Song Gexing

Chapter 127 Zhao Fang was educated
"Brother is saying that elephant soldiers are the best weapon against cavalry?"

After listening to Zhao Fang's answer, Zhao Zhen asked curiously, and the chancellors also looked at him with question marks all over their heads.

Zhao Fang pouted and said, "Daddy doesn't know about this? And you are all well-educated in poetry and literature. When Zhuge Wu is marching south, isn't the most difficult thing to deal with the southern barbarian elephant soldiers?"

Yan Shu looked at him suspiciously, and asked hesitantly, "Did your Highness stop studying all these years?"

Seeing that Zhao Fang was stunned, he quickly added: "The history book that I said."

"History?"

Zhao Fang looked at him in confusion. He really didn't like reading history books. After reading the Spring and Autumn Period and the Three Biography of the Spring and Autumn Period, he basically gave up on other history books and focused on Confucian classics.

This is because he believes that he has the memory of future generations and does not need to read history books at all. Moreover, history books do not bring him much talent, and they are not as good as books with philosophy.

The main reason is that he believes that almost all the history books after the Spring and Autumn Period have been tampered with. Isn't it the sage Confucius who proposed to hide it for the venerable.

Now that he was asked, he hesitated and nodded: "It's true that I haven't read history books. I prefer Confucian classics and Buddhist and Taoist classics."

After hearing this, Yan Shu sighed and said: "No wonder, Your Highness has not read the history books carefully. Naturally, he does not know why the past dynasties did not raise elephant soldiers. Except for the state of Chu in the unofficial history, the existence of elephant soldiers is no longer heard of, only in the Southern Barbarians." Only then will there be.”

Zhao Fang was stunned and blurted out: "Why! The elephant soldiers are indeed very powerful in combat! Tianzhu is the best at raising war elephants, and their combat effectiveness is calculated based on the number of elephant soldiers."

Yan Shu shook his head and said: "Raising war elephants is very expensive. Secondly, once a war elephant goes crazy, the damage caused will be greater than being attacked by the enemy. It is completely outweighed by the gain. Moreover, there is still no solution to this matter. War elephants are different from war horses. Although its intelligence is not inferior to that of a war horse, it is wild and difficult to tame!"

"This……"

Zhao Fang hesitated. There is no solution to this question. Horses have been bred for tens of millions of years, and they are already domestic animals. Their loyalty to their owners is no less than that of dogs.

Moreover, the intelligence of horses is not lower than that of human children, which is completely different from cattle, sheep and pigs. Smart war horses even only recognize one master in their lives, and are more loyal than most people.

But even if the war elephant is domesticated and obedient, it is still a wild animal after all. Although its intelligence is not low, it still cannot completely control it.

Seeing his hesitation, Pang Ji sighed and said: "Your Highness, it is not that the Central Plains Dynasty has never fought against elephant soldiers in history. We have won a big victory every time. The destructive elephants are completely unbearable under the wisdom of human beings." Attack, that's why we don't need war elephants."

Zhao Fang was shocked when he heard this. According to his limited historical knowledge, when did the Central Plains Dynasty fight against the war elephant? Even Zhuge Liang's seven captures of Meng Huo were questioned by later generations as not being official history.

After all, neither the Later Han Dynasty nor the Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, which recorded the history at that time, had any detailed records, so they just explained the Southern Expedition in a few words and it was over.

This incident was recorded in the Later Tang Dynasty and Zizhi Tongjian. Although these are also history books, after all, it was so long ago that there is a suspicion that the unofficial history is regarded as the official historical record.

"Your Highness doesn't know, but I will tell you that in the 23rd year of Yuanjia, the Song Dynasty of the Southern Dynasty conquered the Linyi Kingdom, which is now the Champa Kingdom. King Linyi used war elephants to fight, but was defeated by the Song Dynasty general Zong Xi. The method was very simple. The model of the beast and the roar of the lion and tiger made the war elephants lose control. During the Renshou period of the Great Sui Dynasty, Liu Fang, the general manager of the Huanzhou Road march, also conquered Linyi. He faked defeat and lured the war elephants into a trap, captured the capital of Linyi State, and restored the old system of Lingnan."

Pang Ji vividly talked about the defeat of the elephant soldiers by the previous dynasty, which made Zhao Fang stunned for a while, and secretly cursed himself for being ignorant. It turned out that it was not that the Central Plains dynasty did not know the power of war elephants, but that it could not defeat us at all.He didn't know that not long after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there was also a battle between the Ming army and the elephant soldiers, and the enemy's elephants were wiped out. That battle was fought in Bashu, and the Ming army was commanded by Fu Youde, the famous founding general of the Ming Dynasty.

This also shows that at least in the early Ming Dynasty, there were wild elephants in Sichuan, otherwise it would be impossible to form elephant soldiers.

Then during the Wanli period, they faced off against the elephant soldiers again, and the target was Myanmar at that time. They also completely wiped out the opponent's elephant soldiers. The commander-in-chief of the Ming army was the famous general Deng Zilong.

The Han people defeated elephant soldiers many times, all because elephants are wild animals and are afraid of fire and strange noises. To put it bluntly, no matter how powerful a war elephant is, it is just a tool. It is people who really control the war.

Now Zhao Fang understood that he was still too ignorant. He thought that the soul that traveled through time had its own super knowledge storage and must be better than the ancients. Now he was slapped in the face.

"I'm out of touch. If that's the case, then cancel it."

Zhao Fang feebly admitted that he had made a mistake. Seeing that he was a little depressed, Yan Shu frowned and said: "Your Highness, there is no need to belittle yourself. Although we don't need elephant soldiers, what Your Highness said is actually right. War elephants can indeed threaten cavalry. If used properly, It might not be a big killer."

Needless to say, Zhao Fang understands this truth. The way to use troops depends on the person who directs them, and it also depends on who is the commander's calculations.

If the war elephant is hidden in the army and the opponent does not know it, and suddenly attacks when the battlefield is anxious, it is entirely possible to defeat the opponent and cause a chain reaction.

Understanding the other party's good intentions, Zhao Fang smiled and said, "Don't worry about me, Mr. Yan. This is just something I didn't consider well. It's not a big mistake. I can look away from it."

Hearing what he said, Yan Shu nodded and smiled and said, "Your Highness is broad-minded. I'm just worrying about it. In fact, we can't use war elephants. There is another problem that cannot be solved. That is, elephants like heat or cold. The objects we fight have always been In the northwest and north, people and horses are fine, but war elephants can't survive there."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Fang blurted out: "Wear cotton clothes for them!"

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he was stunned: "Cotton-padded clothes... Damn! Why did I forget this?"

When he came to his senses, he immediately looked at Zhao Zhen and said, "Dad, please quickly give Di Qing an imperial decree and ask him to bring back some women who are skilled in weaving Jibei cloth, as well as farmers who grow kapok."

"Brother, what are you doing? Jibei cloth is so good, why do you need to hire someone to weave it? And what's the use of kapok seeds?"

Zhao Zhen asked with confusion on his face, and Zhao Fang quickly explained: "The kapok my son is talking about is not the kapok tree, but the shrub kapok grown in the Western Regions and Guangnan."

Zhao Zhen suddenly realized it. He nodded and said still puzzled: "Daddy knows about that thing. I heard it is the raw material for spinning Jibei cloth. But although Jibei cloth is wear-resistant, it doesn't look good."

Of course, the Song Dynasty knew about cotton, but it was called kapok. Cotton was actually introduced to China in the Qin and Han Dynasties, but only in Hainan Island and Yunnan and Guangxi.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it was also spread from the Western Regions, but it was only planted in Xinjiang to Gansu, and it was not until the Song Dynasty that it slowly entered Shaanxi.

In the late Southern Song Dynasty, cotton really entered the Jianghuai area, but until this time, people still did not use cotton's important thermal insulation function and only used it to weave cotton cloth.

(End of this chapter)