Repeating crossbows were high-tech in ancient times.
However, by the Ming Dynasty, the serial crossbow was no longer a weapon of the military and the state, but was merely a weapon for civilians to steal.
According to the drawings that Liu Xiangyu gave to Liu Chengzong, the crossbow had a box that could hold ten arrows. It relied on gravity to shoot one arrow and drop the other. The box had a powerful arm link that could both push and wind the string. Just make a push-pull motion to shoot quickly.
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This thing is very big, with a hollow grip on the front end of the crossbow, and an arc-shaped brace on the tail, which is directly supported on the chest and abdomen.
It takes longer to make than an ordinary crossbow. Because it is easy to string, it is not as powerful as a large crossbow. Moreover, when the arrow falls from the receiver, it is difficult to feather the tail of the arrow. If it is shot far, it will easily somersault, making it difficult to hit.
That's why we use the action of pushing and shooting while holding the chest and abdomen, which is difficult to aim accurately.
The design purpose is to deal with short-range unarmored enemies. Ten steps and twenty steps are enough to have a rough accuracy.
Liu Chengzong made a small change to the drawing, replacing the hollow grip at the front and bottom of the crossbow with a more comfortable grip.
The old carpenter in Xingpingli got the drawings at noon, and before evening, he asked his grandson to run to Liujiamao to find Liu Chengzong, who was training mechanized soldiers, and asked him to get a bowstring.
In fact, for a skilled carpenter who has tools, crossbows, especially civilian-level repeating crossbows, are the easiest to make. However, it is not easy to find suitable strings, because this is outside the scope of his expertise and there is no ready-made string at hand.
However, the hunting crossbow usually used by hunters is a little more difficult than the repeating crossbow, because the mechanism of the hunting crossbow is made of metal, while the crossbow body does not bear the force of the mechanism of the repeating crossbow. It only needs an iron piece inlaid at the buckle.
Strings are not a problem for Liu Chengzong.
He can make strings, and he always carries a few spare strings in his pocket. He brought them with him when he came home, which came in handy.
On the third day, a repeating crossbow and ten wooden arrows were delivered to Master Liu.
Because it was only used for experiments, not even the iron clusters were used, and the crossbow arrow was just an eight-inch-long sharpened wooden stick. Liu Jiamao's master, wearing a long-sleeved Taoist robe, held the crossbow machine up to his waist and moved the connecting rod up and down.
Opening and closing, wooden arrows shot out towards the bird target at extremely fast speeds.
The shooting speed was very fast. After the sixth arrow was shot, it got stuck. Liu Juren knocked the receiver with his repeating crossbow, and then shot out the remaining three arrows. Then he moved and kept pulling the connecting rod.
Shou said: "It's quite tiring, let's see if it's accurate."
Liu Chengzong looked puzzled on the side. It took him a while to realize that his father's eyes were not good at reading. He simply said: "It's very ordinary. One shot was shot on the target, and the three hit the target and bounced off.
, and six of them are crooked."
The deflection must have something to do with technique. After becoming proficient, the hit rate will definitely increase to some extent, but the lethality is indeed not high.
"Big, this is only fourteen or five steps. A wooden arrow cannot penetrate the target. If the thief wears clothes at this distance, he will probably only get skin and flesh wounds."
He was very dissatisfied with the damage done by the serial crossbow, so he told him to take a few more steps forward, and he could just use the skill of throwing a throwing knife to hit the target with a sharpened wooden arrow.
This strength reminded him of the small light bow Li Hongji used when he was just learning to bow when he was twelve or thirteen years old.
However, the inn's archery craftsman's rural craftsmanship was ruined by Li Hongji, who wrapped it with rags and strips, making it look very vulgar.
But with a mere twenty kilograms of bow power, the arrows can be shot with a loud clang, and the arrows will clang when they are nailed to the thick wooden arrows. The force is much greater than this repeating crossbow.
However, Liu Juren was extremely satisfied with this repeating crossbow. He stepped forward to pick up the wooden arrows that needed to be picked up and pulled out the wooden arrows that needed to be picked up. He hugged the repeating crossbow and said with a smile: "It won't hurt if it's less powerful."
"As long as it is used smoothly, it is just a single-support crossbow, which is suitable for women. There is no shortage of hardworking men in Xingping, and there are many people who have the strength of two arms."
"I went back today and chopped all the bamboo grown in my yard, and used it to make two or three bamboo poles. Then I asked the blacksmith to hammer a batch of iron clusters for twenty steps."
During the long years of use of crossbows in ancient China, they, like bows, have developed extremely maturely. With the emergence of gunpowder and firearms since the Tang and Song Dynasties, they have gradually reduced their content as heavy military weapons and have become popular among the people. Its structure has become easy to
General knowledge acquired.
The two-braced and three-braced braces Liu Xiangyu mentioned are a structure that increases the strength of the crossbow arm. Generally speaking, the crossbow arm can also be called a wing. The wings are made of tough soft wood. Choosing a single wing structure with the right thickness will naturally cause the greatest damage.
However, good materials are hard to find. If you are looking for a moderate method between production cost and finished product effectiveness, a multi-brace structure is more suitable.
The single wing is made of soft wood that is not that thick. The single wing is padded with thick bamboo pieces that are shortened in sequence. There are three-braced, five-braced, and seven-braced ones. However, when it is as thick as seven-braced, it cannot be opened by a single person.
This structure is rarely installed on repeating crossbows, and is usually used to defeat enemies, such as the God Arm, a large garrison crossbow that shoots two or three arrows at a time.
Liu Xiangyu's three-pronged repeating crossbow was just a helpless move in difficult times because materials were difficult to obtain.
"We also need to make a batch of three-pronged powerful crossbows to protect all the grass and black poison, and prepare them into medicinal crossbows for those who are skilled in shooting and shooting. They will kill those who hit them immediately and also scare them away."
Liu Xiangyu put down his repeating crossbow, combed his three-inch short beard and said: "Build a city to defend it, and fire a hundred crossbows at once. No matter how rampant the thieves are, they will not disturb my Xingpingli."
Hundreds of crossbows fired in unison?
Liu Chengzong smiled like a fox who had stolen a chicken. It must be an exaggeration to say that he fired a hundred crossbows at once, but when it comes to this, at least forty crossbows are needed, right?
Forty crossbows, no matter whether they are single-arm or three-arm, repeating crossbow or powerful crossbow, must be controlled by forty people.
What's more, it's a waste for big and thick men to use a single-arm repeating crossbow. That thing should be reserved for half-year-old children and women. As for especially strong women and strong men, it is more suitable to use a powerful crossbow.
"Big, if you want to prepare like this, one team of mechanized soldiers will definitely not be enough. We need five teams anyway. It's good to train crossbowmen!"
He laughed as he spoke, and said with his fingers: "It is imperative that all the people become soldiers."
The crossbow is a good thing. In Liu Chengzong's eyes, the crossbow is a great thing for one reason - it is very similar to a blunderbuss.
Although crossbows and bows are very similar, especially the Chinese crossbow which basically puts a bow on the body of the crossbow, qualified crossbowmen who have not learned how to use bows and arrows will still not be able to shoot accurately when holding the bow.
It's different with the musket. As long as a qualified crossbowman is familiar with the operation of the musket, he can quickly use the musket smoothly.
In terms of lethality, the two weapons have basically similar positions on the battlefield. Liu Chengzong believes that in terms of weapon comparison, the bird gun is superior to the crossbow.
This advantage does not lie in lethality or range. You don't need to mention those. It just lies in one point. Crossbows rely entirely on manpower.
After shooting, the crossbowman's effectiveness in fighting with a knife decreases, but the gunman can join the infantry formation and fight with a knife.
This alone is remarkable.
Unexpectedly, Liu Xiangyu did not answer the call again. He just stood on the edge of the mountains and looked down at the small village in the mountains for a long time before saying: "When the walled city is built, let's take care of Chengzu and your life-long affairs."