"Come, follow me to tell the official family the good news!"
After Fan Zheng cashed in one thousand coins, he immediately led the weapons supervisors and craftsmen, picked up their armor and rushed to the palace.
"What, the weapons supervisor cracked the Xixia cold-forged armor!"
Zhao Xu had just gone to court when Tong Guan came to report, and he couldn't help but be pleasantly surprised.
Tong Guan nodded and said: "Fan Taicheng has already been waiting outside the palace with his cold forged armor."
"Please come quickly. No, let Fan Zheng take the cold forged armor to the palace martial arts arena immediately." Zhao Xu couldn't wait to say.
Fan Zheng had just reformed the Ordnance Supervision for ten days. During these ten days, Fan Zheng reorganized the Ordnance Supervision, weeded out the old and weak, and recalled the craftsmen who had been requisitioned by the dignitaries. There had already been an uproar in the court, and various impeachments and rumors continued.
However, as soon as the cold forged armor came out, all doubts were immediately suppressed.
Throughout the ages, the Central Plains dynasties have always outperformed the grassland dynasties with their weapons and armor. However, in the Song Dynasty, the situation was extremely miserable. Not only were their bows and crossbows inferior to those of Xixia, but even their armor was inferior to Xixia's.
The Xia Zi armor worn by Xixia Iron Kites is cold-forged armor with extremely strong defensive power. A single charge can often disrupt the Song Dynasty's military formation! This gave the Song Dynasty a headache. If the Song Dynasty could also forge cold forged armor, it would be enough to fight against the Xixia Iron Kites.
In the martial arts arena.
Zhao Xu came in a hurry and saw Fan Zheng leading a group of weapons supervisors and craftsmen already waiting there.
"To report to the officials, the humble minister was ordered to reform the military weapons supervisor. He has fulfilled his mission and came here to report the good news to the officials." Fan Zheng continued.
Fan Zheng waved his hand, and Mo Yue led a group of craftsmen to present the newly completed cold forged armor and cotton armor.
Zhao Xu's eyes automatically ignored the cotton armor and stared at the cold forged armor.
"Is this Xixia's cold-forged armor?"
Zhao Xu said in disbelief. Once upon a time, the Song Dynasty was gnashing its teeth at Xixia's cold-forged armor, but there was nothing they could do about it. Xixia's biggest trump card was finally controlled by the Song Dynasty.
Mo Yue solemnly said: "The officials don't know. The method of cold forging armor is not difficult. The biggest difficulty is the iron material. After Lord Fan took the post of Ordnance Supervisor, he gathered a group of blacksmiths and brainstormed, and finally made a method that can be cold forged." of iron."
The life of the craftsmen was difficult, and five hundred strings was a huge fortune for them. Under the stimulation of five hundred strings, almost all the craftsmen were jealous, and they actually created cold-forged armor in one fell swoop.
Zhao Xu twitched the corner of his mouth. Fan Zheng had just taken office and directly spent thousands of dollars to provide a reward for the weapons inspector. It had already been rumored in the court and became the focus of impeachment by the courtiers.
However, no one expected that Fan Zheng's thousand guan would have such a miraculous effect. In just ten days, the craftsmen of the Ordnance Supervision actually made cold-forged armor. If you could buy cold-forged armor for just one thousand guan, How could the Song Dynasty be controlled by Xixia for decades?
However, the irony is that the Song Dynasty would rather give Xixia 300,000 guan of annual coins every year than reward craftsmen with a mere 1,000 guan.
Fan Zheng introduced from the side: "The infantry armor of the Song Dynasty uses hot forging technology. The complete set of 1,180 armor pieces weighs 70 kilograms, while the cold forging method is less than 50 kilograms."
"Seriously?" Zhao Xu said in disbelief.
The Xixia Iron Kites were extremely powerful, but the Song Dynasty had never been able to form heavy armored cavalry to compete with them. The biggest reason was that the Song Dynasty's armor was too heavy! The war horse cannot bear such huge pressure! In the end I had to give up.
If the Song Dynasty had cold-forged armor, the weight of the armor would be greatly reduced, and it would not be difficult to form an elite heavy armored cavalry that could compete with the Iron Kites.
Mo Yue was already prepared for this. He immediately took out a scale and measured the weight of the cold forged armor himself.
"Forty-eight pounds!"
Zhao Xu's eyes narrowed. The foot armor weighed a full seventy kilograms, while the cold-forged armor lost a full twenty-two kilograms. For soldiers who were running long distances, the weight reduction of more than twenty kilograms was really huge. of the gospel.
"Although the weight of cold-forged armor is reduced, its defensive power is still higher than that of human armor!" Fan Zheng said solemnly.
At the moment, Mo Yue put the cold forged armor and walking armor on the dummy in the martial arts arena.
"God's Arm Crossbow!"
Zhao Xu waved his hand. Ordinary bows and arrows were of little use against infantry armor and cold-forged armor. If you want to test the defensive power of cold-forged armor, you must use the divine arm crossbow!
Tong Guan immediately stepped forward and handed over the divine arm crossbow that had already been strung up.
"Buzz!"
Zhao Xu personally picked up the divine arm crossbow and took the lead in shooting at the Bu Renjia from a distance of twenty steps!
"Ding!"
There was a sound of gold and iron clashing, and the arrows were seen piercing deeply into the armor.
"One inch into the armor!" Mo Yue said loudly.
The divine arm crossbow is most powerful at a distance of twenty steps. The foot armor can block the strongest divine arm crossbow, and it only penetrates the armor by an inch, which is an incredible achievement.
But Fan Zheng shook his head. One inch was more than three centimeters long, and such a deep wound was enough to cause severe trauma to the human body.
At that moment, Tong Guan wound up the divine arm crossbow again and handed it to Zhao Xu.
Zhao Xu raised the divine arm crossbow, pointed it at the cold forged armor, and pulled the trigger.
"Ding!"
The sound of gold and iron clashes again.
This time, Zhao Xu missed his shot slightly. The cold-forged armor actually directly deflected the arrows of the divine arm crossbow, and the cold-forged armor only lost two pieces of armor.
"Come again!"
Zhao Xu was overjoyed when he saw this, and once again raised the divine arm crossbow to shoot at the cold forged armor.
"Ding!"
This time, the arrow of the divine arm crossbow did not miss, and it was nailed straight to the cold forged armor.
"Half an inch into the armor!" Mo Yue said excitedly.
"Half an inch!"
Zhao Xu said in surprise.
This is the most powerful divine arm crossbow in the Song Dynasty. The cold-forged armor can only resist the divine arm crossbow by half an inch.
Fan Zheng nodded slightly. Half an inch was less than two centimeters. Although the Divine Arm Crossbow still broke through armor, it was not fatal when wearing cold-forged armor. It was only a minor injury at most!
At that time, under Pingxia City, Xixia Iron Kites relied on the protection of cold-forged armor to charge up the city wall. If the Song army was not afraid of death and the thunderbolt blocked the reinforcements, Pingxia City would have been difficult to defend.
Zhao Xu stepped forward to verify it in person and found that it was only about half an inch into the armor.
Zhao Xu couldn't believe it. He raised the divine arm crossbow and fired several arrows, but the cold forged armor always blocked the divine arm crossbow without causing serious damage.
"Cold-forged armor is undoubtedly the strongest armor in the world. This divine armor is enough to create the iron-armored cavalry belonging to the Song Dynasty." Fan Zheng said solemnly.
At this moment, Fan Zheng came up with the idea of establishing Tiefu Tu.
"Iron Pagoda!"
Zhao Xu couldn't help being shocked when he heard this. Pagoda means tower in Buddhist language, and Iron Pagoda means iron tower. A cavalryman and horse are all wearing cold forged armor, standing like an iron tower.
"Okay! The Song Dynasty will build an iron pagoda belonging to the Song Dynasty at any cost!" Zhao Xu solemnly said.
Although the Song Dynasty was not prosperous, it was still possible to find three thousand of the most elite war horses. Xixia had three thousand iron kites, and the Song Dynasty was bound to build three thousand iron pagodas to compete with them.
"The officials are wise!" Fan Zheng bowed and said,
"The iron pagoda is expensive to build and cannot be mass-produced. If the Song Dynasty wants to revitalize the cavalry, it needs the second type of armor that Weichen donated today, cotton armor!"
"Cotton armor? Can cotton be used as armor?" Zhao Xu frowned and looked at the armor in front of him that was covered with a layer of cotton.
Everyone knows that cotton is the softest thing in the world, and armor is the most defensive thing in the world. How can the two be confused? If Fan Zheng hadn't just presented the armor with the strongest defense, he would have thought Fan Zheng was talking nonsense. Eight ways.
Fan Zheng nodded solemnly and said: "Although cold-forged armor is lighter than human armor, it still weighs fifty kilograms. The biggest advantage of cotton is that it is light, and the advantage of cotton armor is also that it is light!"
"light?"
Zhao Xu wondered, what's the use of lightness alone? No matter what kind of armor it is, the most important thing is protection.
Fan Zheng explained: "Mianjia wets the picked cotton and beats it repeatedly to make a thin cotton piece, and then embroiders the cotton piece into a very thick and solid cotton cloth. Between the two layers of cotton cloth is an iron armor, which is used both internally and externally. It is fixed with copper nails, and the whole set of armor only weighs about thirty pounds."
"Thirty pounds?"
Zhao Xu couldn't help being surprised. Even the lightest cold-forged armor in traditional armor only weighed about fifty kilograms. Most ordinary iron armor weighed about sixty kilograms, while cotton armor only weighed thirty kilograms. Calculated in this way, I'm afraid, It is the lightest armor.
Fan Zheng nodded solemnly and said: "The war horses of the Song Dynasty are slightly behind the war horses of the Liao and Xia. To make up for the gap, the load of the war horses of the Song Dynasty must be reduced, and cotton armor is the best armor for the cavalry of the Song Dynasty."
"How is its defense?" Zhao Xu asked.
"Better than paper armor, slightly worse than iron armor!" Fan Zheng said solemnly.
"Better than paper armor, slightly worse than iron armor?" Zhao Xu frowned.
Paper armor was another type of armor in the Song Dynasty. Iron armor was expensive to make. There were 1.2 million troops in the Song Dynasty. It was too expensive to make all of them iron armor. Therefore, high-quality and low-priced paper armor came into being, and paper armor had better defense. The power is not bad, the only drawback is that it is easily damaged.
At that moment, Zhao Xu picked up the divine arm crossbow, pointed it at the cotton armor and pulled the trigger.
After a muffled sound, the arrows of the divine arm crossbow also penetrated into the cotton armor.
"One and a half inches into the armor!" Tong Guan stepped forward to check the extent of damage to the cotton armor and said with a solemn expression.
"An inch and a half!"
Zhao Xu's expression changed. Although he was not a doctor, he still knew how terrifying an injury that was an inch and a half into the armor was.
Fan Zheng said calmly: "The officials don't know. The troops that need to be equipped with cotton armor are light cavalry. They will not engage the enemy in close combat unless necessary. However, the Liao and Xia cavalry only have bows and arrows, and cotton armor is enough for defense." , coupled with the light weight advantage of cotton armor, the gap between the Song Dynasty and Liao Xia in cavalry has been the same."
Zhao Xu nodded slightly. The Song Dynasty lost to the Liao Xia on horseback, but the cotton armor, which was half the weight, had the advantage. The Song Dynasty cavalry was still capable of fighting.
Fan Zheng said again: "Cotton armor is cheaper than paper armor, and it is also lighter than paper armor. Its defensive power is better than paper armor. Although its defensive power is slightly lower than that of iron armor, it also has an advantage that other armors cannot match, keeping warm! "
"Is keeping warm considered an advantage?" Zhao Xu asked confused.
Fan Zheng did not answer, but stood up and recited: "The north wind blows the white grass on the ground, and the snow falls in August. Suddenly, like a spring breeze, thousands of trees bloom."
Zhao Xu's heart moved. What Fan Zheng was reciting was "The Song of White Snow Sending Magistrate Wu Back to the Capital" by Cen Shen, a frontier poet from the Tang Dynasty.
"Scattered into the bead curtains and wet the curtains, the fox fur is not warm and the brocade quilt is thin. The general's horns and bows cannot be controlled, and the guard's iron clothes are cold and cold..."
"Is the Protector's armor so cold?" Zhao Xu's eyes lit up, and he immediately understood the benefits of cotton armor for keeping warm.
Both the Liao and Xia borders are located in the north, where winters are extremely cold, while the Xixia and Liao kingdoms live in bitter cold areas all year round and are extremely cold-resistant, while the Song army is located in the south, where winter battles are miserable and often fall at a disadvantage.
Cotton armor is lightweight, warm, and defensive. It is the best thing to defend Liaoxia in winter, and even counterattack Liaoxia in the future.
"How much does cotton armor cost?" Zhao Xu asked solemnly.
"Only 30% of the armor." Fan Zheng replied.
Zhao Xu's breath was stagnant. Except for his slightly inferior defense, his cotton armor was almost impeccable.
Once the Song Dynasty cavalry was equipped with lightweight cotton armor, the speed of the cavalry increased greatly. Whether it was long-distance attacks or roundabout side attacks, they could come and go like the wind. Combined with strong bows and spears, they were enough to fight against the elite cavalry of Liao and Xia.
Fan Zheng explained the combat ideas of later generations of Guaizima one by one.
He wants to follow the path of the Jin Army and leave the Jin Army with no way to go.
"Knapping horse!"
Zhao Xu was full of passion. The cavalry had always been a pain in the Song Dynasty, but with the cold-forged armor and cotton armor, Zhao Xu finally saw the hope of the rise of the cavalry in the Song Dynasty.
At the moment, Zhao Xu personally tried on the cold-forged armor and cotton armor. As expected, they both had great advantages over traditional armor.
"It is indeed much better than traditional armor. Fan Aiqing has made a great contribution!"
Zhao Xu was full of praise immediately. He did not expect that Fan Zheng would give him such a big surprise in just ten days.
Fan Zheng said modestly: "I dare not take credit. This is the work of the weapons supervisor and craftsmen. Moreover, this is not the strongest armor. As long as the craftsmen persevere, there will be stronger armors and lighter cotton armors in the future."
"Pass the decree, the Military Superintendent will reward you with three months' salary!" Zhao Xu said generously with a wave of his hand.
"Many thanks to the officials!" Mo Yue and others were overjoyed. First, the Ordnance Superintendent had given Fan Zheng a reward of one thousand guan, and now the officials had rewarded him with three months' salary. They couldn't be happier.
Fan Zheng warned: "If there is a spear, there is a shield. The weapons supervisor must not only study the strongest shield, but also the strongest spear. The contradictions must be overcome. Only by repeating this cycle can the Song Dynasty's military armor be powerful in the world."
"I obey your orders!" Mo Yue said solemnly.
"The Western Xia Iron Harrier is the most powerful enemy of the Song Dynasty. The weapons supervisor must find a way to crack it as soon as possible." Fan Zheng ordered again.
"As you command!"
Mo Yue and others took the order and then retreated.
After the weapons supervisors and craftsmen left, Zhao Xu stroked the cold forged armor and cotton armor, and couldn't help but excitedly said: "I want to form the Iron Buddha and the Guaizima. Does Fan Aiqing have suitable candidates?"
Fan Zheng thought for a while and said: "In the battle of Pingxia City, General Zhongpu was brave and resourceful. He was indeed a good general. He can be the commander-in-chief of Tiefutu!"
Later Zhong Pu went to war but was assassinated and died. If he could wear cold-forged armor, he might be able to escape the disaster.
"Can!"
Zhao Xu thought for a while and finally nodded.
"The Guaizima requires elite cavalry, and the most elite cavalry in the Song Dynasty is Xihe. The leader of Xihe, Yao Xiong, can try out the Guaizima."
"Yao Xiong!"
Zhao Xu nodded slightly.
He originally thought that Fan Zheng would recommend Yang Weizhong, the deputy general of Pingxia City, but he did not expect that Fan Zheng would recommend Yao Xiong, the commander-in-chief of Xihe!
"Yang Weizhong is better at defending the city! Pingxia City is a great threat to Xixia. If nothing goes as expected, Xixia will definitely attack Pingxia City in a large scale next year. With Yang Weizhong in Pingxia City, we can rest easy." Fan Zheng explained road.
"allow!"
Zhao Xu waved his hand and immediately gave the order.
(End of chapter)
