In the Southern Song Dynasty, I competed with Mongolia for the world

Chapter 222
After Meng Ying and Zhang Neng came back, they immediately reported to Meng Gong and Cui Yuzhi about the battle with the Mongolian army. It was obvious that the Song army also needed to practice riding and shooting, the training of archers had to be strengthened, and the armor had to be improved to create more powerful weapons. A lot of armor.

The emperor recruited craftsmen from all over the world as officials, which has greatly improved the treatment of craftsmen. At this time, craftsmen in the Southern Song Dynasty were respected more than any other dynasty, with higher treatment and dedication to work.

But Zhajia was not easy to build. Cui Yuzhi and Meng Gong had been here for more than a year, and only [-] pieces were built, which had to be distributed to various armies.

After the war, Meng Gong and Cui Yuzhi called together many middle-level generals and some soldiers who participated in the war to talk with them according to their reports, and finally wrote a report to the emperor. (This is all the emperor's request. After each battle, the experience and ideas of the commanders at all levels and ordinary sergeants in the army must be collected. They must be sent to the emperor in the early stage, and they can be kept by themselves in the middle and late stages.)
This is the first time they have fought against the Mongolian army, and they must summarize it immediately and submit it to the emperor.

Meng Gong summed up a few points based on the thoughts of the soldiers and generals.

One is that Zhajia's shoulders and the upper part of the chest should be thickened, and these two places are where the Mongolian army shot the most.

In this battle, almost all the Song soldiers were hit by arrows, and many of them were hit by several arrows. Facts have proved that as long as they are not shot at close range, the injuries are not serious, and they can't even enter the flesh, they will only enter the armor.

They brought back the arrows and bows of the Mongolian army, and found that most of the Mongolian army used seven or eight bows, and a small number of them used one-stone bows.

Use the Mongolian army's arrows and bows to shoot their Zhajia, and estimate the lethality according to the distance, to increase the thickness of the Song Jun Zhajia's shoulder and chest armor.

Meng Gong suggested adding another eight catties to Zhajia's weight to reach 38 catties.

The added eight catties were mainly on the shoulders and chest, and another piece was added on the back of the neck to prevent projectiles.

Similarly, they also brought back the armor of the Mongolian army, and used their own bows and crossbows to evaluate the resistance of the Mongolian army's armor.

The Mongolian army basically had a lot of leather armor and lock armor, and lock armor was not popular in the Central Plains at that time. After the Mongolian army went west, they got lock armor from Europe. The lock armor was more beautiful and defensive, so they began to imitate it.

Meng Ying suggested that the bows of the court archers are enough, as long as they are all replaced with heavy arrows, they will not have to worry about breaking armor.

Because they found that the Mongolian army's arrows were of different standards, but some of them were heavy arrows, which pierced armor very well.

At that time, due to physical fitness and lack of training, archers in the Southern Song Dynasty basically had six to eight bows.

After Zhao Yurui received the letter, he immediately ordered archers from all over the country to train their arm strength, improve their bow strength, and make heavy arrows.

The second is that the pikemen suffered less damage in this battle. They seldom hit the arrows in the early stage.

The pikeman's armor can be reduced to [-] catties. The focus is to protect the head and shoulders, and you can give up everything below the waist.

However, there are too few pikemen. The Wulin tactics used by the Sichuan Army only have three or four rows, which is obviously not enough.

The third is that the strong crossbow is a little weak, and it shoots slowly. The god-armed bow shoots two arrows, and the strong crossbow can only shoot one arrow. When the Mongolian army charged, they only shot one round before they entered the range of the archers.

When the two armies fired at each other, because the strong crossbowmen were on the third floor, where the Mongolian army covered the most firepower, and the strong crossbowmen had to use their feet to move, they bent over when moving, resulting in the most casualties.

Meng Gong proposed to give up or use a small number of strong crossbows, and change the third layer to archers and shield-holding archers, with a row of crossbowmen, and put an archer with a shield next to each archer, and shield two people.

The third layer of the Song army is usually the place where the Mongolian army's arrow rain falls most densely, and it suffers the most damage. Using shield soldiers to protect the archers can not only reduce casualties, but also cause damage to the Mongolian army.

The crossbow shoots one arrow, and the archer can shoot four or five arrows. In theory, although there are more people holding shields, the output of the third layer has not decreased, but increased. In addition, the shield holders and archers can be rotated every time. , effectively maintaining the combat effectiveness and output of the third floor.

Meng Gong also said that when the Mongolian army was in close combat, some people would throw bones, small hammers, and even small axes.

Song army spearmen should be equipped with short knives. (throwing knife)

When the Mongolian army charged forward, they could throw knives and throw war horses or the Mongolian army.

Meng Gong sent a lot of content in the letter, and basically the emperor agreed. At the end of the letter, Meng Gong said that in the long run, if he wants to defeat the Mongolian army, he will have to go out to fight in the field in the future. If he wants to kill the Mongolian territory, he must rely on riding and shooting. .

It is impossible to defend in a field battle. Fortunately, the Mongolian army had few soldiers that day, and they came to reinforce them again, and there was no shortage of food.

If you are stuck by the Mongolian army in the wild, such as on the grassland, without food, you will be dragged to death sooner or later.

Therefore, the Song army still had to practice riding and shooting, in order to be able to confront the Mongolian army head-on.

But this riding and archery cannot be practiced in one year, two years or three years, it is a long-term process.

Communication in ancient times was still very troublesome. Communication from Sichuan to Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty was a very slow process. Otherwise, Sichuan would not have formed self-government, and even the finance and military were almost independent.

After Shi Zhao and Rui ascended the throne, they immediately restructured Dujin Zouyuan, focusing on building post stations.

The communication from Sichuan to Lin'an adopted a combination of water and land.

At that time, the base camp of Shukou was in Mianzhou, and Meng Gong had been here for a long time. Cui and him went back and forth between Chengdu and Mianzhou. They were nearly [-] years old and worked very hard.

Letters from Mianzhou all travel by water along the Hanshui River to Xiangyang, then from Xiangyang to Jiujiang, then from Jiujiang to Xinzhou, and then from Xinzhou to Lin'an. The whole journey is about 2000 miles, and about [-]% of them are by water.

The land route is 24 li expedited express, and the water route is open [-] hours a day.

If there is more downwind time on the road from Mianzhou to Lin'an, you can get to Lin'an in ten days at the fastest, or [-] days if it is slow. The efficiency is relatively high in this era, and it is about two days later from Chengdu to Lin'an.

The emperor specially set up a special fast boat from Sichuan to Lin'an in the Dujin Zouyuan. With the addition of fast horses, the communication time from Chengdu to Lin'an was shortened by two or three days.

Before him, the fastest record from the Southern Song Dynasty to Chengdu was [-] days, using gold medal communication.

During the reign of Emperor Guangzong of the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhao Ruyu, the privy envoy of the time, used the time of sending letters as an assessment, requiring that the time from each station to the next station be included in the calculation.

This is similar to Zhao Yurui's current setting, but Zhao Yurui added rewards, and Zhao Ruyu didn't give money.

So not only did the effect not work, but it got worse and worse.

On November 1207th in the Ningzong era (29), the imperial court ordered Yang Duanming, the governor of Sichuan Province, to report to Lin'an. The imperial decree did not arrive until the end of the first month of the second year. Genius arrived.

Therefore, in the late Southern Song Dynasty, the correspondence between Lin'an and Sichuan was hard to describe.

Now that Zhao Yurui has increased the rewards for communication after the restructuring, the efficiency has immediately increased.

The new record from Chengdu to Lin'an is [-] days, two days less than the previous gold medal.

After Zhao Yurui received the letter, according to the proposal in the letter, he ordered all parts of the country to transform Zhajia, build heavy arrows, increase bow strength, and formation, completely using the Mongolian army as a strategic opponent.

At the same time, Sichuan transported [-] war horses to the Jinghu theater and the Lianghuai theater.

Because Sichuan can't raise so many war horses now.

At this time, Zhao and Rui were in Jeju Island, and they produced about [-] war horses every year. In addition, Xixia brought in nearly [-] horses, and the ownership rate of war horses in the Southern Song Dynasty reached a new high.

From Sichuan to Jinghu, and then to Lianghuai, the main forces in each theater have at least [-] horses.

The arrival of the Xixia Herding Institute laid a solid foundation for the horse breeding industry in the Sichuan-Guizhou region in the Southern Song Dynasty.

Horses were also produced in the Sichuan-Guizhou region in the Southern Song Dynasty, and all parts of the country were trying to raise horses, but none of the horses raised were qualified war horses and could only be used for carrying or transporting.

After the people from the Xixia Group Shepherd's Office arrived, they moved to the Wumeng Prairie soon after the emperor Zhao Yurui signaled.

Wumeng was originally the name of the tribal leader and the No.11 grandson of Atong in the Tang Dynasty.He annexed some small tribes around him and ruled today's Zhaoyang, Ludian, Daguan, Yanjin and other places.

In the Song Dynasty, Wumeng returned to Sichuan. During the Xining period, the Song court named Ah Piao the king of Wumeng, which confirmed the relationship between Wumeng and the Song court. "King of Wumeng" Ah Piao, whose original name was Luo Xing, was a native of Ji'an, Jiangxi Province. He was naturalized in the Song Dynasty as the Commander of Wumeng in southern Yunnan.

This place was assigned to Yunnan in the Yuan Dynasty, Sichuan in the Ming Dynasty, Yunnan in the Qing Dynasty, and Guizhou in later generations.

Wumeng is located at the junction of three provinces, and the most famous one is Wumeng Prairie.

There are 10,000+ mu of prairie in the local area, which is very suitable for grazing. Except for Yunnan, the Wumeng prairie should be the only place in the southwestern provinces where war horses can be raised.

However, there is a powerful Tusi Fan tribe in this area, and the original history was not completely suppressed and eliminated by the imperial court until the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty.

Zhao Yurui continued to crown Wumeng as king, comforted him with salt, sugar, and silk, and temporarily borrowed the grassland to raise horses.

The chieftains mainly lived in remote areas in the mountains, and their control over the grasslands was very general, so of course they readily agreed.
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In mid-August of the second year of Baoqing, Lin'an City.

Early this morning, Zhao Yurui brought Niu Bao and other entourages to the Craftsman Bureau of the Ministry of Industry.

The imperial court has set up a firearms department on the road and below, but the center of the capital has not yet been moved. At present, the Ministry of Industry has set up a craftsman bureau, mainly to manufacture cold weapons.

The Firearms Bureau is set up separately from the Ministry of Industry, and Zhao Yurui is in charge of it personally. It is located in the southernmost part of Lin'an, at the foot of Phoenix Mountain on the west side of the former Yumaying. In the past year, Zhao Yurui has been slowly moving firearms from Jeju The craftsmen and personnel of the bureau were designated as a restricted area within a five-mile radius of Phoenix Mountain, and the former Yumaying camp was also designated as a firearms bureau.

The Craftsmanship Bureau is next door to the Firearms Bureau, surrounded by new Beijing Army guards.

Zhao and Rui newly set up the 6000th Army of the Son of Heaven, each with about 9 soldiers. The Lin'an garrison is currently more than [-]. The "Shenji Army" guards the Artisan Bureau and the Firearms Bureau.

The commander of the Shenji Army is Li Pingbao, and the deputy commander is Niu Bao. Li Pingbao was originally the commander of the Imperial City, but now Niu Bao is also the commander of the Imperial City, and is the captain of Zhao Yurui's personal guard.

As soon as he arrived at the Craftsmanship Bureau, Li Pingbao had already led people to wait at the door. There were four or five generals present, either newly mentioned by Zhao Yurui after he came to power, or they were from Zhao Yurui's former palace.

Zhao Yurui greeted everyone calmly, and then led the team into the Craftsmanship Bureau.

Before he came to power, he mainly relied on people from the Li family and the Qin family, as well as some generals from the Imperial City Division.

A large number of senior generals in the army belong to these three groups.

Now that the throne is basically secured, he will gradually promote other generals to control the power of the Li family and the Qin family.

In the past year, he mainly promoted generals who had failed in Shi Miyuan's time, including Guo Chengzhang, the former power of the Guo family, and slowly found a balance in the army, so that the family could not be dominated.

At the same time, focus on cultivating your own confidantes, who can gradually replace military officers from various places in the future.

At this time, there was a young military officer behind him, and this military officer was Cao Youwen, whom he had hired out of the ordinary this year.

Cao Youwen is a descendant of Cao Bin, a famous general in the Song Dynasty. He just applied for a special performance this year. He was originally a Jinshi in the middle of this year. Because Zhao Yurui rectified the officialdom this year and the imperial examination was postponed, some officials applied for a special performance for him. This guy later died in battle in Shu Xianrenguan, one of the three passes and five prefectures, was regarded as a famous general in the Southern Song Dynasty against Mongolia.

This time Zhao Yurui saw the introduction of the list of special performances, which said that Cao Youwen was capable of writing and martial arts, so he summoned Cao Youwen, and after an interview with him, he asked Niu Bao to try. He was reassigned as the imperial city governor and became an accompanying military officer.

(End of this chapter)