Chapter 343 Yi Yang
Huge noise echoed all night along the Zhangshui River.
It was hundreds of blacksmiths hammering day and night by the river.
This kind of noise disturbs people's hearts, but no one is really annoyed by it, because they all know that what is tempered in this diffuse mist are countless armors and arrows.
In such troubled times, iron is strength and stability.
It’s not just the noise. When the blacksmiths use sledgehammers to pound a piece of iron to make it into a breastplate, the whole earth shakes, which often makes the nearby fishermen fishing by Zhangshui quite distressed because the fish They were all frightened away by the shock.
In this way, the soot smoke floating in the air, the shaking of the earth, and the noise filling the world, all these inconveniences demonstrate the supreme power of this era, and also indicate that the war machine of the Taishan Army has begun to launch.
As early as the Taishan Army stationed in Yecheng, this huge workshop had been built on the north bank of the Zhang River. It benefited from the technical reserves of the Taishan Army in the Taishan area and the conscious recruitment of craftsmen during the transition to war.
Taishan Army's workshop soon exploded in production capacity in armor, arrows, and iron farm tools. Thanks to the division of labor and the application of water conservancy energy and the use of coal, the efficiency of the workshop was now almost ten times that of the Han army.
This is because the workshop is still in the stage of ramping up its production capacity. It is estimated that in about half a year, with the proficiency in division of labor and the addition of craftsmen, the efficiency of Taishan Military Workshop can be doubled.
At that time, what kind of armored troops the Han army would face.
From here we can also see Zhang Chong’s layout vision. To develop the smelting industry, three things are indispensable: iron, coal, and water.
But Yecheng has all three of these things. Yecheng and Handan in the north are both famous coal and iron capitals now and in the future.
Coupled with the continuous Zhang River, this city of Ye was truly the foundation of the royal family.
Therefore, thanks to such innate conditions, the Taishan Army built countless combat readiness materials for four months in winter and spring.
The most numerous ones here are arrows. The arrow heads were made by blacksmiths, the arrow shafts were made by carpenters, and finally assembled by women, and then stored in the city's arsenal.
In a war, arrows are the most consumed item.
Although arrows are theoretically recyclable, no one would pick them back up during a battle. In this way, to ensure a continuous rain of arrows, a sufficient amount of arrows must be carried.
The Taishan Army has a very high proportion of archers.
On the one hand, Zhang Chong attaches great importance to the long-range strike capability of bows and arrows. In this era, whoever can kill a large number of enemies within a hundred steps has already won half the battle.
Therefore, whether it is Zhang Chong's personal martial arts performance or the graduation banquet of previous martial arts students, the art of bow and arrow is regarded as the top priority.
But the skill of bow and arrow is not something that ordinary people can master. Most of them are Shanliao and hunters. The Taishan Army is not lacking in this aspect. Whether it was in the Taiyimeng Mountain area, the Songshan area, or the current Taihang Mountain area, the Taishan Army is consciously absorbing these skills. Soldiers with archery abilities.
But with archers, bows and arrows also become a difficulty. At present, the mainstream bows and arrows used by the Han army are composite bows, which are good bows composed of wood, animal horns, and sinews.
This kind of bow and arrow has strong drawing power and good accuracy. It was used for thousands of years until it was replaced by the fire blunderbuss.
However, this kind of bow and arrow is very good, but it is not good at all, that is, the production cycle is too long, which takes one year.
In the past, the Taishan Army had moved to fight, and there was no environment to make bows in advance, so there was a situation where there were more people and fewer bows behind them.
In the end, Zhang Chong had no choice. On the one hand, he asked the craftsman camp to start stocking up on making bows and arrows. On the other hand, he started to look for a transitional bow and arrow, that is, a longbow.
This kind of longbow shined in the hands of the English. In the Battle of Agincourt, 6,000 French knights were annihilated. These were all distinguished military nobles, but they died under the longbows of English peasants. .
Although the longbow is good, it requires high quality wood. However, Yecheng and even the whole of Hebei are surrounded by forests, so it is no problem to find wood that goes straight up.
In addition, it is quite difficult for someone to recruit so many shooters who can pull off such a high poundage. To draw a bow so high and with such a strong draw force, one must have broad shoulders and long arms.
However, after several years of high-nutrient supplementation, the original shooters who were still in the Taishan Army were physically strong enough to meet this condition. As for the newly recruited Shanliao shooters, they definitely can't be pulled.
So they could only use old bows that had been eliminated by old shooters.
In fact, when Zhang Chong chose to deploy such longbowmen in the army, some military officers in the army, especially those with previous Han army background, suggested using crossbows to supplement the team.
For example, the thousand-man rhubarb crossbow team that Lu Zhi had before was a key force that determined the outcome of the battlefield.
But Zhang Chong thought about it and chose the long bow.
If nothing else, it’s just because it’s cheap.
Another thing is that he himself has used the big yellow crossbow. Although this heavy foot-fired crossbow is powerful and has a long range, its shooting speed is still too slow. It can only shoot two crossbow arrows per minute on average.
And what about the longbow? If you can't shoot ten arrows a minute, you can't be called a qualified archer.
So to create real arrow coverage, you still have to use a bow.
Zhang Chong's configuration for each archer is that he must carry sixty arrows. There were bundles of twenty, two bundles were carried on the backs, and one bundle was tied in the belt.
In other words, if the Taishan Army's archers want to attack intensively, a round of arrow rain will last about half a moment.
After half a moment, the arrows carried by the archers are exhausted, and they can only wait for new arrows to be sent from the rear.
These data were obtained by Zhang Chong through many calculations. He wanted every commander to know these data so that he could reasonably dispatch the firepower of the archers.
In addition, Zhang Chong also wanted to let the commander know when to use which arrows.
The Taishan Army used to be equipped with only one standard arrow, which was a light arrow, mostly used to hit unarmored targets. But as the Taishan Army encountered the main force of the Han Army, its armor coverage rate was first-rate, so it needed to equip shorter and heavier arrow shafts specifically to break armor.
If the generals do not know this information, the lethality will be greatly reduced.
In fact, these are the contents to be taught at the Taishan Military Preparation School. Compared with the god-like art of war in the past, Zhang Chong began to compile a replicable scientific art of war based on the methodology summarized by later generations, and these are just It's just part of it.
These are the armaments prepared by the Taishan Army. In addition, another very important reserve is the preparation of grain and military supplies.
War has always been a material war, and food and clothing are indispensable.
So where do these supplies come from? Of course, it comes from the common people. Whether it is land tax or oral tax, all materials are collected by the common people.
But these things provide only raw materials and cannot be regarded as finished products.
And this process from materials to finished products was prepared by the Han Dynasty's own government-run workshops.
In fact, a very important part of the Qin and Han military systems was to directly control such production. Hundreds of thousands of official slaves worked day and night to produce a steady stream of supplies for the empire. But even so, this is just a regular military replenishment.
More often than not, tax collectors would go directly to the countryside and expropriate goods without any compensation at all. Sometimes, when the authorities are strict, these tax collectors will also give some scratched wooden chips to offset the debt.
The tax collector split the bamboo chip in the middle, and then each person took half, which meant that he would take this to the government office to exchange for money. But in fact, these bamboo chips are useless at all.
This means that a harsh government is as fierce as a tiger, but a tax collector is as fierce as a tiger. Therefore, every time the expropriation was carried out, it was like ruining the lives of the common people. This is also the reason why the Han Dynasty conquered the Xiongnu and was able to consume half of the world.
But these were unpopular moves by the Han army, and the Taishan army, which started out by punishing people with names and punishments, could not do this. Once it is done, the people will be devastated.
But the army needs supplies, especially the soldiers of the Taishan Army who generally eat meat. Where can these supplies come from?
It has to come from the hands of ordinary people, but the Taishan Army has introduced a system, which is salt stamps.
After the Taishan Army requisitions supplies from the local area, it will distribute a batch of salt coupons, and then people from various communities can use them to exchange for salt in the county.
In addition to these, the farmers in the base area near Yecheng, especially those who have formed a farm cooperative, need to undertake front-line support tasks, on the one hand, transporting supplies, and on the other hand, forming a stretcher team to rescue the wounded.
But no matter what, war consumes a lot of people's energy, especially now that spring plowing is about to begin.
Why did Zhang Chong only reach the northern part of Zhao during this Northern Expedition? Just take this practical factor into consideration.
But fortunately, compared with the benefits to be obtained, this certain level of consumption is undoubtedly cost-effective and can be tolerated.
Fortunately, the batch of Aocang millet greatly reduced the burden on the people of Yecheng, otherwise the Taishan army would not dare to fight so frequently.
But the biggest trouble the Taishan Army faces is not the collection and preparation of these combat preparations, but how to transport them to the front line.
In fact, the best mode of transportation is of course to rely on water transportation.
The Taishan Army also established a navy based on the original Han Army's Weijun Boat Division, and then there was a Dahe Boat Division in Puyang.
But it is a pity that in the 200 miles distance from Yecheng to Xiangguo, there is no river that can be used by the Taishan Army. In other words, the Taishan Army can only rely on land transportation if it wants to go north, which will be very costly. .
If we then go north to attack the four counties in northern Hebei and rely on land, it will not only be slow in maneuvering, but also a waste of money and food.
Speaking of which, the Hebei region is worse than the Central Plains region.
The water network in the Central Plains is densely distributed vertically and horizontally, so it can maneuver quickly. But in Hebei, because most rivers originate from the Taihang Mountains, and Hebei is high in the west and low in the east, most rivers naturally run east-west.
Therefore, the connections between the east and west in Hebei are denser than those between the north and the south.
In order to overcome this difficulty, Cao Cao later built several north-south canals. It's okay for Zhang Chong to attack Xiangguo now, but he will still dig canals honestly in the future.
But now, Zhang Chong could only let the cart and horse camp work to make oxcarts and handcarts to make final preparations for the subsequent Northern Expedition.
However, there is nothing that can be done about it. The Taishan Army naturally did not have these considerations in its previous mobile operations. If you don't have enough stuff, just build a few dock walls.
But now that the Taishan Army has sat down, it has to face these if it wants to seriously fight an offensive and defensive battle. This is the only way for a force to mature.
……
The first year of Chengtian, the first year of Republic, February 15th.
After swearing an oath, the commander Guan Yu led his left army of 4,000 military officers, 1,000 cavalrymen, and 10,000 soldiers from Qingzhou, and marched toward Handan in the north.
After marching for three days, the army arrived in Handan to replenish a batch of supplies and campers. The army continued northward and arrived at Congtai the next day, where they set up a grain platform.
Afterwards, Guan Yu ordered the left army generals Zhang Nan and Guo Mo to lead an army each to attack Yiyang and other places in the north of Handan to protect the grain road from Handan to the front line.
After that, the army continued to advance, without encountering any interference from the Han army in the process. It was obvious that the other side had completely given up fighting in the wild with the Taishan army.
After marching for two days, the army reached Qingshui, and Ju Shou carefully built a line of defense, with Tantai and Yongnian sitting on Qingshui.
The first battle of this battle is coming.
……
When Zhang Nan and Guo Mo led thousands of elite troops to attack Yiyang, Yiyang ordered Cao Kun to abandon the city and flee. This Cao Kun was represented by Dong Zhuo back then, and he has never been able to win over the hearts of the people in the city.
Now that Taishan's army is coming with troops, what can he use to defend it? So he abandoned the city and fled overnight.
Zhang Nan and Guo Mo then captured Yiyang without any bloodshed.
And because the Taishan Army's Eastern Expedition had occupied Quliang and Lieren in the east of Yiyang early in the morning, the east-west passage from Zhangshui to Benshui was blocked by Zhang Nan and Guo Mo's troops.
In this way, the entire Taishan Army was completely protected on the right side of the grain platform in Handan. Even if the Han army on the Julu side wanted to go around and attack the Taishan Army's supply line, they must first pass through the defensive front jointly constructed by these three cities.
In fact, this is indeed what the Han army planned.
As early as the beginning, Jushou had made an alliance with Guo Dian of Julu. The plan was to block the front of Taishan Army from Jushou's side, and then Guo Dian would lead his troops to attack Taishan Army's supply line from the side and rear.
Guo Dian also knew the truth about the coldness of lips and teeth. In addition, he had a tacit understanding with Lu Zhi, the leader of Jushou, so he had to help him both emotionally and rationally.
In addition, Guo Dian has always attached great importance to the northeastern part of Handan, using it as a way for the Taishan Army to attack Julu in the future. Therefore, when it was learned that the Taishan Army was indeed moving north from Handan as scheduled.
Guo Dian took quick action.
At this time, a cavalry unit led by the famous Hebei general Gao Lan was moving at high speed along the south bank of Qianshui River. Their target is Yiyang where Zhang Nan and Guo Mo are located.
As an important city of Zhao State at that time, Yiyang must be captured first as a base for advancement.
At this time, Zhang Nan and Guo Mo did not know this at all. At this time, the two of them were led by a scholar dressed as a scholar, visiting a ruined wall.
Yingyang Youji officially begins
(End of chapter)