Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1342
When Shuerhaqi's unit with a black flag appeared near the Ming army's camp, the entire Ming army pointed at this poor army, and also laughed at the only Shuerhaqi himself who was wearing full armor. Smiling and commenting.

Shuerhaqi knew what they were laughing at, and he felt a little aggrieved, but he couldn't admit that in front of the current Ming army, his subordinates really had to be laughed at.

This Ming army of up to 2 people not only wore armor, but half of them were servants, all wearing "cold iron armor" made of "stainless steel".This armor is a kind of Zha Jia, made by Shenyang Branch of Wang's Arsenal. The main material used is leather and iron sheets. The iron sheet is specially provided by Jinghua Iron and Steel Factory. A type of gray cast iron.

Generally speaking, it is difficult to miniaturize gray cast iron in this era, but Jinghua can do it now, so small pieces of gray cast iron have become one of the special products of the Ming army, often used as armor and other items.

The main reason for choosing gray cast iron as the main material of the armor is that it is relatively cheap, can be produced in large quantities, and has good wear resistance and plasticity.

As for the hardness, it is certainly not as good as real steel, but Jinghua's real steel output is also limited, and it is impossible to equip ordinary soldiers, including Jiading troops. Of course, the most important thing is that the Ming army does not have this economic strength.

But even Zhajia with gray cast iron embedded in it is completely sufficient in this era.After all, the use of firearms is a general trend. The main function of armor is actually to defend against bows and arrows. When encountering a blunt weapon or the Ming army's own muskets such as Wanli Type [-] and Wanli Type [-], it doesn't matter what kind of armor it is. It can penetrate all within its killing range.

As for the artillery, let alone, even though Jinghua has not been able to produce a real flowering ammunition for so many years, the lethality of the solid shell... It is just like the golden cudgel described in Journey to the West. Just die, and talk about defense.

Another characteristic of these gray cast iron armors is the color.Gray cast iron, as the name suggests, is dark gray, so that these armors look like the legendary "cold iron armor" from a distance.

When a large group of soldiers wearing this kind of armor gather together, it will give people a strong sense of oppression, like a black wave, which makes people unable to restrain themselves and give birth to an unmatched fear.

Except for the [-] family members who wore "cold iron armor", the rest of the Ming army were by no means ordinary beggar soldiers. They also wore complete cotton armor.

Here, you can’t just take the name as it suggests, especially don’t think that cotton armor is “garbage at first sight”.In fact, as a foreign economic crop, cotton was limited by textile technology after it was introduced to China in the Song Dynasty, and it was not popular among the people at first.At the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, Huang Daopo improved the spinning wheel, the cotton textile industry began to rise, and the cotton armor came into being.

And after Jinghua came up with a counterfeit but enhanced version of the Jenny spinning machine, the level and even the quality of cotton armor have actually improved a lot.

Before it was "improved", cotton armor already had the characteristics of light weight and warmth, high cost performance, high thickness, and high resistance. It had better defense against early gunpowder projectiles and was widely used in the Yuan and Ming dynasties.

At this time, most of the cotton armor was made of seven catties of cotton, which was sewn with cloth like a jacket, and the arms were crossed and the feet were kicked firmly, so as not to bloat, it was dried in the sun and used.As for the characteristics of this kind of armor, it is "the rain is not heavy, the mold is not rotten, and the bird gun cannot be seriously injured".

After Jinghua improved the equipment, it is not necessary to "kick it with your feet" to make cotton armor, but to use a machine to suppress it, and the quality is better and more stable. The only "shortcoming" is that in the past, seven catties of cotton were used to make cotton armor. Now It has been raised to eight and a half catties, and the price has of course risen a little.

The cotton armor is "sewn with cloth". The cloth used to be relatively ordinary, but now it has also improved. It is sewn with canvas specially provided by Jinghua Shipyard-to a certain extent, the remaining [-] Ming The army has already put on the "denim armor" in advance, but the color is not dyed blue due to cost issues, and it is still the primary color close to white.

Black and white are distinct, this is the feeling of this Ming army.

Shuerhaqi's department said it was five hundred, but in fact there were nearly six hundred, counted as two Niulu, and it was his personal headquarters.Nurhachi began to build an army in the 12th year of Wanli. According to his family tradition, he used the black flag as his banner.

After defeating Nikanwailan, Nurhaci reorganized a little bit. Although he certainly hadn’t come up with the Eight Banners, he also created the “Niulu” according to the Jurchen’s early Menganmou restraint. With 300 people as a Niulu, he directly belonged to him And Shu Erha Qi two people.

Shuerhaqi usually has the command of seven Niulu, two of which are his personal soldiers, which is the one brought today.

In fact, these two cows were basically equipped with cotton armor before, and the armor penetration rate has reached [-]%.However, Nurhachi refused to "show strength" in front of the Ming army, he wanted to "show weakness", so Shuerhaqi took away their cotton armor before coming here, and only he wore a pair.

Such a shabby appearance really made the Ming army ridicule, but Shuerhaqi knew that his elder brother's goal had been achieved, and although he was a little upset, he was also a little relieved.

After the two Niulu were placed in the corner of the barracks, Shuerhaqi was invited into the big tent. According to Nurhachi's instructions, he met the Ming army coach Cao Yu, Ma Chengxun, and Qi Jin respectfully. , Zhang Wanbang, Pu Yuanyi, Cao Jian and others explained the reason for Jianzhou's dispatch of troops based on the "collusion confession" beforehand.

These nonsense are meaningless. After reading Gao Yushi's letter, Cao Yu is fully aware of Nurhachi's intentions, but since Gao Situ doesn't plan to move them now, Cao Yu will naturally not be embarrassed.

"The commander-in-chief is very clear about the meaning of your two brothers. You don't need to explain this." Cao Yan said lightly: "You are willing to come to serve in the commander-in-chief's army, which shows your respect. The commander-in-chief appreciates it very much. Come here , reward Shuerhaqi with a set of cold iron armor."

Surprised and delighted, Shuerhaqi hurried forward, thanked him a thousand times, and said a lot of flattery.These "cold iron treasures" are not only valuable, but the key is that there is no market for them.Everyone knows that the Jurchen can't make it artificially, so once someone wears it, it will lead to an investigation by the Ming army, and it turns out to be a good product that can't be bought with money.

But it’s different if Cao Yu gives him a pair, it’s reasonable and legal, and it’s even more decent to wear it back—the eldest brother doesn’t even have it!

Just such a pair of precious armor alone made Shuerhaqi deeply feel that this trip was worthwhile, and it was not in vain that he fought for a long time in front of his elder brother.

Cao Yu was very satisfied with Shuerhaqi's performance, so he showed a smile, looked at him kindly and said, "You know how to be loyal and obedient, but it's been hard work, and this battle has a huge force, and I don't think the commander will need it." You, then you can just watch and emulate with me, it can be regarded as a little care of me for you."

When Shuerhaqi heard this, he was overjoyed and thanked again and again.

Originally, Nurhachi sent him this time, of course, with impure intentions.One is to let my most trusted younger brother see what kind of attitude the Ming army has towards them, and the other is to show loyalty and buy peace by sending troops.

Nurhachi didn't expect that Cao Yu would take care of Shuerhaqi in this way. The reason why he took the cotton armor of Shuerhaqi's two personal guards was that he didn't want to lose too much material. It hasn't been long since "raising troops", Nurhachi is very scarce in military supplies, and he uses them very cautiously.

As for whether the lack of cotton armor will lead to defeat, which will also lead to large losses. Nurhachi also cares about this point: the Mongols are mainly good at shooting. They usually don’t fight in front of the Ming army. Injuries are generally not fatal.

Nurhachi believes that the Jianzhou warriors are very strong, and now that winter has entered, the chance of dying from fever (actually infection) is very low.Besides, once injured, they can be withdrawn, so even if there is some blood, not many people may die.

This small abacus was very shrewd, but who knew it didn't work.This time Cao Yu dispatched troops, his style was very different from Li Chengliang's. It's really strange that he didn't treat the servants as cannon fodder, but instead protected them.

But Shuerhaqi didn't know that this wasn't actually Cao Yu's idea, but Gao Yimin's suggestion.

The reason why Gao Yimin made such a suggestion was because he had been interviewed by Gao Yushi before he came to Liaodong, and he had been taught by Gao Yushi face-to-face.

One of the "opportunities" is "treat Nurhachi and Shuerhaqi separately".

According to Gao Pragmatism, no matter how united Nurhachi and Shuerhaqi brothers are now, they are still two people. As long as Daming always treats Shuerhaqi better, at the critical moment, Shuerhaqi will He will definitely have a different heart towards Nurhachi.

You know, although Nurhachi and Shuerhaqi are divided into priorities, Shuerhaqi's strength is not much weaker than Nurhachi's.This kind of situation where the gap between strength and weakness is extremely small can easily change with some seemingly inconspicuous changes, not to mention the fact that Daming's support is completely different?This is not an "inconspicuous change". In the long run, there will definitely be a rift between Shuerhaqi and Nurhachi.

Although Cao Yu didn't know the key point, he didn't care about it. After all, five hundred Jianzhou soldiers with no armor were useless in his eyes. There were not many of them, and there were not many without them.

So the army set off again and marched towards Bald Zi Mountain.This time, we only traveled more than 20 miles, and reported that we had encountered Mongolian scouts.However, Ye Bu Shou said that these Mongolian scouts were "cowardly", and they didn't approach them when they saw them, but they just ran away.

When Cao Yu heard the words, he asked the generals under his command what they thought of this.

Zhang Wanbang was the most direct, and said: "Commander, according to the general, we don't care what they plan to do. The bare mountains on the left and right are not very suitable for cavalry deployment. The Mongols have no advantage over us. Let's just drive the army over. , if they feel that their teeth are good, then come and gnaw them, and it will be the most trouble-free to get to know them once."

If someone else said this, Cao Yu would probably scold him directly, but Zhang Wanbang was a little different.The two biggest achievements of this guy were to use bayonets to fight against the Mongolian cavalry, and both of them won by defeating the Mongolian cavalry head-on when their own strength was far inferior to that of the Mongolian cavalry.

So although these words sound like big talk, it is not easy to refute them when they come out of Zhang Wanbang's mouth.

Although it is not easy to refute, Cao Yu knows that the bayonet formation has a characteristic of breaking the cavalry charge, that is, the bayonet formation must be prepared first.Now if we drive the army over in a daze, what if we are ambushed like before in Chang'an Fort?Whether the bayonet array can be successfully displayed is hard to say.

Who knew that besides Zhang Wanbang who was "unafraid of death" under his command at this moment, Qi Jin's style was also very tough, he said simply: "The last general will second."

Well, with two thousand Qi family troops in hand, Qi Jin is indeed not afraid of rushing.The speed of the formation of the Qi family army can basically be said to be the best among the Ming Dynasty, and the mandarin duck formation has various changes, such as large formations and small formations. They are not even afraid of sneak attacks. Even if they are attacked, they can directly form small mandarin duck formations according to the small formation Against the enemy.

Seeing that something was wrong, Cao Yan had no choice but to look towards Ma Chengxun.

Ma Chengxun is the general with the highest position here besides Cao Yu himself. As a Kaiyuan general, he is indeed a little more "steady" than Zhang Wanbang and Qi Jin, so he said: "The last general thinks... as long as more scouts are sent , It’s okay for the army to march in.”

Cao Yu was stunned for a moment.

Well, what kind of people did I bring to the war, and they all ate the hearts of bears and leopards?

After thinking about it, Cao Yan also found that Ma Chengxun's words even contained private goods: send more scouts?
In the absence of Li Chengliang and Ma Dong, the most elite part of the Liaodong cavalry probably belonged to the Ma family army from Xuanda, especially when Ma Chengxun brought his Ma family soldiers with him, so it goes without saying.

The soldiers are actually "Tar soldiers", and [-]% of them are Mongols. Most of them are wandering knights who failed in the battle between small Mongolian tribes. If they want to survive, they can only rely on superb horsemanship and fearless combat. to exchange.The remaining part includes Hui people and Han people, but they all have the same characteristics: excellent equestrian skills, outstanding martial arts, and fearless death.

Sending more scouts, isn't that just giving credit to their Ma family army?
It's really a group of militant factions who got together and asked everything the same: I just go up and do it!
Fortunately, at this time, Gao Yimin, who was Cao Yu's "aide" coughed lightly, and interjected: "You generals are commendable for their bravery. The Ming Dynasty has such powerful generals. Why should we be afraid of mere Tutus? Therefore, the key to coming here is to keep Ye He and the Beiguan trade route. Therefore, no matter how we fight, we must first ensure that Ye He is not lost."

Cao Yu was overjoyed when he heard this, and hurriedly said: "Yes, yes, our primary purpose is to ensure that Ye He is not destroyed, but now Ye He has lost the west city, and only the east city is struggling to support. In this case, our army still needs to find a way first Once the siege of the Eastern City is resolved, we can make other plans."

Zhang Wanbang said with a smile: "What's so difficult about this? Commander, as the saying goes, 'one force can break through ten meetings'. In the current situation, we can rescue Ye He by going to the east city, and we can also rescue Ye He by going to the west city. Let's see which side the commander-in-chief wants to fight first."
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Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi" and "Jie Chen" for their support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "CosifanTutte", "Xuanyouming", "milan123", "Altay's Old West", "Frost Aquarius" for their monthly support, thank you!
PS: Before I know it, another month has passed. This week, the temperature here has dropped sharply. It is known as "[-] minus [-]". It is winter directly, and the speed of coding has slowed down a lot due to cold hands.I was wondering, why is it so cold here but there is no heating?

(End of this chapter)