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Qu'a, Chu Army Camp.  .-...

Xiang Tuo was patrolling the weapons workshop surrounded by dozens of generals.

After the last court meeting ended, Xiang Zhuang personally brought 20,000 elite troops to leave Wuzhong and took the small path to take the Fanyi. Xiang Tuo brought his troops to Qu'aza to the camp, and at the same time ordered all counties and counties to gather strong men to help Qu'a'a camp. Until now, the Chu army gathered in Qu'a has more than 50,000 people.

Among these 50,000 people, 20,000 were Xiang Tuo's troops, 20,000 were Xiang Guan's remaining soldiers, and the remaining 10,000 were the strong men who had just gathered in Wuzhong County. As for Danyang County and Kuaiji County, the strong men who were recruited by Kuaiji County were slightly far apart, it would take at least half a month to arrive one after another.

The Weapons Square is located in a valley near Qua Daying.

A row of thousands of thatched cottages were built along the stream in the valley, with thousands of blacksmiths wearing chests and exposed their backs. Dingding was working as a local forging weapons in the cottage, mainly ring-headed swords, triangular arrow clusters and flying spears. Behind the cottage, hundreds of earth blast furnaces were built along the mountain. Thousands of strong men were sweating profusely and were desperately accelerating the bellows to blow the blast furnace.

Beside the blast furnace, there were piles of ring-headed slashes. These were just cast and before they could be sent to the blacksmith shop for forging, Xiang Tuo picked up two rough embryos from them and hit each other hard. With a sound of sound, the two ring-headed slashes were intact. Xiang Tuo didn’t jin   The eyes lit up and praised: “What an iron!”

The bus lane that accompanied him next to him: "General, this is the best iron!"

Since the appearance of the bellows, the furnace temperature of the iron smelting furnace has greatly increased. The increase in the furnace temperature has led to the essential improvement of the quality of iron. In the past, the brittle and hard pig iron refined from the furnace must be re-cooked dozens or even hundreds of times and can be forged, but now, the refined iron directly comes out of the furnace, which can be forged directly.

Xiang Tuo nodded. When he turned his head, he suddenly saw a strange blast furnace. Other blast furnaces were built against the mountain and were above the surface, but the blast furnace was buried underground and the top was also open. There was a frame on the top of the blast furnace. Four strong men with bare chests and backs stood on the frame, working together to stir a long iron rod.

"Mr. Gongshu, what kind of furnace is this?" Xiang Tuo said curiously.

"This is a stir-frying furnace." The bus was quite proud and authentic. "In the past, in Lu, I once saw a famous blacksmith master using such a stir-frying steel to stir-fry extremely fine steel, which is far more hard than ordinary fine iron." After saying this, the bus was a little regretful and authentic, "However, I have not yet been able to stir-frying steel."

Xiang Tuo reached out and patted Gongshu on the shoulder and said, "Mr. Gongshu is a master of the Mo family and a famous master of craftsmen in the world. I believe that one day you will successfully fry out fine steel with excellent texture. At that time, Mr. Wang must create a steel horizontal knife for me that cuts iron like mud!"

The bus waved his hand and said, "I'm doing my best."

As they said that, everyone came to the bow workshop again. They saw that there were piles of old mulberry trees in the open space in front of the bow workshop. There were still strong men carrying old mulberry trees that had been born for decades or even hundreds of years here. In the bow workshop, hundreds of carpenters were rushing to build single longbows day and night. Although the compound horn bow performance is better, the single longbow technology is simpler and suitable for a large amount of equipment.

Xiang Tuo walked into the workshop, took a longbow that had been made from a craftsman, and tried to pull it away. The pulling force was about one stone. The adult male could easily pull it away. He took another heavy arrow and tried the shooting range. He threw it at a forty-five degrees and shot it could shoot about a hundred steps away. Moreover, the falling heavy arrow could easily penetrate a layer of iron armor.

But if you use the Sangmu Longbow to shoot accurately, it will not work. You will basically shoot ten or nine out of ten steps.

This is actually reasonable. These mulberry wood longbows are actually as simple as cutting open mulberry wood strips and tied with hemp ropes. The bow-making skills are not as complicated as those of later generations. Of course, this is also related to the way archers fight, because the archers' arrow rain suppression has always been won by quantity, so accuracy is not so important. .-..

Xiang Tuo put back the longbow and turned around to ask the accompanying Arsenal Ling: "How many longbows can be made in a month?"

Arsenal replied: "There are many mulberry trees nearby. They also have sufficient numb storage. If there are enough manpower, such a longbow can be made at least 5,000 times a month!"

Xiang Tuo immediately turned around and shouted, "Alpaca, add eight hundred strong men to the bow workshop!"

"Here!" The general alpaca, who was following Xiang Tuo, responded to his promise and immediately took the order.

Xiang Tuo said again: "So, how many can a ring-headed sword, a flying spear and a wolf-toothed heavy arrow be built in one month?"

Arsenal Ling said: "After casting the wolf teeth heavy arrow, it only requires a simple tip and is easy to make, so it is no problem to make more than 100,000 branches a month. However, it is extremely difficult to build a ring-headed knife and a flying spear. Except for the skilled blacksmiths, ordinary blacksmiths and ordinary strong men cannot get involved at all, so there are not many... "

Xiang Tuo frowned and said, "How many are there in a small number?"

The arsenal sighed and said, "The ring-headed swords are five hundred and two thousand flying spears per month."

"So few?" Xiang Tuo frowned. He had five hundred ring-headed knives a month, and six thousand a year. It took almost ten years to equip 60,000 people. It seems that in addition to recruiting a large number of blacksmiths from various counties and counties to come to Qu'a, he also had to make a large number of bamboo swords and wooden halberds for emergency response. Otherwise, the Chu army would have to use his fists to fight against the enemy.

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The southern suburbs of Guangling, the Huainan Army Camp.

More than half a month ago, Ying Bu personally brought 30,000 elite troops to Guangling and set up a camp in the suburbs of the city. The distance between Guangling and Wujiang was even less than 100 miles. As long as there were enough ships, the Huainan army could even cross the Wujiang River south within a day and night. It only took five days to march urgently, and the Huainan army could reach the city of Wuzhong.

With the sound of light footsteps, Kuai Cheshi came to Yingbu's head.

Before entering, a dusty Huainan Army general had already arrived near the frontier. When he saw Kuai Che, the Huainan Army general quickly bowed and paid a big greeting.

Kuai Che replied to the courtesy and said calmly: "Is there any news about Jiang Zuo?"

The general did not dare to neglect and replied: "Report to the prime minister, about ten days ago, King Xiang Zhuang of Chu personally recommended 50,000 troops to enter Qu'a, and more powerful men were gathering from various counties in Jiangdong, and counties continued to gather in Qu'a. At present, Qu'a's camp is building furnaces and smelting iron to build weapons. It seems that it is obviously targeting our Huainan army."

Kuai Che nodded and said, "I understand, you should go back to the other side as soon as possible."

"Here!" The general responded and turned around. For him, the little scout general, there was no difference in reporting the news to the king or the prime minister.

Watching the figure of General Scouts go away, a faint smile suddenly popped up at the corner of Kuai Che's mouth.

Xiang Zhuang personally brought up a 50,000 army to Qua? He wanted to deceive his Huainan army by just concealing the world. Is it really bullying me, Huainan country? If nothing unexpected happens, Xiang Zhuang had already raised a large army and took a small road to attack Fanyi. As for Qua, at most, Xiang Tuo or Gao Chu was bluffing there.

While thinking, a sound of footsteps suddenly came from behind him. When Kuai Che looked back, he saw Ying Bu strode out of the hall of the pedestal. Kuai Che quickly bowed and greeted him.

Ying Bu waved his hand and said, "The Prime Minister, it seems that the scout general is back?"

Kuai Che nodded and said, "That's right, the scout general brought back news that Xiangzhuang had personally recommended 50,000 troops to enter Qu'a, and more powerful men were gathering from Jiangdong counties and counties to Qu'a. Judging from this situation, Xiangzhuang obviously regarded our Huainan army as the number one enemy."

Ying Bu didn't hear this. Jin. Shaking his head and smiling bitterly. He felt a little satisfied and annoyed.

Yingbu was regarded as the number one enemy by Xiang Zhuang, which made Yingbu feel proud. But Xiang Zhuang personally raised the army to come forward, so it would be difficult for Yingbu to get any advantage. In this way, wouldn’t it be a waste of Zhou Yin, Jin Xu, Li Zuoche, Si Wuzhu, Si Luoyao, and Mei Yan?

Kuai Che's eyes flashed and he said, "King, for the sake of this, let's just wait and see what the changes are."

Ying Bu sighed and said, "If you can only do this now, it's fine, just wait and see what's going on."

Kuai Che smiled slightly and said, "In the past, Emperor Yi ordered that those who entered Guanzhong first would be king, but Liu Bang, who entered Guanzhong first, did not become the King of Guanzhong in the end. This time, those who went to Jiangdong first might not be the King of Jiangdong!"

Yingbu's eyes lit up when he heard this. Kuai Che's meaning was clear. Even if others took the lead in capturing Jiangdong, they might not be able to become the King of Jiangdong, because if anyone is not allowed to be the one, they still have to speak with their strength. Yingbu is like Xiang Yu, who was the first to enter Guanzhong, but Xiang Yu has the final say.

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In Yi County, 20,000 elite cavalry of Chu were hurriedly advancing west along the path.

In order to hide the traces and achieve the effect of concealing the world and concealing the sea, the Chu army did not walk on the road, but instead marched in remote small roads. From Wuzhong to Yixian, it took ten days to walk the mountain road for more than 700 miles. This can be said to be an unprecedented marching speed for the cavalry, and of course, it is the slowest marching speed.

It must be admitted that Jiangnan is indeed not suitable for cavalry combat.

Among the mountains and ridges, it was difficult for the cavalry to find a road suitable for marching, let alone conduct large-scale cluster charges. Fortunately, Xiangzhuang did not intend to use cavalry to fight this time. The 20,000 war horses he collected were also the worst ponies, and they were just used for transportation to save the soldiers' physical strength as much as possible.

A marching map was set up on the big stone on the side of the road. Xiangzhuang, Gao Chu, Pang Yu, Xiao Kai, Tian Heng and other generals were surrounded by the map. Bailixian pointed to the map and said loudly: "King, less than fifty miles west from Yi County is the territory of Lujiang County, and four hundred miles west is Fanyi. The infantry can reach it in two days of marching!"
Chapter completed!