Compared with other vassal states in the Xia Dynasty, the Huai Kingdom is different after all. As a survivor of the Yin Shang Dynasty, he had been fighting with Bangzhou for hundreds of years. How could he not have any grudges?
The Huaiguo Academy was able to develop in addition to the original method set up by Zijue to educate without distinction and without any barriers. It was also due to the contributions of sages such as Laozi, Confucius and Sun Wuzi.
It was also the arrival of these sages that made the Huaiguo Academy spread throughout the Zhou Dynasty. Before that, the academic palaces of the Huai Kingdom were only famous in the Huai Kingdom. For example, the Central Plains countries did not recognize the orthodox cultural inheritance of the academic palaces, states, and Zhou Dynasties.
After all, the Huai Kingdom is the legacy of the Yin Shang Dynasty. To recognize the Huai Kingdom Academy is to recognize that the Huai Kingdom has obtained the orthodoxy of the Bangzhou culture. This is unacceptable to the Central Plains countries.
Until now, although the academic palace of Huai Kingdom is well-known among other countries, it is still not recognized as orthodox by other countries. On the contrary, Confucianism, Taoism and other doctrines are recognized by the states of Zhou Dynasty.
Of course, in fact this is just a fig leaf.
After all, a vassal state established by the survivors of the Yin and Shang Dynasties is recognized as cultural orthodoxy, so what can we say about the legitimacy of Bangzhou? This is to deny the legitimacy of King Wu's victory over Yin and the establishment of Zhou Dynasty.
How could the states of Bangzhou recognize it?
Now that Xihe Academy was established, these Central Plains princes immediately began to praise Xihe Academy. The reason is to overwhelm the Huaiguo Academy.
Even these people divided the Legalism that originated from the Huai State. The Legalism of the Huai State remained unchanged, while those Legalists who left the academy to serve in the Wei State were called the Legalists of the Three Jin Dynasties.
These useless efforts that do not seem to affect the overall situation are just to separate the Huaiguo Academy from its culture.
Fortunately, it is no longer hundreds of years ago. The states of Bangzhou and Zhou are weakening, and their right to speak has been gradually taken away by Huai State. Otherwise, this situation will be more serious.
After Huai State discovered that the world was becoming more and more turbulent, it also began to prepare to expand its army. Although the Huai State did not use the hegemonic techniques of the Wei State to reform and did not exhaust the people's power, the Huai State's reforms were adjusted by several generations.
When Zijue first came to this world, he knew the suffering of the people and understood the suffering suffered by the grassroots people in China in the following thousands of years. Therefore, he deeply hated the saying "if the people suffer, I will bear the insults".
The people are already losing everything. Will they be forced to rebel if they continue to suffer? Compared with the hardships of the common people, Zijue believes more in the hardships of the nobles and the powerful.
A numerical comparison of the improvements in national power achieved by Wei's hegemonic reforms and Huai's reforms shows that the upper limit of the increase in national power by Wei's hegemonic reforms is two hundred percent. However, Huaiguo's reforms only brought Huaiguo's national strength to 80%.
Calculated according to the Chu State, before undergoing the reform, the power that the Chu State could exert was only about 30%, or even lower. Although Chu State has a vast territory, it has many lords. In many cases, the power of Chu State is consumed by its lords.
In fact, the core of the reform is the redistribution of interests while squeezing out the country's potential. Because the Wei State was a small country, it could only use this extreme reform if it wanted to become strong. However, the Huai State had a vast territory and did not need to use this method at all.
Even if the Huai State only exerts 80% of its national strength, generally speaking, it is not something that the Wei State can contend with. This is the advantage of a large country.
After Wang Pu announced the recruitment of soldiers, a large number of people came to sign up. Huai State's money and food began to be consumed rapidly.
However, this is nothing compared to the grain stored in Huaiguo's warehouses. The stock in Huaiguo's warehouses can support the Huaiguo army for several consecutive years without shortage.
Even if you can't defeat them on the battlefield, you can still rely on the vast land, population, and food to consume the enemy to death.
The training of the Tengjia Army requires a lot of time, and Huai State established an army of 50,000 Tengjia. At the same time, there are about 100,000 ordinary troops. Including Huai's previous army, Huai can recruit an army of 300,000. If people's livelihood is not taken into consideration, this number can be increased to half a million or even one million troops.
Of course, Wang Pu would never mobilize more than 500,000 troops before the end of the country. This would almost drain the Huai Kingdom's population dry.
The Huai Kingdom upgraded its weapons and equipment. The armor of the Vine Armor Army was made of rattan armor at the innermost part, a layer of leather armor in the middle, and iron armor scales at the outermost part. These iron armor scales were worn and then tied to the leather armor. The weight of the rattan armor also increased from a few kilograms to thirty kilograms.
The defensive properties of the rattan armor have been greatly improved. In particular, the rattan armor has a certain curvature support and also has some defensive effects against blunt weapons.
In addition to rattan armor, the Huai Kingdom has replaced bronze swords with straight knives. The weight of the weapon is much lighter, and the power of cutting is also more destructive than stabbing.
Of course, this does not mean that iron weapons can completely defeat bronze weapons. In fact, although bronze weapons lag behind, the gap between the two is not huge.
In addition to these weapons, Huai Guo's craftsman supervisor also completed another weapon, a crossbow!
Weapons like crossbows actually appeared decades ago, but the power of crossbows at that time was unsatisfactory. Although crossbows were more powerful than bows and arrows, they were too slow to string, expensive to make, too heavy, and easily damaged, among other shortcomings.
An archer can shoot three or even five arrows in the same time.
After the Mohist machine masters joined the craftsmen and supervisors of Huai State, the development of crossbow machines immediately increased several times. Although the current crossbow is still slow to wind, it has made great progress compared to before. At the same time, the power of the crossbow has been further improved.
Regarding the problem of the slow shooting speed of crossbows, the martial arts scriptures left by Zijue recorded a three-stage shooting method. This method can increase the crossbow's rate of fire several times in a short period of time.
After Wang Pu saw weapons like crossbows, he immediately realized how powerful they were. Ten thousand people were immediately recruited for training and prepared to form a crossbow army.
Although the Huai Kingdom has undergone several improvements, the price of the crossbow machine is still very high.
On the high platform on one side of the training ground, Wang Pu was watching the army training in the field.
With the sound of the horn, the army on the field immediately changed formations, and then they saw the army arrayed, with one row in the front holding crossbows and taking aim.
I saw the flag waving, a dull buzzing sound, thousands of crossbow arrows instantly rising into the air, and countless arrows suddenly appeared on the target a hundred steps away from the military formation.
After the first row of soldiers shot the crossbows, they immediately retreated. The second row stepped forward. There was another buzz, and countless crossbows flew out again, and then the third row stepped forward again.
After some actions, the first row of crossbowmen had finished winding up again and started shooting. The entire military formation was like flowing clouds and flowing water. Six waves of arrows were shot out in a very short period of time, and then the speed slowed down.
(End of chapter)
