Chapter 1,063 Active Defense

"The armies that can be fought are, first of all, the Capital Forbidden Army, dominated by the above four new armies, with a main force of 50,000 people. They are the most elite troops of our Song Dynasty."

"But this unit lacks actual combat experience, and how it performs when facing huge pressure remains to be tested."

"The second warworthy army is the Northwest Forbidden Army..."

Zhao Xu raised his hand like a primary school student: "Wait a minute, Bianjing's military strength used to be as much as 500,000. Although it has been eliminated many times, now there are still 50,000 in the three provinces and 200,000 in the fourth auxiliary. The total is not 300,000."

Ten thousand?"

Guo Kui glanced at Su You awkwardly, and Su You said: "Your Majesty, according to the estimates of the Military Aircraft Department, the military strength of Sanji's soldiers is no more than that of the Western Army's civilian Tibetan soldiers, who are strong, brave, and the Bow and Arrow Society."

It's trainable, but it's still a little short of being able to fight."

"The soldiers of the Fourth Auxiliary are more responsible for building cities, roads, and canals, and they belong to the logistics corps."

"Of course, it doesn't mean that they are unimportant, but they are far from the level of 'combatable' we proposed, and they can only be regarded as reserve soldiers."

Zhao Xu asked: "Then the 'warable' in your words, can it be defeated by the armies of Xixia and Liao?"

Guo Kui finally breathed a sigh of relief: "According to Shaobao's requirements, at least it must be able to face the Western Xia Iron Kites, the Liao Kingdom's palace tents, and an army that does not show signs of decline."

Zhao Xu also breathed a sigh of relief. If I had told you earlier, I thought such an army did not exist in the Song Dynasty. But now there are as many as 50,000, which is not bad.

Seeing that Zhao Xu's expression improved, Guo Kui continued to command the map with his baton: "The second warworthy army is the Northwest Forbidden Army, which is divided into Linfu, Qingjian, Weizhou, and Hehuang."

"Now there is another place, Xijing Ganyi New Army."

"The Western Army can fight hard and dare to sacrifice. The Shaanxi Fourth Army was started by Da Fan Laozi Fan Yong. Today, the name of the strong army is known all over the world."

"Also, the quality of the troops of the Western Army is relatively high, and they have been entangled with the Xixia, Qing and Tang Qiang for hundreds of years. Regardless of whether the Tibetan soldiers are strong, brave, and have bows and arrows, they are all good."

"In all roads in Shaanxi, several generations of a family have served the Western Army. The men cannot live past their thirties, and it is common to see a bunch of widows living together."

"But this army also has problems. The first is poor military discipline, the second is complex composition, the third is different treatment, and the fourth is inconsistent command."

"These weaknesses are actually complementary to each other. The Western Army is a mixture of Tibetan and Han Dynasties, and the Forbidden Army, Xiang Army, and State Army are a mixture of volunteers. Each army comes from different systems, and their salaries are completely different. For example, the Dun'an and Control Crane troops from the southwest,

The difference in treatment between the two is more than 20 times compared to that of fellow villager Yiyong from Fengxiang."

"Therefore, the command is also different. Some are under the command of Fanluo, who return to the head; some are state troops, who return to the prefecture to command; some return to the border generals, some return to the military envoys, and some return to the envoys."

"There is a lack of an effective and unified command system, and the response is very slow. Often by the time a decision is made, the enemy has already taken over."

"Most of the defense areas belong to the Hengshan and Qingtang Mountains. The sergeants are used to fighting in the mountains and defending cities. Specifically, they need to be trained strictly to use cavalry in joint combat on the plains or to attack cities."

"But it's not bad at all. After several generations of hard work, the Western Army's military strength is over 100,000 capable of fighting."

Seeing Zhao Xu nod, Guo Kui continued: "The third part is the Hebei Forbidden Army. However, the Song Dynasty and the Liao Kingdom have not had a war for many years, and the quality of the Hebei Forbidden Army has declined significantly."

"Coupled with the famine, not only the quality of the army is worrying, but there are also gaps in the men who can serve as soldiers."

"Therefore, although the total number of the Hebei Forbidden Army has been expanded to 70,000 since the third year of Xining, the 70,000 can be said to be capable of fighting...but only 10,000 in Xiongzhou and 10,000 in Da Ming."

"As for the other state troops and township warriors in the prefectures and counties, they are even more unusable."

"The military strength of our Song Dynasty is roughly the same."

Seeing Zhao Xu's brows furrowed again, Guo Kui quickly swung his baton to the south: "But there is also something gratifying. Before the Song Dynasty in Xining, the southwest and southeast armies were actually the weakest two."

"But now, Dun'an and Konghe in the Southwest Army are the most courageous and capable troops in the Song Dynasty. In more than ten years, they have become the elite of the Forbidden Army from the volunteers of the Xiang Army."

"And the Ninghai and Jinghai in the southeast are even more powerful outside the territory and have pacified several countries."

"However, the shortcomings of these armies are that the investment is too high and the armaments are expensive. The southeast is dominated by the navy and cannot be used in the northwest."

"The number of people is not large. The southwestern branch still has 6,000 stationed in the southwest and 6,000 stationed in the northwest. The southeastern branch is to control thousands of miles of sea territory, guard Penang and Longya, intimidate the countries in the South China Sea, and protect maritime trade.

, the task is already extremely heavy.”

After analyzing the military distribution and combat strength of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Xu sadly discovered that according to Guo Kui's calculations, it was almost impossible for the Song Dynasty to continue to guarantee victory in foreign wars under the current circumstances.

Even the defense is stretched thin, how can we make progress?

Su You cupped his hands and said: "Your Majesty, a good cook does not lie in how many ingredients are available, but in using the only ingredients to make delicious dishes."

"Although our Song Dynasty is not perfect, our enemies are not perfect either. Please be patient and listen to what Guo Dutong has to say."

Guo Kui hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, the south is now relatively peaceful. The Nanyang Navy of the Song Dynasty can directly defend Jiaozhi and the Rinan coast. The peninsula is bounded by Haiyun Ridge, and the east end of it enters our country."

"Haiyunling is surrounded by mountains and forests, with no roads to pass through. The few passes are now in the hands of our army."

"Nanhai County at the mouth of the Kowloon River can control the entire Gulf of Siam, and the several ports in the southern part of the Penang Peninsula that control the Strait are even more unique."

"Your Majesty, you see, starting from Longya Port, heading northwest along the inner line of the strait, passing Penang, and then going forward is Dama."

"To the northwest of Dama, there are forests all over, and there is no land route. You have to turn northeast and pass through a valley called Shating before you can enter the area controlled by the Siamese people on land."

Today, there are still more than two hundred years before Ramkhamhaeng established the Sukhothai dynasty, the first regional power in Siam in history. Today, Dama and Sating are just two small primitive settlements.

As long as these two places are controlled, the entire Longya Peninsula will fall into the hands of the Song Dynasty. It is natural for one man to guard the land that no one can open. The Song Dynasty will naturally take it honestly and unceremoniously, and then build it into Dama Port.

and Shating Pass.

Sure enough, I heard Guo Kui say: "Around Shating Pass, there are rich tin mines, and there are also two military mineral deposits that are extremely important for improving steel properties - manganese and tungsten. Naturally, I, the Song Dynasty, want to win this god-given land.

"

Tungsten is the result of the cooperation between Sitong Mining and Tianshifu. The amazing thing about it is that until now, no one has made it into a pure metal smelted product.

In other words, although Sitong Mining has put this metal into applications, no one has seen tungsten wire or tungsten strips.

Because the melting point of this metal is extremely high, currently no furnace in the Song Dynasty can reach such a high temperature.

However, the existence of this metal has been discovered by Xiao Tianshi, but what is obtained is tungsten oxide - by melting tungsten ore with soda ash and adding acid, you can get a tungsten oxide that is insoluble in water, soluble in alkali, and slightly soluble in

Acid yellow powder - tungsten trioxide.

This is enough. Tungsten trioxide powder can be reduced by calcination to obtain tungsten carbide powder. Soon it was discovered that this thing has properties that can improve the performance of steel. It is a new type of steel that is different from Erlin cutting steel - tungsten

Steel began to be used in Da Song's high-end machine tools.

Xiaotianshi named this metal "tungsten" not because of its color, but because it means "nothing" - everyone knows its existence, and it can also be used to improve the performance of steel and obtain super-hard materials.

Tungsten steel, but at most you can only get tungsten powder and tungsten carbide powder, but you cannot extract pure metal tungsten bars and tungsten ingots.

In any case, with several large mines around, Zhao Xu had no pressure at all to capture these two small villages, arrange for immigrants and soldiers to build them, and incorporate them into the territory of the Song Dynasty.

If God does not take it, you will suffer the consequences!

Controlling these two places not only brought a lot of wealth to the Song Dynasty, but also completely cut off the overland threats from the Longya Peninsula.

As for the sea, the Nanyang Navy of the Song Dynasty did not have any rivals.

Then Guo Kui pointed his baton to the north: "In addition, Dali has always been respectful, so the southwest and southeast of the Song Dynasty are now stable."

"The main disaster is Xixia, which is the strategic goal we urgently need to solve now."

"Xixia is not rich in products, has a small population, and its territory is not wide."

"But it poses too great a threat to the regional security of the Song Dynasty."

"If Jingyuan and Yanyan are defeated by Xixia, we will lose the land in Guanzhong, and then be threatened by Zhengzhou and Kaifeng."

"If Xixia defeats Lin Mansion, it can threaten us in Taiyuan and then invade Kaifeng."

"This is our country's huge strategic disadvantage - not only is it difficult for us to make progress, but once key areas are breached, we will face the danger of losing large tracts of territory."
Chapter completed!