Chapter 151 Monster

Song Ying'an's last letter was sent back a month ago.

At that time, a continuous drizzle was falling, and the barbarian army wandering through the heartland of the Great Yan Nation had not yet consciously blockaded Yonggu City. But now, the latest news arrived, and the connection between Yonggu City and the rear had been completely severed.

Zhao Hengyi was not the only one feeling troubled; Song San had obviously received orders from the Mighty Marquis's Mansion long ago and had begun making preparations.

Song San handed over all the business dealings to Xing Xiaorong in one go, then hurriedly returned to the Mighty Marquis's Mansion. He did not even have time to see Zhao Hengyi, leaving only a message asking Zhao Hengyi to wait in peace.

With his elder brother Song Ying'an trapped in danger, how could Zhao Hengyi possibly settle his mind and wait passively?

Yet now that Yonggu City would be completely surrounded by the barbarian army in a short period of time, providing assistance would be exceedingly difficult.

As for whether Yonggu City could hold out, Zhao Hengyi had some confidence.

With the veteran general Zhang Zhaoyang in command, the strength of the border troops along the Yonggu City front was significantly stronger than the soldiers in other border towns.

The Xuan Character Battalion and Zhang Zhaoyang's personal guards could even be considered elite and fierce troops. As long as military morale did not waver during the defense of the city, they would certainly be able to hold out for a long time.

Previously, a batch of supplies had been received in Yonggu City, reportedly managed through special connections by Imperial Concubine Chen, and the quantity was quite substantial. If Zhang Zhaoyang chose a scorched earth strategy, it was highly possible to drag the situation out until the barbarians took the initiative to withdraw.

The shortcomings of the barbarians were just as obvious as those of the Great Yan Nation. They waged wars based on tribes, lacked a unified organizational structure, and distributed spoils in a simple and crude manner: whoever seized them kept them.

Once the barbarians besieging Yonggu City fell into a protracted stalemate where they could not capture the city, their own military morale would become unstable.

After all, facing a fortified city required feeding human lives onto the walls, while fellows from other tribes were wantonly plundering elsewhere, slaughtering ordinary Han Chinese people without any danger, and continuously acquiring wealth. The barbarians besieging Yonggu City would inevitably harbor resentment!

Based on Zhao Hengyi's understanding of the barbarians, when that time truly arrived, let alone ordinary soldiers, even the barbarian chieftains would likely find it difficult to persist in besieging the exterior of Yonggu City.

Therefore, to lift the crisis of Yonggu City, two things were necessary: first, the people inside the city had to be united as one; second, the imperial court had to mobilize a large army to coerce and drive away the barbarians lingering in other regions as much as possible.

The lack of a strong organizational structure in the barbarian army was their fatal flaw. As long as it was properly utilized, there was still a chance they could drive the barbarians who had broken into the heartland out of the Great Yan Nation.

Even with such an understanding, Zhao Hengyi's heart was still dangling anxiously.

The civil officials who held the reins of the imperial court might not lack this kind of insight, but Zhao Hengyi could not guess what they would do.

Whenever a dynasty collapsed, all sorts of bizarre events always occurred, and even quite a few individuals whom the world regarded as dragons among men would end up doing utterly foolish things.

This was not because the old dignitaries holding high positions and making decisions were truly muddle-headed, but rather because after hundreds of years of development, various interest groups were deeply intertwined, and they no longer considered problems from the standpoint of national gains and losses.

The Great Yan Nation was hardly short of operations where people betrayed their teammates right before a battle.

The Mighty Marquis's Mansion obviously would not abandon Song Ying'an. That marquis father was surely also thinking of ways to fish his precious son out of Yonggu City. There were quite a few aristocratic and powerful families like this; after all, ever since Chen Yongzhong, the biological younger brother of Imperial Concubine Chen, secured a peerage in Yonggu City, many profligate scions seeking military merits had gathered there.

Zhao Hengyi did not know how these aristocratic families would rescue their own descendants, but he had already decided to make his own preparations.

Inside the smelting workshop, busy work continued day and night. Zhang Dayu and Wu Ren, the two master craftsmen, both had bloodshot eyes as they worked overtime.

Under current conditions, the stability of tungsten steel was still difficult to guarantee. Zhao Hengyi had originally planned to wait until the technology was completely mature before mass-forging tungsten steel products.

Yet at present, there was no longer time to care about that. They would just manufacture and then select the fine items; as long as the output was large enough, they would always get enough qualified products.

Through the bandit-suppression trials, the heartless cannons—which left behind the legends of the mountain god beating drums around Dangyang County—were being continuously forged, and three qualified products had already been produced.

Crossbow bolts were further broken down by Zhao Hengyi into more than a dozen procedures, and apprentices in the smelting workshop formed an assembly line to mass-produce crossbow bolts regardless of cost.

If Zhao Hengyi truly needed to lead men to Yonggu City to rescue Song Ying'an, the ensuing battles would inevitably be extremely fierce, and the number of crossbow bolts previously allocated would certainly not be enough.

Under normal circumstances, whether it was the hunting team or the guard team, each person was equipped with five to ten crossbow bolts.

Facing low-intensity combat, these crossbow bolts were absolutely sufficient, and after the battle ended, the fired crossbow bolts could even be recovered.

However, to break through the barbarian blockade and head to Yonggu City, there would definitely be no time to recover crossbow bolts.

Zhao Hengyi had originally intended to upgrade the hand crossbows and manufacture a new type of hand crossbow capable of continuous firing by matching them with arrow magazines, but he could no longer afford to do so. After all, there were only so many craftsmen, and it was simply impossible to spare manpower for new weapon development.

However, the hydraulic forging hammer machine that Zhao Hengyi had prepared to build before the arrival of the flood finally came in handy at this moment.

This forging hammer machine only had a hundred-jin tungsten steel hammer built, along with the lever connected behind the hammer head. The truly complex core components—those huge gears capable of transmitting the kinetic energy of flowing water—had not yet been forged due to technical difficulties, but for now, it was already enough.

Zhao Hengyi rigged up a few pulleys and, by winding ropes, turned the semi-finished forging hammer machine into a manual mode.

By simply assigning a strongman to stand in front of the pulleys and continuously pull the rope, the lever bound to the other end could be made to swing up and down incessantly.

With every swing, the tungsten steel hammer would strike heavily, the landing point would remain unchanged, and the force applied would be extremely uniform. Most crucially, the people pulling the rope could take turns in shifts, and a forging hammer machine comparable to an untiring top-tier blacksmith was thus created!

Those pieces of tungsten steel that failed to meet the standards for heartless cannons were smashed by the forging hammer machine into flat steel plates. The steel plates did not need to be too thick; they only needed to be able to resist the hacking of the barbarians' inferior swords. After simple processing, they could be used to manufacture simple plate armor, or even made into vest styles that could be worn under clothing. Aside from the weight, they did not affect the wearer's flexibility at all.

Throughout the entire manufacturing process, except for the final sheet metal shaping which required experienced master blacksmiths, apprentice craftsmen were fully capable of handling all the other steps!

Under Zhao Hengyi's command, the entire Yushu Bay seemed to have transformed into a vitalized monster, continuously devouring various raw materials and sharp weapons.

This monster was still too tender right now, but given enough time, it would surely grow into a terrifying entity that made the entire world tremble!

After being busy for several days, Zhao Hengyi dragged his exhausted body back home. He did not know whether everything he had done was valuable, but if he did not do these things, he would not know what else he ought to do.

"Husband, you are so exhausted and do not know how to cherish your health. If you truly... if you truly wish to head to Yonggu City, you ought to conserve your energy and store up your strength."