Chapter 376 Selling Leather Armor

In the Southwest, under the pincer attack of Great Qian and Sassanid Persia, the Mughal Empire had already lost more than half of its territory.

The eastern third of the entire Indian Peninsula had been completely occupied by Great Qian.

As their people were relocated and hundreds of thousands of Han civilians settled in, they had completely lost any possibility of reclaiming these lands.

As for why Gao Yang did not take advantage of the victory to pursue further, it was not only to stabilize the defense lines and consolidate the gains.

There was another important reason suggested by Gao Yao and Yu Qian together:

Leave the Mughal Empire as a buffer against Sassanid Persia.

Compared to being neighbors with the powerful Persian Iron Cavalry, everyone preferred to be adjacent to the weak Mughal Empire.

Gao Yuan had to admire this group of subordinates under him for this point.

They clearly wanted to keep the Mughal Empire as a watchdog, yet after some maneuvering, they even managed to extract a lot of benefits from them.

Led by Gao Yao, Wu Guiyi went as an envoy and persuaded the new Mughal King, Humayun, with the conditions of a ceasefire and the release of some prisoners.

That's right, it was that same Humayun who had been captured alive before.

In exchange for the return of twenty thousand prisoners, a ceasefire, and a promise not to attack for five years, Humayun paid the price of twenty thousand cattle and five hundred catties of gold.

Not only that, Gao Yao also took the initiative to sell some obsolete leather armor to Humayun.

In Great Qian, this leather armor was an outdated product that was being gradually replaced by Brigandine Armor.

But in the eyes of the Mughal people, this was formidable equipment from a powerful nation.

For these tens of thousands of sets of leather armor, Humayun paid the additional price of thirty thousand young women.

Say what you will, while the locals weren't great at fighting and tended toward blind arrogance, they certainly raised cattle and women well.

After screening the twenty thousand cattle, over sixty percent could actually be used as plow oxen.

And as for the Mughal women, perhaps because they had been oppressed for so long, they were incredibly obedient.

In particular, some women with exotic features were very popular among the immigrants.

On the Mughal side, after obtaining the powerful equipment, Humayun's confidence grew.

Sassanid Persia was indeed caught off guard and suffered a major setback while attacking Delhi.

Having defeated the overbearing Persian army and slain over twenty thousand enemy troops, Humayun marveled at how excellent the Great Qian equipment truly was.

If not for his insufficient national strength, he would have been prepared to buy tens of thousands more sets of leather armor from Great Qian.

In fact, even if he really wanted to buy more, Gao Yuan had no more to sell him.

The Xuanjia Army was gradually refitting, shedding the high-cost leather armor and switching to the Brigandine Armor of the Ming and Qing styles.

Many people think that Brigandine Armor is just a thin layer of cloth with no defensive capability other than looking good.

In truth, they were deceived by movies and TV shows; real Brigandine Armor is lined with iron plates.

Those rivets aren't for decorative beauty; they are used to secure the inner lining of iron plates.

This kind of Brigandine Armor doesn't require a large amount of rawhide cord to connect the plates, nor does it require many craftsmen to string them together one by one.

This not only makes the manufacturing cost low, but also makes the production speed faster.

A set of Brigandine Armor is far superior to leather armor in metrics such as weight, flexibility, and defensive power.

Moreover, the cost of Brigandine Armor is twenty percent lower than leather armor, making it worthy of large-scale promotion.

As for the obsolete leather armor, Humayun and Lu Heng loved it so much that there was no worry about finding buyers; they could sell as much as they had.

Unfortunately, Lu Heng had also learned to be clever; he refused to give up a single person, preferring to scrape together various precious medicinal herbs and other materials rather than provide manpower, not even the disobedient men.

There was no other way; although the other party was unwilling to give the desired price, the business that needed to be done still had to be done; it was just a matter of changing the destination.

To resist Persia, Humayun could be said to have given his all, not only opening several border cities as trading ports with Great Qian, but also scouring all the gold from the national treasury to purchase armor.

Gao Yuan was also very thoughtful; he not only sold the armor but also sent someone to deliver a scroll to Humayun, which depicted a formation—the Macedonian Phalanx, a formation praised to the skies by Western-worshippers.

Gao Yuan had once been curious about this world-renowned formation when he saw it on short video platforms.

But after transmigrating, as his horizons broadened, he realized that this so-called Macedonian Phalanx was purely a paper tiger, essentially just the most basic of formation drills.

Anyone who has seen those so-called epic war movies from Europe and America knows that their understanding of cold weapon combat is just a messy charge to hack at each other; therefore, the sudden appearance of a phalanx is a crushing existence.

Looking at those people with their bodies nearly bare, wearing armor that exposed more than it covered, and those completely inflexible long spears—he only needed to arrange for crossbowmen to fire a few rounds, and they would all turn into hedgehogs.

Gao Yuan was certain that if that Alexander the Great, whose actual existence was questionable, had truly taken the wrong path and ended up in China, he would most likely be building the Great Wall alongside his subordinates.

But Humayun didn't know that; he treated the scroll like a priceless treasure, studying it day and night with his subordinates. Soon, the Mughal army began practicing this phalanx and put it into actual combat.

The Persians were clearly caught off guard by the sudden change in the Mughals; their Cavalry suffered greatly in the face of the long spears.

In a major battle in the Twenty-fourth Year of Great Qian, the Persians lost over five thousand Cavalry in a single engagement, and in the subsequent rout, they not only lost three prefectures but also nearly twenty thousand troops.

This great victory greatly bolstered Humayun's spirits. He turned around and prepared to buy more leather armor from Gao Yuan, but this time Gao Yuan stated that even a landlord's family has no surplus grain left.

“Brother-in-law, brother-in-law, isn't there still a lot of leather armor at home? Why aren't you selling it anymore?”

Although she had already become the rightful side-consort of Prince of Tang, Chu Yue still liked to call Gao Yuan 'brother-in-law.' She said it was more romantic that way.

In fact, she had discovered that when she called him that, Gao Yuan would get particularly excited, giving her a thrill as if she were stealing her sister's man.

Gao Yuan put down the book in his hand and smilingly pinched the young girl's cheek.

“Yueyue, have you ever raised a dog?”

The young girl's mouth puckered, clearly remembering some sad past event.

“I have, a very beautiful Bichon Frise. It later got lost, and I cried for a long time because of it...”

Gao Yuan suddenly felt he was being silly; when girls in the city raised dogs, they were just these pet-like little dogs. He reorganized his language and then said:

“What we want to raise is a watchdog that can block the Persian Iron Cavalry. Then we can't let him eat too much, and even less can we let him turn into a greedy, insatiable wolf.”

Chu Yue was also a smart person; she understood Gao Yuan's intentions as soon as he said this.

“So that's why you cut off the armor trade with the Mughals, because you're afraid they'll suddenly become too strong and turn on us?”

“Isn't it? Do you remember our southern neighbor in our past life who, after defeating the Beautiful Country, turned around and wanted to bite a piece of meat off our China?”

Chu Yue nodded, then raised a new question.

“Now that the Mughals have defeated the Persians, will they...?”

Gao Yuan shook his head.

“The Persians were just caught off guard because they didn't anticipate the changes in the Mughals. Moreover, they are invaders and don't have such a strong obsession with holding onto territory. Just you watch, the Mughals will soon suffer a loss.”

“Really?”

“Want to make a bet?”

“No betting. I always lose when I bet with you, and you always make such embarrassing requests every time.”

The young girl remembered her experience from the last time she lost a bet. Her face turned bright red, and after giving Gao Yuan a pinch, she covered her face and ran away as if fleeing.