The country is peaceful and prosperous, a rare period of quiet development.
Seeing that he could not gain any advantage in Hedong, Li Jingang withdrew all the troops who were besieging Hedong, including Cui Mian, Li Sheng, Li Hu, Li Biao, Ma Zongliang, and Niu Desheng, back to their defensive zone.
Meanwhile, Zhang Tao and Gao Min were recalled, leaving only 10,000 troops to guard Wuguan Road.
The Yin Dynasty needed to develop, and the Great Feng Dynasty had just experienced a major battle against the Tartar invasion, especially after the combined forces of Ma Zongliang and Niu Desheng suffered nearly 100,000 casualties in the Battle of Xiangzhou. Li Jingang decided to lick his wounds.
However, although Li Jingang lost Xijing, he recovered Youzhou and the Yanyun Road and Hebei Road, and pushed the defense line to the Yanshan area, so he can calmly deal with the next attack by the Tartars.
More importantly, the Yanyun Road and Hebei Road have always been prosperous areas. Although they have been plundered by the Tartars several times, the Tartars were able to advance unimpeded and cause great damage along the way, but the core areas remained unharmed.
Therefore, after Fengchao was defeated in Xiangzhou, broke with the Yang family, and separated from Jiannan Road, its strength increased significantly.
Li Jingang adopted Feng Liang's suggestion and recruited a large number of talented people from prominent families in the Central Plains, gradually consolidating his rule.
Time flies like an arrow.
As spring turns to summer, the wheat fields on the plains of Guannei in May are already turning a pale yellow.
The drill ground west of Xijing City trembled in the morning light.
The salvo from twenty newly cast divine cannons blasted the wooden target array three hundred paces away into countless fragments.
Before the smoke and dust had even cleared, Zhao Muyun on the high platform spoke up: "Reloading is still too slow."
Liu Yi, the commander of the Shenji Battalion, who had been promoted to Lieutenant General, knelt on one knee, cold sweat beading on his forehead: "Grand Commander, the new cannon has a strong recoil, and cleaning and loading will take time..."
"What I need is the solution, not the explanation."
Zhao Muyun interrupted him, her gaze sweeping over the gray-clad gunners below the stage. "Each cannon will be assigned two additional personnel, specifically responsible for cleaning and cooling the barrel."
"The Ordnance Supervision Bureau must come up with a water-cooled sleeve solution within three days—overheating of the gun barrel is the main cause of barrel explosions, and it must be resolved."
"Yes, sir!" Liu gritted his teeth and agreed.
Zhao Muyun turned around and looked towards the east side of the training ground.
There, the newly formed crossbow battalion is conducting drills.
Three thousand crossbowmen stood in three formations.
The first thousand men carried repeating crossbows, their three-arrow mechanisms, forged entirely of black iron, gleaming coldly in the morning light.
One thousand nine hundred men in the middle row used the third-generation composite bow to fill the gap in medium-range shooting.
The rear row consisted of ten ballistae, each requiring ten people to operate; the crossbows were like spears.
Commander Lin Yuan waved the flag: "Wind!"
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh—"
Three arrows were fired in quick succession from the crossbow, the sound of the arrows piercing the air as sharp as a whistle.
The straw target a hundred paces away was instantly filled with arrows, and several armored wooden figures were shot through the chest and back.
Next came the compound bow volley.
The bowstring vibrated like muffled thunder, and the arrow traced a long arc, precisely embedding itself in the bullseye 350 paces away.
The most impressive thing was the ballista.
With the sound of the winch turning, the six-foot crossbow was secured onto the slide.
"put!"
The shrill whistling of the crossbow bolts tearing through the air was enough to make your teeth ache.
The earthen wall six hundred paces away collapsed with a roar, and a crossbow bolt even pierced through the wall and continued its momentum, wedging itself deep into the mound behind it.
The generals held their breath.
Pei Lun clapped his hands and exclaimed, "With such a powerful weapon, we can control three hundred paces when defending a city, and two hundred paces when fighting in the field. Grand Commander, the crossbow battalion should be established as an independent army, specializing in long-range suppression."
“That’s exactly what I meant.” Zhao Muyun nodded. “Lin Yuan.”
A young general stepped out from the archer battalion.
He was originally the deputy general of Liu Yi, the commander of the Shenji Battalion, and was promoted to commander after the Bow and Crossbow Battalion was established as a separate army.
"Your subordinate is here!"
"Expand the crossbow battalion to five thousand men, and increase the number of ballistae to thirty. I'll give you three months to train in 'five-stage shooting'—a continuous barrage of arrows from the repeating crossbow, bow, and ballista."
While firearms can shock the enemy and deliver devastating blows, judging from the use of weapons like the Thunderclap Bomb, the Divine Machine Cannon, and the Incendiary Cannon in recent wars, they still cannot replace the bow and crossbow as the king of the cold weapon era.
After all, production capacity and technology are severely limited. In his previous life, Zhao Muyun was just a special forces soldier, not a physicist or artillery expert. He had already pushed himself to the limit to make such a thermal weapon.
After discussing with Pei Lun, Fan Nan, and others, Zhao Muyun decided to push the development of crossbows to their limits in order to prepare for the upcoming decisive battle against Li Jingang.
There will inevitably be a life-or-death struggle between the Great Yin and the Great Feng.
On this land, there can only be one power that can unify the world.
Upon hearing that the army needed to be expanded, a flame ignited in Lin Yuan's eyes: "This humble general will certainly not fail your trust!"
After finishing his morning exercises, Zhao Muyun did not return to the Grand Commander's Mansion, but went straight to the "workshop" in the west of the city.
Thirty blast furnaces along the river operate day and night, their black smoke and steam mingling into clouds.
The sounds of hammers striking, bellows whistling, and craftsmen chanting fill the air with the atmosphere of the industrial age.
In front of the largest blast furnace, a shirtless old furnace master is directing the tapping of iron.
"Grand Commander!"
Lu Da rushed out of the work shed, covered in coal dust, except for his eyes which shone brightly. "Look!"
He led Zhao Muyun to an open space to the side.
There are three new cannons on display there, which are different in shape from the previous ones.
“According to your ‘layered forging’ method, the wrought iron inner cavity is wrapped with a steel hoop.”
Lu Da stroked the cannon barrel. "Twenty test shots were fired, and not a single one exploded. Most remarkably—"
He pointed to the newly added mechanism at the breech, "This 'spiral breechblock' opens and closes twice as fast as the pin-type, has better sealing, and increases the range by 10%!"
Zhao Muyun examined it carefully.
The breechblock was threaded and had a firing mechanism at the rear, which was far more advanced than the currently used ignition port.
"What about production capacity?"
"The wrought iron inner cavity can be cast in sections, and the steel hoops are forged in a standardized manner."
Lu Da said excitedly, "We can produce three blast furnaces a month now, and if all the blast furnaces are running, we can produce up to ten. But... we don't have enough steel."
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