It's not like Liu Che had never seen a sand table before, but this huge and detailed one surprised him a little.
When he got there, he found that the sand table was divided into four parts. The terrain of each part looked different, including Gobi Desert, grassland and mountains, but the remaining one was empty.
Liu Che asked in surprise, "Why is there nothing here?"
Liu Tan hesitated for a moment and said, "This sand table was originally designed to simulate four types of terrain. This section was originally reserved for naval warfare, but the terrain in the Xiongnu area doesn't allow for naval warfare, so it was simply left blank. In fact, it's not just naval warfare, this section is also not used."
The area Liu Tan pointed to was the one with simulated mountains and rivers.
There are indeed mountains on the Xiongnu side, but there are not many mountains in the Northern Border Kingdom. Even if there is the Yinshan Mountains in the territory, the Northern Border Kingdom is to the south of the Yinshan Mountains, and the Xiongnu is to the north. If they really go there to act out, the Xiongnu will probably think they are going to attack, and if a war really breaks out, they will be doomed.
Liu Ju chuckled and said, "The Northern Border Country does have few mountains. If you want it, I'd rather give you the Yan Country."
Liu Tan's legs almost gave way when he heard this. He looked up at Liu Che and stammered, "No... no, right?"
Seeing his horrified face, Liu Che couldn't help but ask curiously, "Why not?"
The border may be a burden to others, but Liu Che knew that Liu Tan would not regard it as a burden. If that were the case, he would not have cared about the affairs of Yan State, and would not even pay too much attention to the smuggling of ironware.
Now that the State of Yan has been destroyed, Liu Che is very worried about who to take over the Yan State. If he leaves it all to Liu Tan, he will have less worries.
Liu Tan quickly said, "That's too big. The size of the Northern Border Kingdom already made many people unhappy, but in the end, no one complained because it was within the prescribed range. If I were to give Yan Kingdom to your son... it would cause trouble. Father, please send a few capable officials to govern Yan Kingdom."
Liu Che lowered his eyes and said, "Capable officials? Where do so many capable officials come from?"
Liu Tan held his arm as he walked towards the bedroom and said, "The sudden pressure on Yan State is due to my strict control here. They just need to keep a close watch on it, and the Xiongnu will basically not go there."
Although Yan State is a border state, it is actually much safer than the northern border states.
First of all, it is colder there. Secondly, the biggest enemy, the Huns, would not have traveled such a long way to attack the Han Dynasty, because the Huns' target was the Central Plains. Yan State has been a cold and bitter place since ancient times and has nothing to do with the Central Plains. The Huns might not be able to get anything even if they spent a lot of effort to conquer it. Why bother?
What Yan State was actually defending against were other foreign tribes, but those foreign tribes were not very strong and were far inferior to those in the Western Regions, so Liu Tan said that the pressure was not great.
Liu Che just said it casually. He also knew that it was unlikely to give Yan State to Liu Tan unless his throne was changed from King of the North to King of Yan.
But if he was really sent to the State of Yan, Liu Che would feel that he was wasting his talent.
After the group rested in the camp, Liu Tan took Liu Che to see the confrontation in the Gobi Desert the next day.
In Liu Che's impression, it was like a vast and flat land with nothing to see. The two sides would just rush forward, and the side with better weapons and more people would win.
What he didn't expect was that people could actually use such a desert in various ways. Both sides dug shelters in unison, changing the terrain abruptly. They also deliberately used sand to create visual obstacles when they were at a disadvantage.
When the two sides are in direct confrontation, they do not seem to rush forward directly. Instead, they have their own formations and try to maintain their formations when attacking.
In this one exercise, Liu Che watched them change four formations, and he was completely shocked.
The confrontation between infantry depends on the formation, but what Liu Che did not expect was that after the confrontation between infantry, there was also a confrontation between cavalry and infantry.
As the two sides prepared, Liu Che couldn't help but frown and said, "How do we fight this?"
The Han would not use infantry to fight cavalry. Even if their light cavalry was not good enough, they would use heavy cavalry to fight. How could they use infantry? Infantry would be wiped out in one encounter.
Liu Tan smiled and said, "Father, please take a look."
Liu Che did continue to look down, and then he saw the infantrymen coming up with something in their hands and starting to dig trenches frantically. Because the area was large enough, it would take some time for the cavalry to charge over directly like arrows.
At this time, the infantry had already dug a trench, and began to shoot arrows from behind while hiding inside the trench.
The advantage of cavalry lies in its speed, and its powerful raids and charges. It can break up a formation in one encounter, so the infantry will naturally be slaughtered.
But now with these trenches, the cavalry's biggest advantage no longer exists. When they go to a place, the infantry there have already slipped away to the other side, and the cavalry cannot ride down the trench on horseback, as the horses will probably get stuck if they go in.
Bows and arrows could certainly be used, but the problem was that infantrymen had shields. Could the shields Liu Tan had prepared for the elite regiment be inferior? Not to mention that the arrows used in the exercises were not real iron arrows, but wooden arrows.
So for a moment, the cavalry was helpless against the infantry, which left Liu Che stunned.
At this time, someone whispered, "If the cavalry attacked without giving the infantry time to dig a hole, they probably wouldn't be able to defeat them, right?"
Liu Tan saw that the outcome was almost certain, and there was no point in continuing the stalemate. Hearing this, he couldn't help but smile and said, "Then let's give it a try."
Liu Che glanced at Liu Tan. Based on his understanding of Liu Tan, he knew that since he said that, he must be sure. Could it be that... infantry can really win when facing a cavalry attack?
Although they said they would give it a try, they actually had to wait until the next day. After all, the physical strength of the soldiers was limited. Even if the elite regiment had good physical strength, they couldn't use it like this.
On the way back, Liu Che asked, "What are those things they are holding? How come they seem to be able to do anything?"
Liu Che couldn't see clearly from the viewing platform, but he could vaguely see those people digging and smashing with a shovel, and it seemed that they were sawing wood in the middle, which made Liu Che a little confused about what these people were.
Liu Tan immediately ordered someone to bring him a shovel similar to the one the soldiers had used before, and said to Liu Che, "This is the engineer shovel I asked Gongshu Can to make."
Liu Che took the "engineer shovel" and found that it was folded and very heavy in his hand. He couldn't help but ask, "What is it made of?"
"It's made entirely of iron," Liu Tan said, pointing to the various parts of the engineer shovel. "It can transform into various shapes. Open it all the way and it becomes a shovel. Break off the head and it becomes a pickaxe. The shovel head also has teeth that can act as a saw. I was thinking of adding crowbar and knife functions, but I haven't found the most suitable solution yet, so I'll stick with it this way for now."
Liu Che slowly fiddled with the engineer shovel in his hand. It must be said that although this thing only contained some of the simplest mechanical techniques, the ingenious ideas contained in it could be said to be eye-opening.
After Liu Che had fiddled with it enough, he asked, "Who made this?"
Liu Tan leaned over and thrust his face in front of Liu Che, pointing at his nose and saying, "I, I, who else could I be except myself, who has inherited half of your wisdom?"
Liu Che was instantly amused by him, and he demonstrated on the spot what it meant to be extremely pleased. The people following Liu Che stopped and looked at each other, feeling deeply that they should learn the technique of coaxing the emperor from the King of the Northern Territory. His coaxing was so seamless and natural.
Liu Tan followed Liu Che and muttered his thoughts. He said frankly, "Although the engineer shovel looks insignificant, it actually contains a lot of technology. If it is to be useful, many parts must be refined. It is still difficult to promote it on a large scale."
Liu Tan lamented that the difficulty lies in the fact that there are not enough people.
It is impossible to enter the industrial age ahead of time, but in the prosperous period of later generations, there are many sophisticated things, all made by hand, it’s just that the population has increased.
Unfortunately, the population problem cannot be solved in a day or two.
Liu Che continued, "I'll take the blueprint back..."
Before he could finish, Liu Tan said, "I'll send it to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."
Liu Tan felt that compared to him, Liu Che was more like a Pixiu. When he saw something good, he would put it aside first and then decide whether to use it or not.
The next day, at the same training ground, Liu Che discovered that in just one night, the training ground had been restored to its original state. There was no trace of the trenches dug yesterday. This speed surprised Liu Che a little.
After a while, both sides of the elite regiment were ready, and the infantry had already begun to set up camp in order to simulate the scene of being attacked.
To avoid further trouble, Liu Tan approached Liu Che and said, "Although everyone knows this is a show and knows there will be a sneak attack, in actual combat, we usually prepare for sneak attacks when setting up camp, but we're not as sure. In fact, we've done training exercises before, where we launched a surprise attack without anyone being prepared. The results were quite good, but it wasn't suitable for spectators."
Liu Che asked, "Training? What is that?"
Liu Tan said, "It's just like regular training, but because they'll encounter all sorts of natural conditions during the expedition, I'll have them train outside in real Gobi Desert and grasslands, rather than in simulated scenes. No matter how realistic they are, they're just a reflection of this world."
Liu Che nodded, and suddenly felt that the Elite Regiment was indeed worthy of the name. Liu Tan had come up with many tricks. How could other soldiers have such training methods?
Or how could those princes be willing to spend money to train troops? Only Liu Tan would ignore his own food, clothing and expenses and devote himself to this.
While Liu Che was thinking about this, he suddenly heard Liu Tan say, "Here they come."
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