Afterwards, Wu Yingying asked the elders of the seminary to preside over the next procedure, and he was transferred to the Ordnance Department to inspect, Cai Jian immediately presented him with a replica partial crossbow, and let a sergeant demonstrate on the spot, three hundred and fifty steps away, he could shoot half an inch into the plank.

"Yes, this crossbow will be named the Divine Arm Crossbow," Wu Yingying smiled with satisfaction, and personally tested it, which was very easy to use, "This Divine Arm Crossbow and the original improved repeater crossbow can be combined with the long and short effect, and then in the infantry army, except for the Condor Battalion that does not use crossbows, only the bows are still used, and the other bow and crossbow battalions are all changed to crossbows, a battalion of five hundred sergeants, three hundred people use the Divine Arm Crossbow by stacking the shooting method, two hundred people use repeating crossbows, and then equipped with bows and arrows for self-defense." At that time, there will be a great demand for crossbows, can the Ordnance Department be busy here?" Wu Yingying said that the Condor Battalion was composed of the best archers in the army, and these people used bows and arrows with the same accuracy as crossbows, but faster, and each of them was particular about the bows they used, so they were not forced to use crossbows. The sergeants who were still a little worse in archery all switched to crossbow formations, and the bow was only used as a self-defense weapon of personal choice.

"In accordance with the three methods of standard parts, assembly lines and tolerances instructed by His Majesty, the parts with low precision requirements are placed in the workshops of the baggage battalion and the floating sea line, and the workshop of the Ordnance Department only processes the most core parts, and the external parts are assembled after arriving at the workshop of the Ordnance Division, and then packed and sent to the armies after passing the interchangeability inspection. In this way, the speed of making crossbows is greatly improved compared to before, and it is very different from the time when the party Xiang Tuoba clan cherished himself and did not even let outsiders easily look at it. Cai Jian replied respectfully, "In addition, the trial production of crossbows for cavalry is also speeding up, and now the main problem is that there is still a contradiction between the size and range of the crossbow, and there is also the problem of carrying." ”

Wu Yingying nodded and said: "It's very good, how is the trial production of heavy cavalry steel armor?" Cai Jian said: "There is still some labor-intensive in steelmaking and cold forging, and now the craftsman first uses a press made of extremely deep buckets to forge the billet and breaks the time, but the Ordnance Division only processes the core components of shoulder blades and joint armor, and other large pieces of armor are also assigned to the workshop of the Baggage Division." Wu Yingying pondered for a moment, and said: "Through the Western Regions, the army has a long-distance attack, in order to reduce the consumption of baggage, the number of people who go out to fight is small, the more sophisticated the armament, the better, to fight with the Turks, the big food light cavalry, this armor and the god arm crossbow are the enemy's sharp weapons, time does not wait, the cold forging process can not be improved in a while, first improve the manufacturing efficiency of steel, from the Tianzhu courtesy of the steelmaking master to point out, can there be a harvest?"

Cai Jian said: "The iron materials and ingredients used by Master Tianzhu are different from those of our country, and now the craftsmen are experimenting with the same things that are replaced. Wu Yingying nodded and smiled: "Reviewing the past and learning the new, you can be a teacher, but now the craftsmen are convinced by Zhao Ping?" Cai Jian smiled: "Exactly." ”

The Ordnance Department is one of the most heartfelt departments in the Xia Kingdom, among which many craftsmen can not go out to contact with outsiders for life, Wu Yingying is also deliberately tolerant of these people, and inspected the trial production, smelting, embryo making, forging, assembly, and testing departments one by one, and the craftsmen have dinner together, and they are interested in picking up the hammer and knocking it a few times.

When he came out of the Ordnance Division, it was already late, Sirius was shining in the northwest, Zhang Zhongyao's mission had sent back a message last time in Khorasan, and the local Great Eclipse princes, Emir Mahmud, were unexpectedly enthusiastic about the merchant group of Chinese envoys, and Emir Mahmud's mind was full of plans to march into Tianzhu, and he was not interested in the war between the Black Khanate and the Uighurs of Gaochang and Khotan, but could get a lot of benefits from the caravan and trade. According to Zhang Zhongyao's description, the princes and generals of the Great Food attached much more importance to interests than to religious fanaticism, but there were many fanatical believers among the people.

"My lord, along the way, the sun seems to be getting up later and later, and the night is getting darker and later, but it's strange, the sun is so dazzling, but it always feels like the day is shorter than usual," Zhao Kuang, the ten-division commander, said to Cai Lang, after several months of trekking between the desert Gobi, his face was not only tanned, but also extremely rough by the sand, like the Ghaznavid escort cavalry beside him, the Xia State sergeant also wore a wide robe, wearing a thick turban to resist the scorching sun, and a face towel around his mouth and nose to shield from the wind and sand.

Cai Lang swallowed his saliva, and did not drink the water in the water bladder until he had to, this is a habit developed during the desert march, even if he arrived in Khorasan, where the water and soil are abundant, he could not change it, he looked at the large pastures around him silently, this is a long grassland area. Rivers of all sizes, which originate in the Paropamisus, Pushkoh and Binaru Mountains, make the Khorasan steppe dotted with fertile oases. For thousands of years, the Persians have worked tirelessly to build and maintain a good irrigation system, full of parks and orchards. Vineyards, wheat fields, rice paddies, barley fields, and shelterbelts of elm and poplar trees all make the Khorasan region particularly pleasing to the eye of travelers who have crossed the desert, as if the legend is a land of milk and honey. After centuries of painstaking and patient colonization by the Persians, the area around Khorasan has become a fairly rich region.

However, the descendants of the ancient kingdom of Persia are not the masters here, but the ruled. The rulers were foreign Turks who conquered the country with light horses and bows and scimitars, and the Ghaznavid army was mainly Turkic, occasionally absorbing some Arabs and Tajiks, but the Persians were very few, and the rulers of the minority were always careful not to allow the Juche people to approach the armed forces. Seeing the situation here, Cai Lang also understood why Wu Yingying insisted on asking scribes and shades to practice martial arts.

"Envoy Zhang, from the other side of this river is the place of the Baiyi Dynasty. The Ghulam commander of the escorting mission, Ayaz said in a deep voice, his cheeks thin and covered with a curled stubby beard, and his eyes a cloudy brown that seemed to be always shrouded in a layer of smoke. The court Ghulam was both a personal slave of Emir Mahmud and a professional soldier trained from an early age. Wu Yingying repeatedly told Zhang Zhongyao before his envoy that if he encountered an army trained by the slaves of the Great Food Princes, he must carefully observe its reality and reality.

"Commander Ayaz, shall we say goodbye?" Zhang Zhongyao said to him, this Hu man is quite interesting, not like the average simple-minded soldier, and occasionally can spit out some opinions about the local situation in Khorasan from his mouth, when stationed in the city, he wears a magnificent robe made of the finest brocade, wears a weapon decorated with a lot of jewels, and always considers himself the most loyal subordinate of Emir Mahmud, but Zhang Zhongyao sees through the ambition in his eyes.

"The emissary came to the Caliph on behalf of the great eastern monarch, and Ghulam would not abandon his duties without ensuring the safety of the emissary. Ayaz had a strong nasal voice, and waved his cavalry across the river into the territory of the Baiyi Dynasty. A hint of worry flashed on Zhang Zhongyao's face, these generals under the Great Food Princes were no different from the arrogant generals of the Central Plains Domain, and they were brave and ruthless. In order to show his strength to the emissaries from the East, the emir Mahmud once asked Zhang Zhongyao to see the appearance of the army, such a feudal town, with 30,000 cavalry alone, and far more foot soldiers with bows and arrows, maces, short swords, and javelins, as well as elephant soldiers brought in from Tianzhu, it is impossible to imagine what it would be like for such a mountain-like behemoth to rush into battle in formation. This kind of strength is just a feudal town of Dashi. In the past, the martial arts of the dynasty were prosperous, and the Great Food Empire only won and lost each other. Such a strong enemy must not allow them to have a chance to get their hands on the Western Regions.