Chapter 806 Elder Jin's Extreme Delay

The Han tribe's two-masted sailboats are inland river boats with low freeboard. They only have a bottom cabin below the waterline and a deck above the deck. Such a structure cannot transport many people. Even if it is fully packed, it can only carry 180 people.

In this way, the two-masted sailboat is not suitable for transporting soldiers. However, considering that the two-masted sailboats may be needed to deploy troops on the inland rivers of Zhudao during combat, there are quite a few two-masted sailboats involved in the transportation operation. There are a total of 300 such two-masted sailboats, but only 200 of them are actually loaded with soldiers, adding up to 15,000 people, and the remaining 100 are used to carry supplies.

The rest of the personnel and horses are all transported by three-masted building ships. Although they are called building ships, they are actually different from the low freeboard, shallow draft, and high superstructure building ships in history. The building ships of the Han tribe are standard sea-going ships. The upper and lower six floors are all below the freeboard, with two and a half floors below the waterline and three and a half floors above the waterline, and this is not counting the stern.

The internal layout of this kind of ship is full-deck, 40 meters long, 10 meters wide, and the total area of ​​the ship is nearly 2,000 square meters. It is easy for such a ship to carry hundreds of people. According to the upper limit of 500 people per three-masted sailing ship, only 50 ships are needed to transport all the remaining soldiers and war horses.

Together with the eight warships of the Fubo Guard Fleet, the entire expeditionary fleet has 358 sailing ships.

After these hundreds of ships lined up in a long line and walked out of the estuary, they began to form a formation and headed towards Zhudao. All the two-masted boats were lined up in the center, with Fubo Guards leading the way and guarding the rear, and larger three-masted sailing ships on both sides to guard. The entire fleet was arranged in a long and thin diamond shape and moved forward quickly.

The South China Sea in March is not a windy season, but the wind is not small compared to the inland. Most of the sailing ships of the Han tribe use the power layout of the longitudinal hard sail. As long as the sail surface is kept at a certain angle, the wind from any direction can propel the ship to move, so this is the best opportunity for the Han tribe.

The sea was calm and there was no great danger, but it did not affect the fleet's navigation, which was why Luo Chong deliberately chose to start the war in winter.

The smooth sailing made most of the soldiers who were taking a boat for the first time excited. After spending the first day at sea, they had gradually adapted to the feeling of swaying in the waves, and the fresh experience of taking a boat also diluted some of their nervousness.

But accidents are always unavoidable. Even with such a smooth sailing, there were still many people on the boat who had strong seasickness reactions, but there was no way, so they could only adapt themselves as soon as possible.

The fleet was rushing to Zhudao day and night, and the people on Zhudao were not idle either.

Shouya was preparing to welcome the arrival of the army according to Luo Chong's orders. The most important thing was of course the issue of the dock and the station. Although the army would start attacking as soon as they got off the boat, the temporary stationing place had to be selected in advance, even if it was only for one night, it had to be prepared in advance.

The garrison positions prepared by the Beast Fang for the army were those farmlands that had just been harvested. The area of ​​the farmlands was large enough to set up temporary camps for tens of thousands of people. The permanent barracks had to be carefully planned after the war. At that time, they had to be carried out based on the consideration of people's livelihood construction. The military camps could not affect people's livelihood construction.

In terms of the docks, the docks controlled by the mission station were obviously impossible to dock hundreds of ships. For combat considerations, only two-masted small boats would be allowed to enter the inland river. Other large ships would first enter the port to "unload" and then quickly withdraw. Then other two-masted sailboats would be allowed to stop in the inland river. If the docks could not stop, they would directly drop anchor in the middle of the river. This was why all military supplies were loaded with two-masted small boats, because they could directly enter the inland river and provide supplies to the large army at any time.

As for the Xin tribe, they were also actively preparing, but in order to rush to transport and store food, the construction of fortifications had been temporarily stopped recently.

The staple food of Xin tribe is corn. After harvesting, corn needs to be completely dried, then threshed, bagged, transported and stored. It took more than ten days before they just reached the stage of bagging and waiting for transportation.

The people of Zhudao have to store part of the food themselves, and the food handed over to the tribe must be collected and counted in various settlements, and then transported by vehicles. In the past, the Xin tribe relied on pack horses for this kind of transportation, but now they have a lot of vehicles. They bought a lot of them in the Han tribe before, and now they have mastered the ability to build cars, so the number of carriages is even greater.

However, because the vehicle transportation in Xin tribe was popularized too late, many roads are still not accessible to carriages, and some steep sections can only be transported by pack horses, which undoubtedly slows down the progress of grain transportation.

Shipping? That's impossible. In the past, Xin tribe had no boats, only bamboo rafts. Bamboo rafts themselves can't carry much things, not to mention that this thing leaks, and there is no way to use it to transport food that is afraid of moisture and wetness. In this way, the speed of grain transportation is even slower.

Of course, there are also some people who deliberately slow down the progress.

However, the top leaders of the Xin tribe were not in a hurry. The Han tribe's envoys had been getting along very well with them recently. They had no intention of attacking them immediately, and they did not seem to be evacuating or running away. This showed that the Han tribe had not yet planned to officially break off relations with them.

Of course, these were all judged by the top leaders of the Xin tribe themselves, but it was not ruled out that the "Elder Jin" who was undercover in their ranks deliberately

misled them. In terms of the construction and equipment of the army, "Elder Jin" also thoroughly implemented Luo Chong's delaying order. He really played a significant role in this regard. Through his unique insights into technology, he fooled the entire Xin tribe's top leaders into a wrong path.

Previously, the Xin leader and Maodun's subordinates reached a cooperation intention. The two sides gathered Maodun's old subordinates on the grassland together. Maodun's subordinates agreed to help the Xin tribe fight, but the requirement was that the Xin tribe must provide living places and necessary living conditions for the families of these herdsmen warriors.

In simple terms, I can help you fight, but you have to provide food and shelter for my family, and give them a piece of land so that they can continue to survive. Otherwise, why would those herdsmen give up their lives on the grassland and run to such an island? Without sufficient interests, who would settle down in a completely unfamiliar place? If they cannot settle down, who will fight for you?

Commander Xin naturally understood this. He was very reluctant to give up these conditions and resources, but Zhudao had a small population and did not have enough ability to form a large army to fight against the Han tribe, so he could only recruit soldiers from outside, otherwise he would never go to the grassland to recruit soldiers. The conditions given by

the Xin tribe were really heartbreaking and touching. On the one hand, those herdsmen had to leave the grassland they were familiar with, and on the other hand, they could also get help from the Xin tribe. Otherwise, as followers of Maodun, they would sooner or later be annexed by the Han tribe, and the consequences were unpredictable.

Now that they have the opportunity to move away from the grassland, although they are very reluctant in their hearts, many people finally choose to migrate to Zhudao.

In this way, with the joint efforts of both sides, the Xin tribe recruited more than 20,000 people from the grassland. Of course, this included the families of the herdsmen. In fact, there were only 5,000 young and strong men who could fight for the Xin tribe.

These 5,000 grassland soldiers plus the 5,000 young and strong men contributed by several elders' families, a total of 10,000 soldiers, which was all the troops that the Xin tribe could provide.

According to the Han tribe's 2,000 people in one guard, these 10,000 people could be divided into four or five guards.

However, the Xin tribe did not have such a perfect military system, and it was still divided according to family and power.

One thousand clan soldiers plus one thousand grassland soldiers, two thousand people formed a corps, and there were five such corps. Yashan County and Xinhua County, which were close to the Han tribe’s embassy, ​​deployed two corps, a total of four thousand people, which was prepared to prevent the Han tribe from sending a large army to land.

The remaining three corps were also deployed on the road from the embassy to the Xin tribe’s base camp, which was changed to Jiahai County by Luo Chong. One blocking point was arranged on the waterway, and one blocking point was arranged in the mountainous area northwest of Guanhai County. The last corps was placed in Qingquan Valley, the base camp of the Xin tribe.

The troops were not few, not to mention that they had the geographical advantage of being familiar with the terrain, so they were not without the ability to fight against the upcoming attack of the Han tribe.

However, the equipment problem of these ten thousand people was a huge problem.

The Xin tribe was technologically backward, and only had good copper casting technology. However, copper casting weapons had no advantage over the steel of the Han tribe. But it didn't matter, because the Xin tribe had already exchanged a large amount of steel from the Han tribe under the opening of the right to issue currency. However, it was not so easy to turn all this steel into weapons.

To fight against the elite of the Han tribe, you must first have strong armor, and then sharp and strong weapons. In terms of armor, it is almost impossible to let all 10,000 people wear iron leaf armor. Not to mention whether the Xin tribe has so much iron, it is a problem in terms of production and manufacturing.

Without the Han tribe's plate mill and stamping machine, they had only one way to make iron armor, that is, to knock it out piece by piece by hand. Such a high-consumption and low-efficiency thing, the Xin commander would naturally not be stupid enough to do so, so in the end they chose to equip the soldiers with bamboo armor.

Use sawn bamboo pieces to drill holes, and then use hemp rope to weave them into the shape of armor. Although such bamboo armor looks a bit thick, it is light in weight and its defense is not particularly low. It doesn't matter if it can't defend against swords and guns, but as long as it can defend against the arrows of the Han tribe, it is enough.

In terms of helmets, the Xin tribe, who were reluctant to use metal helmets, also uniformly equipped the soldiers with bamboo woven hats. The hats have large brims, so that wearing them on the head can also defend against some vertically falling arrows.

Armor and helmets can be saved, and shields can also learn to use wooden shields like the Han tribe, but weapons really cannot be saved, otherwise facing the Han tribe's army's super defensive iron armor and military formations, don't even think about breaking the defense.

Earlier, Maodun also seized some of the Han tribe's equipment in the battle with the Han tribe. Although not much, he understood the equipment of the Han tribe. All the soldiers of the Han tribe were equipped with iron armor, and the weapons they used were either swords and shields, or spears and halberds, and finally a large number of cast iron arrowheads.

Needless to say, the Xin tribe also has the metal casting process, and it is no worse than the Han tribe. The Xin tribe also has fine bamboo for making arrow shafts. The only problem for the Xin tribe is the choice of swords and spears.

At first, the Xin tribe tried to use the steel they exchanged to cast weapons, but the finished products were not comparable to the standard weapons of the Han tribe. The disadvantage of cast iron being brittle and easy to break is absolutely unavoidable. The

new elder Jin from the Han tribe told them that the ironware of the Han tribe was all hammered out by hand, and only the forged ironware could reach the level of the standard weapons of the Han tribe.

Commander Xin had iron in his hands, so he naturally wanted to equip himself with weapons that were not inferior to those of the Han tribe, so he ordered Elder Jin to go and try to make them, but the result was that it took a week to forge just an ordinary waist knife.

With such a manufacturing speed, when can all 10,000 troops be equipped with weapons? As you can imagine, Commander Xin was naturally dissatisfied.

Moreover, this waist knife, which took a week to forge, was not quenched, nor did it use the steel clamping process. It was just forged by hand, and then a wooden handle was added, and it was directly sharpened.

On the day of the knife test, Commander Xin used the iron knife to chop wooden stakes and shields, and also killed a live sheep, chopping off the sheep's head with one knife. But in the end, when they chopped against the captured Han tribe's war knife, the waist knife they made themselves broke the blade, while the Han tribe's war knife was fine. After two more chops, their own waist knife broke on the spot.

Although there is still a big gap with the Han tribe, it is still much better than cast iron, but the forging speed is really unacceptable. If you make a knife a week, how many years will it take to equip the entire army?

Commander Xin was very dissatisfied with this, so he called the newly appointed Elder Jin to question him.

"Elder Jin, we are all forging iron tools, so why is the Han tribe so fast and equipped with so many troops, while we are so slow? Are you lying to me again?"

Elder Jin was not at all scared, he had already sounded the horn and made this statement when he was preparing to use this method to delay.

"To the commander-in-chief, the Han tribe made it fast because they had many blacksmiths, but we had too few people who knew how to forge ironware, and there were only a few of us. In addition, the Han tribe had windmills and waterwheels. These large machines could automatically drive the forging hammers driven by wind and water. In other words, the Han tribe did not use people to forge ironware, so people would not be very tired, and the speed and efficiency of manufacturing were very fast.

But we don't have these conditions. If the commander-in-chief wants our Xin tribe to have this weapon manufacturing speed, I suggest that we directly ask the Han tribe delegation to see if we can exchange their windmill and waterwheel technology for something. By then, we will also have automatic forging hammers, and the speed of making knives will definitely not be slower than that of the Han tribe."

At this point, Elder Jin showed a cunning smile.

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