A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 144 Sun Wu Xianghuai Iron Age
Hearing that Duke Huai was going to worship him as a general, Sun Wu was very excited, and immediately got up and said: "My subject, Sun Wu, pay homage to your lord, and I am willing to die for you!"

Seeing Sun Wu agreeing, Wang Qi can be said to be overjoyed. He took Sun Wu back to the Huai Palace, and then asked people to prepare the official seal and ribbon, and formally worshiped him as the general.

Wang Qi was very happy in his heart, and immediately asked Sun Wu about politics: "Sun Qing, now my Huai country reaches the sea in the east, Baiyue in the south, Qi in the north, and Chu in the west. How should we develop?"

Sun Wu already had a draft in his mind, and immediately said: "The land of Huaiguo is thousands of miles away. There are water conservancy facilities such as Yong'an Canal, Han Canal, and Jiangnan Canal. There are thousands of miles of fertile fields. There are 400 million people. It can be said that they have enough soldiers and food. , defeated Jingchu in the west, and made the world a powerful country."

"If Huai Country wants to develop, it can only go west."

"Why can't Sun Qing go north?" Wang Qi said with a smile.

Sun Wudao: "The territory of Huai State is narrow and long, narrow from east to west and long from north to south. This terrain is extremely unfavorable to Huai State. If the Chu army is strong, it can go directly down the river and cut off the north and south of the river."

"If the Huai country continues to go north, the land will become narrower and longer, which is not conducive to the rule of the Huai country. At the same time, the countries in the Central Plains are united. If they attack the Qi country, I am afraid it will be out of control."

"Therefore, I believe that we should develop westward."

Wang Qi nodded and was satisfied with Sun Wu's answer, so he continued to ask: "The west is Chu State. Although Chu State has setbacks at this time, its strength is still strong and it is not easy to deal with."

"Your Majesty, although the state of Chu has thousands of miles of territory and millions of people, it still has a system of enfeoffment. Therefore, although Chu is strong, its forces are scattered and cannot be unified."

"It's not the case in my Huai country. The Huai army has elite soldiers, which are not comparable to that of Chu. If there are subordinates leading westward, it will not be difficult to defeat Chu."

Sun Wu said confidently.

"However, Your Majesty, it is easy to defeat Chu, but it is difficult to annex Chu."

"If you want to completely defeat Chu, you can only do it slowly."

Wang Qi nodded. Chu State now has a radius of [-] li. It is really difficult to annex it. Even if it is reluctant to swallow it, when the time comes, a large number of Chu will rebel, and Huai State will only be exhausted in countering the rebellion. Annexing Chu State will not only fail to enhance its strength , On the contrary, it will contain a large number of Huai country's troops.

"Your Majesty, this is not the time to attack Chu." Sun Wu said.

"Why?" Wang Qi was a little surprised.

"Chu State has been recuperating since King Zhuang of Chu died of illness. A few years ago, Chu State went north and signed an alliance with Jin State to eliminate soldiers. The two sides stopped fighting, and Chu State's strength is also recovering."

"On the other hand, if the Huai Kingdom attacks Chu, it will need to build several grain storage cities on the border of Huai and Chu. Without logistics, it will cost too much to transport them thousands of miles away."

"At the same time, the king of Chu has not lost his virtue. There is no excessive expropriation in the state of Chu, and the people are mobilized. At this time, attacking Chu will get twice the result with half the effort."

Sun Wu said his point of view again, Wang Qi quickly accepted his point of view, and temporarily stopped thinking about attacking Chu State.

After Sun Wu gained Wang Qi's trust, he began to make some changes to the military system of Huai State. After Huai State was founded by King Wen, the military system did not undergo any major changes.

After the development of the times, the military system of Huai State has become somewhat outdated.Now that all countries in the world are looking for ways to protect the country and strengthen the army, Huai country naturally cannot lag behind.

Sun Wu reformed the military formation according to his ideas, and at the same time was surprised by the elite level of Huai soldiers.The reform of the military system has allowed the army to transmit messages faster, and the transformation of various formations and the cooperation between arms have enhanced the strength of the Huai country.

After receiving Wang Jin's reward, Ou Yezi took everyone to Han to prepare to forge swords again.This time he received the order to cast iron swords.

That's right, Wang Qi's order to him was to let him cast iron swords.

The appearance of iron can be traced back to the Yin and Shang Dynasties at the earliest, but at this time, people did not master the iron smelting tools.More are some meteorites obtained by chance and barely forged some weapons.

Until now, hundreds of years have passed, ironware has gradually been understood by people, and even smelted by chance, but it is still shoddy and of poor quality.Although it is very strong, it is easily broken. At the same time, because iron is easy to rust, it is called evil gold and cannot be used to make weapons at all.

But this time Duke Huai clearly specified forging iron swords.

Wang Qi was not trying to embarrass these craftsmen, in fact, Zijue had already left books for the craftsmen to experiment with.It's just that because Chao country was not annexed, there were no large iron mines that were easy to mine in Huai country, and the iron smelting process had been stagnant.

After Huai State annexed Chao State, Duke Huai sent people to search for mines in Chao State and smelt iron ore.

Ou Yezi's forging of the five divine swords is already the pinnacle of bronze swords. Now is the time to open the door to the Iron Age. The next five divine swords will be forged with iron.

With the support of manpower and material resources from the Huai State, the iron ore was quickly found. At the same time, the Craftsman Supervisor also sent masters to start smelting the iron ore.

With the books left by Zijue and these master craftsmen, it is not too difficult to smelt iron, but the quality of the iron will vary.

Ou Yezi led the craftsman and supervisor to smelt iron ore in Handi, and Wang Qi ordered the workshop to be turned into a restricted area for ten miles to prevent other countries from getting news.The ironware is highly confidential. Although the ironware will eventually spread, it will allow other countries to obtain it later, and the Huai country will have more advantages.

However, even after iron was smelted, bronze swords still occupied a large position for a long time.Zijue left Huaiguo with a complete development direction.

Iron wares replaced bronze wares, and war knives replaced bronze swords.At the same time, Iron Armor will quietly appear.Nowadays, most of the wars between countries are made of leather armor. As for the bronze armor, it is not uncommon, but it is extremely rare.

The main reason is that bronze is too heavy to be used to make armor, and because of the texture of bronze, it must have sufficient thickness to make bronze sheets.

In this way, the bronze armor is basically not a warrior who can be used against a hundred, and it cannot be worn at all.The Huaiguo Fujika Army and Habayashi Army are invincible and invincible on the battlefield. Apart from the strict training, tacit cooperation and strong strength of the Fujika Army and Habayashi Guards, one of the very important reasons is the complete armor.

On the battlefield, fighting with armor and without armor is abuse.But once entering the Iron Age, the armor rate of soldiers will increase, and the battlefield will be more cruel by then.

One of the reasons for the scarcity of bronze armor in this period is that it is expensive.You must know that China's land is not rich in copper mine resources, and bronze smelting is not easy. A pair of bronze armor can forge more than a dozen bronze swords.

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The appearance of ironware accelerated the disintegration of the state-week system. At the same time, the appearance of iron farm tools greatly improved productivity. Its arrival set off a revolution in society, promoted the division of classes, and promoted the disintegration of the enfeoffment system. Progress from slave society to feudal society.As a result, Huaiguo got the first ticket to the Iron Age.

——"Eighth Grade History (PEP Edition) Volume [-]: The Arrival of Iron and the Disintegration of the Enfeoffment System"

(End of this chapter)