After seeing the arrow rain shot from his side covering the cavalry of Jiangning Guards, Xu Hongji and others were all overjoyed, and Lu Jianshen laughed even more excitedly: "Okay... shoot those thieves to death... shoot them to death!"

But they were too happy too early. The arrow rain that they had high hopes was set on the cavalry of Jiangning Guards and were all bounced out by the armor on them. Occasionally, one or two unlucky war horses were shot and galloped desperately after being shot.

Seeing this scene, Xu Hongji murmured in disbelief: "How is this possible? Yang Feng is willing to equip them with iron armor? How much money does it cost!"

In addition to the hereditary title of Duke of Wei, Xu Hongji also had another position as the left governor of Nanjing and the garrison of Nanjing. As the person who commanded almost all the troops in Nanjing, he knew very well how much material and financial resources it would take to equip so many cavalry with iron armor.

If you want to make a set of armor or weapons, you first need to get a large amount of fine iron. Because among various materials, pig iron is hard, but it is too brittle, and cooked iron is too soft, so these things are not suitable. The only suitable ones for making armor are steel. Of course, people in this era are used to calling steel refined iron.

In this era, due to the underdeveloped metallurgy technology, the price of steel was very expensive. Taking the Wanli period as an example, the price of a pound of cooked iron was about one cent and two cents of silver. To make a piece of armor, it takes fifteen kilograms of iron to waist armor, and the construction weighs about 8 to thirty kilograms of full armor, and the construction weighs about 24 to 36 kilograms of full armor, so the price of a most ordinary cotton armor costs about five taels of silver.

But please don't forget that the above armor is only made of cooked iron. If fine iron is used, that is, steel, then the price will be at least ten times higher. For example, the most famous Sugang in the Ming Dynasty required one tael or eight cents of silver per pound. Yes, you heard that right, the price of a pound of Sugang is actually more expensive than silver.

Therefore, if you want to make a piece of armor made of fine iron and steel, the cost alone will be at least fifty taels of silver. In addition to war horses, harnesses, sabers, muskets, etc., the equipment alone will require no less than two hundred and fifty taels of silver. In addition, the food consumed by training cavalry and the food and wages paid to cavalry, etc., the expenses required are even more expensive.

Here is an example. The most famous iron pagoda in the Jin Dynasty in the pre-Song Dynasty. This heavy cavalry, which was covered with heavy iron armor, was the most deterrent army of the Jin Dynasty at that time. It was a heavy tank in the cold weapon era. Its defense and attack power reached the peak of heavy cavalry. But even so, with the strong national strength of the Jin Dynasty at that time, it could only afford 5,000 iron pagodas. This shows the difficulty of supporting a heavy cavalry.

Xu Hongji's Duke's Mansion, which had a hundred years of foundation, only supported one thousand cavalry. In this way, the cavalry was only equipped with cotton armor, but now he found that all the opponent's cavalry were equipped with iron armor made of steel. This discovery made him so depressed that he almost vomited blood. Is Yang Feng so rich that he is so rich?

Well, Xu Hongji's depression lasted for a while, then he widened his eyes, clasped his hands tightly, and stared at the front with his eyes staring blankly. Although he was startled by the excellent equipment of the Jiangning Guard cavalry, he did not lose confidence. He was still very confident in his cavalry. After all, this is a fist power that the Xu family has been operating for hundreds of years. The cavalry inside has been trained for a long time. Although he dared not compare with the Later Jin army outside the pass, he asked himself that he was not afraid of anyone on this acre of three-point land in Jiangnan.

"Roar up and kill them!"

He held his hands tightly, and his face turned red when he looked at the two cavalrymen who were about to approach.

"kill!"

As expected, after shooting the first round of arrow rain, the distance between the two sides was less than fifty meters. The cavalrymen rushed back their bows and arrows, picked up their weapons from the saddle and prepared for the most cruel showdown between the cavalry, but the next scene was far beyond their expectations.

"Open fire!"

Only a faint roar was heard from the front. A cavalry led by the other side raised his arms and heard a crisp sound of gunfire. Accompanied by a stream of white smoke, the dozens of cavalry rushing in the front fell from the horse without saying a word, and were soon trampled into meat sauce by the war horse behind.

"Open fire!"

After two consecutive shots, Yang Daniu turned the three-eyed pistol in his hand, pulled the clamp with his right thumb, and pulled the trigger with his index finger. With another crisp sound, a cavalry less than 20 meters away from him was hit by a lead bullet with a huge impact force, and flew backwards from the horse and hit a cavalry behind him heavily. The two rolled down and then disappeared into the rolling iron stream.

"Brothers, rush up and kill all these miscellaneous things!"

After exhausting all the ammunition in the musket, Yang Daniu inserted the musket back to his waist, pulled out the sabre from the saddle and rushed towards an enemy army ahead.

I would like to say here that in order to increase the attack power of the only mobile power under his command, Yang Feng has tried his best. He not only equipped each cavalry with a handgun, but also specially made a batch of sabers carefully crafted by Hangzhou Weihu Lake. This sabers are imitated by the 65 cavalry swords of later China. This cavalry sword is the first and last standard cavalry swords of later China.

This cavalry knife is 925 cm long and weighs 37 kilograms. It is made of stainless steel, with a chrome plated body and a hardness of 54. It can be regarded as a magic weapon in this era. Yang Daniu still remembers how he couldn't put it down when he got this saber, and even pressed his sleep under the pillow.

"kill!"

Yang Daniu waved the sabre in his hand and rode his horse toward an enemy army coming. The heavy knife in his hand that was about to be chopped off, felt his neck cold before he could be chopped off. Then his eyes turned black and a huge head flew into the air.

"Bang……"

The two war horses collided with each other. The high-speed charge of the war horses and the cavalry on them together were more than a few hundred kilograms. The consequence of the collision was that all the people and horses fell to the ground. The cavalry behind did not look at their fallen companions. They waved their weapons without hesitation and fought with each other. The sound of chopping, cursing, screams and the sound of muskets from time to time became a whole. The cruelty and blood of the war were fully reflected at this moment.
Chapter completed!