Hu Baozong held the knife as if he were holding his own son.
A divine creature from heaven...
He wished he could grow a pair of wings and fly to Gaoping Town immediately.
Seeing his overjoyed look, Guo Cunxin secretly laughed.
Still meteorite?
Do you really believe it?
But thinking about it again, this argument seems quite reasonable.
Otherwise, why can this knife be so sharp and tough?
……
After seeing off Hu Baozong, Li Chengzhi was about to say goodbye and return to the camp so that the old blacksmith and his son could speed up the forging of the sword. When he turned around, he found Guo Cunxin staring at him with piercing eyes, his eyes as deep as water.
"Uncle..."
Li Chengzhi shouted, and his eyes also rolled.
Could it be that he is happy to see the hunter and wants one too?
Just a knife.
Regardless of anything else, it is just that Guo Cunxin worked tirelessly and worked hard for his nephew, which is not something that a knife can withstand.
Thinking of this, a smile suddenly appeared on Li Chengzhi's face, and he moved forward: "This is the first one. The remaining blacksmiths are forging it. I will go back to pick a good one and deliver it to my uncle myself..."<
/p>
"No, you can keep it and change the horse!" Guo Cunxin said quietly, "Just take a handful of your 'no loss iron' one..."
This tone is wrong, is it because you are jealous?
No, how can Guo Cunxin be so stingy?
Li Chengzhi was thinking in his mind and responded subconsciously: "You mean the one Li Song used? Naturally, meteorite is also mixed with some... Including this armor, otherwise why is it so hard?"
After he finished speaking, he was still a little proud: He is so clever. Why didn't he think of such a good excuse before?
If the dock master of the Fourteenth Fort knew that this cloth armor was forged with meteorite iron, he would be drooling, right?
When Guo Cunxin goes to negotiate again, maybe the conditions can be lowered...
He was so complacent that he didn't notice Guo Cunxin's shocked and stunned expression.
This nephew is really... he can deceive people to death with just one mouth!
I can't expose him yet...
The more Guo Cunxin thought about it, the more depressed he became. He held it in for a long time before he burst out with one word: "Get out..."
Li Chengzhi was confused.
Why did you fall out after doing so well?
Guo Cunxin didn't want to talk to him, so he tried to kick him out and kicked Li Chengzhi out.
After leaving the county and on the way back to the military camp, Li Chengzhi realized: Guo Cunxin didn't believe he had meteorite.
He had expected it.
How serious can a casual excuse be?
The strange thing is that Guo Cunxin didn't ask further: How did you forge this sword without meteorite?
For ordinary relatives, even if it is out of worry that the nephew may have evil thoughts or cause trouble, he must still ask...
Li Chengzhi is very happy: It seems that his uncle has some tacit understanding...
……
Two days later, the military camp outside the city.
Guo Cunxin stepped on the figure of eight with his feet, raised the knife above his head with both hands, said "Hey", and slashed down diagonally, and a piece of firewood flew up with the sound.
"Good knife, not bad..." He praised with a smile, raised the knife again, and slashed again.
In just four or five strokes, he chopped down a horse-tethering post until it could no longer hold the reins.
Li Chengzhi was a little helpless.
Looking at a person who is usually quite stable, why is he so playful?
It seems that no matter what age you are, no matter whether you are a teenager or an uncle, there is no one who does not like swords and guns...
After all, Guo Cunxin didn't ask for the Damascus knife, he just asked Li Chengzhi to exchange it for grain and horses.
He also said that he was not going to the battlefield, so he just had a gun for self-defense and just put on a facade.
After all, he was an uncle, so he couldn't be fooled too much, so Li Chengzhi put some thought into it and gave it to him after baking a medium-carbon steel knife blue.
The whole blade of the sword exudes a faint blue light, as if it has been smeared with poison... Not to mention, it looks pretty good.
Then he saw that it could blow hair and break hair. The sharpness and toughness seemed to be no worse than the one given to Hu Baozong. Guo Cunxin was so happy when he saw it that he couldn't put it down.
He felt that it was just Li Shixian's iron sword, and that was all...
Guo Cunxin even suspected that Li Chengzhi was really unlucky and had obtained some magical object similar to meteorite, right?
Otherwise, why would the forged weapons not only be so bright in color, but also so sharp?
Li Chengzhi stopped caring about him, picked up the urgent report delivered by Hu Baozong's horse, and read it again, his face full of joy.
For fear of leaking secrets, the words in the letter were relatively cryptic. Hu Baozong did not mention the process, only saying that Lu Gong had agreed.
This means that it is basically no problem to exchange one knife for ten horses.
This is another way to make money, and Li Chengzhi can't help but be unhappy.
The only problem is that there are not enough war horses in Gaoping Town, and it is not long after the Lichun Festival. The nomadic tribes of Rouran and Gaochang have not yet moved south. The distance is too far and it is not easy to find them, so they can't get enough at the same time. p>
What Hu Baozong meant was that if he was in a hurry, he would set off directly from Gaoping Town to Hexi Racecourse. With Lu Gong's seal, he could lend five to six hundred Liangzhou horses, which would basically make up one thousand.
How could you not be in a hurry?
If you equip it early and train one day early, you will have more combat power.
Moreover, the Hexi Racecourse is still west of Guzang City. It’s a little over two thousand miles away. If you go faster, it will take about 20 days to go back and forth, so the sooner you start, the better.
Li Chengzhi immediately ordered Li Song and Li Feng to take the remaining two thousand kilograms of colored copper to Gaoping Town.
At that time, Li Feng will first bring back the 500 horses that Lu Gong collected in the early stage, while Li Song will follow Hu Baozong to Liangzhou and buy some grain on the way back...
Li Chengzhi opened the second letter.
This is a list brought by Guo Cunxin, recording the number of cavalry, horses and cavalry that can be loaned to the fourteen forts in Chaona.
The number of people is quite average: each fort will have twenty more Dings, and the Ding family will be given to Li Chengzhi as well.
You can also bring war horses and bows and guns, but just like armor, they must be returned after the war...
Of course, people are not given away in vain: First, Li Chengzhi is required to send war cavalry on patrol every day to ensure that the forts and farms can be plowed smoothly in the spring. If bandits harass and besiege Wubao, Li Chengzhi must send troops to rescue them.
The second is that Li Chengzhi needs to lend equal amounts of Dingkou and Qingzhuang to each dock to avoid delaying farming at each dock.
He also requested that if the war calms down, Li Chengzhi must make up for the manpower gap left by these Baodings after they leave...
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Li Chengzhi laughed dumbly.
In wartime, having more people is of course a burden, but as long as there is no war, it is equal to productivity...
The wishful thinking was good. After all the calculations, it seemed that these wealthy families had nothing to lose. Li Chengzhi was asked to ensure that they would not be harassed and besieged by the insurgents, and that they could produce smoothly this year.
Even those who lent money must be paid back in full when the time comes... Is it equivalent to Li Chengzhi providing money and food to support these wealthy people for a year?
But that’s not how the account is calculated.
Li Chengzhi did not feel that he was at a disadvantage. Instead, he thought that these things were all things that he could easily do.
Holding on to Chaona does not refer to just holding on to the county seat, but to holding on to more than 4,000 households and 30,000 people including the 26 parties.
This is within the scope that Li Chengzhi thinks he needs to be responsible for.
There is no need for these rich people to remind you.
The equipped half-brigade cavalry, as well as the infantry that had been fully trained in the early stage, have begun to ride out of the camp every day, with Chaona as the center, and patrol the surrounding areas.
Not only to prevent thieves, the main purpose is for training.
Cavalry cavalry, how can you know how to ride without training?
As for lending Qingzhuang and Dingkou and filling the manpower gap with them after the war, it is not a big problem for Li Chengzhi.
These wealthy families didn't say it clearly, but both Guo Cunxin and Li Chengzhi knew what they were planning: those more than a thousand monk households.
Zhaoxuan Temple has been destroyed, who cares where these rebellious monks have gone?
The report to the court was naturally taken away by Liu Huiwang's thieves.
The Hu family has failed to take care of itself, and it is too late to comfort them. If they dare to provoke the local powerful again, they will naturally not expose their shortcomings.
Even if a new official takes office after the war, he will only try to win over the local wealthy families. Even if he knows about it, he will turn a blind eye...
Li Chengzhi couldn’t laugh or cry.
The foundation of the Yuan and Wei royal families should have been hollowed out bit by bit by the Han family and the Xianbei nobles...
He put down the letter and began to ponder again.
Since normal spring plowing in Chaona County can be guaranteed, can the scope be appropriately expanded?
It doesn’t need to be too big, as long as it can preserve the 100,000 acres of monk land in Zhaoxuan Temple.
It's all on both sides of the Jing River, and it's all paddy fields, so you don't have to rely on the sky for food. One kilo per acre has fallen, which means there are 100,000 kilo in this year...
And it’s not that far away. It’s only fifty miles away from Chao Na. Tang Qi’s daily reconnaissance journey is longer than this, so if the bandits really want to attack, they can’t come to rescue in time...
Li Chengzhi thought for a while and asked Li Xian to pass on the order to summon the chiefs of the major clans in the county, Song Lishen and the elders of the Song clan to come to the camp to discuss matters.
……
There were not many people, including Guo Cunxin, there were only eight.
After everyone sat down, Li Chengzhi said straight to the point: "I want the entire territory of Chaona and the monk village of Zhaoxuan Temple to resume farming!"
The other seven people were shocked.
Why so suddenly?
Chaona seemed to be safe, but it was only because Li Chengzhi had beaten the thieves so hard in a battle, and Liu Huiwang couldn't figure out the reality of Chaona for the time being, so he didn't dare to send any more thieves to the west to plunder.
But he might be holding back some cruel moves, and he might even attack one day...
Guo Cunxin looked at him in surprise and said after a long time: "Why don't you stick to Chaona first?"
He was the one who negotiated the matter of borrowing troops, so Guo Cunxin naturally knew what conditions were proposed by Shishiwu.
Because they are too scattered, guarding these fourteen Wubao is equivalent to guarding the entire Chaona County. It is not surprising that Li Chengzhi made this decision.
But what’s going on in Zhaoxuan Temple?
The two places are nearly fifty miles apart, and it is impossible for the villagers to go to Kongtong Mountain in the early morning and return to the city at night. Therefore, if they want to resume cultivating the monks' fields, they can only let the households settle at the foot of Kongtong Mountain and send a considerable number of troops.
Protect.
In this case, the troops must be divided. Can Li Chengzhi take care of it?
Li Chengzhi thought for a while and finally told the truth: "The monk farmland at the foot of the mountain exceeds 100,000 acres. Adding the Song family farm 30 miles to the south, the total is more than 120,000 acres, and they are all fertile farmland near the Jinghe River. If
Wouldn’t it be a pity if it was deserted?
There are enough manpower, but there are more than a thousand households of monks and civilians who have no land to cultivate, and as long as they do not counterattack Jingzhou, the army's horses, donkeys and mules will not be needed for the time being, so they can all be lent to them...
Hmm... I just don't have enough farm tools, so I collected them all and forged armor. But I can ask Chao to hurry up and finish planting before the Qingming Festival. Not only do we have farm tools, but we can also get more people to go there..."
Are you taking it for granted?
Guo Cunxin frowned and asked worriedly: "I'm talking about soldiers... Can you handle this divided force?"
Li Chengzhi paused for a moment.
How else to deal with it?
Every day I hope that Liu Huiwang will send some rebel soldiers over so that the new army can practice their skills, but the scout horse has almost reached fifty miles east of Chaona, and there is not even a trace of the rebel soldiers...
Maybe they were afraid of being beaten once, and the thieves couldn't figure out where this powerful army suddenly appeared from, so they didn't dare to attack rashly, so they turned to pick on the weak.
You know, Jingzhou has six counties and eighteen counties under its jurisdiction. Longdong County is located in the far west. To the east are Pingyuan, Pingliang, Anding, Xinping, Zhaoping and Pingping, five counties and fourteen counties. Which one cannot be grabbed?
It is also possible that, as Guo Cunxin and others guessed, he is holding back his ultimate move... But God knows how long Liu Huiwang will hold it back?
You can’t just wait for Liu Huiwang and do nothing, right?
At least we need to consider, if it becomes a protracted war, where will the rations of these 40,000 soldiers and civilians come from for the next half year?
So it is better to seize the time and take advantage of this window period to complete the spring plowing. By then, the soldiers will be almost trained, and they will be free to consider counterattacking Jingzhou...
"Uncle, don't worry about dividing the troops..."
Li Chengzhi pointed out, "Now there are three thousand infantry in this military camp, and they can go into battle after a little training. What's more, as soon as the forts arrive, the cavalry can be equipped with six hundred people... I'm not arrogant.
, as long as there are no more than 10,000 thieves, we will definitely be able to defeat them..."
Six hundred cavalry?
Where did it come from?
Guo Cunxin's eyes bulged and he asked in disbelief: "All men and horses?"
Li Chengzhi's eyes wandered: "The horse is in half armor, the man is in full armor..."
Guo Cunxin didn’t even know what to say.
Li Chengzhi told him two days ago that he could only forge a few pieces of armor every day. Two days later, he was able to assemble the armor of 600 cavalrymen?
Even if three hundred of them were brought by various Wubaodings, what about the remaining three hundred?
And what about horse armor, helmets, and greaves?
He was not angry that Li Chengzhi had lied to him, but was surprised. Even though it had only been more than a month since he moved to Kongtong Mountain, how did the blacksmiths of the Li family forge it?
It must be the secret method taught by Li Chengzhi...
Back to the old issue again, Guo Cunxin didn’t want to, and didn’t dare to delve into it any further!
Even such a miracle can be created, what else is impossible?
Guo Cunxin's eyes lit up slightly, and he suppressed the throbbing in his heart: "Just give me your orders!"
Song Lishen, the two village elders, and the two clan chiefs who assisted Guo Cunxin in managing civil affairs were a little strange. Why did Guo Cunxin agree so quickly?
But when I think about the concept of six hundred cavalry, I feel relieved.
To the rebels, even half-armored cavalry only means killing and crushing.
What's more, there are still three thousand infantry.
So what if most of these three thousand miles are newcomers?
How many days did Li Chengzhi train the half of the brigade that had defeated nearly a thousand rebels at the city gate?
Song Lishen and the two fellow villagers bowed their heads sincerely: "Please give me your orders..."
Not to mention the two clan leaders.
Li Chengzhi is acting as a voluntary bodyguard for the common people and gentry in the court. What reason do they have to object?