In the thirteenth year of the Tianbao era: I became Yang Guozhong's eldest son.

Li Guangbi threw down his spear, dusted off his hands, and sighed.

"Unfortunately, the Tang Dynasty's military crossbows are expensive to manufacture and have an extremely slow draw time. To create sustained suppressive fire, it's simply impossible without thousands of well-trained crossbowmen. Your three hundred men are far too few, my lord."

Yang Xuan laughed upon hearing this.

"General Li, you just said that the Tang Dynasty's crossbows are too slow to reload, making it impossible to maintain sustained firepower?"

Yang Xuan turned his head and waved to a camp tent not far away.

"Old Huang, bring out our new gadget and show it to General Li!"

"Okay!"

With a slightly smug shout, Old Huang, along with several craftsmen, laboriously carried out five heavy wooden boxes covered with black cloth.

The wooden crate landed with a dull thud.

Yang Xuan stepped forward and ripped off the black cloth covering one of the wooden crates.

Inside the box, ten uniquely shaped crossbows were neatly stacked.

These crossbows were larger than the crossbows currently in service with the Tang Dynasty. Instead of the usual sight, they had a rectangular wooden box on top of the crossbow body, and complex mechanisms and levers were added to both sides of the crossbow arm.

"What is this?"

Li Guangbi frowned slightly, stepped forward, picked up a crossbow and examined it carefully.

With his many years of military experience, he had never seen a weapon of this type before.

"This item is called a 'repeating crossbow,' or an improved version of the Zhuge Repeating Crossbow."

A confident glint flashed in Yang Xuan's eyes.

This is the ultimate weapon he created by combining his memories from his previous life with Old Huang's superb carpentry skills, and by spending a lot of money and energy.

Although the Tang Dynasty also had repeating crossbows, most of them were cumbersome and prone to jamming, making them unsuitable for large-scale field battles.

The one in his hand is a perfect product that has undergone countless trials.

"Pei Zhao, demonstrate for General Li."

"Here you go!"

Pei Zhao stepped forward and skillfully picked up a repeating crossbow.

He opened the wooden box above the crossbow, grabbed a handful of specially made short steel crossbow bolts from the quiver next to him, and stuffed them all into the box.

Ten crossbow bolts were loaded in an instant.

Then, Pei Zhao gripped the crossbow with both hands and aimed it at a straw man wearing iron armor fifty paces away.

Li Guangbi stared wide-eyed at Pei Zhao's movements.

He wanted to see just how powerful this strange thing really was.

Instead of straining to pull the string with his foot as he would with an ordinary crossbow, Pei Zhao gripped the lever on the crossbow arm with his right hand, pulled it back sharply, and then quickly pushed it forward.

"Click!" A crisp sound of a mechanism closing.

Immediately afterwards, a sharp "whoosh!" was heard.

A steel crossbow bolt shot out like a black lightning bolt, striking the armored straw man fifty paces away, even piercing through the thin layer of armor.

But this is not over yet!

Pei Zhao's arms moved like tireless machines, frantically repeating the pulling and pushing motions.

"Click! Whoosh!"

"Click! Whoosh!"

"Click! Whoosh!"

A series of sharp whistles rang out densely across the training ground, like a torrential downpour.

In just a few breaths, all ten crossbow bolts in the wooden box were emptied.

The armored straw man fifty paces away was already riddled with crossbow bolts, like a hedgehog.

Some of them even pierced through the iron armor and were driven deep into the wooden stakes inside.

The entire room fell silent.

Li Guangbi stared blankly at the straw man riddled with crossbow bolts, as if struck by lightning, his mind going completely blank.

"This...this is impossible..."

He muttered to himself, then suddenly lunged forward, snatched the repeating crossbow from Pei Zhao's hand, and carefully examined every mechanism from top to bottom, as if looking at a divine weapon that did not belong to this world.

As a general commanding troops, he knew all too well what this weapon meant!

Rate of fire! A terrifyingly high rate of fire!

Even the most elite archers in the army would need at least three to five breaths to reload and aim after firing an arrow.

In that brief interval, the enemy cavalry could easily charge several dozen paces ahead.

This repeating crossbow completely eliminates the tedious cocking process; simply pulling the lever allows it to fire ten bolts in an instant!

If three hundred soldiers were equipped with this repeating crossbow at the same time, they could unleash a deadly rain of three thousand or even more arrows within a hundred paces of an enemy cavalry charge!

This is no longer a rain of arrows; it is a wall of sighs made of steel and death!

Any cavalryman who dares to charge this wall will be shot into mincemeat in an instant!

"My lord..." Li Guangbi turned his head to look at Yang Xuan, his voice trembling slightly, "How many of these national treasures do you... how many do you possess?"

"We currently only have three hundred, just enough to equip the salt protection troops. But if I give the order, the artisans at the Ordnance Bureau can work day and night to produce over a thousand more within a month."

Yang Xuan answered with a smile.

Li Guangbi took a deep breath, suppressing the shock in his heart.

With this repeating crossbow, the infantry's chances of defeating the cavalry will be greatly increased.

But he quickly calmed down.

"My lord, this crossbow is indeed a divine weapon. However... relying solely on bows and crossbows for defense will ultimately leave us vulnerable to attack. To truly annihilate the rebels and completely crush An Lushan's Fanyang cavalry, infantry alone is insufficient."

"We must have our own heavy cavalry, a striking force capable of tearing apart enemy formations in open battle!"

At this point, Li Guangbi's eyes dimmed even more.

Warhorses are the most scarce strategic resource in Jiannan Road.

Without warhorses, all cavalry tactics are just empty talk.

However, Yang Xuan's smile grew even wider.

"General Li, you're so impatient, you can't wait even a moment longer."

Yang Xuan clapped his hands. "Lei Laohu, bring out the treasures you brought back from the Nanzhao Ancient Road for General Li to see!"

No sooner had he finished speaking than a loud neighing of horses came from behind the camp.

Immediately afterwards, the earth began to tremble slightly.

Led by Lei Laohu, eighty knights, clad in heavy black armor and riding tall horses similarly clad in simple leather armor, slowly emerged from behind the camp and eventually lined up in the center of the training ground.

Although there were only eighty riders, the imposing aura of the heavy cavalry, with its iron-blooded and murderous presence, was like a moving steel mountain, making it hard to breathe.

"Warhorses! Although the Dian horses of Nanzhao are small, their endurance is excellent, and they can certainly be used to form a cavalry!"

Li Guangbi's eyes lit up instantly, but he immediately frowned again.

"But my lord, training heavy cavalry is not something that can be accomplished overnight. Without three to five years of horsemanship, a rider simply cannot maintain his balance on horseback during a high-speed charge, let alone use a heavy lance or spear for slashing."

"General Li, why don't you come closer and take a closer look at their horse tack?"

Yang Xuan confidently pointed to the eighty heavy cavalrymen.

Filled with doubt, Li Guangbi strode to a warhorse.

When his gaze fell on the back of the warhorse, he froze instantly.

What did he see?

The warhorse no longer wore a soft, ordinary leather saddle, but a strange saddle with high protrusions at both ends, made of hard wood and leather.

The rider sat inside, his entire lower body tightly wedged into the center of the saddle, as if he were one with the warhorse.

What surprised him even more was that on each side of the saddle hung a thick leather strap, with two steel rings hanging from the ends of the straps.

The rider's feet are firmly planted in the two iron rings!