Xu Shu's decision to take action should be the best choice when it comes to Xuzhou.
Although he led few soldiers, he still had Tao Qian's strength to draw on. The situation was not too unfavorable, but his opponent was stronger. However, with Xu Shu's ability, even if he could not succeed immediately, it should not continue to deteriorate.
In order to ensure safety, Wang Yu specially transferred Guan Hai back from Licheng, and went south to Xuzhou with Xu Shu. Guan Hai could not defeat Taishi Ci, but he was still a strong soldier. With him holding a sword to protect him, at least Xu Shu would be safe personally.
The coefficient has been greatly increased.
After solving the matter in Xuzhou, there are many things left, but they cannot be solved with a slap in the face. Wang Yu is not in a hurry.
A little farewell is better than a newlywed.
In the next few days, Wang Yu lived an extremely happy life.
Either stay together with Diao Chan, say some love words that only two people understand, and do some things that make both of them happy. Or go to Cai Yan to listen to songs, play music, and flirt; or bring the two girls together.
When they are played in one place, the harp and harp sing in harmony, and they enjoy each other.
Of course, it's not that he's so intoxicated in the gentle countryside that he can't take care of business. It's just that the several big things he has to do involve a wide range of things, and they can't be solved by just patting his head.
The counter-plan against Jizhou required Jia Xu to make suggestions and Tian Feng to serve as counselor. After all, the latter was the most familiar with the situation in Jizhou and had a good personal relationship with Jushu.
That's right, it's not just Qu Yi that Wang Yu wants to deal with, Ju Shou is also one of his targets. Without this civil and military force, although the rest can't be said to be incompetent, it will be much easier to deal with than now.
Rebuilding Baima Yicong is more complicated.
Rebuilding the cavalry requires war horses and good riders. Although Gongsun Zan agreed with Wang Yu to send people to Youzhou to recruit troops, the time spent on the road back and forth was very long. In addition, Youzhou is vast and sparsely populated, so although the ratio of elites recruited is
High, but it is difficult to achieve scale.
More importantly, Gongsun Zan himself suffered heavy losses. It was not difficult to get war horses from him, but it was difficult to imagine opening up the supply like before.
For this reason, Wang Yu must find another channel to purchase war horses.
Liaodong, this ally that he had just picked up casually before, has suddenly increased its status in Wang Yu's heart. However, since the naval battle at the beginning of the year, Liaodong's ships have not appeared again, and it is unknown what the situation is.
However, the reconstruction of Baima Yicong is imperative. Wang Yu pursues a strategy of elite troops. Relatively speaking, cavalry is the most cost-effective, so Wang Yu naturally puts reconstruction work first.
Furthermore, it is to prepare for the next Hebei War.
Compared with the Qing and Youlian armies and the Jizhou army, each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
The coalition's soldiers were highly elite, especially the cavalry. Wang Yu's sharp counterattack started from the cavalry battle.
The advantage of Jizhou lies in its strong supply capacity and equipment advantages, especially the extremely high configuration rate of crossbows.
In the Battle of Jieqiao, due to the arrangement of the formation, the advantage of the Jizhou Army could not be fully utilized during Wang Yu's charging stage. However, after the formation change in the later stage, when Gongsun Zan charged the formation, the Jizhou Army used bows and crossbows to attack the cavalry.
His restraint was fully displayed, and he successfully blocked the fierce attack of the Youzhou Army.
Therefore, in the next battle, no matter who the leader of the Jizhou Army is, he will definitely use his strengths and avoid weaknesses, and will no longer use cavalry to compete with the coalition forces. Wang Yu will have no chance of winning in chaos.
Wang Yu's original plan was to mobilize Yu Jin's Royal Forest Army and Xu Huang's heavy infantry to cross the river at the right opportunity and flank the invading Jizhou Army with the Youzhou Cavalry.
However, the situation has changed now, and some of Yu Jin's troops need to be transferred to the southern front to prevent changes in Xuzhou.
In this way, the Jizhou Army had the upper hand in terms of numbers and equipment. In array battles, strong crossbows could offset the advantages of cavalry; the advantages of numbers and armor could offset the advantages of more elite soldiers on their own side.
Without obvious advantages, the outcome of this Hebei war is likely to be similar to the Battle of Jieqiao, or worse.
Turning into a war of attrition is not what Wang Yu wants. He set up such a situation just to attract Yuan Shao to attack, take the opportunity to hit the opponent hard, make him unable to relax for a long time, and gain development for himself.
, time to breathe.
At this juncture, it is impossible to expand the army. Simply increasing the number of troops is useless, and conscription will also weaken the development potential of the territory. The best way is to find a way to restrain the crossbows and regain the advantage of the cavalry.
This is a difficult problem, and there are no solutions, but it is very difficult to implement.
The heavy cavalry itself has the function of restraining crossbows. The Youzhou cavalry are all elite, and the horses are good horses. The only thing missing is the armor. If there are enough iron armor and horse armor, the Youzhou army can be armed into a heavy cavalry.
, Yuan Shao had many powerful crossbows in vain, he just stepped on them and crushed them flat.
However, that is impossible. Let alone building 5,000 iron armors and horse armors, even one-fifth of them would be an unbearable pain for Qingzhou.
Iron armor is a weapon of the military. It would take a skilled craftsman several years to build one, regardless of the consumables. A piece of fish scale armor weighs about forty kilograms, and horse armor covers a large area and weighs nothing.
Under the iron armor, it is even worse. The weight of the iron armor is basically iron.
One cavalry would cost hundreds of kilograms of fine iron, so one can imagine how expensive it is to build a heavily armored cavalry.
Therefore, even with Jizhou's wealth, there are only a thousand Euphorbia warriors in Zhangja. It's not that Yuan Shao doesn't want to expand the scale, but it is too expensive.
Yuan Shao, who was not short of money, was stumped, not to mention Wang Yu and Gongsun Zan, brothers who were still struggling to make ends meet.
Taking into account the number of craftsmen required to build a large number of armors in a short period of time, it was enough to make a prince feel dizzy. Because of this, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, with the dignity of an emperor, still solemnly and solemnly handed over hundreds of armors.
The best armor is hidden in the treasure house.
There is no doubt that in this era, this thing is a treasure.
The heavy cavalry that Wang Yu commanded only numbered 200, and the riders were not wearing fish scale armor, but inferior pierced armor. The armor of the war horses was not as comprehensive as the horse armor of the Euphorbia warriors.
In this way, he treated it like a treasure and didn't take it with him at all when he went into battle.
Now, if he is asked to acquire thousands of horse armors to arm the Youzhou cavalry, he is indeed more than willing but not powerful enough.
In addition to subjective factors such as morale and training, fighting relies on the strength of armor and the strength of soldiers. Without armor, you can still think of ways to use weapons. Wang Yu is also a veteran of using crossbows.
A way.
But in this case, the problem is back to the original point. The cost of making a strong crossbow is slightly lower than that of iron armor, but the labor required is not much less than that of iron armor. If you want to make a fuss about it, it is no different from building iron armor. They are all armaments.
Scope of Competition.
Therefore, before making a formal decision, Wang Yu had to fully understand the economic situation in his territory. Therefore, he had to wait for Mi Zhu, Guo Yuan, and Gong Tian to arrive before he could start.
In the final analysis, war is all about economics.
"... Including several new salt fields opened in Dongnai and Beihai, sea salt production has reached a considerable scale. Ninety percent of the salt fields along the East China Sea are controlled by our army. What my subordinates are currently doing is mainly:
Use various means to severely crack down on those powerful people who do not understand the overall situation, and adopt the method of courtesy first and then attack..."
With the Mi family's distribution channels and Gong Tian, a well-known private salt dealer, Qingzhou's salt policy has officially been put on track. Although it has only been a short period of time, it has not been able to completely achieve a monopoly and control the market salt price.
As far as the current output of the salt farm is concerned, the income is already quite substantial. In the foreseeable future, the income in this area will become increasingly large and become a pillar industry in Qingzhou.
The technical content of producing sea salt is not high, so in the salt administration, Wang Yu adopts the method of dividing the work according to division of labor. The Mi family mainly provides information and distribution channels, and the production is under the unified management of the governor's office. At the same time, the governor's office is also responsible for
Eliminate competitors.
Mi Zhu didn't pay much attention to the profits generated by the fruitful salt policy. What he valued more was the importance Wang Yu showed in the cooperation. Clearly, the share of up to 40% made him full of confidence in the future.
Of course, Wang Yu's efforts are not without reward.
The potential of the Mi family is not just to be a distributor. Among the tens of thousands of servants in his family, 30% are craftsmen of various kinds!
The folk martial arts in the Han Dynasty were very strong and did not restrict the use of force by the people. Therefore, when Wang Kuang recruited private soldiers, he was able to create a strong crossbow army. Although strong crossbows are powerful weapons, as long as they have money, they can
It can be done.
The financial resources of the Mi family in the East China Sea are several times higher than that of the Wang family in Taishan. There are eight hundred blacksmiths who can make soldiers and armors. These people were requisitioned by Wang Yu, and together with the blacksmiths Wang Yu had collected before, they were unified.
It will be managed by the newly established General Supervisor.
In the field, the main productivity of these craftsmen was on farm tools. Now, as the field slowly got on track, the output of the supervisors was also back on track.
Of course, its efficiency was far from what Wang Yu expected. The monthly output of armor and crossbows was only a dozen, which was still a drop in the bucket for the Qingzhou Army with 20,000 troops.
"The situation in Xuzhou is turbulent, but it does not affect the scholars' pursuit of Qingzhou paper..." The Mi family is involved in many industries. Even before contacting Wang Yu, there were technicians in the family who knew how to produce paper. Therefore,
Wang Yu also gave full authority to this task to the Mi brothers.
"My subordinates also carried out part of the purchase of tea. Following the instructions of the lord, they purchased a large amount of inferior tea and made tea bricks. However, there has been no news from Liaodong, so..."
In the familiar business field, Mi Zhu was very efficient, and he almost completed all the things Wang Yu asked before leaving.
After listening to the situation, Wang Yu had a rough idea of Qingzhou's current economic situation.
Except for the trade with Liaodong, everything else is running on a good track. However, most of everything is still in its infancy, and we cannot yet expect to compete with Jizhou for wealth.
If he wants to solve the problem of armaments, he can only recruit another cardinal. Fortunately, he had an idea a few months ago, and now he can put it into practice.
"Mr. Zizhong, can the production of paper be further increased?"
"Yes," Mi Zhu nodded subconsciously, and then said hesitantly: "However, even if the expenses of the academy and the governor's office are included, the current output is still sufficient. This paper is not easy to preserve. Before it is fully promoted, it will not be practical. It is not appropriate to expand production any further.”
"Yeah." Wang Yu nodded and explained with a smile: "Expanding production is not for selling food, but for making armor."
"What? Make armor? Use paper?" Mi Zhu and others were all shocked. They looked at Wang Yu with dumbfounded eyes. Their minds were in confusion. They thought they had heard wrong.
Then, what they saw was Wang Yu who replied with certainty: "Yes, it's paper armor." (To be continued. Please search Piao Tian Literature, the novel is better and updated faster!)