Xu Kuangheng did not live up to Li Yuan's expectations, not only gathered all the craftsmen of the Weisheng Army and the former Langzhou Army, but also posted notices in the city because he did not know what Li Yuan was going to do, as long as they knew how to make iron, woodwork, and smelting, they could go to the east of the city to find a job.

One afternoon passed, Li Yuan looked up and saw more than 100 people standing in front of him, and he was ecstatic. Immediately ordered, from today onwards, the Wuping Military Weapons Supervisor was re-established, and all the craftsmen who were recruited today were included, and each person was rewarded with five yuan, most of these people were self-employed, and they were so generous when they saw this Li Dashuai at first sight, and they were very grateful.

(Note: During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, except for the Central Plains Dynasty, only the Southern Tang Dynasty followed the Tang Dynasty system, and the central government and individual state capitals set up ordnance supervisors.) Similar to the State of Chu, the State of Shu, etc., most of the armaments were made by the envoys of various regions)

Then, Li Yuan led everyone to the largest military workshop in the east of Langzhou City.

This place was originally built when Ma Xicao ruled Langzhou, and was specially responsible for manufacturing the ordnance and equipment used by the Langzhou soldiers. It's a pity that after Liu Yan took the position, he let his brother-in-law Wu Xinglong be in charge of here, and this person was stingy and greedy for money, beating and scolding and deducting everyone's money from time to time, and even killed several craftsmen for no reason, which made people scattered, and the workshop was stagnant for a while.

Wu Xinglong's heart was empty, but he instead slapped Liu Yan upside down, saying that the discord between craftsmen was difficult to manage, and Liu Yan actually felt that the inventory of armor and weapons was enough anyway, so he finally ordered to simply dismiss the military workshop.

Back to the present, Li Yuan waved his hand, stopped the whispering of everyone in front of him, and spoke first: "The ancients, the major affairs of the country of soldiers, the place of death and life, and the way of survival!" This marshal guards this place in the name of His Majesty, and there will be many large and small wars in the future, and how can a good war division not have strong soldiers and hard armor? In the future, the armory will be relocated here! Ben Shuai has always valued you craftsmen the most, you have a skill, as long as you work hard for Ben Shuai, you will not be disadvantaged in the future! In the future, under the rule of Wuping, the supply of all armies will still depend on you! ”

Seeing that this Li Dashuai bowed his hand humbly after speaking, all the craftsmen were surprised and deeply honored, and hurriedly responded in unison to obey the order.

Immediately afterwards, Li Yuan smiled at everyone and said, "If you think you are skilled, you can step forward!" ”

There was a few moments of agitation in the crowd, and then a short man walked out first, Li Yuan looked at his appearance, his face was mottled, although his spirit was very sufficient, but his temples were slightly white, and the most eye-catching thing was that this person's two big hands were black and full, and the palms and backs of his hands were covered with thick calluses.

The man hurriedly walked up to Li Yuan, bowed his head and said, "Dashuai, the villain's name is Hu Gui, he was originally from Langzhou Bing Cao Si, and he has also been in this workshop for more than ten years. ”

Seeing that everyone was looking at Hu Gui without moving, Li Yuan asked suspiciously, "Do you all recognize him?" ”

Someone with good deeds boldly responded: "Dashuai, this is Master Hu!" The old man of the arsenal is so tight! ”

I saw Hu Gui calmly turn around and point in the crowd, and then more than ten people stood up.

Then he bowed to Li Yuan and said, "Marshal, these people have all done it in the arsenal. ”

Li Yuan breathed a sigh of relief and nodded happily: "Okay!" In this case, Hu Gui, this commander will let you be the ordnance supervisor, and this ordnance supervisor will be temporarily handed over to you to take care of! Don't disappoint Ben Shuai! ”

Hu Gui's face couldn't hide the joy, and he hurriedly arched his hand and said: "Thank you for your love!" ”

After a while, I saw that the craftsmen began to get busy under Hu Gui's methodical command. In the end, this place has been abandoned for a year or two, no one cares for a long time, some equipment has been aged and abandoned, under the instruction of Li Yuan, Lin Sichang also took his own soldiers, helping the craftsmen to renovate the equipment, and the school stove was busy for a while.

Li Yuan found a vacancy and handed the stack of drawings that had already been prepared to Hu Gui.

Hu Gui hurriedly wiped the sweat on his forehead, took it with both hands and looked through it a few times, and finally asked suspiciously: "Dashuai, what is this?" ”

"This is the armor and weapon style of my Wuping Army in the future. Ben Shuai just drafted a few sheets, Hu Jiancheng might as well take a closer look first. If you have any questions, Ben Shuai will discuss with you later. ”

Hu Gui nodded again and again, and then continued to carefully study the details drawn on the picture back and forth, only to see that his eyes were sometimes wide, and sometimes his mouth was wide open, so it was not funny.

Li Yuan smiled faintly, and waited quietly on the side, he already had a plan in his heart. Today, if we want to compete for supremacy in the world, we must have a strong army under our command, and while expanding the army, we must pay attention to the quality of the army's equipment. Therefore, it is imperative to recruit excellent craftsmen and set up an ordnance superintendent.

In the past few days, Li Yuan has been making serious preparations and thinking for a long time about what kind of armor and weapons will be used by the Wuping Army under his rule in the future.

The so-called militaristic weapons are, first of all, armor, and secondly, crossbows. In ancient times, weapons and blades were not forbidden, whether it was a person in the rivers and lakes or a scholar, it was reasonable to carry a long sword and scimitar with him, but no one was allowed to hide armor privately. This is the Tang law in "the knife is small, and the armor is a big rebellion".

Armor is rare, so the first thing Li Yuan considered was armor.

Since the Tang Dynasty, because the rulers attached great importance to the manufacture of military equipment, the steel filling method and composite steel forging technology were directly inherited from the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the production speed also made a qualitative leap, but it was limited by steel production. Therefore, Li Yuan was very fortunate to be born in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and was born in the Southern Tang Dynasty, the southern region was much less wars than the north, and the iron and steel smelting centers in the Southern Tang Dynasty, Chu State, and Shu State had gradually become large-scale, and there was no shortage of raw materials.

Nowadays, most of the armies of the Southern Tang Dynasty still use the thirteen armor of the Tang Dynasty represented by the Mingguang armor, although the defensive power is considered superior among the countries, but there is an obvious shortcoming, it can prevent sword fighting, but it can't prevent strong bows and crossbows. In the future, Li Yuan's enemies, such as the Zhou State and the Liao State, will be the best at the strong northerners, in addition to fighting immediately, that is, powerful bows and crossbows.

So when Li Yuan chose the style of armor, he once thought of the equipment at the bottom of the box in the Song Dynasty - step armor. The Buren Armor can be described as the heaviest armor in history, and it is also made of iron armor leaves with leather strips or nails, but the number of armor leaves is as many as 1825, and the protection range includes the whole body, and the weight is almost sixty or seventy pounds!

Such a heavy armor also has extremely high requirements for human fitness, which naturally created a powerful heavy infantry corps in the Song Dynasty. Due to the loss of the Song Dynasty first and then the Hetao, the high-quality horse-producing areas were all thrown to the enemy. When the Song army fought in the field, it could only rely on the heavy infantry to form a military formation, and then use the armor-breaking weapon - the divine arm bow to duel the enemy's cavalry assault, which was the national policy of the Song Dynasty to "ride with foot".

Such a military formation was regarded as the nemesis of cavalry in the early Song Dynasty, for example, the iron cavalry of the Liao army galloped through, and it was difficult to break this kind of military formation. However, due to the heavy burden of the infantry armor, its nature determines that it can only be used for defense, and its role is destined to withstand enemy attacks.

Therefore, the fatal consequence of extremely poor mobility was that as long as the enemy cavalry retreated, it would be difficult for the Song army to pursue the enemy army, let alone completely annihilate the enemy army. Therefore, in the end of the Song Dynasty, the result of many battles was that the enemy army was defeated and not killed, and finally made a comeback, losing power and losing land.

Therefore, in the selection of armor, in addition to defense, it is also necessary to consider its mobility. So Li Yuan carefully recalled from the books he had read in his mind in the past few days, and finally found the answer in the strange book "Mengxi Written Talk" by Shen Kuo of the Song Dynasty, using the cold forging armor used by the party members, that is, the Western Xia.

In "Mengxi Writings", there has been a detailed study of cold forging armor, this armor is blue-black, very thin and light, only one-third of the thickness of traditional armor, but it is so hard that even a good crossbow is difficult to shoot through the armor, which is due to the unique wisdom of the party members.

They are located in a remote area, materials are scarce, so they simply gave up the traditional way of casting armor, and instead creatively changed the method of cold hammer bronze tools of the ancients thousands of years ago to cold forging steel, and finally was pleasantly surprised to find that the cold forging armor produced is light and flexible, but has excellent protective effect. This kind of craftsmanship is far ahead of the Liao and Song dynasties of the same era, which is one of the reasons why the Western Xia can resist for a hundred years with only a corner of the land.

It is said that after the advent of "Mengxi Bi Tan", someone in the Song Dynasty immediately suggested to the imperial court to use cold forging armor, but the irony is that because the military supervision officials were too corrupt, they actually disliked the light weight of cold forging armor, and they could make too little profit from it, so they directly vetoed it......

Sure enough, Hu Gui stayed for a lot of time on the cold-forged armor painted on the first page, because there was no concept of cold-forged iron armor at all in this era.

"Dashuai, according to the picture you draw, what is 'cold forging armor'? I've never heard of this subordinate official, but I'm afraid it's difficult—"

Li Yuan smiled faintly, and then said in a low voice: "Hu Jiancheng, it is not difficult to forge a method of cold forging, Ben Shuai said to listen to you, and you should remember it first." Where the method of forging armor, its beginning is very thick, no fire, cold forging, than the thickness of the yuan three points minus two is completed. At the end of it, the head of the chopstick is not forged, and it is as faint as ......"

In a moment, Li Yuan had already read out a large section of the cold forging method recorded in "Mengxi Pen Talk", looked at Hu Gui again, carefully copied it and read it carefully, and was immediately dumbfounded, and then his eyes lit up excitedly, and he exclaimed: "Dashuai is really a heavenly man!" Even if the officials have studied it for many years, they have never seen such a magical thing! Where did it come from? With this method of cold forging, this armor will be completed! My Wuping army will be invincible! ”

"This is a high-ranking person who pointed out ......" Li Yuan couldn't explain too much, so he could only say with a wry smile.

Then Li Yuan said solemnly: "Hu Jiancheng, since then, our army has been making armor according to the cold forging method. Ben Shuai trusts you, so he entrusts this method. This is a secret, you can teach it and the craftsmen of this workshop, but you must not disclose it! Violators will be killed! ”

Hu Gui hurriedly arched his hand and said: "The lower official respectfully obeys the orders of the marshal!" ”

"Also, in the future, the equipment used by the war horses will also use the cold forging method."

"Xia Guan understands!" Hu Gui flipped to the back of a few drawings, and asked with an embarrassed face: "It's just a big handsome, although the divine arm bow, the horse sword and the horse army lance you painted later, although the power is amazing, but the lower officials have carefully calculated it, I am afraid that the cost and materials are too expensive!" The subordinate suggested that, for example, a lance might as well be used instead of a spear......"

Li Yuan shook his head decisively, although the gun and the lance seem to be the same, the power is far from the same! Guns were certainly used in horse warfare, but most of them were used in infantry formations. In the case of horse warfare, the lance is the optimal solution.

The best horse lance, with a blade like a sword, has eight faces, and a long lance can quickly remove the enemy's armor. The compound shaft of the lance is also remarkably tough, even when the cavalry charges at high speeds. Tang Taizong once said: "If there is a captain Chi who holds the lance, it can reach thousands of troops and horses", such as Cheng Yanjin, Qin Qiong and other famous generals are good at using the lance.

This lance was specially prepared for his future cavalry corps, and Li Yuan said resolutely: "You do what the commander says!" You can withdraw the money you need at the government office! Hu Jiancheng, the armor and blades of the 60,000 Wuping Army, in the future, the commander will all be handed over to you, the style and quantity must be drawn in accordance with the drawings, and the production should be made every day, not shoddy! Ben Shuai will come to inspect it in the near future, don't disappoint Ben Shuai! ”

"The subordinate officer receives the order!"

Seeing that Hu Gui couldn't wait to gather more than ten craftsmen and began to discuss excitedly around those few drawings, Li Yuan smiled with satisfaction, he knew very well in his heart, and at the same time looked forward to it, these are all weapons that have gathered the essence of the wisdom of the ancients, once they are equipped on the same army, how terrifying power will they have......