At dawn, Li Song set off, leading his convoy and soldiers to the west along the Jing River and passing through Kongtong Mountain.
If nothing else happens, they will arrive at Gaoping Town in two days.
There were five double carriages, one with Hu Baozong in it, and four with coppers.
There are two one-foot-square iron boxes at the bottom of each vehicle, each containing 500 kilograms of copper ingots. Then there are either silk and felt tents stacked on top, or grain bags and haystacks, and a vehicle.
There are several frozen pigs and sheep on it.
Hu Baozong did not hide his whereabouts, but when he was blocked, he said that he was going to Gaoping Town to visit Lu Gong.
This time Li Song brought twenty old soldiers of the Li family and eighty villagers of the Song family.
One hundred soldiers are all wearing Zha armor, carrying guns and swords, and they look like a powerful force at first glance.
Li Song originally wanted Li Bai to go, but Li Chengzhi was worried.
He was not afraid that Hu Baozong would blackmail the four thousand kilograms of copper, but he was afraid that Hu Baozong would make his own decisions.
For example, instead of buying iron materials, buy it directly into armor, or even buy not a grain of grain, but all into horses and weapons...
Don’t doubt it, Hu Baozong can definitely do it.
What Yin Zhen can understand, he naturally also understands: if the siege of Jingzhou can be solved first before the imperial court, no matter how serious the crime is, it can be covered up.
Even if there is only one in a thousand chance, Hu Baozong will definitely do it.
For example, just as Li Bai imagined, all the thousand soldiers in Li Chengzhi's hands would be armed as armored soldiers, or even armored cavalry, and then start a battle with Liu Huiwang...
Of course, four thousand kilograms of copper is far from enough, but as the eldest son of the Hu family in Jingzhou, he can definitely get it on credit even if he doesn't bring a penny.
Li Chengzhi was afraid that Hu Baozong would suddenly realize this and thought of this on the way, but he couldn't leave. As a matter of expediency, he had no choice but to send Li Song to watch.
Li Song is a die-hard loyalist of Li Shixian and Li Chengzhi. Hu Baozong still has some scruples and will not act too recklessly...
The remaining 900 soldiers were temporarily handed over to Li Bai for training. Li Bai was also experienced in battles. Even if rebels invaded in the past five or six days, he would be able to deal with it.
The tens of thousands of kilograms of iron material have been smelted long ago. Two thousand kilograms of them and more than four thousand kilograms of lead and tin were used to build the Buddha statue. The remaining eight thousand kilograms were smelted into about six thousand kilograms of steel plates, which have also been forged.
Thin, cut and punched.
In order to save process and time, each nail leaf is as big as a palm. Eight blacksmiths are leading dozens of Li's men to fix these nail leaves on the felt that has been woven.
Li Chengzhi calculated that if he only made armor, four hundred pairs should be no problem, but he only asked the blacksmith to make three hundred pairs, and the remaining nearly two thousand kilograms of steel plates were all used to forge helmets.
The main reason is that he always feels that wearing only an iron vest and exposing his head is equivalent to reminding the enemy: Come on, attack here...
The three to four thousand people were not idle either. Song Lishen took them to make wooden armor according to Li Chengzhi's request.
It's very simple. In fact, it is to imitate the manufacturing method of Zhajia, stringing together two-inch thick, palm-sized pine boards, and then sewing them with linen cloth to make the appearance of a vest.
This was not invented by Li Chengzhi. It existed during the Warring States Period. Most of the households who were poor and had no money to buy armor wore this kind of armor when they went out to serve in the military.
Li Chengzhi also tried it himself. The defensive power of this kind of armor is not low, and it is easy to chop. It has good defensive capabilities against long-distance bows and arrows and stabbing spears in chaotic battles.
What surprised Li Chengzhi even more was that the spiritual effect of this thing was even greater than the defensive effect.
When the more than two hundred monks who were incorporated into the army knew that the wooden armor would be worn during the battle, they actually shed tears on the spot, calling Li Chengzhi benevolent and righteous, and saying that if they went to the battlefield, they would fight to the death.<
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Renyi is a piece of shit!
He made this kind of armor just to hide it from others.
Even if he had the ability to do it, he would not let all of the thousand soldiers wear iron armor, only some iron armored soldiers and some wooden armored soldiers.
And they have to take turns wearing it.
Today you are wearing iron, tomorrow he is wearing wood, it will be rotated every day...
In this case, except for Li Song and close confidants like Li Bai, who can know how much iron armor is and how much wooden armor is?
When the time comes, those who actually go to the battlefield will naturally only go up to the armored soldiers first. When the ones wearing wooden armor have to go up, they will definitely have reached a desperate situation and have to cover up...
In addition, Li Chengzhi also had to watch the coppersmith transfer gold to the Iron Buddha.
This is a real technical job. Let alone the fur, Li Chengzhi doesn’t even know what raw materials he uses or what processes he uses, so he can only find professionals to do it.
Zhaoxuan Temple is responsible for the monastic affairs of a state. There are hundreds of temples, large and small, and naturally there are many Buddha statues.
Therefore, there are craftsmen among the monks who paint clay sculptures and transfer gold to bronze Buddhas, so you don’t have to worry about having no one.
But after these craftsmen started working, he realized how dangerous this work was.
In addition to gold and copper, the raw materials for gold transfer also use a large amount of mercury, and it must work under the condition of heating by mercury.
If you are not careful, you may get mercury poisoning.
So whether it was Li Liang, Li Zhang, the supervisor, or the coppersmiths, Li Chengzhi ordered them all to be wrapped tightly in leather robes, with only their eyes exposed.
A group of coppersmiths trembled while working: This man of the Li family is so bold that he melted all the bronze Buddhas and replaced them with iron ones?
When I finish crossing all these Iron Buddhas, will it be time to be silenced?
Li Chengzhi will silence himself only when his brain is broken.
These are all talents!
Regardless of the rest, when he gets the chance, Li Chengzhi will definitely open a few copper mines. With a little training, these people will be good masters of copper smelting and coinage...
So he had warned Li Song a long time ago: raise it after use, he will be of great use in the future.
The families of these coppersmiths have also been taken care of by Li Song, and they are grouped together with several families of Li family soldiers...
Then the rest are the women, children and the elderly.
These people also have work to do: some cook meals for the strong men and soldiers, and some help the blacksmiths sew felt armor.
In short, no one is idle, and nearly 10,000 people are basically stable.
Li Chengzhi has been praying that it would be best to stay settled like this until the civil unrest is calmed down...
……
I don’t know if God is merciful and is taking care of this group of rebellious people. Since the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, let alone snow, there have been very few cloudy days. Most of the time, the sun is shining brightly and the sky is clear.
The fields outside the monk's village had been specially leveled, and the snow had been cleared into the fields a mile away. After another seven or eight days of drying in the sun, after a large amount of slag had been accumulated in the iron-making, pottery-making, and copper-melting, Li Chengzhi
All the soldiers were asked to carry them down the mountain, and a school ground was laid out in the field.
The area is not big, just about a football field, and the generals and generals are enough for these nine hundred soldiers to catch and fight...
When Li Chengzhi went down, these nine hundred soldiers were practicing formation.
Li Bai stood on a platform made of wooden planks, about one foot high. Next to it were copper cymbals, gongs, cowhide drums, and a lot of colorful flags, the purpose of which Li Chengzhi still cannot remember clearly. p>