Chapter 434: Krypton Gold Warrior VS Flesh and Blood

Great Ming's iron armor is extremely expensive. San San Niangzi once said that the construction cost of the Beijing Camp's iron armor could buy the entire Northern Hu, which is not a lie or flattery to Great Ming, but a fact.

To this day, except for the iron armor of the Great Ming Emperor Zhu Zhu Yijun and Prince Zhu Zhu Yiliu, also known as the Mingguang Armor, there is no iron armor made of homogeneous steel plates. The iron armor used by the Great Ming Emperor is manually forged, a hundred-refined steel knocked out bit by bit. The construction period of this thing is truly too long.

There is no big difference in the initial manufacturing process between the iron armor used by the Emperor and the iron armor used by the Beijing Camp.

Iron materials, coal, limestone, etc., are loaded into the hopper. Under the traction of the hinge, they fall into the furnace belly from the furnace throat. The hot air pipe bypassing the furnace body is pressurized and pressed into the furnace belly from the tuyere. The fully burned coal produces high temperature, melting the iron materials into iron juice. The craftsmen insert long pliers into the slag outlet to pull the glaze initially formed by impurities out of the slag outlet, and open the iron outlet to start flowing out the iron juice.

These glazes are excellent for paving roads and will not be wasted.

The iron juice flows into a square pool. Through stirring, the air is fully contacted with the molten iron. The entry of cold air will not cause the temperature of the molten iron to drop. The temperature of the molten iron will instead rise further, because combustion requires oxygen. After the air and high-temperature molten iron are fully contacted through stirring, the carbon in the molten iron will burn again.

At this time, a pool of 【wrought iron with a large amount of impurities】 will be obtained.

This practice is extremely inefficient and requires frequent replacement of the wood used for stirring. The wood cannot hold up for a few times at all, and under the high-temperature roasting, accidents are prone to occur. People often fall from the side of the pool into the pool water. The craftsmen of Great Ming designed a cylindrical blowing steel-making front bag that can be tilted.

This front bag has air holes, which can inject heated air into the molten iron, and the tilting can allow the molten iron to burn more fully with the air.

This step of improvement took the Xishan Coal Bureau a full seven years. From the time Wang Wang Chonggu took charge of the Xishan Coal Bureau, he had been carrying out improvements. Finally, under the premise of basically ensuring the safety of the craftsmen, a large amount of wrought iron could be obtained in batches.

The carbon content of wrought iron is extremely low, so it is very soft, because the carbon in the molten iron has already been burned out during stirring.

At this step, the Great Ming Emperor's imperial armor enters the stage of pure manual creation. Through a large amount of manual forging, the impurities in the wrought iron are excluded. Heating and forging, repeatedly, and then starting to use various means to carburize. The most luxurious method is to put 【wrought iron that has been repeatedly forged to remove impurities】 into a large amount of salt and carbon powder and burn it to melt, and boil it for two days and two nights. A piece of 【homogeneous steel plate】 is manufactured, and then it is beaten from the steel plate into the Mingguang Armor used by the Emperor.

Whether it is manual labor or salt melting, it is too expensive and cannot be mass-produced at all, let alone arming the Beijing Camp, even the Emperor's Embroidered Uniform Guards cannot be fully equipped.

The process needs to be improved. Referring to the process of Great Ming's "steel needle" manufacturing, Wang Wang Chonggu led the Xishan Coal Bureau to carry out process improvements.

Wrought iron with a large amount of impurities needs to be forged with a water-powered hammer. After the wrought iron with impurities is heated, it is thrown into the mortar. The water-powered hammer, which cannot perform complex and precise processing, constantly lifts and falls under the water power, forging the impurities in the wrought iron. The reason for using the water-powered hammer in this step is that it is a rough but abundant and cheap power.

These wrought irons without many impurities are heated until they are red, and then passed through two large steel rollers. This is because of the minting of silver coins. Great Ming has made more breakthroughs in roller technology. After roller pressing, the wrought iron without impurities becomes 【wrought iron plates with uniform thickness】.

The wrought iron plates with uniform thickness are transferred from the water-powered hammer workshop to the model workshop. This step only requires mold pressing, and then the craftsmen repair the edges and corners. A 【hollow iron armor embryo】 is done.

Wrought iron is soft in texture and has extremely poor strength. No one can wear iron armor made of all wrought iron. Li Li Rusong, who can pull mountains, cannot fight in iron armor made of all wrought iron.

Like the Mingguang Armor forged by hand, the hollow embryo also needs to be carburized.

Each piece of iron armor embryo is sprinkled with carbon powder and thrown into an earthen kiln. After the earthen kiln is violently heated, it begins to close the kiln. This is the steel-stewing method of steel needles (recorded in "Tiangong Kaiwu"). Rows of iron armor embryos are fully permeated with carbon powder in a high-temperature, closed kiln without oxygen, and 【iron armor embryos with uniform carburization and good surface carburization】 are obtained.

At this step, the iron armor is still an embryo. It is still soft wrought iron. While it has no defensive power, it is also very easy to deform. This requires quenching, which is divided into oil quenching and water quenching. Under the violent thermal expansion and contraction, the embryo of the iron armor will deform violently, making it unusable.

The deformation problem needs to be solved. The iron armor embryo is heated and put into an iron support. The red-hot iron armor embryo enters the cold oil. Under the violent thermal expansion and contraction, the iron will contract violently to form dense crystals. This is also the significance of carburization. Carbon atoms can form crystal nuclei in this process of contraction and crystallization, and this is also the reason why the strength of wrought iron quenching will not increase too much.

【Wrought iron carburized plate armor with initial defensive power】 is done. At this time, it still cannot be worn, because the iron armor after quenching becomes hard, but also becomes brittle. Facing strong bows of over one hundred jin and fire guns, it is as brittle as a piece of paper—this is not a metaphor but a fact.

The next step is tempering. What needs to be done is also very simple: put it into the earthen kiln again. The high-temperature closed kiln without oxygen can slightly thaw the dense crystals, and 【iron armor with uniform carburization, good carburization, good quenching, and tempering correction】 is obtained.

This kind of iron armor is essentially still wrought iron, because the carbon content of each part of the iron armor is not the same. The defensive power is far inferior to the Mingguang Armor made of pure steel, and the weight is greater.

If one wants to obtain steel plates with uniform quality, the current Great Ming can only rely on the pure manual manufacturing of craftsmen with strong nine-clan bonds.

This kind of iron armor is manufactured in batches and cannot be tailor-made, so it is actually very ill-fitting. There are certain difficulties in the use of soldiers, but in the ninth year of Emperor Wanli, it can be said very definitely: this is steel armor!

Let alone the Northern Hu, even the Great Ming Beijing Camp has one-third of such iron armor. The defensive power is already the limit under the current productivity.

The cavalry battalion's iron armor is a specially made half-body armor and breastplate. The armor Li Li Rusong wears is the same Mingguang Armor as the Great Ming Emperor.

Wang Wang Chonggu is the initiator of the "Memorial on Relieving the Rogue's Distress by Combining Fields and Corvee" and the official factory group manufacturing method. Similarly, the profits of the woolen official factory he leads are used to pay the Beijing Camp, and the coal-steel joint operation of the Xishan Coal Bureau is responsible for manufacturing the armor, fire guns, war chariots, etc., needed by the Great Ming Beijing Camp.

Wang Wang Chonggu is actively improving salt-melting carburization, striving to make the mass-produced standard iron armor close to the Mingguang Armor used by the Emperor in terms of defensive power and weight. This is very difficult, but in these eight years, Wang Wang Chonggu has been personally supervising the improvement of the process. Compared to the clanging forging at the beginning, the cost of Great Ming's iron armor has now been reduced by half. This is the advantage of assembly line production. Under the condition that the defensive power remains unchanged, the weight of a full-body iron armor has been reduced from forty-four jin to thirty-seven jin.

Li Li Rusong's cavalry battalion is fully equipped with iron half-body armor. Each person has three war horses, and each war horse is a carefully selected, excellent horse, and each war horse is fed with beans, grain, and forage together, and will not lose weight in winter, and each person is equipped with fire guns, hand guns, and cavalry guns.

Cavalry battalion, Great Ming's true krypton gold warriors! Every part of their body flashes with the light of eye-catching, real gold and silver!

The armor of the Central Plains is the same as the horses of the grassland. Except for fighting, it is useless, and the people are forbidden to have armor. After the Northern Yuan court fled, the Northern Yuan court thoroughly lost the Hui craftsmen, and also lost stable fuel supply and iron ore supply. Coupled with the embargo policy since the Emperor Hongwu period, there are very few iron pots on the grassland, and iron armor is even more scarce.

After the Emperor Longqing peace talks, the grassland did have iron pots, but from iron pots to iron armor, do you expect the Northern Hu to use cow dung to burn and forge?

Therefore, the grassland people are true flesh and blood. It is not bad to have a piece of leather armor.

Dong Fox, through the telescope bought with heavy gold, saw Li Li Rusong's figure and fell into two questions for a while.

The first question is: who the hell is the grassland person! A cavalryman actually has three war horses, and those are war horses, not pack horses!

The second question is: is the trap he set really luring the enemy into the urn, or is it binding himself?

It was not until he saw Li Li Rusong and the cavalry battalion he led with his own eyes that Dong Fox understood Khan Chahan Chahan Naoer's despair and what kind of monster Khan Chahan Chahan Naoer was facing.

Dong Fox saw Li Li Rusong's figure, and Li Li Rusong also discovered Dong Fox's trap. A dozen scouts galloped into the mountain col on the grassland. This is Wuchuan leading to Bansheng City, a mountain named Wengguan Mountain, which is the only way to pass.

Li Li Rusong's position could not observe the situation in this mountain col, but this place is very, very easy to set an ambush. On both sides are gentle slopes of hills. Once the enemy rushes down from the gentle slopes, Li Li Rusong and the twelve personal guards he brought will fall into a situation of being isolated and helpless.

"Young General, should we be more cautious?" A personal guard obviously also observed this situation. These dozen scouts are a bit like bait.

Li Li Rusong reined in his horse, nodded and said: "You are right."

Through the information from the distant Marquis of the Duntai, the person who came was Dong Fox. Dong Fox killed the Regional Commander Tang Tang Kekuan in Miyun, which was the method of luring the enemy deep. And Xu Da's defeat in the Lingbei Battle was also because of isolating the army deep. Li Li Rusong firmly remembered the sentence Qi Qi Jiguang told him: If the vanguard wins, the balance of victory will tilt by seventy percent; if the vanguard loses, it is a collapse.

This position is so critical, his equipment is so excellent, he is crazy, not stupid.

"Dong Fox wants to cheat me, setting an ambush in this place, so I will follow his plan and play with him here." Li Li Rusong led a dozen personal guards and began to drive the horses forward, but delayed entering the disadvantageous terrain, just hovering around the trap, constantly observing. The more he observed, the more Li Li Rusong confirmed that an ambush was set here.

Dong Fox saw this scene and suddenly became alert, because he heard the sound of horses' hooves, the faint sound of horses' hooves, which made Dong Fox realize that this treacherous Li Li Rusong had long seen through his plot and deliberately lingered, just to wait for reinforcements.

Dong Fox had not thought that he would be countered, but the rapid reaction and rapid mobility unique to the grassland suddenly appeared on the Great Ming army, making him completely unable to react. When the Great Ming iron cavalry appeared in his field of vision, Dong Fox knew that he had fallen into the trap.

Great Ming's iron cavalry did not step into the trap, but chose to detour. Dong Fox's 2,000 ambushers were completely exposed. An ambush turned into an encounter battle. Dong Fox suppressed the fear in his heart and began to command. As soon as they engaged, they fell into a disadvantage.

Great Ming's iron cavalry, the warriors of the capital, the krypton gold warriors are roaming.

To be precise, Great Ming cavalry relied on the range and lethality of fire guns, and did not intend to have direct contact. Every cavalry of the cavalry battalion was too expensive. Li Li Rusong discovered the lethality of "lining up to shoot" and chose long-range combat. Looking back three hundred years, this is the grassland's unique move: horse archery. Without contact, the enemy is killed and injured to the greatest extent. After the enemy's morale collapses, then launch a charge.

The grassland has not yet entered the rainy season, and gunpowder smoke is permeating the battlefield. The explosion sound of gunpowder is like a life-taking talisman. Every volley will blow out pieces of blood flowers from countless grassland warriors with lead bullets, while the grassland people's arrows cannot hit the enemy at all.

Zhu Zhu Yijun practices martial arts. He cannot open a 120-jin tiger-strength bow now, but he can open a strong bow of over 100 jin. But when riding a horse, he can only use a 60-jin soft bow. Qi Qi Jiguang said that horse archery has little effect on the battlefield because the battlefield environment has changed after the addition of fire weapons.

The grassland people's recurve bows are only 60 or 70 jin. The effective killing range of fire guns is far higher than that of bows and arrows. Great Ming's cavalry battalion is harvesting the lives of Dong Fox's warriors in volley after volley.

Dong Fox began to order the boys to stare at the fire guns and charge, hoping to bite the enemy, but the horses of his subordinates were not all war horses, and after a harsh winter, because of the haze of war, both people and horses were thin as bones. Whether it was explosive power or endurance, they were not as good as the cavalry of the cavalry battalion.

Unknowingly, Dong Fox did not discover that the battlefield had undergone some transfers. The two hill mountain cols changed from the Great Ming army attacking the enemy formation to the enemy army attacking the hills where the Great Ming was located.

"Fire cannons!" Dong Fox's eyes were about to split!

If you can't afford to play, don't play!

Good cavalry confrontation, what do you mean by setting up a fire cannon array on the tip of the mountain!

This Li Li Rusong doesn't talk about martial arts, actually pulling the side-box war chariots to the hills!

In the half-hour engagement, Li Li Rusong had already arranged the fire cannons, and the initiative of the battlefield had already quietly turned into Li Li Rusong's hands.

"Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!"

Dong Fox stood under the big canopy and shouted loudly to command, but it was already too late, because the gunpowder smoke of the fire cannons had already risen, and the roaring sound was transmitted after a small while.

A total of forty-five nine-jin fire cannons fired in the first round. Forty-five flowering shells crossed the sky, reflecting the sunset in the evening, and burst violently when they approached the ground. The iron caltrops in the flowering shells brought a whistling sound and smashed into the soldiers of Dong Fox's charge.

The grassland cavalry without armor, facing fire cannons, especially flowering shells, only had flesh and blood, and had no resistance at all. Not many people died, most of them were injured. Whether it was people or horses injured, it was fatal on the battlefield.

"Retreat! Retreat!" Dong Fox finally learned Li Li Rusong's strength, and the whole person was like a demon, shouting loudly and commanding. After he ordered the retreat, he took his slaves and began to flee.

Li Li Rusong picked up his wolf-tooth club, drove the horse to move forward slowly, and shouted loudly: "Great Ming cavalry battalion, charge!"

The banner began to wave, and the cavalry battalion began to gather behind Li Li Rusong. The cavalry battalion started walking slowly at first, and after more than ten steps, it became a fast trot. After more than twenty steps, the fast trot turned into a gallop. Li Li Rusong took the lead, led the cavalry battalion to charge down from the top of the hill toward the enemy, and the horseshoes stepped on the grass, stepped on the broken stones, and the cavalry battalion like a steel torrent rushed down from the top of the hill.

Li Li Rusong is a lunatic on the battlefield. The weapon he uses is a wolf-tooth club. Every time he swings, he brings out a cloud of blood mist. His two hundred personal guards, like a sharp knife, completely tore open the enemy formation, and then the personal guards split into two and tore to the left and right. Dong Fox's troops immediately fell into a complete disadvantage.

After two rounds of charging, a great collapse began. The heavy-armored cavalry battalion did not pursue, and the breastplate cavalry responsible for support began to pursue.

The breastplate cavalry is a cavalry with only breastplates, not even half-body armor. It mainly focuses on mobility, responsible for mobile support and pursuit on the battlefield. The heavy cavalry is mainly used to break the formation and pierce the enemy's battle line, causing the enemy to collapse.

Li Li Rusong had already fully mastered the combat of the cavalry battalion. After the light cavalry repeatedly harassed and shot the enemy to cause the enemy's fatigue, the heavy cavalry made the final decision, and the light cavalry began long-term hunting and pursuit.

The only heavy cavalry figure in the light cavalry was Li Li Rusong himself. His armor was very light, only twenty-five jin. His horse was very strong, and he had three war horses. One horse was named Flying Wing, one horse was named Winning Sword, and there was another named Snow Reflection. The first two were imperial horses sent by Shah Mamet to His Majesty (Chapter 350), and Zhu Zhu Yijun bestowed these two national gifts on Li Li Rusong. And Snow Reflection was given to Li Li Rusong by Qi Qi Jiguang. The biggest advantage of this horse is endurance. Endurance is the most important thing in escape. Li Li Rusong did not use Snow Reflection for escape, but for pursuit.

Two days later, Dong Fox was resting in the leeward place of the grassland with less than three hundred remnants. He didn't know where he was.

His headquarters was originally a ten-thousand-man team. After repeated conflicts, when he surrendered to Altan Khan, only five thousand people were left. He took two thousand people to ambush Li Li Rusong, but was completely eaten by Li Li Rusong. After he fled back to the camp, he thought Li Li Rusong would not chase him, but the Great Ming cavalry battalion only took half a day to assemble. After dawn, the Great Ming cavalry battalion began to attack his camp.

Dong Fox's camp did not last for two hours before it was completely broken. Dong Fox took two thousand people and began to flee. After another day and night, there were less than three hundred people left by his side.

"Lunatic, really a lunatic!" Dong Fox said sternly with red eyes. For these two days and two nights, Li Li Rusong's banner always fluttered at the very front. Dong Fox was not that he didn't think about charging and killing the opponent's main general directly, but every time he was countered by Li Li Rusong.

"I shouldn't have killed Tang Tang Kekuan." Dong Fox lay on the grassland. Those grasses and trees were like enemies, making him unable to sleep. Regret covered his heart again. Regret had been said countless times, but there was no regret medicine to eat.

Great Ming is very vengeful. If you win, it's a stroke. When, who led how many people to win the enemy, and what kind of military merit was obtained, if you lose, it's endless. Great Ming's pen-correctors began their performance, analyzing why they lost, how to win back, how many scales the enemy had, and the memorial analysis was weighed by the jin, and it was also long-winded when written in the history books.

Winning is deserved, losing is recorded in the small notebook.

Dong Fox really didn't close his eyes for two days and two nights, and had been running. Li Li Rusong slept for two hours plus one hour. He was not made of iron either. Before sleeping, he would get a bowl of fried flour, pour water into it, stir it casually, and pour it directly into his mouth, then gnaw a light cake, and drink another bag of water.

The reason why Li Li Rusong chased Dong Fox and didn't let go for two days and two nights, and still wanted to continue the pursuit, was because Qi Qi Jiguang once mentioned his guilt toward Tang Tang Kekuan.

Tang Tang Kekuan's death was because he did not obey Qi Qi Jiguang's military order and went out to fight himself and died. But Qi Qi Jiguang felt that there was his reason. He was a great general and commanded large-scale battles. He should have considered the complexity of the battlefield.

The reason Li Li Rusong insisted on chasing Dong Dong Huli relentlessly, refusing to let him go for two days and two nights and continuing the pursuit, was because Qi Qi Jiguang had once mentioned his guilt toward Tang Tang Kekuan.

Li Li Rusong had a chance, so naturally he would not miss it.

Dong Fox's tracks were found, and Li Li Rusong set off again. It was not far, less than ten li, and it only took a quarter of an hour for Li Li Rusong to find Dong Fox. The completely exhausted Dong Fox's eyelids were fighting, and he heard the sound of horses' hooves.

The sound of horses' hooves came from all directions. He was surrounded.

"Dong Fox! Surrender!" Li Li Rusong's angry shout sounded from a hundred paces away, and arrows poured into the circular formation of Dong Fox's three hundred people.

Dong Fox and the three hundred people he had left had no combat ability and resistance will at all. Two quarters of an hour later, they were either killed or captured.

Dong Fox lay on the ground panting, following the wolf-tooth club in front of him, looking up at Li Li Rusong on the horse, instead showing a relaxed and relieved expression. He was tired, really tired. This lunatic simply couldn't be shaken off. Being captured was a stable life for a month or two. He would be beheaded after being escorted to the capital, but if he continued to run, his subordinates would definitely cut off his head as a certificate of surrender and surrender to Great Ming in exchange for a reward.

Fight, can't beat; run, can't run away.

Li Li Rusong's Battle of Wengguan Mountain completely annihilated the more than 5,000 people of Dong Fox's headquarters, killed over 4,300 enemies, and the cavalry battalion lost only seventeen people. In one battle, Dong Fox was captured alive, shaking the grassland!

The collapsing soldiers in Bansheng City were more serious than before. The five ten-thousand-man households of Altan Khan, the five ten-thousand-man teams, had more than 5,000 deserters, and the morale had completely fallen to the bottom. Qi Qi Jiguang led the main army to arrive ten li outside Bansheng City and began to besiege the city.

Altan Khan did not come out of the city to fight, because Li Li Rusong's cavalry battalion was still stationed in Wuchuan. Once he came out of the city, it was a disadvantage of being attacked from front and back.

Qi Qi Jiguang did not order an attack on the city, but began to announce: Altan Khan's head is worth 1,000 taels, a ten-thousand-household commander's head is 500 taels, and a thousand-household commander's head is 100 taels. As long as you get it, you can go to the Great Ming army to receive the reward. For ten days, after ten days, the Great Ming army will break the city.

Qi Qi Jiguang is not threatening. He lined up the fire cannons one by one and began to bombard three times a day.

On the third day, the city walls of Bansheng had been thoroughly beaten. Under the pouring of nearly ten thousand fire cannons and five hundred thousand jin of gunpowder from this Beijing Camp, a city with a circumference of less than thirty li could not withstand such fire cannon coverage.

Qi Qi Jiguang is not squandering, but also a helpless move. Gunpowder must be fired after it is pulled out, otherwise it will deteriorate after the rainy season. The grassland is not the Central Plains, and there are no such good storage conditions.

And the supply pulled another 100,000 jin of gunpowder to the front line. After 500,000 jin of gunpowder, Bansheng City could no longer be called a city.

On this day, Qi Qi Jiguang came to the front line. Ten fire cannons, more than two zhang long and with bellies like water buckets, appeared outside Bansheng City. This is the thirty-jin fire cannon that the Royal Academy of Sciences has tinkered with.

It is said that it is to be used on the Roaming Dragon as a ship cannon. Great Ming's largest fire cannon is only fifteen jin of gunpowder, and this thirty-jin fire cannon is truly beyond everyone's expectations.

Land warfare, this thing can only defend the city, and the significance is not great, but in naval warfare, this thing is extremely useful.

It is said that the lunatics of the Royal Academy of Sciences are preparing to tinker with a fifty-jin fire cannon. This thirty-jin fire cannon has been test-fired many times. This time it was pulled to the grassland entirely to test the reliability of the equipment, whether it can be fired smoothly after long-distance bumps. The ammunition fired is not a flowering shell, but a solid sub-mother shell.

These ten thirty-jin fire cannons were pulled to the foot of Bansheng City, and Buyan Huang Taiji, who was responsible for looking out, slowly raised a "?" on his head.

What virtue and ability does Altan Khan have, what virtue and ability does Bansheng City have, to use this thing?

Commander Qi, look at the completely collapsed city wall with a telescope!

After the fuse was lit, everyone retreated a hundred paces. If this thing exploded, it would not be a joke. Qi Qi Jiguang had seen this thing explode with his own eyes. The continuous roaring sound outside Bansheng City sounded like thunder, and the world was shaking. The sub-mother shells, under the roaring sound, were like black silk, rushing toward the only remaining city gate, smashing through the city gate tower, and then the momentum did not decrease, smashing into the city.

Ten thirty-jin fire cannons killed 0 enemies.

"Waste." Chen Chen Dacheng looked at this scene in a daze. The big fireworks are naturally good-looking and scary, but 300 jin of gunpowder = a flintlock gun firing, which could also kill two people. This thing, except for completely smashing the already broken city gate, seems to be useless.

Actually, it is useful: hitting morale.

In the afternoon, Altan Khan sent his second son Buyan Huang Taiji to the Great Ming camp to discuss the surrender.

These ten thirty-jin fire cannons are the confidence. Great Ming has plenty of gunpowder. Altan Khan finally chose to surrender. Qi Qi Jiguang had already built the camp to the foot of Bansheng City, and he had already reached a dead end.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 435 =====

These ten thirty-catty cannons were the source of his confidence; Great Ming had plenty of gunpowder. Altan Khan ultimately chose to surrender, and Qi Qi Jiguang had already built his fortifications right up to the foot of Ban Sheng City; he was already at the end of his rope.

(End of this chapter)