Sun Wu was very excited when he heard that Huaigong was going to make him a general. He immediately stood up and said, "My lord, Sun Wu, pay my respects to you. I am willing to die for you!"
Seeing Sun Wu agreeing, Wang Qi could be said to be overjoyed. He took Sun Wu back to the Huai Palace, and then had someone prepare the official seal and ribbon to formally worship him as a general.
Wang Qi was very happy and immediately asked Sun Wu about politics: "Sun Qing, our Huai Kingdom now stretches thousands of miles away from the sea in the east, Baiyue in the south, Qi in the north, and Chu in the west. How should we develop it?"
Sun Wu already had an idea in mind, and he immediately said: "The land of Huai is thousands of miles away, with Yong'an Canal, Han Canal, Jiangnan Canal and other water conservancy facilities. It is fertile and wild for thousands of miles, and there are four million people. It can be said that it is well-equipped with soldiers and food, and it can resist the Jin in the north." Qi, defeated Jingchu in the west, and became a powerful country in the world."
"If the Huai Kingdom wants to develop, it can only go west."
"Why can't Sun Qing go north?" Wang Qi said with a smile.
Sun Wu said: "The territory of the Huai Kingdom is long and narrow, narrow from east to west and long from the north to the south. This terrain is extremely unfavorable to the Huai Kingdom. If the Chu army is strong, it can directly go down the river and cut off the north and south of the river."
"If the Huai Kingdom continues to go north, the territory will become narrower and longer, which is not conducive to the rule of the Huai Kingdom. At the same time, all the countries in the Central Plains are connected with each other. If they attack the Qi Kingdom, they may be out of control."
"Therefore, I believe that we should develop westward."
Wang Qi nodded and was very satisfied with Sun Wu's answer, so he continued to ask: "To the west is the State of Chu. Although the State of Chu has setbacks at this time, it is still strong and not easy to deal with."
"Your Majesty, although Chu has a land of thousands of miles and millions of people, it has a feudal system. Therefore, although Chu is strong, its power is scattered and cannot be unified."
"This is not the case in our country of Huai. The soldiers of Huai are elite and cannot be compared with those of Chu. With my subordinates leading the westward march, it will not be difficult to defeat Chu."
Sun Wu said confidently.
"But Your Majesty, it is easy to defeat the Chu State, but it is difficult to annex the Chu State."
"If you want to completely defeat Chu, you can only do it slowly."
Wang Qi nodded. The Chu State now has a radius of two thousand miles. It is really difficult to annex it. Even if it is reluctantly swallowed, when a large number of Chu State's feudal lords rebel, the Huai State will have to struggle to suppress the rebellion. Annexing the Chu State will not improve its strength. , but it will contain a large number of Huai's troops.
"Your Majesty, this is not the time to attack Chu." Sun Wu said.
"Why is this?" Wang Qi was a little surprised.
"The State of Chu has been recuperating since King Chuzhuang died of illness. A few years ago, the State of Chu went north and signed an alliance with the State of Jin to eliminate troops. Both sides stopped their troops, and the strength of the State of Chu was also recovering."
"On the other hand, if the Huai Kingdom attacks Chu, it will need to build several grain storage cities on the Huai-Chu border. Otherwise, the logistics and transportation of thousands of miles will be too expensive."
"At the same time, the king of Chu has not lost his virtue, there is no excessive levy in the Chu country, and the people have gathered together. Attacking Chu at this time will achieve twice the result with half the effort..."
Sun Wu explained his point of view, and Wang Qi quickly accepted his point of view and stopped thinking about attacking Chu for the time being.
After Sun Wu gained Wang Qi's trust, he began to make some changes to the military system of the Huai State. Since the founding of the Huai State by King Wen, the military system of the Huai State had not undergone any major changes.
After the development of the times, the military system of Huai State has become somewhat outdated. Now all countries in the world are looking for ways to protect their country and strengthen their army, so naturally Huai State cannot fall behind.
Sun Wu reformed the military formation according to his ideas, and was also surprised by the eliteness of the Huai soldiers. The reform of the military system allowed the army to deliver messages faster, and the changes in various formations and the coordination between the arms improved the strength of the Huai State. .
...
After Ou Yezi received Wang Jin's reward, he took everyone to Han to prepare to make swords again. This time he was ordered to forge an iron sword.
That's right, Wang Qi's order to him was to forge an iron sword.
The earliest appearance of iron can be traced back to the Yin and Shang Dynasties, but at this time, people did not master smelting iron tools. More often than not, some meteorite iron obtained by chance was used to forge some weapons.
Hundreds of years have passed until now, and iron tools have gradually been understood by people, and some have even been smelted by chance, but they are still crudely made and of poor quality. Although the intensity is very high
, but it breaks easily. At the same time, because iron rusts easily, it is called evil gold and cannot be used to make weapons at all.
But this time Huaigong clearly specified forging iron swords.
Wang Qi was not making things difficult for these craftsmen. In fact, Zijue had already left books for the craftsmen to experiment with. However, because the Chao Kingdom was not annexed, there were no large-scale iron mines that were easy to mine in the Huai Kingdom, and the iron smelting technology had been stagnant.
After Huai Kingdom annexed Chao Kingdom, Huaigong sent people to search for mines in Chao Kingdom and smelt iron ore.
The forging of Ou Yezi's five divine swords is already the pinnacle of bronze swords. Now it is time to open the door to the Iron Age. The next five divine swords will be forged with iron.
With the support of Huai State's manpower and material resources, the iron ore was quickly found. At the same time, the craftsman supervisor also sent master craftsmen to start smelting the iron ore.
With the books left by Zijue and these master craftsmen, it is not too difficult to smelt iron, but the quality of the iron will be different.
Ou Yezi led the craftsmen as supervisors to smelt iron ore in Handi. Wang Qi ordered that the ten-mile radius of the workshop be turned into a restricted area to prevent other countries from getting the news. Keeping iron tools highly confidential, although the iron tools will eventually spread, but by allowing other countries to obtain them later, Huai State will have more advantages.
However, even after iron was smelted, bronze swords still occupied a large position for a long time. Zi Jue left a complete development direction for Huai State.
Iron replaced bronze, and war knives replaced bronze swords. At the same time, Iron Armor will quietly appear. Nowadays, most of the wars between countries use leather armor. As for bronze armor, it is not unavailable, but it is extremely rare.
The main reason is that bronze is too heavy to be used to make armor. Moreover, due to the texture of bronze, it must be thick enough to make bronze sheets.
As a result, bronze armor is basically not worth one warrior to a hundred warriors, and cannot be worn at all. The Tengjia Army and Yulin Army of Huai State are invincible on the battlefield. In addition to the strict training, tacit cooperation and strong strength of the Tengjia Army and Yulin Guards, a very important reason is that their armor is complete.
On the battlefield, fighting with armor against without armor is a cruel act. But once we enter the Iron Age, the armor wearing rate of soldiers will increase, and the battlefield will be even more cruel.
In this period, one of the reasons why bronze armor is rare is that it is expensive to make. You must know that China is not rich in copper resources, and the smelting of bronze is not easy. A pair of bronze armor can forge more than a dozen bronze swords.
——
The emergence of iron tools accelerated the disintegration of the Bangzhou system. At the same time, the emergence of iron farm tools greatly improved productivity. Its arrival set off a revolution in society, promoted class differentiation, promoted the disintegration of the feudal system, and promoted the Progress from slave society to feudal society. Huaiguo also got the first ticket to the Iron Age.
——"Eighth Grade History (People's Education Edition)·Volume 2·The Arrival of Iron and the Collapse of the Feudal System of the State and Zhou Dynasty"
