time the caravan went to the Western Regions to prepare to spend a lot of money to introduce purebred Arabian horses and Persian horses to improve the horse breeds in Lanzhou, and also hired a few Persian horse breeders.

Blacksmiths and carpenters are uniting to make the simplest cast iron transmission gears, pulleys, cams, connecting rods, shafts, ball bearings and other basic parts by hand according to Wu Yingying's drawings, and prepare for the manufacture of basic components such as gear sets, pulley sets, cam connecting rod mechanisms, etc., to realize the trial production of hydraulic machinery on the basis of traditional waterwheels is still far away, but Wu Yingying is not in a hurry.

The tailor was organized to statistically record the degree and frequency of damage on the armor of all sergeants, Wu Yingying planned to add multiple layers of armor to the parts of the armor with a high probability of damage, and the parts that were often hit were directly thickened to become part of the whole body armor, although it was limited to the current Lanzhou labor almost all of them were invested in agriculture and animal husbandry, lacking the ability to produce standard armor on a large scale, and it was not possible to make the protection of Lanzhou armor exceed that of other armies, but as long as the agricultural foundation is solid, the workshop will be launched, and the standard parts and assembly line operations will be introduced, and these pre-counted data can make the Lanzhou sergeant get the best protection。 Similarly, blacksmiths are also counting the damage of the Lanzhou Army's blades, and at the same time they have begun to trial produce more lethal and durable blades.

According to Cai Jian's suggestion, the craftsmen in the artisan household camp were all registered in the military, and all the craftsmen involved in porcelain-making, machinery and other confidential matters were isolated and were not allowed to contact outsiders for life. Although Wu Yingying felt that this move was unkind, Cai Jian said that the living standards of these craftsmen far exceeded those of ordinary sergeants, and even better than centurions, and they knew that their lives were comfortable, and they did not oppose the restriction of not contacting outsiders, so Wu Yingying temporarily allowed it, after all, there was no patent protection in this era.

After Cai Jian retreated, Wu Yingying walked into the inner hall, only to see that the ink of a painting on Huang Wen's table had not yet dried, and the painting was a hidden dragon in the abyss, a red golden dragon was hidden in the strange rocks, and the aquatic plants covered the scales and claws looming, only a pair of eyes were shining in the dark, as if they were about to roar.

Wu Yingying hugged the fair woman from behind, took a deep breath, and said approvingly: "The better my lady's painting skills are, the more fragrant they are." ”

Huang Wenqiao's face was slightly red, and she said angrily: "This painting is my sister's handiwork, and she misses Your Majesty." ”

"Oh?" Wu Yingying felt slightly strange, and he couldn't imagine that in Zhou Hou's mind, he was denounced by posterity as "being a word man is really peerless, and he was born in the emperor's family", and Cai Yu, who was captured in Bianliang, was actually a hero like a dragon diving into the abyss. But when I think about it, I am relieved, which woman doesn't think that her Lang Jun is a great man who stands up to the sky.

This is the best time of the year, when the flowers of the grassland are colorful and dotted with stars, like a brilliant sea of green. The spring breeze blows through the green fields, and the air smells sweet.

The Lanzhou caravan then meandered on the trade road at the northern foot of Yinshan Mountain, which was very easy to identify, and the tall Yinshan Mountains in the south were natural road signs, and Kang Khotan had walked several times, so the journey was very smooth. There were also several small caravans that took advantage of the bargain and followed the Lanzhou caravan far behind.

About a hundred miles away in the meadow, the shepherd Amur sat on the ground with a sad face, patting his restless mount gently. Just after the early spring, Amur was about to take care of his wintering livestock, but the leader was busy gathering all the men of his tribe who could draw bows to come out and plunder the caravan. The Aratan Ula tribe, to which Amur belonged, was one of the countless nomadic tribes at the northern foot of the Yin Mountains, competing with other steppe tribes for water, grass, livestock, and slaves, and occasionally plundering caravans on the steppe. Most of these conquests were initiated by the chiefs and nobles, and the spoils of war were ostensibly owned by the tribes, but they were the private property of the nobles, and ordinary shepherds like the Amur shed their blood and delayed their own flocks, and the more they fought the war, the poorer they became, and many were forced to sell themselves as slaves to the chiefs.

"Amur, what are you still sitting for, get up quickly, the eagle of Alatan Ullah is about to take off and take the lamb!" Suhe, the son of the head man Agudam, raised his whip and shouted to him happily, Amur is a warrior in the clan, he can catch fast horses when he runs, and he can kill wolves with archery, and every time he fights, Suhe must ask him to follow him, like a bodyguard who does not spend money.

This time there was a large caravan to pass nearby, I heard that the tea and silk on the cart were piled up like that hill, more than a dozen tribes on the grassland were alarmed, as if the vultures smelled the smell of dead bodies, the eagles of the grassland hovered around the sheep, but according to the herdsman's report close to observe, the guards of this caravan were very strong, not only hundreds of fierce knights, but also seemed to carry a special crossbow made by the Han people, and it was difficult for any tribe to swallow this caravan alone.

Arslen, the leader of the Mandu Ratu tribe with the most warriors, proposed that everyone first defeat the caravan guards, and then distribute goods and slaves according to how many warriors from each tribe went on the expedition. So, Su He brought over more than 200 warriors who could pull the big bow, and there were thousands of grassland warriors gathered near the Han caravan at this moment, Su He was not thinking more about how to defeat the caravan guards, but how to win the greatest benefit for his tribe in the battle for the spoils, of course, that is, to win the greatest benefit for his own family, an ordinary shepherd like Amur, reward him with a piece of tea and half a foot of cloth.

If there is an eagle soaring in the sky at this time, it will see that at the same time as the warriors of the Alatan Ula tribe get up and mount their horses, hundreds of miles away from the Lanzhou caravan as the center, the warriors of more than a dozen tribes are marching towards the caravan in a hurry, like a group of wolves ambushing a flock of sheep on the grassland.

The fast-approaching tribal cavalry soon encountered the horses around the cruising caravan, and almost a moment later, the Han caravan was like a frightened poisonous snake, connecting the heads and tails of hundreds of carts into two rings, with bows and crossbows on the outside and cavalry inside. This is a caravan, the armies of the Khitans and the Han people, it's just that.

"My lord, our piece of fat has brought all the wolves on the grassland. The enemy forces are numerous and disorganized, and they may be about to charge. Seeing Kang Ketian's nervous expression, Yu Fu Renliang smiled and said to Xin Gudao. Xin Gu's face was solemn, and it was estimated that there were one or two thousand cavalry of the surrounding steppe tribes, and he replied: "Don't look at the crowd, the grassland people loot, just like doing business, they will not fight hard, and they will rush for a while, and they will not be able to bear the loss, and they may be in chaos." He was born as a horse thief, and he knew something about the raids of the tribal cavalry, so he turned back to Feng Bo, the centurion of the hussar battalion, and said: "Tell the brothers to prepare their horses and prepare, and when the enemy's momentum is weak, go out with me to kill for a while." Kang Ke Khotan saw that Xin Gu and Yu Furen were all right, and the Lanzhou soldiers accompanying him were also very calm, which was very different from the usual caravan guards who panicked when they encountered the raids of the grassland tribes, and his heart was slightly calm.

The other tribes have not yet gathered, but the anxious Su He can no longer hold back, although it was said in advance that the goods and slaves will be distributed according to the number of warriors from each tribe, but as long as the Han people's car formation is broken first, can the things obtained still be spit out, Su He was originally dissatisfied with the status of the Mandu Latu Department in this raid as if the leader of the alliance, he saw that the nobles of several tribes on the left and right were eager to try, so he rode out and shouted: "Warriors, kill the past, gold and slaves, everyone has a share." Several other tribes on the left and right, led by him, also stirred up, and the warriors of the nearly thousand grasslands were like a flood that burst the embankment, bending their bows and arrows, brandishing various swords and swords to rush towards the caravan's circular defensive circle.

"Damn!" Ars, the leader of the Mandu Ratu tribe, blurted out and pointed at Su He, who was leading the charge with his horsewhip, "I'm going to slaughter this little wolf cub with my own hands." ”