Chapter 41 In the third quarter, the new army of Yan State is light and strong

In the early morning of the next day, before the thick fog dissipated, a sound of ox horns pierced through the Liaoshui River Valley.Immediately afterwards, the four big drums rumbled on the two-foot-high drum stand.This is Jujianggu, a drum every other quarter.After three drums, the generals and generals will rush from their respective barracks to the big tent of the shogunate.After the Sima of the Chinese army ordered the generals, Le Yi stood in front of the handsome man who had grown up, and glanced at the twenty generals who sat upright on the pier, and waved his hands: "Generals, the King of Yan is determined to crusade Come on, the day of revenge for the Yan people has arrived!"

"Fight against Baoqi! Revenge and revenge!" The generals roared angrily. Le Yi drew out the command arrow: "At two hours, the battalion will be set up, and at noon it will be ready for battle, and at the end of the day, it will be deployed! The infantry is in the middle, and the cavalry is on the two wings; Qin Kai is the commander of the infantry, and Qi Jie is the commander of the cavalry; the whole army is sharp and fast. ; Within ten days, you must drive into Yicheng!" The generals were all excited, shouted for orders, and strode away in a hurry to prepare. In the afternoon, the 200,000 troops left the Liaoshui River Valley, heading west like a fiery red dragon on the snowy field.Along the way, hunters often flew out from the vast forest, shouting "Oh hoo—" to this fast-moving leather armor army, piled up a few prey on the side of the road, and then flew into the boundless forest with their hounds .Although the cold wind was howling in the vast snow field, this fiery red army was walking like flying, and the speed was astonishingly fast. Just after the third day, they crossed Liaoxi County.

The biggest characteristic of this new army trained by Le Yi is the four characters of "light, sharp and strong".The State of Yan has the situation of the State of Yan, if it is arranged according to the Warring States in the Central Plains, in another ten years, the State of Yan may not be able to train the new army.In this country, one is poverty, the other is cold, and the third is iron deficiency.Especially the last one is the fatal wound of Yan Guocheng's army.Even if you can afford to pay high prices to attract business travelers and buy iron materials wantonly, the government of other countries will not allow such a huge amount of iron materials to leave the country.The reason why the new army of the Warring States Period is new is all in the word "iron".All equipment is made of iron: iron weapons, iron armor, iron harness, iron instruments.In short, there is no army without iron.Only because of this, the world called the new army of the Warring States period the "Iron Army".Yan Guo lacks iron, but he insists on cultivating a new iron army of 200,000. Naturally, he can only open up the world outside of iron.With a group of military officials, Le Yi meticulously inventoried all the iron in the treasury of the Yan State, and at best only made 70% to 80% of the weapons.After some thought, Le Yi ordered: Iron materials are only used to make weapons, and all armor, harness, equipment, etc. have to find another way out!Where else?Just above the leather wood.These two things happen to be the most abundant in the country of Yan, and when they are used in the army, they are amazingly successful!

The first is the copper nail leather armor.Chiyou, the ancient god of war, wrapped his body with a whole piece of animal skin and wrapped his head. He was not afraid of swords and axes in battle. His tribe followed suit and spread all over the world, so he had armor.Later, it gradually evolved into copper armor and iron armor, but leather armor, the originator of armor, gradually decreased.In the current Central Plains Warring States, everyone wearing iron armor is the symbol of the new army on foot and cavalry, otherwise it is not a new army. Le Yi's method is: buy a large amount of Orion leather, and those Orion children who bring large animal skins to the army will be rewarded immediately; A leather armor was made.Once the upper body is worn, it is light and tough, much sharper than iron armor and iron helmet.At that time, a full set of iron armor weighed about eighty catties, and heavy armor weighed more than one hundred catties. It was fierce, but it was too heavy.As a result, in the Song Dynasty of later generations, it was restricted to make iron armor within 50 catties.However, Yan Jun's leather armor and combat boots weigh no more than 30 catties. For the tall and strong Liaodong children, they are not cumbersome at all. The old adage that you can’t give it all” seems superfluous.The armor is successful, and the harness is also handled as usual.Central Plains iron cavalry, the body of the horse must be covered with iron and armor.The armor of the horses of the new army of the Yan State is double-layered with leather and copper nails on the outside.

Leather armor wearing diagram Reconstruction drawing of leather armor The second is large wooden equipment.Large-scale equipment in the military has always been made of copper and iron as the main material.The large-scale siege equipment of the new Qin army was almost all made of iron.With such a weather, the country of Yan would naturally be unable to match it.Le Yi's method of compensation is to select high-quality solid wood and make a large number of necessary siege equipment, mainly three types: trench bridges, crash carts, and ladders. The trench bridge is the bridge that crosses the trench. "Six Taos · Tiger Taos · Must Come Out" contains: "The Taigong said: Great waters, wide moats, and deep pits, if the enemy does not guard them, or if they can guard them, their soldiers will be few. If this is the case, use Feiqiao, Feijiang , Pass through the customs and Tianhuang to help my teacher." The flying bridge here is a moat bridge.In the Shang and Zhou dynasties, trench bridges had already appeared. By the time of the Warring States period, the trench bridge had developed into a folding type, with two or four large wheels under it, about one foot and five feet wide, and eight of them could be side by side, with a total width of twelve feet. Sergeants can charge across the bridge.The trench bridges of the Central Plains army are all made of iron wheels and iron plates, and a trench bridge is made of iron!How could the country of Yan afford such consumption of iron materials?Le Yi negotiated with the craftsmen to build the trench bridge like an ox cart carriage: the bridge wheels and axle columns were made of green sandalwood as hard as fine iron, and the bridge body was made of red pine wood with a thickness of one foot and six inches.Such a wooden trench bridge has the same advantage. It is easy to fold and easy to march, and four sergeants can pull it away.After being made into eight pieces, they were tested in a row, and the army stomped on them for a month without any damage.

Those who hit the car are also the heavy car that hits the city gate.The crash frame is thick and strong, four big wheels are installed at the bottom, and the propulsion is light. On the crossbeam on the top of the frame, a huge bumper is hung with a rope. Ten pieces of thick twine.As they approached the city gate, the four corners of the car body were fixed with large wooden stakes. Dozens of soldiers opened two rows horizontally, pulled the hemp rope at the back of the collision head and swung it backwards, and then pulled the rope together to move forward and strike.If it is a small city gate, it is often smashed more than ten times, the power is really astonishing.The most difficult core component of a crash car is the powerful head bump.Powerful countries in the Central Plains, such as Qin, Wei and Qi, are all made of iron, shaped like huge spearheads, and weigh about five or six hundred catties. They are installed on thick round wooden rams, rammed and stabbed violently, and ordinary wooden city gates are solid. Vulnerable.Yan State was short of iron, so he used Hebao pine wood as a ram, and polished it into a huge hammer-shaped ram with extremely hard rock (the rock is too sharp and easy to break), but its weight is twice that of an iron spear ram.Once tried, the power is amazing.Even if the solid city gate covered with iron sheets is more than one foot thick, if two cars collide with each other, it can still burst open within thirty collisions!

The ladder is also a tool for climbing high and climbing the city.Since there is a castle, there has been a ladder to climb the castle. "Poetry Daya Huangyi" first recorded the ladder: (Emperor of Heaven training King Wen) (who are your allies) (Be like brothers) (Use your city-climbing hooks) (Rush the car with your car) (to storm the capital of Chongguo) This "hook aid" is a long wooden ladder with a hook at the head of the ladder-the hook is hooked to the top of the city, and soldiers climb up and fly up.The military book "Six Secret Teachings" of the Western Zhou Dynasty is called flying ladder and cloud ladder.The original shape of the cloud ladder is very simple, that is, the ordinary wooden ladder is lengthened and widened, and then it is equipped with copper hooks and iron hooks that can stably hold the city bricks or the top of the city.This simple ladder continued until the end of the Qing Dynasty and was still used in the army.However, at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, the famous engineer Gong Shupan invented a large-scale cloud ladder in the state of Chu-four large wheels were installed at the bottom, the ladder body was folded in two sections, and there was a dark box under the ladder body to hide soldiers. The body of the ladder can stretch from five to eight feet.This kind of ladder is wide and strong, which can be used by a large army to climb the city continuously, and its power is astonishing.In the early Warring States period, several powerful countries in the Central Plains had such large ladders.

However, large-scale aerial ladders must use iron materials in many key parts.Bottom wheels, big shafts, columns, ladder frames, etc., are not strong enough to be solid without iron.With such a large amount of iron, it is obviously difficult to build the Yan Kingdom, and even if one or two are built, it will not have much effect.The fundamental reason is that the key to a city-climbing attack is that a large number of ladders are densely attached to the city wall. One, two or even a dozen of them will not produce the density and power necessary for a large army to attack.After several discussions and deliberations, Le Yi decisively ordered: only a large number of simple bamboo and wooden flying ladders should be built, reaching one ladder for every 100 infantry; the wheels or claws at the head of the ladder should be made of tough wood or bamboo as much as possible.Within half a year, the Zhumufang of the military camp built more than 1,000 flying ladders of various shapes, and the spirit of the 100,000 infantry was greatly boosted.

With such three kinds of equipment, there are three necessary methods for attacking the city: trench bridge crossing the trench and moat, crashing into the city gate with a car, and climbing the city with ladders. "The whole army". However, compared with the equipment of the Qi army, the three large equipment of the Yan army are much inferior.Looking at it from this point of view, it seemed a little rash for Yan to send troops.However, the victory or defeat of the war has never been only about equipment.Le Yi was very clear in his heart that the root of the war against Qi was not in the battle for a city or place, but in the field battle of the army; as long as the main force of the Qi army's field battle was wiped out in one fell swoop, dozens of cities would become undefended treasuries of wealth. Even if there is no large equipment, it is also at your fingertips.

First field battles and then taking the city is called taking the city in a field battle.This is the latest method of warfare pioneered by General Bai Qi of Qin State.At this time, Bai Qi had already fought nine times. In each battle, he would behead more than 100,000 enemies and pull out dozens of cities, fully demonstrating the method of capturing cities in field battles.If the old war method is fought city by city, there will be no power to sweep away the fallen leaves in the autumn wind.Regardless of whether other generals have noticed the essence of Bai Qi's new tactics, anyway, Le Yi has been staring at Bai Qi's tactics early on.

If Bai Qi can do it, can't Le Yi?