My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 447: Like a Dragon with Wings
After Zhuge Jin inspected the latest construction of Yuyang border city, he also listened to the reports from Tian Yu and Tian Chou on the response of the various tribes on the grassland.

A plan of attacking Guo through the false pretext of passing through the state took shape in his mind fluently.

In the following half month, the Youzhou Army's top brass naturally worked at full speed.
While preparing for war, they also made excuses and collected evidence to conceal the real purpose of their impending military action.

Of course, the division of labor is very clear and orderly, and there will be no disorder.

Zhuge Jin would personally take care of finding evidence and setting off smoke bombs, without anyone else's involvement, to ensure the highest level of confidentiality and optimum suddenness.

Zhao Yun was naturally in charge of preparing for battle. Moreover, Zhao Yun's preparations for battle did not start in September, but had already begun in July, not long after Zhuge Jin arrived in Youzhou.

Zhao Yun had already started training his troops and adapting to some new equipment in early August. Now, by the end of September and the beginning of October, the troops had been adjusted to their best condition.

To be honest, the new equipment that Zhuge Jin prepared for Zhao Yun was not unusual. It was actually a pair of double stirrups.

You readers should all be familiar with double-sided stirrups. Later historical research has provided clear evidence that the physical remains of double-sided metal stirrups first appeared in the Northern Wei Dynasty during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

However, Zhuge Jin was not as self-important as other time travelers, thinking that he could produce double-sided stirrups, which would have some amazing effect. He was a relatively cautious person. After coming to this world for so many years, he had been secretly observing and investigating the cavalry equipment of various princes.

According to Zhuge Jin's observation, the prototype of double-sided stirrups has actually existed for many years. At least in the chaos of wars among the princes after Dong Zhuo's rebellion, all parties naturally improved their equipment in the war confrontation, and it has been more than ten years since then.

However, the primitive double-sided stirrups of this era still consisted of a hemp rope loop on each side for the foot, which made it unstable to step on and were not widely used. Only some soldiers who were not good at horse riding modified them themselves so that they could control the horse a little more steadily on horseback.

This primitive thing is not very safe, and the risk and benefit are equal. Although it is more stable when riding and shooting, and it can free your hands, if you miss a step, your feet will get caught in the rope loop, and you will fall backwards from the horse's back, and you are very likely to be dragged to death by the galloping horse.

Apart from the simple double-sided stirrups made of hemp rope loops, Zhuge Jin could not guarantee whether there were double-sided stirrups with wooden pedals in the world.

After all, it is easy to prove that something exists, just get physical evidence. But it is very difficult to prove that something does not exist, and you cannot rely on enumeration. He didn't find it, maybe it's just because he doesn't have enough experience.

There are no artifacts of wooden and hemp double-sided stirrups in later generations. Perhaps these materials are more perishable and cannot survive for a thousand or two thousand years. However, the development of any ancient tool is gradual and unlikely to appear out of thin air.

Therefore, he did not dare to be overconfident about the new stirrups that Zhuge Jin made this time, thinking that they could really have a turning point effect. It could only be regarded as icing on the cake.

Because it was the first year of trial production, Zhuge Jin did not choose to use iron. Instead, he had people carve thousands of pairs of wooden boards and gave them to Zhao Yun's troops as experimental equipment.

This will facilitate confidentiality and subsequent iterations. In case some of the equipment is leaked on the battlefield, we can come up with an upgraded version in the future and continue to maintain our technological advantage for a period of time.

After all, the personal equipment of frontline soldiers will inevitably be lost due to casualties on the battlefield. We must never relax our vigilance against the enemy's imitation in the future, and keep it secret as long as possible.

Secondly, by carving a few batches out of wood first, we can avoid having to use molds for casting, and make a few more shapes. After the soldiers use them in actual combat for a few months, they can give us feedback on which shape is the most suitable and has the best effect. Then we can use metal materials for mass production next year.

After all, Zhuge Jin only knew about metal stirrups in his previous life, but he himself had hardly ridden a horse in his previous life, nor had much contact with the real thing. What if there was a problem with the initial design, and he just made it into something like two "bicycle pedals", and finally found that the effect was not good, wouldn't that be a waste?

It would be better to make a few more prototypes and conduct small-batch actual combat tests to collect data. This kind of engineering thinking was also impossible for other people in the Han Dynasty.

Finally, out of the same confidentiality considerations, Zhuge Jin did not choose to launch the hard high-bridge saddle immediately this year. He decided to take it step by step, first installing double-sided stirrups, and then putting the high-bridge saddle on hold for a year or two, until the time when a full-scale war with Cao's army could begin again.

After all, any piece of equipment that relies purely on creativity but has little technical difficulty is likely to be leaked once it is put into the battlefield, and the technological advantage may only last for one or two years. Once the enemy suffers a great loss, they will follow suit.

Previously, Liu Bei's camp did not control the northern horse-producing areas. After taking out the double-side stirrups and the high-bridge saddle, they did not have a large number of cavalry, but strengthened the enemy. This year, they controlled more than half of Youzhou, which slightly reversed this problem.

After careful evaluation, Zhuge Jin believed that double-sided stirrups would more obviously improve cavalry archery, while the high-bridge saddle would more obviously improve cavalry sprinting, so he gave priority to stirrups. As we all know, the cavalry of the three northern states of the Han Dynasty became better at riding and archery as they went east, and better at sprinting as they went west.

The Takahashi saddle is not as good as the double-sided stirrups in improving the cavalry's horse control stability, but it is worse than the double-sided stirrups in terms of the effect of the cavalry's reaction force when resisting a charge, so one is more biased towards mounted archery and the other is more biased towards close combat.

In this case, which equipment to launch first must of course be adapted to local conditions and combined with the actual situation of the horse-producing areas.

……

The wooden stirrups that Zhuge Jin had people make began production in July and were equipped to Zhao Yun's cavalry in August.

Anyway, things made of wood are very fast to make. A total of seven or eight thousand pairs were made, which was enough for Zhao Yun's cavalry unit to use in this battle.

Zhuge Jin was careful when making it. He did not let most of the carpenters who were cutting the wood know what they were making. He just asked them to make the wood into various shapes and drill holes.

The final assembly work, threading the hemp ropes on the wooden boards and connecting them to the saddles, was done by other people, all servants of the Zhuge and Mi Zhu families, and the confidentiality level was even higher. Because it was just assembly and sewing ropes, it was not difficult to do, and laymen could do it.

In this way, considering that the targets of this year's battle are the Wuhuan Subuyan tribe and Liaodong Gongsun Du, there is the barrier of the grassland. Even if some war horses are seized by Gongsun Du's soldiers during the battle, after Gongsun Du is defeated, there will be no risk of leakage, and the truth will not be spread to Cao Cao.

It was with this in mind that Zhuge Jin began to try out double-sided stirrups in this year's battle.

When Zhao Yun got this new equipment, he was overjoyed after the first few attempts and realized its potential.

Especially since Zhao Yun was also a general who was good at riding and shooting, he knew very well how much this pair of wooden double-sided stirrups helped him to control his horse and shoot arrows with stability.

In the past, when he rode and shot, he had to pursue a uniform speed in a straight line, estimate the lead time, and adjust the rhythm before shooting. After using stirrups, he could shoot arrows at any time and anywhere, even when changing speed, turning, or running.

For more than a month, he practiced diligently every day, adapting to the new equipment, and also recruited his own cavalry troops to practice hard every day, never letting them slack off. After more than a month of hard training, the cavalry's archery skills had improved significantly, and the changes in the formation of the army had become more and more proficient.

At the same time, Zhao Yun would not let his soldiers starve. In the face of frantic training and huge physical consumption, he also asked Zhuge Jin to ask Mi Zhu to pay for a batch of fresh beef, mutton and cheese products to ensure the nutrition and recovery of the soldiers.

Anyway, Yuyang City has purchased and stockpiled a large amount of fresh beef and mutton. Those that cannot be pickled in time can be directly used to supply the troops, and the cost is not too high.

As for cheese products, the Hu people on the grasslands already produced a lot of cheese. But Zhuge Jin still got the lactic acid strain Qu Jue, which he had cultivated and screened for many years, from the Guangling Microbiology Laboratory in the south, and built a new dairy workshop in Yuyang to ferment and produce cheese products that could be stored for a long time.

Dairy products are still high-end products in the south, and most of the cavalry in Liu Bei's camp have never eaten dairy products produced by Guangling County's high-quality strains. Now that they have arrived in the north, the milk source problem has been solved.

After eating yogurt and cheese, many cavalrymen were immediately amazed and thought they were heavenly. They had to admit that the princes were truly omnipotent. Even their fermented dairy products tasted better than those of the Hu people, and they made them feel more comfortable after drinking them.

Including the cavalry under Liu Bei, some of them were of Wuhuan origin, but they had followed Liu Bei in battle for many years and were thoroughly assimilated into the Han culture. They had also been accustomed to eating dairy products since childhood, so when they ate this new product, they were full of admiration.

This is a traditional craft that the Hu people have relied on for thousands of years! It is amazing that the Zhuge brothers were able to make cheese so mellow and yogurt so sour without any peculiar smell by starting with the koji used to ferment steamed buns.

This is a typical case of "just taking out some amateur hobbies and interests to overturn the other party's signature skills that they rely on for survival and livelihood", pure crushing.

With both equipment and nutrition guaranteed, the troops' training naturally improved by leaps and bounds, and their combat effectiveness was quickly raised to a higher level.

……

With both civil and military efforts being pushed forward in this way, time suddenly came to October of the ninth year of Jian'an.

To outsiders, October was already early winter, so how could the North deploy troops at this time? The military defense of all parties also relaxed a little.

However, Zhuge Jin had made all the necessary preparations.

After his deliberate collection of information, it became very clear that the Wuhuan Subuyan tribe was resisting the imperial court and refusing to cooperate.

For example, Zhuge Jin caught the Su Puyan tribe several times, who not only refused to open border markets with Youzhou, but also intercepted and killed caravans from other tribes that came to Yuyang to do business, and robbed their cattle, sheep and property.

Although this kind of situation of Hu people robbing Hu people happens every year on the grasslands in autumn and winter, it is not news.

Moreover, this kind of thing might just be that the people below were just acting out of the bitter cold after the temperature dropped, and they saw a fat sheep passing by and suddenly wanted to grab something. Even the chief, Su Puyan, might not know which of his subordinates did it.

But now that it's time to find fault, these little things can be used to make a fuss. Of course, the boss must be held accountable for the behavior of the lackeys.

Zhuge Jin didn't care whether he needed a pretext to attack a certain Wuhuan tribe - after all, it's easy to find a pretext to accuse someone of a crime. Even if there was no evidence, he would still attack them.

The main purpose of these dramas was to win over other Wuhuan tribes and prevent them from becoming alienated from the imperial court just because they were related to the Wuhuan.

On the other hand, it was also a show for Cao's scouts who had infiltrated Youzhou, so that even if they noticed the cavalry movement of Liu Bei's army or found Zhao Yun missing, they would not suspect Gongsun Du.

After doing all this, Zhuge Jin finally called Zhao Yun to confirm:
"Zilong, I asked you to train the soldiers and get used to riding and shooting with stirrups. How is the progress? I am ready for the drama here. I can order an attack at any time. Don't delay things on your side."

Zhao Yun patted his chest and assured him, "We have already prepared everything and are just waiting for the order to attack. Don't worry, Ziyu. I will only bring my 7,000 elite cavalry, without any infantry, to defeat Su Puyan!"

Zhuge Jin: "That's good. We can set off tomorrow. After you leave, I will gradually spread the news depending on the situation. If I can keep it a secret for a while, I will do my best. If I can't keep it a secret anymore, I will spread the news with a mixture of truth and lies."

Zhao Yun was in high spirits and immediately received the order. The next day, he led 7,000 cavalrymen, quietly left the pass, and headed northeast along the grassland.

Zhuge Jin did not announce the news to the officials and civilians inside the Great Wall at the first time, but at the last minute, he sent a message to Tadun and Lou Ban outside the Great Wall in advance, asking them to exercise restraint and cooperate with Zhao Yun. This message had to be sent, otherwise it would cause misunderstandings and accidental discharges of guns.

If you want to fight Subuyan through the grassland area controlled by them, you must always say hello to the local grassland owner and explain your intention to go. This is the most basic thing.

When Tadun and others heard this, their first reaction was a little surprise.

They were not surprised why Zhao Yun would attack Su Puyan, as this had already been foreshadowed. They were just surprised why Zhao Yun chose this time to attack, as the weather had begun to turn cold and it occasionally snowed on the grassland.

They all thought that Zhuge Jin was building up momentum and was preparing to take action next spring, but they didn't expect that he would take action in early winter.

However, they also knew that Su Puyan was guilty first, and the princes would definitely kill the chicken to scare the monkeys, and the destruction of this negative example could not be stopped. Moreover, during the autumn robbery, some of Su Puyan's tribes accidentally injured the cattle and sheep caravans of Tadun and Louban, which made them have no reason to help Su Puyan.

Tadun and Louban tribes also expressed their obedience to Zhuge Jin's envoy Tian Chou, saying that they would continue to cooperate with the court and would not hinder the court's efforts to eliminate the scum among the Wuhuan people.

However, they also asked the court to understand their difficulties. After all, they were all Wuhuan people, and it was impossible for them to send troops to help the court fight Subuyan, otherwise it would damage their prestige and tribal cohesion.

Tian Chou did not blame them. He always tried to comfort them, expressed his understanding, and would not ask them to do more.

Finally, in order to show peace, Tadun and others temporarily allocated a group of sheep that were originally scheduled to rush from Liaoxi to Yuyang to sell, and delivered them directly to Zhao Yun on the grassland north of Liaoxi, allowing Zhao Yun to raise meat and goat milk as supplies on the spot.

As a result, the logistics problems of Zhao Yun's cavalry were also improved. They did not need to eat the dry food they carried with them throughout the journey, and they could immediately get fresh meat supplies after arriving at the Liaoxi County grassland. As a result, the morale of the troops was higher, and the chances of winning naturally increased.

(End of this chapter)