For wear on the hooves was cavalry's greatest enemy. Nailing a horseshoe-shaped piece of iron onto each hoof would undoubtedly greatly reduce that wear, while Double Stirrups would directly improve cavalry's fighting strength, making riders more agile and more composed in the saddle!
Gongsun Zan of You Province commanded the strongest cavalry. If he obtained these two things, their fighting strength would surely increase dramatically, making it all the harder for Yuan Shao to defeat him.
"Wenhe, you know me well!"
Liu Xie was not surprised that Jia Xu had guessed his intentions. He smiled and said, "With you and Fengxiao creating internal turmoil for Yuan Shao, and the Zhen Clan providing assistance from outside, Gongsun Zan might truly be able to contend with him, or even deal him a crushing blow."
Gongsun Zan's crisis had made Liu Xie realize that relying on Jia Xu and Guo Jia alone would not work. He needed help from multiple quarters.
Domestic administration, strategy, logistics, military command, finance-all these fields required talented people. If he was to escape Yuan Shao's control in the future, he could not do without any of them.
Guo Jia said expectantly, "If the ironworking method Your Majesty learned from The Exploitation of the Works of Nature truly can produce tougher iron implements, then with the Zhen Clan's wealth, we need only equip Duke Wen's three thousand elite troops with such weapons and armor, and they could move freely between Ji Province, Bing Province, and Qing Province. If we had ten thousand such troops, even Yuan Shao with his eighty-thousand-strong army could not withstand them!"
Liu Xie shared Guo Jia's hopes.
But he also knew that equipping an army of ten thousand with such excellent equipment would leave even the Zhen Clan gazing at the vast ocean and sighing