The rebel army now has a very embarrassing problem. There are 150,000 men in the army. Excluding the old, weak and women, there are 100,000 men. Although these 100,000 men are old and young, the old ones can reach seven years old.

Ten, small fourteen or five, but these 100,000 men, good and bad, have a basic organization. These 100,000 men have also gone through a round of queue and discipline training. On the battle formation, in terms of orderliness, it was better than

Although Huangfu Song's army of 100,000 people lacked soldiers and armor, they at least had a wooden spear in hand. It was barely enough to fight with a wooden spear.

There are indeed 100,000 combat-ready manpower in the army. There are 100,000 troops who are organized, disciplined, armed and well-organized. It can be said that the army is powerful.

But the embarrassing thing is that the army is so short of soldiers and armor that it took a lot of effort to get enough men to even have a wooden gun.

According to future plans, the rebel army must conquer Julu and must directly confront the imperial court. Therefore, there is a certain possibility of war. Therefore, these 100,000 combatable manpower are the basis for a foothold.

When counting the number of weapons and equipment in the army, if one considers the minimum standard of one iron weapon per person, there is a shortage of 60,000 to 70,000 iron weapons, and a full 90,000 pieces of armor.

And if the lower corps commander approves the armor, and the lowest ratio of five to one for ordinary soldiers without armor, then the 100,000 troops will only need 20,000 armor stomachs, which is still 10,000 short.

Unarmored soldiers are most afraid of crossbows in battle. When a round of arrows rain down, people will fall like wheat. However, the Han army has sharp crossbows. If the Han army is used as the imaginary opponent, the lack of weapons is not a big problem. Wooden guns

The spear array is still sharp and can kill people, but the lack of armor is more serious.

After thinking about it, in the absence of armor, and trying to resist the lethality of crossbows as much as possible, the only way to save money is to equip a shield.

If you don't have armor, you can use a large shield with a door panel, which can also provide protection against crossbows.

The protection of a simple large wooden shield is not as good as that of a real military shield made of solid wood and covered with cowhide or even iron. But thinking about it, if you give up lightness and practicality, you can still have a military shield comparable to that of a military shield as long as it is made of cheap wood and made thick enough.

protective power.

For the rebel army now, starting from actual combat, the best configuration is for each person to have a thick wooden shield. That is, 90% of the unarmored personnel in the rebel army are soldiers with swords and shields, and everyone carries a large shield.

.

This was the cheapest way Li Mengxi could think of to fight against the army's crossbows.

Considering the current manpower and production capacity of the military, cheap large shields are actually easy to produce, and it is enough to just tie thick wooden boards into one piece.

The missing 90,000 shields can be fully completed in three or two months as long as there is enough wood.

However, what is lacking is wood, and now even the wood for turning shaft plows is lacking.

When Li Mengxi discovered that no one could make a shield, he thought that in order to fight against crossbows, instead of spending energy on making shields and armors, there is a smarter way, that is, not to make armors either.

We don’t make shields either. If we want to fight crossbows, we make a lot of crossbows.

The one who opposes the spear can be a shield, and the one who opposes the spear can also be a spear.

The Han official army has sharp crossbows. If you choose to use armor to fight against it, it will be quite satisfactory. If you use the cheapest method and equip a large shield to fight, it will be barely effective.

And if we don't care about the armor or not, we just go all out to make crossbows. If there is a gap of 80,000 pieces of armor, we can either make 80,000 pieces of armor or 80,000 pieces of strong crossbows. Obviously, the price of crossbows is much lower than that of armors, but the price of crossbows is much lower than that of armors.

The lethal deterrent effect is not small at all.

There are three methods suitable for the rebels to fight against crossbows: armor, crossbows, and large-scale inferior shields. In terms of cost, armor is the highest, followed by crossbows. A large number of inferior shields are the simplest and cheapest. And in terms of effect, inferior shields must be cheap enough.

To facilitate production, it must be made very rough, thick, and heavy. Such a shield is only slightly adequate for defense, but it is not strong, has extremely poor durability, and is not light, flexible, or practical enough.

Among the three methods, equipping shields in batches is the least effective.

As for the other two methods, equipping armor is much more expensive than equipping crossbows. From the perspective of the effect against enemy crossbows, the two are almost the same, and even crossbows can offset the enemy's long-range advantage better than armor.

After this comparison, it is not difficult to find that the crossbow is very effective and the cost is not too high. It is naturally suitable for the current situation of the rebel army.

In actual combat, an armored crossbow unit shoots at a distance from an unarmored crossbow unit. The attack power of the two is equivalent. Of course, the casualty rate of the unarmored side will be higher, but generally the crossbow units are lightly armored units.

Even for unarmored units, during long-range shooting, the casualty rate of the light-armored and unarmored archers of the official army was only slightly less than that of the rebels.

The rebels had a large number of bows and crossbows, which were enough to offset the superiority of the official army with several times their numerical advantage.

This is first of all, the rebels can use crossbows to counter the enemy's long-range advantage, and secondly, crossbows are extremely efficient cold weapons on the battlefield.

When the number of crossbows occupies a huge advantage, the lethality is also extremely terrifying. The enemy's infantry is much more armored than our army, so how can we offset the advantages of both sides at the lowest cost?

The first method is symmetrical armaments. If the enemy's army wears more armor, then our army should also equip more armor to make the two sides even.

The second method is asymmetric armament. Since the enemy infantry has a high armor rate, our army will do the opposite. Our army will vigorously develop cavalry or equip it with crossbows. The cavalry will rush over with hammers. What is the difference between armored and unarmored?

There is a difference. Crossbows can also cause certain effective damage to armored units.

The enemy has 30,000 soldiers, and the corresponding formation of 3,000 cavalry may be able to offset the advantage of the enemy's soldiers. However, the enemy has 30,000 soldiers, and I build 30,000 strong crossbows. The cost of 30,000 crossbows must be higher than the cost of 30,000 strong crossbows.

The armor is much lower, and given the special terrain and special battle conditions, the 30,000 strong crossbow can have an absolute advantage.

Offsetting the enemy's advantages at a much lower cost than the enemy is called asymmetric armaments.

Therefore, in view of the serious shortage of armor in the rebel army, especially the serious armor gap, the solution is to either spend effort to form cavalry, use cavalry to counter the enemy's long-range troops, and offset the enemy's advantage with asymmetrical play;

Attack against attack, crossbow against crossbow, both methods are efficient enough and far more useful than equipping a stomach.

The cost of raising cavalry is to raise war horses, while for crossbows, the cost is either labor or materials.

Labor costs are actually time costs, and time costs are related to technology and can be improved.

In other words, if most of the cost of crossbows is labor, then it is possible to make crossbows extremely cheap through technological improvements.

The crossbows are related to the armament of the rebel army. The rebels need to use a large number of bows and crossbows to offset the shortage of armor and stomach for the city. Since a large number of crossbows need to be equipped, the cost of the crossbows is very important.

Among the many craftsmen in the army, there are bow and crossbow craftsmen.

When Li Mengxi found the old craftsman who could make crossbows, Li Mengxi asked about the crossbow production process and labor hours and wages. The old craftsman, who was not very good-looking, squinted his eyes and talked nonchalantly.

"To make a bow, you need stems, horns, tendons, glue, silk, and lacquer. These are collectively called the "six materials."

The stem is wood. Among the trees, the top is the rubbing wood, followed by birch, oak, etc.

The horns are the horns of cattle and sheep. They are made into thin pieces and attached to the belly of the bow.

The tendons are made from beef tendons, sheep tendons, etc., beaten into silk, and attached to the bow arms.

Glue is used to bond various materials. Glue includes leather glue, fish glue, etc.

The wire is used for fastening. After the wood corners are glued together, they are then wrapped with filaments to make them firm.

The paint is applied to prevent frost, dew and moisture.”

The process of making a bow generally consists of these steps. To put it simply, the bow is made of wood, and the horns are used to stick to the inside of the bow. Tough tendons and other materials are smashed into filaments and stuck to the outside of the bow, and then glued together.

, at this point, the bow arm has actually been made.

Then wrap the bow arms with strings. This step is simply a reinforcement method to make the material tight and prevent cracking. The final painting is also for protection. Painting can prevent moisture and corrosion, which greatly improves the life of the bow.

According to the old craftsman, making a bow requires wood, sinews from cattle and sheep, horns, glue and paint.

Li Mengxi thought about these various materials. Wood is very important, but a tree weighs several hundred kilograms, which is enough to make hundreds of bows. Since wood is naturally abundant, it is not scarce.

Isinglass and various adhesive glues are also relatively cheap and easy to obtain.

As for the paint, you don’t use much. Applying paint is the same as applying tung oil. One can of tung oil can paint hundreds of bows, and it won’t be a big problem if you don’t use paint.

After a comparison, only the tendons and horns are scarce. As for horns, a cow only has one pair of horns, but tendons, hamstrings of pigs and sheep and other animals are also acceptable, and their sources are slightly wider.

According to the old craftsman, the tendons of the four hoofs of an ox can make more than three bows and arrows, while the tendons of pigs and sheep are too short. One pig can make one bow, and one sheep can barely make a bow.

The two things that most restrict the production of bows and arrows are the sinews and angles. The shortcomings of bows and arrows are here, and wood, glue, and paint are all bulk products.

From this, Li Mengxi realized that the number of cattle and sheep animals raised actually represented a certain war potential.

The two most lacking things are tendons and horns. Comparing them again, horns are actually more lacking than tendons. Firstly, there is more tendon material. The tendons of a cow can be enough to make three bows. There are also many sources of tendons. Beef tendons, sheep tendons, mule and horse tendons can be used.

, even human sinew can be used, but the only source of horn is cattle.

At this point, Li Mengxi understood why cows were so important in ancient times. Killing cows was punishable by death. Cows are extremely cost-effective livestock. Cows can cultivate land, cowhide can be used for armor, and cow horns are the most scarce material for making crossbows. Many livestock

Among them, only cattle produce the highest military value.

According to Li Mengxi's understanding of Julu's current situation and the situation in the next one or two years, it will be difficult to gather large numbers of horns within one or two years.

He asked the old craftsman if the bow could be made without horns.

The old craftsman squinted his eyes and was silent for a long time. Then he said cautiously, "Actually, you can make a bow without horn tendons."

Li Mengxi hurriedly asked, "How about the strength of a pure wooden bow?"

The old craftsman said, "It's very powerful."

Li Mengxi was immediately confused. He looked at the old craftsman in surprise and asked, "Since the rubbing wood bow is strong enough, why do you have to use angle tendons and other things?"

The old craftsman looked at Li Mengxi and smiled and said, "Young Master has never used a wooden bow, so I don't know the nature of rubbing wood. This bow is newly made from rubbing wood, and it is very powerful. It is stronger than a bow without angle sinews. It can be made purely from rubbing wood."

If you can't fire a few arrows, the bow will become weak and lose its strength."

Li Mengxi suddenly realized that this was the case. He understood why he didn't use pure wood to make a bow. Take rubbing wood as an example. Rubbing wood is highly elastic, but not durable enough. It will tire after just two arrows and is as soft as a noodle.

Therefore, it is necessary to use ribs and angles to increase strength.

Weapons must consider their durability. Only use rolled wood or other wood to make bows, eliminating tendons and angles. It is indeed possible to make a large number of crossbows in a short time. However, once the crossbows are ready, they will not be used for a long time.

No, weapons are prepared for war. The bows and arrows that have been made with great effort and a lot of manpower and material resources are broken before they are used. When the war comes, there are still no weapons to use, so it is a useless effort.

So no matter how much you save costs, you still have to have the quality you deserve.

Li Mengxi asked again how long it took to make a bow. The old craftsman replied that to make a bow, you need to cut down the wood first and spend a year drying it in the shade before you can make the bow. After the bow is finished, it takes another year to dry the glue paint.

After that, it will take time for the bow to take shape.

A bow can only be made in two to three years if you only count the time.
To be continued...