The crown prince Zhang Jing led the troops to go on the expedition, and there were many people in the suburbs of Beijing to see him off.
Zhang Chao specially transferred 20,000 men from a corps of the Guards from Gyeonggi to Zhang Jing, and the equipment of the Guards was quite dazzling, with light and heavy cavalry and light and heavy infantry with artillery, and there were four types of light cavalry and two kinds of heavy cavalry.
An army of 20,000 men had 6,000 cavalry and 14,000 infantry.
Among them, there were 3,000 heavy infantry and 1,000 artillery.
The bright plate armor saw the blood boiling of the people who saw them off.
And those Huyi businessmen were dumbfounded.
Not to mention the heavy cavalry and hoplites covered in iron, even the light infantry is also a shiny breastplate armor on each hand.
This thing looks much stronger than the Mingguang Armor in the past.
In the past, the Mingguang armor also had two iron plates on the front chest and back, and there were iron scales and leather armor in the rest of the place.
But now you look at this breastplate, one on the front and one on the back, the belt is buckled, and the chest and back are protected within this iron plate.
So shiny, so strong.
"This Dahua Dynasty is so powerful, even the light infantry is iron plate armor, how much does this cost."
No, even the two great powers of the West, Rome and Persia, in the past, although they also had heavy cavalry, none of them had this kind of plate armor.
Not to mention that the light infantry has iron armor, and the light infantry in the West is basically a peasant soldier.
The peasants who were temporarily conscripted in the war were very good at holding the most rudimentary weapons, helmets and spears.
But if you look at the light infantry of the Dahua Dynasty, the standard configuration is a set of chest armor, a set of iron rope armor, plus a robe, a battle suit, an iron helmet, leather boots, and a silk cloak that can prevent arrows.
In terms of weapons, it is even more remarkable, with a bow per person as standard, accompanied by two pots of forty arrows.
There are at least three horizontal knives, short knives, daggers, and knives.
There will also be a spear, and it will be equipped with a halberd or blunt weapons such as a short-handled axe, iron bones, and hammers.
What amazed the barbarians the most was that they usually had two horses.
One ride, one pack gear.
The equipment of the pack included tents, sleeping bags, blankets, raincoats, ropes, sapper shovels, marching lunch boxes, water bottles, a month's worth of food, and even salt, oil and vinegar.
Where is this going to war, this is going to camping Not to mention the large shields of the shield soldiers, the hard crossbows of the crossbowmen, the muskets of the musketeers, and the grenades.
The elite of the Western countries is only knights.
The rest of the light infantry were almost all peasants.
But look at this Eastern Empire, people not only have a standing army, a professional army, but also have such good military discipline and such sophisticated equipment.
Morale is like a macro.
Sorrow for those poor Silla people Baekje people, they are doomed.
"I really can't imagine why this Great Chinese Dynasty is so strong and rich" Many of the Hu people were shocked and obsessed with the equipment of the Dahua army, and in their opinion, such a shiny and shining breastplate armor was worth at least fifty gold solidas or more.
Fifty solidas, which is equivalent to twenty-five cows.
This is still relatively cheap for them, after all, those iron armors in the West, a set of more than a dozen gold solidas, but that armor can be compared to Dahua's plate armor Even if it's just chest armor, not other parts, this one can be used as more than five sets of ordinary armor in the West.
A well-equipped knight in the West will have at least about fifty solidas for a full set of equipment.
It was already considered an elite, and it required 500 acres of arable land and more than 100 slaves to maintain the equipment and daily training and combat expenses of the knights.
But Dahua, a light infantryman, is actually better than the equipment of a knight.
A pair of breastplate armor, fifty solidas.
Three swords, a spear and a bow, such a good sword and bow, at least fifty solidas.
There are also two horses, not twenty solidas There are helmets, cloaks, boots, and armor and other armor, so I have to have another thirty solidas.
Various tents etc., ten solidas.
Whatever you count, a light infantry piece of equipment costs more than one hundred and sixty solidas Worth eighty bulls What about the better equipped heavy infantry, the light cavalry and heavy cavalry, and even the huge artillery Those shrewd Tessie merchants felt like they couldn't count.
Where is this war, this is to put all the belongings on you.
If you capture a Chinese army and take off their equipment, you will have to make a fortune.
However, many barbarians don't know that although Dahua sells military equipment overseas, it does sell at a sky-high price.
It's not much cheaper than the prices they calculate, and there will be some discounts if the quantity is large.
But in fact, the cost of Dahua's ordnance production is actually low, so low that ordinary people can't believe it.
For example, war horses and horses on behalf of horses, Datang now produces horses in Daibei, Hetao, Longyou, Qinghai, Hexi, Western Regions, Liaoxi, Liaodong and other places, and the horse-producing lands on the grasslands such as Subi and Mobei are constantly trading high-quality war horses into the Central Plains.
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In the various military horse farms of the imperial court, there are groups of fine war horses.
These horses were trained in the military horse farm, sent to various armies, and even sold to soldiers and officers at low prices.
The price of a war horse is only about 10,000 yuan.
It's just ten, which in the past was only the price of a cow.
In the past, a good war horse was at least fifty times, and it could often be sold for seventy or eighty times.
And now, war horses are sold for ten, or even seven or eight times, to officers and soldiers.
Sufficient sources of war horses, so that the price of war horses is very low, for the military, war horses are not expensive, expensive is to raise horses.
A good war horse must provide enough concentrate, which is equivalent to raising five infantrymen.
And the plate armor that the barbarians envy the most is actually not that expensive.
For example, the standard equipment of mass production of light infantry such as chest armor is actually far less expensive than the Mingguang armor of the past, not only cheaper than the Mingguang iron armor of the past, but even cheaper than the leather-based Mingguang armor.
The reason for this is that iron production has increased dramatically, and so has steel production.
In the past, it was difficult to produce some steel, and it was difficult to forge thousands of hammers, but today's steelmaking technology can get thousands of catties with a furnace of molten steel.
After batches of steel plates are rolled out, they are quickly processed and formed by hydraulic forging hammers.
The whole piece of large chest plate armor, in fact, compared to the original iron armor made of pieces of armor leaves, I don't know how much time has been saved.
In terms of cost, the cost of a better quality breastplate armor is less than one-tenth of the cost of a set of iron armor with less defense than the plate armor in the past.
From iron ore mining to iron smelting and steelmaking, to steel rolling and forging, large-scale, batch production, and the use of hydraulic forging hammers have improved the efficiency of each link countless times.
The final cost is greatly reduced, especially the production capacity is greatly increased.
Who would have thought that a set of infantry cuirass, composed of two steel plates, two cowhide linings, and a few cowhide belts, was actually surprisingly low The accounting cost of the Armor Division of the Armor Bureau is only five dollars per set.
That's about the price of a bull.
Such a set of light infantry armor, which could only protect the chest and back in the eyes of the ordnance superintendent, was sold to Rome or the Franks, and the price did start at fifty solidas, which was equivalent to the price of twenty-five bulls.
But the Roman Emperor Heraclius still hoped to buy as much as he could, but the money was not enough, and he also hoped that Dahua's bank would lend them money to buy ordnance.
The price disparity is so great, the key is that iron is not worth much in Dahua now, although the imperial court is very strict, but the iron output has been rising year by year in recent years.
Iron production is abundant, and steel production is equally large.
The Romans are still using the old method of forging steel, but Datang can get a large amount of molten steel one furnace at a time, and several thousand catties of molten steel can be obtained from one furnace.
The production of steel made the Roman emperor jealous.
Dahua has sufficient steel production to produce ordnance, and even has the ability to produce steel farm tools, cooking utensils, etc.
The iron output of Foshan Iron Works in a month is more than the iron output of the Roman Empire in a year.
Even the Guangzhou Iron Pot Factory consumes more iron in a year to produce iron pots than Rome uses to produce ordnance in a year.
The war is fought with comprehensive national strength, and there is indeed nothing wrong with that.
Iron armor, steel knives, and cast-iron cannons weighing hundreds or even thousands of pounds.
Dahua's artillery even had the luxury of using iron bullets made of iron as cannonballs, while the Romans still used stone bullets.
Dahua's Ordnance Supervision Bureau can easily produce hundreds of thousands of sets of armor a year, and even Dahua's 600,000 officers and soldiers, all of which are purchased by the imperial court.
The Romans, on the other hand, still relied on the knights to bring their own equipment to fight.
A high-quality horizontal knife, but only 200 yuan factory price.
A spear is only eighty yuan.
A set of full-body knight plate armor is only twenty dollars in cost.
These are all unimaginable to outsiders.
This is also the capital that Dahua can be invincible invincibility invincibility.
But these, whether the Romans or the Arabs, they can only drool with envy.
Because they don't have such advanced technology as Dahua, a weapons industry is not simple.
From coal mining to coking, from iron ore mining to iron smelting to steelmaking, steel rolling to weapons manufacturing and processing, this is a huge industrial system at the national level.
In the past, this system was established by Zhang Chao little by little, and now the key technology of iron smelting and steelmaking is still in the hands of the royal family, and the imperial court has an advanced ordnance production system.
If the Romans wanted to copy, it was simply impossible, and it was not useful to poach one or two craftsmen.
"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's fleet has already arrived in Hankou and sailed into the Yangtze River."
Ma Zhou reported to Zhang Chao.
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"Your Majesty, there is one thing, recently many Hu businessmen have been inquiring about ordnance, and it seems that many people want to sell ordnance."
The imperial court now had arms for export, which were sold to Rome and allies such as the Franks and Axum.
It's all big orders, and the bulk goods haven't been sold yet.
The Arabs are even more severely blocked on arms exports.
But good things will always attract attention, and this time the prince sent troops, which can be regarded as a weapon display.
Many Hu merchants also heard some news, such as the cost of Dahua's ordnance was much cheaper than that of Rome and other countries.
There are many good things in the Eastern Empire, silk, porcelain, tea, cane sugar, even paper, and ships, etc., but these weapons are also obviously good things.
With such a sophisticated weapon, it will never be sold, and it can be sold for a good price wherever it is pulled.
Especially in the territory of those barbarians, what they lack most is good weapons, and their own processing and manufacturing capacity is insufficient, so they can only supplement it by purchasing.
Such a good Central Plains armament, if it is traded with the barbarians, in exchange for gold, silver, gems and even slaves, etc., it will definitely make a lot of money.
"It's a good thing that Hu Shang wants to buy ordnance, and our military's equipment is almost the same, and it is currently overcapacity and insufficient operation, and many ordnance factories have changed some civilian farm tools and cooking utensils."
"Also, a lot of the old ordnance we put down is also piled up in the warehouse."
"Send someone to organize these Hu businessmen to communicate, of course they want to buy ordnance, of course, there is no problem, first recommend the old ordnance we have changed to them.
Sell as much as you can, and just keep the price to it.
If they want new gear, they can do that, but the price is higher. ” In such a large industry as the Ordnance Supervision, if there is overcapacity, it cannot be eliminated, and the military industrial system is still very important.
If it is possible to maintain the military industrial system and make profits by exporting ordnance and making foreign trade orders, then of course there is no reason not to do it.
As for whether arms exports will threaten Dahua, in fact, distance is the best security guarantee.
What Rome and Franks are too far away from the Central Plains, even if they sell more to them, they will not have the ability to fight to the East.
As for the export of ordnance, it is inevitable that some ordnance will flow out of Arabia, and even the enemy countries of the Tang Dynasty, such as Chenla, Pyu, Langyaxiu, Sri Buddha, Arakan, Jieri, Lion Kingdom, Silla, Baekje, Dongying, etc.
But Zhang Chao still said that this kind of small-scale inflow will not cause much qualitative change.
Dahua soldiers are equipped with a cuirass, and the cost is only five times.
Sell it, at least 50 guan, and these enemy countries in Baekje may buy it for 60 guan.
How much can they afford at such a high cost?
"Your Majesty, the princes want to buy ordnance" "Of course, the princes want to buy and sell, and the price can be slightly lower than the export price, but the ordnance purchased by the princes needs to be registered and recorded, and the number of ordnance they buy must not exceed the amount of troops and equipment they have."
The princes had the right to produce ordnance, but they could only use it for their own use and were not allowed to sell it to the outside world.
Therefore, most of the princes actually couldn't produce it themselves, and they had nothing else to buy, so they could only buy equipment from the imperial court.
And those who have the ability and technology to produce equipment, but iron is the monopoly of the imperial court, they still have to buy iron and steel here in the imperial court, and they are still limited by the imperial court.
By raising the price of steel materials, or even directly raising the selling price of ordnance, the imperial court was able to control the size of the princes' armies and the quality of their equipment to a large extent.
And the imperial court can even make another profit by selling equipment to the princes, which is equivalent to levying a large amount of war taxes on the princes. t1706231537: