The flower-waisted poet Ashlijiang sang a Uighur folk love song, but what aroused Xiao Ming's interest was that the lyrics mentioned the "Golden City" According to Ashlijiang's explanation, the Xizhou Uighurs currently occupy the Gaochang region, which is now also known as the Gaochang Uighurs, and the rival Black Han and Gaochang Uighurs have a common ancestor, that is, the Khotanese kingdom!

The royal city of the Kingdom of Khotan is located in the Rama grassland with abundant water and grass, the last king of Khotan is fond of gold, and the king Cheng built the golden splendor, the palace is full of gold, the roof and roof tiles are all made of gold, and the world is called the "Golden City", but just a few decades later, the Kingdom of Khotan fell, and the entire Rama grassland was also flooded with yellow sand, and the golden city also disappeared in the long yellow sand......

Xiao Ming heard a little about this period of history, the Kingdom of Khotan was actually destroyed by the Liao State because of civil strife, and when the ancient city of Khotan was discovered in later generations, it was basically a ruin of ruins, but he had never heard of the story of the Golden City, and he was immediately interested.

He pulled Ashley Jiang up, and he had to invite someone to drink, and the two sat down in the nearest tavern, Ashley Jiang was not polite, the Western Regions was already good for wine, and so was he himself, the wine of Middle-earth had long been heard, and if he could get acquainted with Xiao Ming today and drink together, he had already regarded Xiao Ming as a friend.

Through drinking and chatting, Xiao Ming learned that Ashlijiang belonged to a mercenary group, which was to escort a large Uighur merchant group, and now that he was on the ground, the task was completed, but there was nothing to do, the mercenary leader was looking for work everywhere, and they ordinary soldiers were wandering around, that is to say, Ashlijiang was not only a poet but also a warrior!

Xiao Ming didn't know that at that time, the mercenary system was very popular in the Western Regions, which was also transmitted from the West Asian region, the entire West Asian region after years of war, due to the eastward invasion of Arab Muslims, resulting in the extreme unpeace in this region, various small countries, princely lords, Turks, Tatars, Aryans, for religious beliefs to fight each other, but because of the lack of land and few people, so the mercenary organization was born.

Mercenaries are a way of survival for veterans who survive in the way of war, fight and kill people only for money, and have a great work ethic, that is to say, they are absolutely loyal to money! It is an ancient profession in which the leader has absolute authority in the organization, and is generally a veteran or general with a lot of combat experience.

Xiao Ming knew that mercenaries were a political tool, a means to gain benefits in addition to war, and he suddenly wanted to have such a tool himself, so he asked Ashlijiang some details about their organization.

Ashlijiang told Xiao Ming that there were about 200 people in their group of mercenaries, all of whom obeyed the command of the mercenary leader, from arranging "work" to profit sharing, and had received professional training, and their instructor turned out to be a red-clothed cannibal, who was proficient in spear and spear formation and scimitar assassination.

The leader of the mercenaries, General Alima, is very respected, and if you want to talk about business, you have to find him, and Ashlijiang is just a small captain in this mercenary group.

Xiao Ming then decided to visit their leader in person, but Ashlijiang said that now that the leader is not there, he hopes that Xiao Ming will leave the address, and he will definitely tell General Alima that he will visit you in person tomorrow, how can there be any reason to let the honored guests come to the door in person!

Xiao Ming was right to think about it, so he left the address to Ashlijiang, and the two broke up, Xiao Ming thought about this matter carefully after he went back, most of his own personal soldiers were Khitans, and the tiger guards who followed him were basically scattered now, each with its own things, except for the personal escort tiger guards were personally arranged by Yang Qizhong, and there were Khitan personal guards when he went out, and Xiao Ming had a lot of things to do behind people's backs, so he really wanted to have some different personal soldiers.

Early the next morning, the soldiers brought a person, claiming to be the king to meet, known as the Iron and Blood Mercenary Group, Xiao Ming heard it, and said in his heart: "It's very early" so he passed it on.

The person who came was a man in his forties, with a beard, a typical Arab, but with a strong physique, his face was full of scars, and his face was carved with a knife and an axe, and he stepped forward to salute Xiao Ming, claiming to be Alima, he called Xiao Ming a respected guest, but found that Xiao Ming's status was so high, when you learned that Xiao Ming was the king of the Southern Courtyard of the Liao Kingdom, you couldn't help but be a little frightened.

Xiao Ming was very kind to him, talked to him enthusiastically, and expressed his intention to hire them, Alima was very happy about this, he was now looking for an employer, but his asking price was relatively high, and he had not received a business, Xiao Ming's request for the two of them to be in a row.

The employment price of the mercenary group is not too high for Xiao Ming, the commission for a year is one hundred taels of gold, the employer only needs to pay fifty gold in advance, and then settle it in the end, and don't care about anything else, even the pension of the mercenaries who died in battle, Xiao Ming did not object, he decided to hire for five years at a time.

This is big business for Alima, so he strongly asked Xiao Ming to follow him to see the quality of the entire mercenary group, so Xiao Ming followed him to the school field, and after Alima gathered all his team members, he gave orders and ordered them to practice the formation, only to see that the mercenaries screwed the separate spears with threads, forming a very long spear gun!

They held a spear in their right hand, a large round shield in their left hand, and began the exercise, the mercenary group was all one by one, young and middle-aged people with strong bodies, their muscles bulged and their expressions were cold, the iron round shield could completely cover the body, the spear was propped up at a forty-five degree angle, and the spear was waved at a pause with the order, and the layers were clear, and the small gun array seemed to be able to resist thousands of troops!

Xiao Ming couldn't help but exclaim: "Macedonian gunshots!" ”

Macedonia's spear formation is very famous, it is the best formation for infantry to deal with cavalry, it is extremely powerful, once even the Indian war elephants have been defeated, the mercenary group is the Macedonian spear formation, and it is combined with the Greek Spartan infantry piercing formation, the iron round shield is an imitation of Sparta.

Yang Qizhong was amazed, such a battle formation is a small number of people, if there are thousands of people to exercise, it is not a problem to deal with the cavalry charge of the enemy's large corps, compared to the infantry armor battle formation of the Great Song Dynasty, the power is not as good as that, and it is more flexible in comparison.

In addition to the spear formation, Alima also asked his subordinates to demonstrate the technique of scimitar stabbing, the knife they used was a typical scimitar from the Western Regions, but the head of the knife was slightly straight, suitable for picking stabs, it was just a way of foot combat, Xiao Ming wanted to replace them with his own standard saber of the balance number, but considering that they were used to using this kind of knife, they gave up.

However, the material of the opponent's weapon still belongs to black iron, and the strength and toughness are insufficient, so they decided to rebuild the steel knife for them according to the appearance of their knife, and increase the weight of the front part of the knife to make it easier to slash, because Xiao Ming saw that each of the mercenary groups had a good Dawan war horse, which means that they were still very good cavalry.

The mercenaries of these two hundred people are almost all Uighurs, but they belong to different ethnic groups, many of them have Europa blood, and the long ones are tall and big, and the whole mercenary group brings their own weapons and horses after receiving the employer's employment, so as not to cause any trouble to the employer, but Xiao Ming still decided to spend a lot of money to package them.

This includes their unified drape, weapons, armor and saddle horse riding equipment of war horses, and the commission is added to the original basis by two percent, the leader Alima was accused of being the leader of the personal soldiers and gave him the rank of general, and within five years, this mercenary group is Xiao Ming's personal soldier, and at the same time the spear instructor.

From now on, Xiao Ming not only formed his own private army, an independent militarized organization, and even had a special Tiger Guard Regiment and a pro-corps that obeyed his orders, even if the soldiers and horses of the Southern Courtyard of the Great Liao Kingdom were withdrawn, he could not be alone, he gave full play to the theory of truth in the knife handle, and never let himself have no soldiers in his hands.

The organization of the mercenaries is different from the organization of the Tiger Guard, Xiao Ming cannot completely control it, he only needs to control the leader General Alima, and the Tiger Guard organizes Xiao Ming's hard work, which is an armed force with discipline and a sense of honor, equipped with the most advanced weapons and equipment, he is the special forces that Xiao Ming uses to do great use.

However, due to the fact that the number of Huwei brought to Liao by Yang Qizhong is not too large, and now they are basically scattered in various important posts, Xiao Ming has no choice but to hire mercenaries, and the Huwei camp has now begun to have some development, that is, it has absorbed a part of the Khitans, all of whom are Khitan warriors who follow Xiao Ming in the Wuhuai Department, which can be regarded as adding some fresh blood.

In late May, Xiao Ming led a pro-military battalion composed of 200 mercenaries to Tokyo, Liaodong, in addition to inspecting the progress of the local project, he also wanted to go to Shandong through the port of Lushun, where the construction of the Weihai base has always been his concern, when he arrived at the port of Lushun, just in time for a merchant ship of the Great Song Dynasty to arrive at the port.

There was an unexpected person on the merchant ship, this person was Qian Baguang, and when he saw Xiao Ming's Qian Baguang, he was very excited, and shouted: "Lord! I miss you! This time, I said that I would not leave, and I would follow you to make a fortune! ”

Xiao Ming kicked him in the ass and scolded angrily: "You came here, who will supervise the affairs of my Weihai base?" ”

Qian Baguang said aggrievedly: "The whole Weihai is a big construction site, and all the construction is taken over by An Daoquan, with the cooperation of Uncle Zhang, the progress is very fast, and I haven't done anything for a long time!" Now I'm just going to train the artillery battalion! ”

Qian Baguang brought Xiao Ming a report on the situation of the Weihai base, claiming that the forts had been cast, not only that, but Gu Shouzhen actually gave up the matter of Hangzhou to set up a branch of the Taiping Iron Works in Weihai, and the blast furnaces were erected to digest the iron ore transported from Liaodong on the spot, and the cement factory and glass factory had also been built.

Qian Baguang stuck it next to Xiao Ming's ear and told him: "Lord, I brought you two cannons, and only I can operate them, because the lord once said that when the cannon sounds, I am here to make a fortune with the lord."

Qian Baguang asked the people below to assemble the two cannons he brought to Xiao Ming, which was the latest steel cannon developed by Ding Jianpeng, saying that it was a steel cannon but it was actually a two-layer cannon barrel, the outer layer was still cast iron, and the inner layer was a steel pipe of high-carbon steel, this kind of circular steel pipe was very troublesome to manufacture, and Ding Jianpeng tried many times before succeeding.

Due to the use of rotary chisel car, the steel pipe is manufactured by perforating hot rolling, by stretching the billet and using a perforating machine to complete the manufacture of the steel pipe, but the hot rolling process will make the length of the steel pipe not long, but from the thickness of the pipe wall to the length of the pipe, it is very suitable for the manufacture of gun barrels.

In order to dissipate heat from the cannon, Ding Jianpeng and the craftsmen came up with a two-layer cannon barrel method, and the material ratio of the outer cast iron was actually more copper! The dimensional tolerances required were very tight, but the craftsmen managed to meet the standards.

The two layers of barrels fit very well, the whole cannon looks very stocky, using a backward closed reloading program, the shell is also made oval, the top is equipped with a trigger, and the use of thundermercury to trigger the explosion, but the propellant is still a cardboard shell, but the thickness of the paper shell has increased greatly, according to Qian Baguang, the power of this cannon can scare people to death!

The aiming device installed in the cannon extends the firing range through the elevation angle, all of which use a ruler, such a modern device, Qian Baguang is unexpectedly self-taught, this is also what he said, only he can operate the gun. After putting on the shelf, the cannon has a rear bracket in addition to two wheels, which is basically what a modern artillery looks like, and Ding Jianpeng actually designed a venting device for excess air for the cannon, which makes the safety of the cannon higher.

Xiao Ming loves it in his heart! I just felt that the two cannons were too few, and there was not much ammunition, Qian Baguang only brought less than a hundred shells and propellants this time, all wrapped in soft leather and cotton wool, plus the bronze cannon in Xiao Ming's hand, now Xiao Ming has three cannons in his hand, but after Xiao Ming thought about it again, he decided to leave the bronze cannon in Lushun and use it as a fort.

Xiao Ming took Qian Baguang and two cannons, first returned to Tokyo, and then returned to Nanjing, this road is very troublesome, it seems that it is more convenient to go directly from Nanjing to Shandong next time, but at this time Xiao Ming received a message.

- Emperor Tianzuo actually arrived in Nanjing, and Xiao Ming was on his way back at this time......

~