The Ministry of War organized a yard with several wheelbarrows parked. At first glance, it was not much different from the wheelbarrows used by the people.

A wheelbarrow was found in the Han Dynasty. It was called "Deer Car" at that time. The car had a wheel, double grips, like antlers, and could be pushed by one person.

Later, during the Three Kingdoms period, there were improvements.

It is said that Zhuge Liang, the Prime Minister of Shu Han, was not satisfied with the transportation effect of deer carts because the Han army wanted to go out of Shu to attack Guanlong, so they walked on a plank road. The original deer carts had poor transportation effect.

Therefore, Zhuge Liang made the "wooden ox and flowing horse", which greatly improved the efficiency of grain and grass transportation.

What exactly is a wooden ox and a flowing horse? There are many different opinions, but many people believe that this includes an improved wheelbarrow.

Regardless of the legend, wheelbarrows are indeed widely used among the people, and can take both hills and mountain roads, as well as plains.

Several "staff officers" introduced this common means of transportation to the emperor and crown prince who came to visit.

The so-called staff officer means participating in planning. It has a staff officer position in the army, participates in military planning, and undertakes specific military business, including logistics transportation.

Crown Prince Li Fang has seen the life of the people, so he can see the difference between this wheelbarrow and a folk wheelbarrow: the wheelbarrow in front of him has two hands in front and back.

This means that a wheelbarrow can be driven by two people, pulling forward and pushing backward, and the load capacity is larger than that of an ordinary single wheelbarrow.

But in fact, the two handles in front are equivalent to the double shaft of the carriage and the ox carriage. They can be pulled by a horse/mule/donkey, while the person located behind the wheelbarrow is responsible for maintaining the balance of the wheelbarrow.

In addition, the wheels are different.

The wheelbarrow in front of me is an iron wheel, and its weight is not much heavier than a wooden wheel of the same size, but it is more solid.

The staff members explained why the army should use wheelbarrows as one of the main means of transportation: In some areas, wheelbarrows are more suitable to use wheelbarrows to undertake the heavy responsibility of logistics transportation.

Especially for this type of wheelbarrow, the wheels are not easily broken when traveling on rugged sections, which is very important in large-scale transportation.

Although the advantage of wooden wheels is that they are cheap and repaired as they are damaged, because the wood is everywhere, the failure rate is relatively high when transported from large loads and long distances, and it takes time to repair it.

For improving land transportation efficiency, this problem is more likely to drag down, so the staff members came to the conclusion that "iron wheelbarrows are more suitable to take on the main points" based on the actual use experience of previous battles.

The premise of this conclusion is to transport hilly and mountainous sections.

Roads in these areas are generally narrow roads, with rugged roads, and two-wheelers may be able to walk, but when they reach some curved sections, it is inconvenient to turn and is prone to congestion.

The turning radius of a two-wheeler is actually not large, and there will be difficulties in turning, let alone a four-wheeler.

Moreover, when walking on a mountain road, there are often cliffs and steep slopes on one side of the road. If you are not careful at this time, the livestock pulling the cart will fall and fall, and drag the cart and the goods on the cart down, causing losses.

Therefore, when you arrive at these sections of the road, the convoy will be very slow. The coachmen are careful to drive the pack animals and pass slowly.

Therefore, when the transport convoy travels on hilly and mountainous sections, the overall movement speed is not fast, similar to walking, and often congestion occurs on certain sections of the road.

Even if a car breaks down, such as the wheels break, the entire convoy will be blocked in a narrow section of the road and cannot move forward or retreat.

Therefore, the company summarized the experience and lessons learned from logistics transportation in previous battles and decided to use a wheelbarrow as the main model for transportation on hilly and road sections.

The structure of a unicycle is simple and has few moving parts (one less wheel than a two-wheeler). After using iron wheels, the "average failure-free time" is extended.

When the wheelbarrow convoy is marching on a rugged mountain road, the "action mode" of pulling forward and pushing back can ensure traffic efficiency well because the road surface is not large and the turns are extremely flexible (equivalent to turning in place).

Even if there is a malfunction, the road will not be blocked, causing the cars behind to be impassable.

The way of moving forward by animal pulling people can ensure that people can climb uphill calmly on uphill sections. If it really doesn’t work, the way people pull people can also pull them uphill.

Even if two people are not required to carry animals, the food consumption of two people is much less than that of carrying animals.

This is very important in long-term land transportation in specific areas, and can reduce logistics costs while maintaining basic transportation capacity.

What is "long-term land transportation in a specific region"?

A specific area, namely the Taihang Mountains.

The Chu army was going to attack the Hedong area, and there were two routes, one route, which was to directly cross the Taihang Mountains and head towards Jinyang.

The second route is to start from Youyan, take the north road, head south from Hengzhou area, attack Yanmen Pass, and then attack Jinyang.

After research and deduction by the Staff Department, the logistics transportation pressure on the second route was extremely high and the transportation cost was relatively high.

Therefore, the first route is more suitable for attacking.

Although transportation in mountainous areas is not easy, using wheelbarrows (iron wheels) as transportation tools can rely entirely on manpower to promote wheelbarrows at a lower cost and stabilize the "grain road".

The reason why we mainly use manpower to pull carts instead of carrying animals is to save food and grass, and to replenish the saved food and grass to the soldiers and war horses in front.

After a lot of argumentation, the staff of the Staff Department formulated a logistics transportation plan, which can ensure that the main force of the 100,000 official troops crossed the Taihang Mountains to attack Hedong, and had no logistics worry-free within one year.

Li Li has seen the relevant plans and specific implementation plans with the prime ministers, and has also convened relevant military personnel to hold a meeting several times, and has confirmed that there is no problem.

Li Fang also read the plan. Thinking of the "fishing project" that his father explained just now, he discussed it with several staff officers.

He doesn't ask about "things", he asks about "people".

A large amount of manpower was mobilized to maintain the "wheelbarrow transportation line", which was of course the people in Hebei, Taihang, Shandong.

These people were conscripted and sent to labor and participated in the battle to destroy the country. Because transportation in the mountains was very hard and lasted for a long time, the service period would inevitably exceed one month.

So, what should they do at home? During the busy farming season, who will do the farm work at home?

A strong laborer has left home for a long time and his family has fewer financial resources. What if there is an urgent matter, the elderly, weak, women and children at home are helpless, or borrow money, and then the income is reduced and they cannot afford to pay it back, and the profits are rising. What should I do?

How to ensure food and accommodation conditions for young and strong people who serve during transportation? If they are sick, how can they arrange treatment and rest and recuperate?

Should I transport it with illness?

If the war really lasted for nearly a year, how could so many young and strong resting, how could they be fair?

The questions Li Fang asked were all about how the people serving should organize, manage, reward and punish and settle.

The reason is very simple. He must beware of being "fished" because once "project costs are out of control", it will harm many people.

The young and strong labor force is the pillars of their respective families. If the pillars are gone, the family will be gone.

And these families are the foundation of the dynasty, representing taxes and labor force serving labor.

Seeing that his son asked very carefully and did not disturb him, Li Li was very satisfied with the fact that he should look like a professional.

Since the war, there has been logistics transportation and support, so there has been relevant knowledge on logistics transportation and support since ancient times.

But this kind of knowledge is not worth mentioning, because for scholars, the skills mastered by vulgar military officials are not worth mentioning.

There are many masterpieces about how to fight. These military tactics will certainly emphasize the importance of logistics, but the specific methods of ensuring logistics will not be too detailed.

And books that specifically describe military logistics technology, or even specialized military logistics theories, do not.

Because this kind of knowledge is actually equivalent to the material transfer in civil affairs, and personnel recruitment and management knowledge is nothing more than whether the matter is done by civil affairs or military affairs, so it is regarded as "official learning" and is not valued by the "mainstream".

Only generals who have local governance experience or have fought many wars will have different degrees of understanding of logistics transportation and security knowledge.

Even military logistics and support knowledge have become part of the "Jiangmen Family Learning", and elders pass it on to their families as family knowledge.

It will not be taught to students as an educational content in the school.

In this way, the strategic level of logistics planning and cost estimation generally require personnel from the Civil Affairs Office to bear it, but there are differences between military transportation on the battlefield and civil affairs transportation in a safe environment.

The estimated logistics cost is just a rough figure, and it is inevitable that after the war begins, it will basically rise sharply.

Therefore, if you want to better estimate the logistics costs of military operations and control the increase in logistics costs after the war begins, you need professionals with high status and rich professional knowledge to assume this responsibility.

Therefore, the position of staff came into being.

The staff officer is a military officer of a certain level. He must have experience in leading troops, learn professional knowledge in the military academy, and perform his duties after graduation.

As a group, they participate in combat, marching, and logistics planning, decision-making, execution and supervision throughout the process.

The so-called "professional knowledge" and logistics transportation calculations have several points that are very professional:

1. What specifications of bridge (bridge deck width) and what is the hourly traffic energy (people, cars, horses)? You must master it.

2. You must master the amount of traffic per hour (various transport tools) for various typical road conditions.

3. Water transportation, different water levels, what kind of draft can be used for ships, and how much daily freight can be maximized.

4. Water and land transport, how to dispatch, allocate manpower, how to form human transportation teams and animal transportation teams.

All the above are actually quantified based on summarizing the experience of previous generations, using indicators such as "hourly traffic volume" and "daily freight volume" to quantify logistics transportation and ensure the costs of each link.

In this way, the logistics supply route (grain road) can be planned according to the combat plan during the "museum calculation" process before the war.

Draw several reasonable logistics plans for the emperor and the prime minister and estimate the corresponding logistics costs.

After the war begins, the increase in logistics costs can be controlled as much as possible and the cost will be lost as much as possible.

Only when the logistics are stable can the front-line army be stable and the generals can deal with the enemy more calmly.

Of course, the responsibility of the staff is not only to ensure logistics, but also to participate in combat, marching planning, and to use collective wisdom to assist the army in winning battles.

Referring to later generations, the professional "staff" should be the brain of a new army, and the traditional practice of relying on geniuses to lead troops to take on the main points is too variable.

After all, genius is rare.

Seeing that his son was so excited about asking questions, Li Li's thoughts quickly flew elsewhere.

The emperor must master the army before he can sit firmly.

But not every emperor has excellent military qualities and strategic vision.

Then, relying on a series of means such as staff, military academy officers, grassroots sergeants, etc. to control the army and command military operations is the wealth he left to his descendants.

And now, the top priority he has to do is unify the world.

This matter cannot be delayed any more.
Chapter completed!