Eastern Jin Dynasty: My powerful father

Chapter 125 Cavalry Conception
  The main reason why Huan Xi chose to expand infantry instead of cavalry was that the costs of the two were hugely different.

One cavalryman has three horses, not to mention whether Huanxi can spare so many horses.

Whether it's a war horse or a walking horse, food must be eaten more carefully than a human being.

In fact, it was not that Huan Xi could not afford a standing army of 10,000 elite cavalry and 30,000 troops.

But considering the current financial situation, we had to give up.

After all, Huan Xi kidnapped more than 30,000 households in Henan County, which also brought a burden to the finances.

Since he requisitioned the people's grain, he was obliged to provide them with rations until next autumn's harvest.

There are more than 30,000 households, and if there are five people in each household, that is 150,000 people.

With 150,000 people waiting for food, where would Huanxi have the spare money to raise another 5,000 cavalry? Besides, he didn't have that many horses.

Furthermore, Huan Xi's soldiers now seem to have only 5,000 cavalry, but there are still 8,000 Xiongnu archers taking orders from him.

The two battles at Langshan and Luoyang had proved that the Huns' archers and cavalry were capable of being driven, and Huan Xi did not have such an urgent need to expand his cavalry.

Just as Huan Xi was about to leave, Wang Meng suddenly suggested:
  "My lord, in my humble opinion, should I make adjustments to the daily training of the cavalry?"

Huan Xi raised his eyebrows and asked:
  "What do you think, sir?"

Wang Meng explained:
  "There are currently three thousand lances and cavalry in the army, and another two thousand cavalry are responsible for both mounted shooting and close combat. In the past, this arrangement was understandable.

"But now that my lord has surrendered to the Huns, and there are eight thousand archers ready to be called upon at any time, I wonder if the cavalry and archery training of those two thousand soldiers should be appropriately reduced, so that they can devote more energy to close combat training. .”

When Huan Xi heard this, he couldn't help but nodded in agreement.

A person's energy is often limited, and in most cases, omnipotence also means that he is not outstanding enough in all aspects.

Of course, there are exceptions, such as Wang Meng in front of Huan Xi.

In terms of military, political, and resourcefulness, they can all rank among the best handful of people in this era, so the value of force is a little less interesting.

But such characters are rare after all.

The two thousand cavalry under Huan Xi's command are said to be capable of both mounted archery and close combat. However, in terms of mounted archery alone, they are not as good as the Huns' bow cavalry. In terms of close combat alone, they are far from the lance cavalry.

In the two battles in which Huan Xi commanded the Hun cavalry to cooperate with the Jin cavalry, the positioning of these all-round cavalry was ambiguous and awkward. Often in long-range strikes, the Hun cavalry was enough, and it was not their turn to play a role.

And when they are breaking through the front, they can only fight behind the cavalry and cannot serve as arrows to attack the enemy.

The reason why Wang Meng proposed to adjust their training content and reduce the proportion of cavalry and archery in the training was because he believed that with the presence of Xiongnu cavalry, Huan Xi's men did not lack long-range strike power.

On the contrary, three thousand lances and cavalry alone were not enough to protect the Huns' horse archers on the battlefield.

Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the melee combat capabilities of those all-round cavalry.

If Wang Meng didn't mention it today, Huan Xi would still have ignored this matter, but his views were more radical than Wang Meng's. Huan Xi agreed:
  "I'll leave this matter to you, sir. There's no need to practice cavalry and shooting anymore. The content of future training will be the same as that of lance cavalry."

Wang Meng only proposed to reduce the amount of cavalry and archery training, while Huan Xi simply wanted to organize them into lance cavalry.

After all, with his current scale of only 3,000 melee lances, he should not separate out the few cavalry to develop in an all-round direction.

The reason why they were allowed to practice riding and shooting at the same time was because the Tiefu Huns had not yet been surrendered at that time.

Today is different from the past. I believe that with five thousand elite lances, they will have a greater impact on the battle situation.

Wang Meng happily accepted the order.

As for selecting 5,000 strong and brave warriors from the state and county soldiers, Huan Xi would certainly not rely on others and had to personally preside over it. This was a taboo that Wang Meng could not touch.

Now that Wang Meng had made a start with the cavalry plan, Huan Xi told him about his plan:
  "Sir, you and I both know that the only ones who can compete with Huan for the world in the future are Yan and Yu.

“The State of Yan cannibalizes Jizhou and will surely invade Hebei, which will become a serious problem for me.

"If I want to achieve hegemony, I will go to war with the Murong clan sooner or later.

"I heard that the Murong clan has a team of armored cavalry that are invincible in their travels. I want to imitate them so that I can compete with them after they leave the east."

The so-called equipment refers to the armor of the horse, and the armored cavalry refers to the armored cavalry, that is, the heavy cavalry with both men and horses wearing armor.

Armored cavalry emerged in the Eastern Han Dynasty and would enter its heyday in the Northern and Southern Dynasties in the near future.

Huan Xi's lance cavalry can only be regarded as light armored cavalry, and the horses are not covered with armor.

An armored cavalry often requires the cooperation of one or two auxiliaries or civilians to help them haul the armor and weapons of the men and horses.

To become an armored cavalryman, not only does the cavalryman itself have extremely high requirements, but it also requires them to have outstanding physical strength and be able to skillfully use the saddle. For war horses, they must also have outstanding load-bearing capacity and endurance. Before conquering the Central Plains, Qianyan competed with Goguryeo for territory for a long time, and Goguryeo's cavalry attached great importance to stacked armor. Therefore, in the battle with Goguryeo, Qianyan also established a heavy armored cavalry force.

Of course, if you want to fight against armored cavalry, there are other ways, such as forming heavy infantry and having people chop off horse legs.

But if you want to win in a cavalry battle, you must have a heavy armored cavalry that can compete with Qian Yan.

Wang Meng smiled and said:

"What my lord said, I don't know how fierce it is, but now that the Zhang family in Liangzhou has not been destroyed, and there is the Fu family on the side, there is no need to rush for a while.

"It's better to wait until Liangzhou is captured, get its horses, and then form an armored cavalry. It's not too late."

Huan Xi also knew that he couldn't eat hot tofu in a hurry, so he nodded and said:

"Armored cavalry can be formed after Liangzhou is pacified, but the craftsmen of Jijiyuan cannot let them idle. I want them to design new armors to reduce weight without losing their defense."

Huan Xi said so, but he himself didn't know much about the development of armor. However, this did not prevent him from issuing orders to let the craftsmen of Jijiyuan rack their brains for this.

After saying that, Huan Xi said again:
  "I heard that at the end of the Han Dynasty, there was a method of smelting iron, called the steel filling method, and I would like to pursue it.

"If you can achieve your wish, you can set up an iron smelting furnace on the bank of the Weishui River, use water and blow wind to train weapons. This matter still needs your attention."

Although the steel filling method had already appeared in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, due to wars, all walks of life were severely damaged, and the steel filling method has never been popularized.

Today, when weapons are forged, most still use the fried steel method that appeared in the late Western Han Dynasty and became popular in the mid-Eastern Han Dynasty.

Of course, the fried steel method is only used to make armor and weapons used by lower-level soldiers. The armor of generals is made by the hundred-refining method based on the fried steel method.

The hundred-refining method is a deep processing based on the fried steel method. The steel is repeatedly heated and forged. It requires more than a hundred fires of hot forging, which can better remove impurities.

However, it is time-consuming and labor-intensive and difficult to promote in the military. Even if it is promoted, it can only be used on armored cavalry.

Therefore, even Murong Xianbei only had more than a thousand armored cavalry.

Shen Kuo, a scientist in the Northern Song Dynasty, regarded steel-filling as fake steel and steel-making as real steel. This was because steel-filling among the people at that time was often only hot forging for two or three fires, and its quality was naturally inferior to steelmaking that was hot forged for more than a hundred fires. .

In fact, compared with the steel frying method, the steel filling method has significant advantages in removing impurities and improving metal quality.

And the man-hours it consumes are far less than the hundred-refining method. After all, only two or three fires are needed to obtain good-quality steel. Therefore, when the steel-filling method became popular, the steel-frying method also declined.

Huan Xi asked for the method of pouring steel, which was naturally prepared for low-level soldiers.

When the Jin army uses steel-filled armored battles, it will also have an advantage against the enemy's fried steel-filled armored battles because they are well-equipped.

As for the armors and weapons of the generals and armored cavalry, they naturally have to be forged repeatedly using the Hundred Refining Method on the basis of pouring steel.

Since the quality of filled steel is better than that of fried steel, more man-hours will be saved and more high-quality armor can be forged.

Wang Meng also knew about the steel filling method. He had worked as a salesman and traveled all over the country, so he was certainly well-informed.

But the specific process and effects are not well understood.

But since Huan Xi had given him the instructions, Wang Meng naturally wouldn't shirk it.

He is not afraid that Huan Xi will assign too many tasks to him, but what he is afraid of is that one day, Huan Xi will no longer trust him, leaving him idle at home all day long, full of talents, but nowhere to display them.

After discussing these matters with Wang Meng, Huan Xi went to the Chang'an treasury and transferred 100,000 pieces of silk cloth to the camp outside the city. At this time, both the Jin army's infantry and cavalry and the Huns' archers were waiting. Receive the reward.

Huan Xi had no shortage of silk cloth, and there was still some surplus from the more than 200,000 pieces put into the warehouse last year.

Most of the 250,000 pieces of silk cloth for this year's household survey have been delivered. It is said to be the autumn tax, but the actual deadline for tax collection is November. Therefore, the silk cloth from Qin and Liang Prefectures has not yet been delivered. Da.

Although the Xiongnu archers and cavalry did not need Huan Xi to allocate military pay, but they were recruited to fight and the rewards they deserved should not be less. Otherwise, how could these Huns willingly sacrifice their lives for him.

These 100,000 pieces of cloth will be divided among the soldiers. Everyone who participates in the battle of Luoyang will get one piece of cloth. Huan Xi mobilized a total of 15,000 Jin troops and 5,000 Xiongnu archers to go to Luoyang, totaling 20,000 pieces of cloth. The remaining 80,000 pieces of cloth were rewarded to the generals and soldiers according to their respective military exploits.

Of course, although the 7,000 soldiers who followed Deng Qiang to Puban did not participate in the war, Huan Xi still prepared 7,000 pieces of cloth for them.

After all, leaving Chang'an, being separated from his family, and traveling long distances to Puban to listen to his teachings was not a reward, but also a hard work.

As for the three thousand soldiers in King Gao's city, they have settled in Hedong County established by Huan Xi and have not been mobilized. Naturally, there is no such thing as hard work.

Huan Xi also has an idea at the moment. After expanding his army, he plans to deploy two thousand soldiers to be stationed in Pu Ban and let them settle down in Pu Ban to assist in the defense of Gaowang City at any time.

　Thanks to book friend Rankon for the tip, the next chapter will be before twelve o'clock in the evening.

　　
  　
  (End of this chapter)