Tibet

At noon, Guo Ziyi invited Ma Lin to dinner at the Danfeng Restaurant.

Guo Ziyi is Ma Lin's old boss. He fights side by side and has a very deep friendship.

Guo Ziyi knew Ma Lin very well. Ma Lin wanted to enter the political affairs hall and serve as Minister of the Ministry of War, but in the end he was unable to fulfill his wish, so he was always depressed and regretful.

As an old boss, Guo Ziyi needs to enlighten Ma Lin.

Guo Ziyi poured him a glass of wine and said with a smile: "I understand that you have been depressed during this period, and I thought you could figure it out, but I didn't expect that you are still confused. I can only enlighten you."

"Actually, I didn't want to be the Minister of the Ministry of War at first, but isn't the role of Minister of the Ministry of War concurrently with the role of Yanwu Tang Jijiu? So I was appointed as the Yanwu Tang Jijiu, and I was ready to join the Political Affairs Hall. As a result."

Speaking of this, Ma Lin shook his head with a wry smile, raised his glass and drank it all in one gulp.

Guo Ziyi said slowly: "You have to understand one thing. Once you become a civilian official, you will no longer be able to lead troops to fight, and your military career will be over. Just like Lei Wanchun, who now serves as the Minister of School Inspection and Work and the Hebei Comfort Envoy , he will no longer lead troops in battles. You serve as the Martial Arts Hall to offer wine, but you do not have a court position. It shows that the emperor is still hesitant. He still wants to reuse you and let you go to war again. After all, you are only fifty-two years old. , this battle of Shiwei is the most important battle in the entire Liaodong, more important than the Khitan. Do you want to give up this opportunity? If the opportunity is given to Lei Wanchun, he does not want to be a pacifier of Hebei Province, and he will definitely rush to it. battlefield, but will he stand a chance?

Brother! It is easy to be a civil servant, but it is difficult to be a coach. You must understand this truth. If the emperor asks you to become a civil servant, it may not be a good thing. "

Ma Lin nodded, "I understand, thank you for your guidance."

Guo Ziyi added: "I might as well tell you that Wang Sili was originally supposed to be the wine minister of the Yanwu Hall, and Wang Sili, the minister of the Ministry of War, suddenly suffered a stroke, so the emperor temporarily asked you to serve as the wine minister of the Yanwu Hall. If Wang Sili can recover, it should be He served as the performer of the martial arts ceremony."

"Can Wang Sili recover?"

Guo Ziyi shook her head, "It's getting worse and worse, and I can't even speak. I guess he will survive this winter."

"Why don't you use Lei Wanchun as your general?"

"This is what I want to remind you. Lei Wanchun's biggest problem is that he likes to make decisions without authorization. In the Battle of Hebei, the emperor was the commander-in-chief at the time. The emperor ordered his army to march north from Xiangzhou to Hengzhou, mainly to defend Zhu Si from Yanshan. He entered Hengzhou to seize Jingxing, but Lei Wanchun was good at making his own decisions and entered Weizhou to seize the glory. This was actually his second unauthorized action. After this battle, the emperor never used him again. "

Ma Lin pondered for a moment and said: "But the battlefield is changing rapidly and cannot remain the same."

Guo Ziyi still shook his head, "You don't understand what I mean. Lei Wanchun is not the commander-in-chief. Of course he cannot act without authorization. But you are the commander-in-chief. You can deploy troops according to changes in the battlefield, but you cannot violate the principles set by the emperor for you. If the emperor orders you to kill them all, you can't show mercy and let them go. The emperor is by no means a cruel emperor. If the emperor orders you to kill them all, you must carry them out. We must consider our descendants and not commit the same crime of resettling the southern Xiongnu again. Mistakes led to the final chaos of China."

Ma Lin nodded silently, he fully understood.

The two had a drink, and Ma Lin asked again: "Does the old general think Bai Xiaode will accept the Minister of War?"

Guo Ziyi nodded, "The Minister of the Ministry of War has been vacant for so long. In fact, it was reserved for him. If he is smarter, he will definitely choose the Minister of the Ministry of War."

"Why?"

"The imperial court wanted to forcefully promote the system of prefectures and counties in Anxi. He was caught in the middle and was in a dilemma. The imperial court did not expect him to convince the small countries. The imperial court was even more worried that he would raise troops to rebel. Otherwise, why would he be recalled to report on his duties? This time he would not Maybe by letting him go back to Anxi, the emperor is actually protecting him, fearing that he will make a mistake and ruin his reputation for the rest of his life. "

"When the old general said this, I understood."

"You can go to Liaoxi with peace of mind, cooperate with Zhang Dian, and complete the strategy of destroying Donghu that he formulated for the emperor."

In the afternoon, Guo Ziyi took Ma Lin to the firearms prison again. Duan Xiushi heard that his old boss and old comrades were coming, so he went out to greet them personally.

Ma Lin was also from the Anxi Army. She had a close relationship with Duan Xiushi in Anxi, and the two had a deep friendship.

Duan Xiushi invited the two of them into the back hall and asked them to serve tea.

Guo Ziyi pointed at Ma Lin and said with a smile: "General Ma is about to go to Shiwei, so he came here to see if there are any good things."

Duan Xiushi chuckled, "Aren't thunder arrows and explosive arrows enough?"

Ma Lin shook his head, "When fighting on the grassland, explosive arrows will not explode when they hit the ground. Instead, they will easily be stepped on by our soldiers' horses and explode. Explosive arrows are not suitable."

Duan Xiushi nodded, "We are still working on a solution to this problem, or designing a new explosive arrow, called an impact explosive arrow. This explosive arrow will explode as long as it is impacted by force, but it will take half a year to a year. I guess you won’t be able to catch up on the time, but I still have a few new things for you.”

Duan Xiushi took them to the showroom. They were faced with a large wooden platform, which was like a sand table, with two armies arrayed for battle. There were countless little cavalry, hundreds of them, arranged like thousands of troops. .

On the other side are Tang army soldiers, including infantry and cavalry, but no crossbow troops.

"Duan Shijun, what is this?"

Guo Ziyi asked, pointing to a cylinder-like thing in front of the infantry.

"This is called a caltrop fire tube, also called a thunderbolt grinder. It is used to deal with cavalry attacks."

Guo Ziyi nodded, "It's a bit like the old caltrop chariot!"

"Yes! It's the weapon upgrade of the Tribulus chariot. After the enemy troops rush over, use rockets to ignite it, and then a fire will ignite. When the enemy cavalry passes over it, it will suddenly explode, and the iron fire thunder inside will kill several people. With a hundred people, its lethality is average, but it can effectively stop the first wave of the prairie cavalry.”

“It is indeed more practical!”

Ma Lin smiled and said: "Prepare thousands of them for me!"

Duan Xiushi smiled slightly and said: "There are two thousand in stock, you can take them all!"

Ma Lin was overjoyed and asked quickly: "What other good things are there!"

"Look at this again!"

The three of them came to a table again and saw a wooden box on the table with dense arrows stuck on it. Guo Ziyi blurted out, "The oxcart is swarming with bees!"

The swarm was to fire many arrows and crossbows at one time and use oxen to pull the strings. It appeared in the Han Dynasty, but was gradually eliminated because it was too inconvenient.

Duan Xiushi nodded, "It is indeed a swarm, but it is fired with gunpowder. There are eighty-one heavy arrows in a box. You only need to place it on the ground, open the lid, and then aim at the enemy and light the match rope. You are not required to reload the arrows." To fill it up, just bring the empty box back."

"This is easy to use. How far is the range? How is the penetration?" Ma Lin asked.

Duan Xiushi said calmly: "If it doesn't have lethality, I won't give it to you. It has a range of five hundred steps. Even the shields and leather armor of the prairie people can't stop it. It's a sharp weapon against cavalry attacks."

Guo Ziyi nodded, "If a thousand boxes are fired at one time, that will be 81,000 arrows. Only the national power of the Tang Dynasty can achieve this!"

Duan Xiushi smiled slightly and said: "There are also improved arrows and thunder!"

Ma Lin perked up and asked, "How to improve it?"

"There is no need for the big yellow crossbow. It mainly relies on iron seeds to hurt people and horses. The cavalry crossbow can be fired. The range is three hundred steps. After the explosion, hundreds of iron seeds burst out. No one within five feet is spared. The key is to temper the poison. , it is very strong, no matter whether it is a person or a horse, if it is shot, a stick of incense will fall down, it is extremely poisonous. "

"Is there an antidote?"

Duan Xiushi shook his head, "There is no cure. Don't let your soldiers get injured."

Ma Lin nodded, "We need to use it this time!"

"What's this?"

Guo Ziyi suddenly found a novel thing hanging on the wall.