Late Tang

(I've been sick for two days, I'm really sorry! Very much[email protected]@, half knife zsz, Mengmengmengmengmeng, book friend 091 1083937663 and other book friends for their support, thank you all. )

At the end of February in the fourth year of Qianfu, the ice on the Liaohai Sea has melted, everything has recovered, and there is a breath of spring in the air.

Megan and Julie didn't wear iron armor or leather armor, but a set of gorgeous and flamboyant full-body plate armor. The two sets of silver-white armor are beautifully shaped, with rounded, close-fitting and graceful lines.

Each of them rode a horse of brown color.

Above their heads, the red battle flag of the town [***] and the flag of Li Jing's guards with the winged Sirius painted on it fluttered high.Next to the two female generals, groups of soldiers surrounded them like green leaves against red flowers, and they were full of calmness on their beautiful faces.

Armors and weapons clanged as the troops ran.

Li Jing is also wearing a new type of armor, but unlike the close-fitting and round shapes worn by the two glamorous beauties, Megan and Julie, Li Jing's suit is simple in style, sharp and full of functions. It looks more atmospheric and sports better.This kind of angular design not only makes the whole armor more heroic, but also has a large number of angular designs, which also has great practical performance. It can change the trajectory of arrows, avoid direct impact, and even deflect melee attacks. strength.The core technical concept is like the equipment of a tank, which can greatly increase the defense performance without increasing the thickness of the armor.

The dazzling new style of full body armor worn by Julie, Megan and Li Jing is the latest achievement of the Ordnance Department. Li Jing's new self-named Sirius style and Suzaku style.Originally, Li Jing wanted to name the full-body plate armor with sharp edges and corners the Qinglong style, but he thought it would be a taboo to carry the dragon character.Instead, I thought it would be good to adopt the white tiger style, but the word tiger was also very taboo in Datang, so I had to change it to the Sirius style.

The Sirius style and the Suzaku style are actually Li Jing's improvements based on the two most famous full-body armors in Europe in later generations, which are equivalent to Gothic plate armor and Milanese plate armor.

As early as the Northern and Southern Sui Dynasty, the Mingguang armor equipped on a large scale at that time could be regarded as a kind of plate armor, but this kind of armor was not a full-body armor.It's just two large pieces of armor on the chest and back. Although this kind of armor has a good defensive effect, almost all the weight of the armor is borne by the shoulders when wearing this kind of armor. big.

This is also the reason why Mingguang armor was gradually abandoned after the Tang Dynasty. Most of the Tang army today is equipped with Zhajia.Armor is made up of countless small parts connected in series, whether it is Shanwen armor, fish scale armor, Suozi armor, or willow leaf armor. This type of armor has two large pieces on the shoulders, which is simpler than Mingguang armor. It is much better to hang it on the shoulder by the belt.But such armor is troublesome to make, and it is not light in weight.

Zhen [***] is equipped with a large number of iron armor and leather armor. The defense of the soldiers has improved, but it is even more difficult to march.Especially for the soldiers, now fighting in Liaodong, the mountainous terrain is a heavy burden for the town [***] equipped with a large number of armors.At the same time, the Goguryeo, Khitan, and Bohai people were all equipped with bows and arrows in large quantities, and the armor defense was still not ideal.

As early as two years ago, Li Jing asked the craftsmen of the Ordnance Department to study the issue of armor improvement, and even proposed a plan to manufacture half-body armor and human body armor.

However, there are still many problems to be solved in order to create a full body armor that can increase the defense without increasing the weight.

Fortunately, Li Jing is a time traveler, and some problems may never be solved in this era, but for Li Jing, he already knows the right direction, and just work hard to solve other small problems along this direction.For more than two years, the Armor Department of the Ordnance Division has been solving three problems. One is to improve the strength of materials, the other is to strengthen the manufacturing technology, and the third is to improve the structure and shape of the armor.

After several years of development, the Dengzhou Metallurgy and Steelmaking Bureau has now established a blast furnace with better surname and performance, using coal to refine coke for steelmaking, and greatly improving the quality of steel.At the same time, the research on hydraulic forging hammers has become more and more mature, and a [-]-jin hydraulic forging hammer has even been established in Dengzhou.Using various hydraulic forging hammers, the newly refined steel can be forged and directly shaped.

With the appearance of the hydraulic forging hammer, Zhen [***] began to have the ability to forge large curved metals, laying the foundation for making full body armor.In particular, the technical improvement of coke blast furnace smelting has enabled the use of cast iron.

Now that Zhen [***] has entered the land of Liaodong, the Goguryeo, Khitan, and Bohai are facing troops with strong cavalry and archery.Facing the threat of the strong bow, Li Jing had to speed up the development of full body armor.

On the battlefield of cold weapons, full body armor is of great significance.

And on the other hand, the scale of the town [***] is constantly expanding, but the armor equipment is also a huge burden.There are now more than 20 armies in the town [***], plus the reserve township army, there are as many as 20 people.However, only about [-]% of the soldiers in the main army possess iron armor, and most of the rest are equipped with leather armor.

It is very difficult to make armor. Even if Li Jing expands the scale of the workshop and implements assembly line operation, the output has been difficult to increase in a large amount.The larger the army, the greater the demand, and the greater the pressure on armor production.What Li Jing wants to do now is to take another path, produce better steel, and then directly forge the plate armor, and then assemble it, saving a lot of manpower with hydraulic forging hammers and blast furnaces.

The three sets of armors of Li Jing, Megan, and Julie are experimental products. The total cost of the three sets of armors is as high as ten thousand guan, and it took more than two years to create them.Even if it is mass-produced in the future, each set may cost at least several hundred guan.But this kind of armor can only be the armor of officers, it is impossible for the armor of ordinary soldiers and ordinary officers to be so gorgeous and perfect.

Large batches will only be easier. Li Jing's plan is to manufacture simpler plate armor equipment on a large scale.

But the simpler you want to make it, the harder it is to produce it.The Ordnance Department reported that small-scale production of this luxurious type of plate armor can begin in half a year, and that the simplified, advanced type can be produced in a year.However, it is more difficult to want a more simplified intermediate version and ordinary version, and it will take at least two years before mass production.

In this regard, Li Jing has no other good solution except to issue a heavy reward to the Armor Bureau, and then offer a heavy reward to let them speed up their improvement.

New armor has to wait, but war cannot wait.

As soon as the ice in the Liaohai Sea melted at the end of February, Li Jing immediately summoned the army to launch a spring offensive to the periphery of the Niangniang Mountain City, and at the same time sent troops to harass the Liaohe River.But Li Jing's real goal is not Niangniang Mountain City, it's just a trick to make a fool of himself.

The real action was very secretive. Li Jing personally led the troops to dispatch, and summoned the ninth wife, Megan, and the tenth wife, Julie, who had just been brought into the Duke of Qi's mansion at the beginning of the month.In Shirenzhu Port of Jinzhou, the sailors knew that Pei You, the envoy of the navy, was already waiting by the seaside with three troops leading the navy.

Li Jing was greeted by the navy and boarded the high deck of the Sirius, looking down at the soldiers and horses on the pier.The Sirius was the flag that Pei You used when he was the commander of the Duli Town United Fleet. It is a ship comparable to a five-yaled ship, but it has an iron deck, [-] oarsmen, and seven masts. The Battleship.This super battleship, which can carry the entire five thousand guards at a time, is Li Jing's ship and the flag of the entire fleet.When Li Jing was not in use, she was moored at the port for maintenance. This time, it was Li Jing who went to sea in person, and Pei Youcai brought the ship here.

In addition to the flagship of the Sirius, there are a total of ten Wuyalou ships, thirty fighting ships, fifty sea falcons, sixty warships, eighty galleys, one hundred yachts, and one hundred yachts. There are more than [-] logistics supply ships such as grain ships, firewood ships, and water ships.

Ever since Li Jing cleaned up Daxie Village and Deng, Lai, and Qingshui divisions, completely conquered Duli Town, and integrated the navy divisions of Qingnipu and Shirenzhu Port, Li Jing has already become the leader of the entire Tang Dynasty. , and even the largest water situation in the entire northern countries.Although Li Jing once reduced the size of the navy, the navy still maintains a large number of warships.On the water, whether it is Xinluo, Bohai or Dongying, no one is Li Jing's opponent.

In the more distant Mediterranean, the fleets of the Arabs and Eastern Romans would never travel across the ocean to reach the South China Sea.

Up to now, the entire Liaohai Sea in the north is the territory of Zhen [***] Navy, and no one dares to provoke it.It is precisely because of such a powerful navy that Li Jing dared to enter Liaodong from Dengzhou, and then took a strong step in capturing Pingzhou in Youzhou, dividing his troops into three along the Bohai Sea.

The Shanghai family dominates, this taste is really cool.Everyone is fighting for the land route and guarding the pass of the Walled City, but having a powerful navy can give Li Jing an absolute upper hand in the current battle.

The defense of Liaodong is actually the defense system left by Goguryeo.

This system is still defending the Liaoxi Corridor leading directly to the Liaodong hinterland.That's why there is the Goguryeo Great Wall on the east bank of the Liao River, from Buyeo to Anshi.In addition, there is also the defense on the Liaodong Peninsula. The Tang army crossed the sea from Dengzhou to Liao, so it was in the Daheishan Beisha City at the southern end of Liaoning, as well as Jian'an, Niangniang Mountain City, Fenghuang Mountain City and many other mountain cities.There is nothing wrong with the defense system of the Goguryeo people. They have a population of 70 households and an army of more than 30.

The key point is that the Liaohe River blocked the exit of the Liaoxi Corridor, which can prevent the Central Plains army from coming by land.Although the sea can also come, but the sea has always been regarded as a rare soldier. After all, the follow-up supplies are difficult. As long as the cities such as Beisha are defended, even if the Central Plains army lands, they can only be blocked between the mountains and the sea and cannot enter. hinterland.

However, Zhen[***] is not the same as the Sui and Tang armies that conquered Liao. Now Zhen[***] has more than half of the Liaodong Peninsula as a base.The powerful navy of Zhen[***] no longer has to start from Dengzhou Port, but can directly start from Duli Town, Qingnipu, Shirenzhu Port and other places in southern Liaoning. The attack range is wider.

Presumably in the eyes of Goguryeo and the people of Bohai, the navy in the town of [***] can only deliver small troops to carry out some minor disturbances on the coastal transportation lines of the people of Bohai.Li Jing smiled and thought, this time, they have to know that the navy of Zhen [***] has the power to change the entire situation of the battle.Taking advantage of last winter's small fights has already paralyzed them, coupled with the truce of the three-month freezing period, their vigilance is even lower now.

Megan wore the gorgeous Suzaku armor, held the sword in one hand and held the helmet in the other, and climbed onto the deck with a clang.

"Report to the commander, all the troops have boarded the ship!"

Li Jing turned her head and looked at Megan carefully. This silver full body armor was worn on her body, it was indeed beautiful and perfect.Li Jing didn't feel embarrassed about the choice of this wealthy beauty who had to be in the top position during the bridal chamber and strongly demanded to stay in the army after marriage, and even appreciated it a little.

He cleared his throat. "Have you made the order clear, Deputy Commander Huang?"

"Yes, Commander. We will drive along the coast, keep a distance from the land, and never enter the sight of the land until we reach the mouth of the Yalu River."

"There is Dahang City at the mouth of the Yalu River, what should they do if they discover it in advance?"

"If the other party finds out, immediately intercept and kill their messenger, and send people to surround Dahang City, and the rest of the ships will continue to move forward!"

Li Jing nodded, Daxing City was not the first goal of this trip, it would be best if they were not discovered, if they were discovered, then divide up the troops and set up a siege outside the city to prevent them from reporting and leaving the city.Others continue on as planned! (To be continued.)