Judging from the current situation, let alone whether the earliest artillery cannon can be created, we must save the lives of these people first.

There are not many firearm craftsmen, and they are all treasures, and none of them are missing. If one is missing, his process will be delayed.

If possible, Su Yonglin still hopes that this group of people can make cannons that can be used, even if the quality is not that good, it can be improved, which will force the advancement of iron smelting technology.

After the special funds were allocated, Su Yonglin did not pay special attention to the people from the Ordnance Department.

He hoped that they could create a miracle and get out the earliest artillery, but it would be fine if they couldn't do it for the time being.

Because he was not in a hurry to use it, the strategic decisive battle with the Jin army obviously could not expect the firearm to come in any use. This was a tactical and strategic duel, and a decisive battle of courage and persistence between both sides.

So taking it slowly and being able to improve iron smelting technology through continuous experiments is the most important thing.

To cast a cannon, you must have sufficient high-quality raw materials. If the iron smelting technology is not improved, the quality of the cannon tube will be very poor, and then blowing the cannon is common. At that time, it is equivalent to playing a set of seven-injury punches, hurting others and yourself first, which is purely a bad brain.

Copper is a good raw material for casting cannons, but China itself lacks copper, and copper is an important and indispensable existence in the monetary system. Things that can mint coins are very expensive.

There is another problem with this thing.

Once the copper content is high when minting coins, it will cause the people to privately store copper coins and not take them out for circulation, waiting for appreciation, and triggering deflation. If the copper content is low, it will cause currency depreciation and inflation, and money will be worthless.

How to balance the relationship between the copper content in coins and the economic market has been a headache in all dynasties.

Especially in this era when copper coins are outflowing on a large scale with trade, if copper is used to cast cannons on a large scale and fight, the cost is really not something that ordinary courts can afford.

Therefore, if you want to expand on a large scale, install firearms, and enter the era of hot weapons combat, the key is to make breakthroughs in iron smelting technology.

Before all this is immature, cold weapons are more useful.

At least the production process is mature, the output is stable, and assembly is not a problem.

Before this, we should focus on improving the organizational and training of the army.

When Su Yonglin was preparing to surprise Wanyan Liang, Zhao Zuoliao also returned to Linyi smoothly.

He cooperated with the people sent by Su Yonglin to assist him, acted according to the plan, spent money to clear the joints, and successfully met Zhao Xiuye ​​who was locked in prison. Seeing Zhao Xiuye's miserable appearance, he felt distressed and couldn't help but beat him up.

"Let you bet! Let you embezzle! Let you not learn well! Do you know the consequences now? Do you know?"

Zhao Xiuye ​​was beaten to death and burst into tears. Finally, he hugged Zhao Zuoliang's thighs, begged for mercy and admitted his mistakes desperately, which made Zhao Zuoliang reluctantly let him go.

Zhao Zuoliang took a breath and looked at Zhou Shaoning who was following him.

"Team leader Zhou laughed. He was not a good person. My father is also hated. If he doesn't fight, it's hard to eliminate the hatred in his heart."

"This is Mr. Zhao's family matter. I will only pretend that I didn't see it, nor will I spread it to the outside world. I will assume that today's incident has never happened."

Zhao Zuoliao nodded.

"Thank you, so please pay more attention to the next thing, Team Leader Zhou."

Zhou Shaoning said he understood.

It’s nothing more than spending money to ask for help, and a raccoon cat is replaced with the prince.

The specific operation is to work with everyone and find someone to go to jail instead of Zhao Xiuye. Of course, it is also a spending money, which is equivalent to spending money to hire someone to go to jail.

Anyway, they are all from the Zhao family, and everyone knows it. Knowing that the Zhao family will definitely be released, they don’t care so much. They can still make money by cooperating in acting, so why not do it?

If something really happens, please let Zhao Xiuye ​​come back and then go to jail to pretend. Even if you can run away, the monk can't run away, right?

Under normal circumstances, for governments or prisons, this is of course a sure profit and no loss.

But the problem lies in the fact that none of them expected that this time, not only the monk ran away, but the abbot also ran away with him.

The abbot didn't want to be a temple anymore, so he ran away with him!

Zhao Zuoliang and his family escaped from Linyi overnight, headed north quickly, and soon arrived at Su Yonglin's controlled area. They arrived in Wuji County in early April, and then came to Su Yonglin's current resident Hejian Mansion, which was completely safe.

This is something no one expected.

When Zhao Zuoliang and his family arrived at Hejian Mansion and were settled, Su Yonglin was not here. He was inspecting the construction and training of the navy in the coastal areas of Cangzhou and arranged the next tasks.

When Su Yonglin was building the navy, he learned that Zhao Kaishan in the south and Kong Yanzhou, the left-behind Nanjing in the Jin Kingdom, had a fight.

The reason was that Kong Yanzhou sneaked into Caozhou and Shanzhou, which belonged to Nanjing Road, and threatened Zhao Kaishan's rear. When Zhao Kaishan decided to dispatch a large army to retake Caozhou and Shanzhou, Kong Yanzhou chose to retreat without fighting.

If you retreat, retreat, but you even slaughtered Caozhou and Shanzhou. The scorched earth was covered with miserable and miserable deaths. Zhao Kaishan was angry at that time and directly dispatched a large army to Kaifeng.

As for his confidence in opening such an important town, Su Yonglin probably gave it to him.

Anyway, Su Yonglin had just won the battle in the north, and the Central Army of the Jin Kingdom could not go south. A large number of surrounding troops were restrained by Su Yonglin, including the Hedong army, probably did not dare to go south to support Kong Yanzhou. They would be very worried that they would be attacked by Su Yonglin as soon as they were launched.

What's even better is that the Southern Song Dynasty borders Nanjing Road to the south. Even if the Song army does not go to war, it can invisibly restrain part of the border defense forces of the Jin Kingdom, so that the Nanjing Road and Jin army cannot go all out to fight against Zhao Kaishan's army.

The mixed together of various factors made Zhao Kaishan’s attack on Kaifeng Prefecture really the best time.

Su Yonglin was a little envious of Zhao Kaishan's situation and the opportunity to attack Kaifeng Prefecture.

At this time, not only did he think these advantages, but the Khitan rebels would also add arms and support to his military operations, so that Wanyan Liang could not mobilize troops from the north even if he knew the crisis in Kaifeng.

To the west, the Jin Dynasty’s Guanzhong and Shaanxi area, there are indeed important military strongholds of the Jin Dynasty. However, in the south of Shaanxi is the Sichuan War Zone of the Southern Song Dynasty and the northwest is the Western Xia. They all need to be defended by border defense and reserve forces. Even if the troops are transferred to the Central Plains, the scale will not be large.

The military situation of the Jin Kingdom, a four-sided territory, really provided Zhao Kaishan with an excellent opportunity to conquer Kaifeng Prefecture. If this cannot be taken down, it would be really embarrassing.

But if Zhao Kaishan took over Kaifeng Prefecture, what would the Southern Song Dynasty feel?

And in this military operation, will the Southern Song Dynasty send troops to help and take the opportunity to return to Kaifeng Prefecture and return to the Central Plains?

Su Yonglin thought about it and felt that if the emperor was Xiaozong, there was indeed such a possibility, but if it was Zhao Gou...

That's really hard to say.

As for Wanyan Gou's virtue, it is already a great kindness to not make any trouble behind the scenes. Will he help you?

Su Yonglin's guess was correct. When Zhao Kaishan and Kong Yanzhou were passionately confronting each other, the Southern Song Dynasty really stopped moving, watched the changes, and sat on the big fighter's plane, and remained motionless.

Zhao Kaishan's chance of winning is actually quite good, especially in terms of the number of troops and the situation of war, Zhao Kaishan has an absolute advantage. For a certain period of time, Kong Yanzhou could not receive assistance from friendly forces in any direction, so he was fighting alone.

However, Zhao Kaishan's army is not without weaknesses.

The biggest weakness of this army is fatigue.

Yes, tired.

The battle of Nanle for nearly three months consumed all their vigor. After taking down Daming Mansion, they were forced to fight south for less than a month. Hundreds of miles of march arrived in Caozhou and Shanzhou. They did not encounter any enemy troops, but only saw a scorched earth, so their morale became even lower.

On the way to cross the Yellow River to launch an attack on Kaifeng, we had to fight fiercely with the Jin army, which was waiting for work, and our fatigue has not been effectively alleviated.

Due to long-term struggle, the supply of ordnances of the Restoration Army was problematic. The bows and arrows and stones were not enough. Some parts of large-scale ordnances were consumed due to excessive use, so they could not be used, and they could not be effectively repaired in a short period of time.

Faced with the defense of the camps built by the Jin army, the Restoration Army almost used human lives to pile up.
Chapter completed!