My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 469: Flowering and Fruiting

Many people understand the principle that a man cannot become rich without unexpected wealth, and a horse cannot grow fat without night grass.

The implicit philosophy of this proverb is: to achieve extraordinary goals, you must use extraordinary means.

It’s like a test-taker. No matter how hard he works serving dishes, he can never become a financially independent restaurant waiter.

It is like an old farmer who, no matter how hard he swings his hoe, cannot dig out a fortune from the soil.

——A process that follows the rules can only produce mediocre results.

Success that astonishes the world can often only be achieved through shocking channels.

At this moment, Liu Rong is facing such a problem.

During the Western Han Dynasty, more than 140 years before Christ, hundreds of thousands of armed forces were provided with means of keeping warm against the harsh winter winds of the grasslands.

At the same time, in a tough battle in the cold weapon era, in the bitter winter of twelfth lunar month when the breath turns into ice, as the initiator of the attack, it is necessary to control casualties to an almost impossible low level.

These two goals are extraordinary.

This can only be achieved through extremely unusual means.

For example, the former requires down jackets, cotton jackets, combat boots, and even electronic heating products that do not exist in this era.

The latter seems to be only possible to achieve through the war logic and combat methods of the later era of hot weapons.

Liu Rong can’t get a down jacket.

Liu Rong couldn't even get cotton, let alone combat boots and hand warmers.

Under the current conditions, the only solution Liu Rong could think of was high-calorie intake of alcohol, special meats, etc., as well as the accumulation of "quantitative changes leading to qualitative changes."

——If one layer of cotton wool can’t keep out the cold, then use three layers!
If three floors are not enough, try six floors. If six floors are not enough, try nine floors!
Even if the soldiers were wrapped like penguins, there was always a way to prevent them from being knocked down by the cold.

If all else fails, they can drink strong liquor, eat dog meat, or even mobilize animal furs from all over the world to make warm clothing for the soldiers!
As for casualties, the first thing Liu Rong thought of was the decapitation operations that were included in the special operations category in later hot weapons wars.

But soon, Liu Rong reluctantly rejected this plan.

In the era of hot weapons warfare, decapitation operations can effectively strike the enemy because they destroy the enemy's command system.

Without the command system, the enemy will be leaderless and unable to coordinate operations as a whole.

But in this era, the only significance of decapitation operations is to boost morale.

——Everyone cheer up!
——The enemy's general was assassinated by us!
——The enemy is about to be defeated!
But actually?
If they can push their adjutant up to become a general in a matter of minutes, wouldn't you explode right away?

This is still the Central Plains, a Chinese army that attaches relatively great importance to war command.

Put it on the grassland, a decapitation operation?
Destroy the enemy's command system?

It’s just like a person without morals will not be kidnapped by morality at all.

——How could the command system of an army that has no command system at all collapse due to your decapitation operation?
To put it bluntly, the nomadic peoples of this era had extremely primitive ways of fighting.

The command during combat is mostly limited to: the commander-in-chief issues a general military order, such as attack, retreat, and camp.

The specific details of how to do it were still decided by the generals of thousands or hundreds of men below, who would distribute the orders layer by layer.

For example, last year, there was the Mayi battlefield in the Hetao-Mayi Campaign.

The Chanyu Junchen, who controls the main force of the Chanyu Court, does not need to care about the details of the war at all. He only needs to issue an order to "launch an attack" and then find a place with a good view to watch the battle.

Once the Chanyu's military officer gave an order, the tribal chiefs and petty kings under him would then issue slightly more specific instructions to the generals of ten thousand men and commanders of a thousand men under their command.

For example: a certain tribe next door attacked the northwest side of Mayi, we attacked the northeast side, and another tribe attacked the north.

Further down, the hundred generals received instructions: supply this section of the city wall that is several dozen feet long from somewhere to somewhere.

Then the soldiers below were free to do what they wanted - some shot arrows, some charged.

When they heard the order to 'attack', they came out in full force; when they heard the order to 'retreat', they retreated like the tide and returned to the barracks to rest.

Therefore, the nomadic cavalry units of this era essentially had no real command system.

The decapitation operation could at most cause a political blow to the Huns of that era, rather than a military blow.

Let’s take last year’s Mayi battlefield as an example.

The Han Dynasty sent an elite special operations force to carry out a decapitation operation against Junchen Chanyu, and it was successful!
The result was that the Xiongnu's formation was thrown into chaos, while the morale of the Han army was greatly boosted!
But then, the Huns would inevitably select an "acting Chanyu" at the speed of light - at least a temporary commander-in-chief, to take over the command of the Mayi battlefield.

Then he continued to issue orders one after another: attack Mayi, avenge the dead Chanyu, etc.

When it comes to Gaoque, the same principle actually applies.

——The garrison commander of Gaoque might really hold the entire military command of Gaoque.

But this does not mean that Gao Que will lose his command system after the death of this defender.

In other words, the Gaoque defenders, who had no command system, would not suffer too serious command chaos due to the sudden death of the garrison commander.

Liu Rong couldn't even be 100% sure whether Gaoque really had a defending general or a supreme commander of the nature of a defending general.

According to the nomadic peoples' way of fighting, during a war, if several tribes are in the same camp and there is no one with a higher status such as the Chanyu or the Left or Right Wise Kings, then the command of the war is basically decided by the leaders of these tribes through discussion.

It doesn’t matter if any of these leaders accidentally dies in battle.

The law of the jungle believed in by the grasslands requires that a new leader be selected for the tribe before the old leader's body is cold - or even before he dies.

The same goes for Gaoque.

Gaoque may have a garrison commander who is fully responsible for Gaoque affairs, or maybe not;

The affairs of Gaoque might be jointly managed by several tribal chiefs who are responsible for garrisoning there.

But no matter which situation, beheading operations are practices that have more symbolic and spiritual significance than practical significance.

——The enemy will be panicked and confused, but after they recover, they will also be very angry!
Our soldiers' morale will be greatly boosted, but because of the so-called "decapitation operation", they will miss the best opportunity to launch a surprise attack.

With this in mind, Liu Rong basically came to the conclusion that there was almost no shortcut to attacking Gaoque.

Must break through head-on!

We must attack from the outside, break through the gate, and enter the palace!

Therefore, the only way to make a difference is to use brute force, and whether we can "bring forth something new out of the old"...

"Ah..." "Do you really want to do this?"

"Do we really have to release that 'evil beast' so early..."

For Liu Rong, a time traveler, the weapons and armaments of the later era of hot weapons are not completely impossible to replicate.

At least Liu Rong could find a way to make the backward firearms of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, especially the simple gunpowder.

To put it another way: even if we cannot make a lethal bomb, we can at least make a shocking "fireworks" to scare horses and startle people.

But almost everything in this world is a double-edged sword.

Liu Rong clearly remembers that in the original history, the Chinese nation accidentally invented gunpowder and made it into colorful fireworks.

However, foreign nations got their hands on gunpowder and made it into guns and cannons, and used them to blast open China's borders, plunging the Chinese people, who were already in dire straits, into an even darker purgatory on earth.

Think about the three-piece set of stirrups, saddle, and horseshoes that Liu Rong made a few years ago when he was just the crown prince.

Is the thing bad?
great!
As long as they are equipped, the Han cavalry can greatly shorten the training and cultivation cycle, and can produce troops at the speed of light like in a tower defense game!
But up to now, the three sets have not been mass-produced, but have been ordered to be sealed by the late Emperor Xiaojing and the current Emperor Liu Rong.

The reason for this is that compared with the benefits that the Han Dynasty can obtain, the gains brought to the Huns by these three sets of equipment are truly terrifying.

How many horses and cavalry units did the Han Dynasty have?
The '400,000 men wielding bows and arrows' that the Xiongnu people kept talking about were the male members of the Chanyu's headquarters, and every one of them was a cavalryman!
This does not include the scattered cavalry forces of other tribes, which together number hundreds of thousands, except for the main Xiongnu tribe.

To put it in the simplest and most direct way, these three pieces of equipment can increase the average combat effectiveness of the Han Dynasty's only 3 cavalrymen from 4-8 to .

But once the Huns get these three pieces of equipment, they will be hundreds of thousands of elite Hu cavalry on the grassland, and their combat power can be directly increased from 6 to 9, or even 10!

Therefore, whether it was the Battle of Chaona between the Han and the Xiongnu, the Battle of Hetao-Mayi, or even the Battle of Gaoque that was about to begin, the Han family under the control of Liu Rong always tried their best to avoid confronting the Xiongnu in the wild and plains.

Instead, they relied more on defensive fortifications such as cities and passes, using infantry against cavalry to mediate with the Huns.

Is it that the Han people are unable to train cavalry?
Does the Han Dynasty dislike cavalry and not want to send cavalry to fight the Huns head-on?
neither.

This is because the Han Dynasty did not have enough horses. Even if they trained a sufficient number of "cavalry", they would not be able to equip them with the horses they needed.

Therefore, the war horse triangle harness was sealed indefinitely, and even if it rotted in the treasury, it must not fall into the hands of the Huns.

This is true for saddles, stirrups, and horseshoes. It is naturally even more true for other, more shocking and sensational weapons and armaments.

Take the current situation for example. Because it is too difficult to attack Gaoque, the first thing Liu Rong thinks of is: primitive black gunpowder.

Can’t the Han Dynasty produce black gunpowder now?
In this era, is there no saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal?

of course not.

As long as Liu Rong hands over the approximate formula and proportions to the Shaofu, he can get the finished product in three days at most, and order mass production after the preliminary review is passed.

But in the past, Liu Rong had never thought of making gunpowder or explosives.

——Because in this era, we are not yet ready for something so earth-shattering.

The current Han Dynasty, which was busy guarding against clan princes at home and the Xiongnu in the north, Baiyue in the south, Baiyi in the southwest, and Korea in the northeast, was not yet prepared for the advent of explosives.

The most important thing is that Liu Rong himself had not figured out how to ensure his own life safety and that of every Han Dynasty politician after the advent of explosives.

In the past, when assassins were to be carried out, they would have to get close to the target and repeatedly carry out close-range attacks on the target's vital parts.

So it is very easy to check and prevent - you don’t even need to check people, you just need to prevent people from getting close to politicians.

But with explosives, the whole world will change.

On the positive side, when mining or building roads, people no longer have to dig or smash things with their hands. Instead, they can just use explosives to blast them open, saving time and effort.

But on the negative side, a desperate criminal who was dissatisfied with Liu Rong or the ministers in the court would not need to learn from Jing Ke's "revealing the dagger after the plan is completed" or hide the knife in the belly of a fish like Yu Rang.

If we throw the bomb of suggestion from a distance, Liu Rong or some other politician will really "explode".

It has been mentioned before: In this era, decapitation operations often fail to have a tactical effect on the battlefield, fail to cause a military blow to the enemy, but instead cause a political blow to the enemy.

The same principle applies - after the advent of explosives, the Han family might have to endure decades of disputes and turmoil for a long period of time because of the overpowering firepower of the traitorous reactionary forces.

An emperor is killed every now and then, and a minister is killed every other day - even with this, it would be a huge miracle if the political situation in the court and the country can still be stable.

So, the question comes back to the original starting point: Is Gaoque worth it?

The logistics and supplies, money and food expenses are worth it, and the casualties and injuries of the Han army are also worth it;
So was it worth it to invent gunpowder, which drastically changed this era and caused history to enter a stage of civilization prematurely, which it should not have entered so early?
Liu Rong, extremely tangled...

"just one time……"

"Just this one battle, use it once in Gaoque..."

"Before this, there was no black powder in the world;"

"After the battle of Gaoque, there will still be no such heaven-defying thing in the world..."

Liu Rong was wishful thinking, but he could not make up his mind and had no confidence to "use it only once and never spread it".

Pandora's box can only be opened and can never be closed.

After this time, from now on, the Han army, the mining department of the Shaofu, the road construction department of the Prime Minister's Office, etc., will remember that there is such a thing, which can greatly reduce the difficulty of their work.

If Liu Rong gave it to them, they would definitely take it;
If Liu Rong didn't give it to them, even if they didn't rob them, they would definitely find a way to get it themselves.

When that day comes, the war mode that the Han army needs to learn and get used to may be infinitely close to the Chinese army in the Yuan, Ming, and even Manchu periods in later generations...

"That's all~"

"That's all..."

...

"After going through this life, I have to leave something behind for this era."

"——The Shaofu has been busy for so many years and invested so much manpower, material resources and financial resources. It is time for it to bloom and bear fruit."

"We won't make anything complicated. We'll just make the most primitive clay pot explosives and throw them up to the Gaoque with a slingshot..."

"Well, this way, the casualties will definitely be suppressed."

"Heh - if the fire on the outer wall of Gaoque burns vigorously enough, maybe even keeping warm won't be a problem?"

"Pfft..."

(End of this chapter)