The first part of the war preparations was to make use of the Beiting people's war horses.
Lu Xu captured about 4,000 horses in this battle.
These war horses were mainly left by Prince Wulu. The troops he brought to attack Wei'an Fort this time were all cavalry troops, and most of them were troops with one person and multiple riders.
Lu Xu knew the importance of war horses, so when negotiating terms with Prince Wulu, he blackmailed Prince Wulu of 3,000 war horses. Together with the pieces captured in other battles, Lu Xu
Save these war horses.
It's not that Lu Xu didn't want to blackmail him too much. But although Prince Wulu was not very capable and his situation was worrying, he at least knew that if he gave Lu Xu more horses, let alone whether he could still compete with Khan.
Bit?
I am afraid that after becoming more powerful, Lu Xu will still be interested in the benefits that Prince Wulu can give him. There is no question. Once Lu Xu regrets and decides to leave Prince Wulu in Daliang completely, wouldn't he kill him with his own hands?
He handed the knife to Lu Xu?
So at that time, Prince Wulu withstood Lu Xu's pressure, even if he killed him, he only gave Lu Xu three thousand horses.
However, this amount made Lu Xu very embarrassed!
First of all, the number of these war horses was enough for him to let some people ride on the war horses.
Secondly, the number of these war horses is not that large. Lu Xu is engaged in a surprise attack this time, and he wants to attack a big city like Qinzhou Prefecture. Although Lu Xu will not go out with all his troops, he will always send out a large number of troops and horses.
Is it necessary?
There is no doubt that more than two thousand war horses cannot transport enough troops to Lu Xu.
Helpless, Lu Xu could only use these war horses to transport supplies to the troops. Among all these supplies, the most important thing was the big killer weapon Lu Xu had just made - the cannon!
In fact, Lu Xu has always had reservations about firearms. This is mainly because the performance of early firearms is really not very good, especially the performance of muskets is not as good as his eagle bow.
In addition, the performance of early muskets determines that the best tactic for using it is to line up and shoot, and it must be shot close to the face. This tactic basically treats soldiers as cheap consumables. This is purely because only strong countries can
At least it has to be something that only a country with a large population can play.
With Lu Xu’s little wealth, he still can’t afford to play with a musket!
Therefore, Lu Xu didn't think much of equipment like muskets. But Lu Xu was still quite interested in artillery.
Unfortunately, Lu Xu was not an expert in military or chemical industry, so there was one key problem that he could not solve, and that was the manufacture of gunpowder.
Lu Xu only remembered one sentence - monosulfur, dinitrate, and charcoal. He knew that this was the ratio of black powder.
But he didn't know much about the manufacturing and storage of gunpowder. And he didn't have anyone around him who knew about it. In addition, Lu Xu was really not in a hurry to use artillery in the early days, so he never tried to do these things.
.
until!
Lu Xu meets Lan Xuelin!
Lan Xuelin is a doctor, but in this era, doctors and alchemists always have some ambiguous relationships.
Lan Xuelin happens to be a person who "came from medicine to Taoism". In other words, he can be regarded as an alchemist. He is very knowledgeable about the alchemy techniques of alchemists.
When Lu Xu informed Lan Xuelin of the black powder ratio, he successfully tinkered with the black powder after several experiments.
Lu Xu is overjoyed!
At that time, he ordered his subordinates to start making cannons. Logically speaking, with the industrial level of Xin'anzhai, it would not be too easy to make cannons.
However, reality is always much more skinny than ideals. After this period of hard work, Lu Xu only built two types of artillery that were not considered artillery.
The reason that limits Lu Xu from making a real cannon is very simple and very invincible, that is - Lu Xu is short of copper!
As we all know, artillery, especially large-caliber artillery, must use copper. However, although Xinanzhai has strong industrial capabilities, it is uniquely short of copper.
Not only Xinanzhai, but also the entire Daliang is short of copper. Precisely because copper is a rare metal in Daliang, it can be used as currency.
Also because copper can be minted, this makes copper a very sensitive material in Daliang, which further makes it very difficult for Lu Xu to obtain copper.
The final result was that Lu Xu only produced two kinds of cannons that could hardly be called cannons.
One of these two kinds of cannons has the word "Pao" at least. In the history that Lu Xu is familiar with, it is called - Tiger Crouching Cannon.
The prototype of this thing is a weapon under Zhu Yuanzhang's Ming army at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty - the bowl-mouth cannon.
As the name suggests, this is a small artillery with a caliber only as wide as the mouth of a bowl. Later, this equipment was improved by Qi Jiguang and turned into a small artillery weighing about 36 kilograms.
Its range is only about 500 meters, and it can be launched at a large elevation angle. It is basically equivalent to the ancient version of a mortar.
The Tiger Crouching Cannon can fire both solid lead bullets, stone bullets, iron bullets and shotgun shells, and its range is far beyond that of crossbows. It is very lethal to both infantry and cavalry. Unless a larger caliber artillery is used for bombardment, otherwise
There was almost no way to restrain it on the ancient battlefield.
These characteristics of it determined that it was absolutely a first-class killer weapon on the battlefield before the industrial revolution.
The Qi Jiajun also relied on the power of the squatting tiger cannon to kill all directions. Even when the Qi Jiajun was fighting the Mongols, Qi Jiguang also invented a tactic of "cannon chasing cavalry" using a horse-drawn carriage pulling the squatting tiger cannon, which defeated the Mongols.
It's like falling flowers and flowing water.
Lu Xu felt that Qi Jiguang's tactics were indeed very sophisticated. So he also wanted to use a horse-drawn tiger squatting cannon style.
However, there is a problem here, that is, despite the fact that war horses are very majestic in size, in fact, war horses are very timid creatures, and any fright may cause them to go berserk.
Unless trained by humans, it is impossible for a war horse to remain calm amid the roar of artillery fire.
Good thing!
Lu Xu had heard about how to help the war horses to "train their courage". Before going out for the expedition, Lu Xu's most important task was to help the war horses practice their courage.
Lu Xu found someone to lock the war horses into a strong stable, and locked them tightly with wooden stakes and chains. Then he kept setting off firecrackers at their feet!
It can be said that although the war horse is not a human, Lu Xu is a real dog!
Where have the kind-hearted war horses seen such terrifying power? Let alone them, even the people in Xinanzhai thought it was a thunder explosion when they first heard the roar of the Crouching Tiger Cannon, and they were all frightened.
They all fell to their knees.
As a result, the heart-rending screams of the war horses soon rang out in the stables of Xinan Village.