Li Shimin was also a little speechless about Li Ke's words, but thinking about the output of the steel plant, it seems that this is indeed the truth.

"In a war, although people are the decisive factor, in fact, any tiny detail can affect the direction of the war, such as a horseshoe." Li Ke said with a smile.

"This is a fact, the horseshoe has greatly reduced the loss of war horses, at least avoiding eighty percent of the loss of war horses." Li Shimin was very emotional, just such a small thing reduced the loss rate of Datang's war horses by eighty percent! You can imagine how useful it is.

Because of the special environment and special training, the war horse actually has a great loss of the horse's hooves, and it needs to go through a variety of terrains, and the wear and tear on the horse's hooves is greater.

The reason why many war horses have to be retired is because the horse's hooves are seriously worn, and in fact, the horse's age, temperament, etc. are far from the age of retirement.

And for this reason, retired war horses have to be raised for at least more than a year before they can become pack horses.

Some war horses are estimated to not even be pack horses because of the wear and tear of the horses' hooves.

But the horseshoe avoids this situation, and its material can improve the combat ability of the war horse even after the war horse adapts, greatly extending the service life of the war horse.

From this point of view, it is equivalent to hundreds of thousands of extra millions of war horses in the entire Datang.

"Not only that, in fact, from the birth of the horseshoe to the present, the craftsman department has been improving the horseshoes, through the comparison of the horseshoes after the use of hundreds of horses, statistics on which parts of the horseshoe are most likely to wear, which shapes need to be improved."

"Even according to the different ages of the horses, the different sizes and specifications of the horses, and the different breeds of horses, the horseshoes are adjusted in subtle ways."

"These things may seem like little impact, but in fact, if we do this kind of excellence in every weapon and equipment, then our victory will be expanded to infinity." Li Ke smiled and said, "But the enemy can't play like this." ”

Li Shimin thought about it, indeed, the Turks did not have so much iron at all, and if they had, they would rather build them into armor and steel knives than choose horseshoes, because for them, the number of war horses is enough, but the iron is not enough.

However, Datang can take advantage of the low price of steel to constantly update some weapons and equipment.

"I suddenly understood what you had in mind, it turns out that the promotion of craftsmen has such a great impact on the whole country." Li Shimin sighed with emotion.

"Actually, father, you also had this concept before, but you all ignored the most basic people before, after all, before my Tang Dynasty, it was strictly forbidden to sell iron to the surrounding nomadic tribes, but these gate valve families did not want to or deliberately ignored the importance of these craftsmen."

"But in fact, some of the secret recipes in some of the trading houses under the gate valve family are also strictly restricted from being passed on, and what we do is only to take the initiative to stimulate the enthusiasm of these craftsmen, and then raise the technological gap between us and the surrounding ethnic minorities, so that we can crush them with an absolute advantage."

"This tactic can also be used against Xue Yantuo."

"Of course, if Zhenzhu Khan is willing to become a courtier of the Tang Dynasty, as the first courtier who truly belongs to the Tang Dynasty, the benefits he will get are also unprecedented, at least not worse than Jiang Quhu." Li Ke said with a smile.

"He won't." Li Shimin shook his head very dryly, Xue Yantuo's current land area or strength is not worse than the original Jieli, how could Zhenzhu be completely sincere?

"This is not necessarily, Dad, do you know what the biggest difference between the current Datang and the previous Datang is?" Li Ke asked with a smile.

"Since you asked, it's definitely not technology, it's an intuitive gap in weapons and equipment." Li Shimin thought for a while and asked.

"You can say yes, you can say no." Li Ke shook his head, "Dad, let's not talk about how big the difference is between the combat effectiveness of the current Datang soldiers and the previous Datang soldiers, let's just say that the Datang in the past was ready to fight, and then began to prepare grain and grass." ”

"But now in Datang, we have already begun to hoard food, arrows and other consumable weapons and equipment in the surrounding areas of Datang, this is the biggest difference!"

"That is to say, in the past, we were preparing for the battle, so we began to prepare logistics, but now the logistics are already waiting there, as long as the Datang army arrives, the logistics can follow in an instant."

"The construction of several cities we have arranged in the Houtao area has been completed, although only the construction of the city wall has been completed, but these cities have been built into large warehouses."

"These warehouses began to store a large amount of food, arrows and other consumable materials, and they were all prepared for a big war."

"With a steady supply of supplies, these cities will be rock-solid, and the Turks will not be able to attack them, because the food stored in the cities will be enough for the soldiers who defend the cities to hold out for more than a year!"

"These cities are our strong bridgeheads! In addition, such as Wuchuan, an important town in the Northern Wei Dynasty, is already under our control, and these towns have begun to be strengthened. We had to build cities along several important passes in the Yinshan Mountains. ”

"When the time comes, what advantage will Xue Yantuo have over us?" Li Ke asked with a smile.

Li Shimin understood what Li Ke meant, for the nomads, all dynasties have always been defense-oriented, and even if they attacked, they had to attack because they couldn't be disturbed.

And now Datang's posture has completely turned into an offensive posture. In the past, dynasties were unable to rule the nomads because they could no longer garrison a large number of soldiers in the local area for a long time.

But now the Tang Dynasty is different, without a shortage of grain and grass, it is completely possible to rule these nomads with money.

In the long run, combined with Li Ke's policies to rule the herdsmen in Xizhou, it was only a matter of time before these herdsmen returned to their hearts, and this was the way to fundamentally solve the nomadic people.

"When the time comes, attacking from all directions, Goguryeo will be just a turtle in an urn?" Li Shimin understood Li Ke's strategy.

"That's pretty much the case, when Goguryeo, Baekje, Silla, etc. are all in the center, including the Wa Kingdom, we are also in the layout."

"At that time, we will have no enemies in the hinterland of Datang, and the land of Baiyue in the south of Datang is just in the bag, and after taking Tianzhu, we will be left with those enemies in the west."

"I've heard that the so-called pope on their side is trying to launch a crusade, and the east is said to be their territory." Li Ke smiled, although this is more than three hundred years later, it does not prevent Li Ke from arranging it for them now.

It's just that when the time comes, find someone to encourage the pope and let their entire crusader come out, regardless of whether this crusade has an eastward crusade or not, as long as he goes east, Datang will destroy potential enemies, which is very reasonable, right?