Chapter 1282 A Military-Industrial System that Transcends the Times

"Director, this is a long-body armor with cloth, weighing 42 jin, with hundreds of armor plates! It covers the chest, abdomen, waist, ribs, and shoulder blades, and there is a leather skirt to cover the thighs... This is a half-body armor with cloth, weighing 28 jin, mainly for the chest, abdomen, back, and waist... This is a forged iron helmet. Although the process is complicated, it is lighter and tougher than a copper helmet, and you can also add a cloth iron plate for the neck..."

"Charappe, after replacing the copper plates in the cloth armor with iron plates, what are the differences in the production process? Will it increase the working hours? Compared with the cloth copper armor, how much better will the protection of the cloth armor be?"

"Director, this question is a long story... Well, a team has just completed a long-body armor. Why don't we go and see the inspection of this armor during acceptance!..."

Passing through the layers of guards and coming to the deepest part of the craftsman camp, you can see the core department of the Kingdom Military Industry Department, the Armor Casting Bureau led by Deputy Director Charappe.

Casting armor is a complicated job. Whether it is traditional cloth-covered bronze armor or the newly emerged cloth-covered iron armor, it requires sewing battle clothes, making armor plates, nailing armor, and finally adjusting it into shape by skilled craftsmen. This is not something that a single craftsman can complete in a short period of time. The model in the craftsman camp is to cooperate in groups, just like the cooperation of a samurai squad in the army. In fact, the military position corresponding to the senior craftsman is the senior samurai who usually serves as the captain of the samurai squad.

"Ding-dong, ding-dong!"

Looking around, hundreds of craftsmen and apprentices are divided into craftsman teams with senior craftsmen as captains. In the team, each craftsman is responsible for different production links, and finally gathered at the senior craftsman. When a set of cloth armor is formed, the senior craftsman must engrave a mark representing his identity after checking it. This not only represents the product of his team, which can obtain material rewards from the Military Industry Department, but also has a basis for accountability for problems.

Therefore, each craftsman captain has become the manager and beneficiary of military production, as well as the final person responsible. They were very careful in inspecting the armor, just like a senior craftsman captain who had just finished a job. He hung the armor on the wooden frame with a serious expression, and personally stabbed the bronze spear into different parts of the armor to check the defensive power of the armor.

"Lord God bless! Chest and abdomen, qualified... waist and ribs, qualified... shoulder blades... all qualified!"

After an inspection, the craftsman captain breathed a sigh of relief and carefully glanced at the deputy director and director standing next to him. The kingdom is based on the army, and wars continue year after year. These armors will not be stored in warehouses at all, but will be quickly sent to various states and handed over to the warriors to equip and fight. The kingdom's military law is extremely strict. Once the quality is poor and there is a problem, the responsibility will be pursued. In the end, the craftsman captain will be traced to the head, but he will be severely punished or even executed! Not to mention, the two masters of the Divine Revelation Institute were watching nearby...

"Charapei, after the copper sheet was replaced with an iron sheet, it seems to be more resistant to stabbing?..."

"Yes, Director! After the iron materials from the south are transported to the craftsmen's camp and forged into iron armor plates, they can continue to be forged! Unlike cast bronze armor plates, iron armor plates will become tougher and tougher after repeated forging, and their protective ability will become stronger and stronger. Not only are they stronger than bronze armor plates, they are also lighter than bronze. The greater advantage is that this forged iron armor plate is easier to repair. As long as there are artisan apprentices accompanying the army, they can dismantle the damaged armor plates on the spot, heat them up and forge them to repair them..."

"In fact, Under the guidance of your majesty and you, these new cloth armors, once they are formed on a large scale and equipped on the elite warriors of the kingdom, will be almost invincible! Even the bronze spears of the alliance will have to hit at least a dozen times before they can break the armor..."

"Of course, this kind of cloth armor, like the cloth copper armor, is difficult to withstand the blunt blows of strong warriors holding heavy stone hammers... But there are very few warriors who can wield heavy weapons in battle..."

"Very good! Forged iron sheets have stronger protection... It seems that the Armor Casting Bureau will recruit another batch of craftsmen apprentices to be responsible for the forging of iron armor sheets..."

Talaya, the director of the Divine Revelation Institute, stood upright in the center of the crowd in a sacrificial robe. She wore a golden mask with a hummingbird pattern engraved on it, revealing only a pair of cold and stern eyes. When she looked around at everyone with a sharp gaze, the technical bureaucrats present all lowered their heads and listened respectfully to the director's orders.

"Blessing from the Lord! Black Rock Mountain has used a new type of iron smelting vertical furnace, and the output of iron materials has tripled, which has exceeded the copper output of the kingdom and is still growing. Several remote iron mines have also been discovered in the Colima Mountains. Chief Colima has cooperated with us to recruit the tribesmen during the slack season to mine iron ore. We, the Divine Revelation Institute, are responsible for smelting, and we only need to give him 40% of the output, or convert it into goods for the kingdom..."

"There are enough sources of iron ore, and the manpower and material costs of producing iron materials are much lower than those of bronze... Therefore, as your Majesty's Divine Revelation Book said, it is the general trend of the kingdom for iron to replace bronze! The focus of the Military Industry Department, in addition to bronze artillery, is to Iron weapons and armor are concentrated..."

"With sufficient raw materials, the Armor Bureau needs to further expand its manpower! Within half a year, increase the output of armor by half, and increase the proportion of cloth-covered iron armor to 30%! For each piece of armor produced, the craftsman team will be rewarded with a piece of cloth or two bags of cocoa. As long as it passes the inspection, the more it produces, the more rewards it will receive, and there is no upper limit!"

"The entire Lake Kingdom and the various legions that are expanding in all directions are in urgent need of more and better equipment to suppress the Tekos, Mayans, and Mixtecs... and the Otomi allies in the north, the alliance in the east, and the Mexica legions on the southern front also need our military supplies and are willing to pay a high price for them! ..."

Talaya announced the reward policy of the Artisan Camp, causing the artisans and apprentices at all levels present to cheer and praise the Lord God, His Majesty and the Director. Producing a set of armor and rewarding a piece of cloth, this generous treatment is almost the same as that of the warriors on the front line!

In fact, relying on the unique artisan noble promotion system, a large number of professional technical bureaucrats have moved to various links of the Artisan Camp of the Divine Revelation Institute, maintaining the efficient operation of the military industry system. Under the war-making military system, a steady stream of national orders have also been pouring into the Artisan Camp, allowing all artisans to let go of production.

Gathering artisans on a large scale, according to the division of labor and cooperation of small teams, and producing military supplies on a large scale. Providing a promotion channel for artisans, allowing artisans to be promoted to nobles and serve as technical bureaucrats in the management department... Under this almost unreplicable system of the Divine Revelation Institute, the Kingdom's Artisan Camp has become a workshop of the classical military system in the true sense!

The large scale of production and strict system of the kingdom are just like the General Works and Shaofu of the Qin State. The emphasis on technological progress and the use of technical bureaucrats are like a special military-industrial university. Only under such a system, with a path to advancement, will craftsmen be willing to really delve into progress and pass down real technology. The more they produce, the more beneficial it is for all parties, and only then can technology truly be spread from a few master craftsmen to the next level, rather than being so-called masters and apprentices but actually slave laborers!