It is only when we try to understand something that we develop a love and hate for it. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

- Leonardo da Vinci (typical artist of the Renaissance)

After deciding that he wanted to make a simple and practical weapon of the longbow in this world, Bai Feng first asked the Simpson commander of the Governor's Guard to take his cavalry all over the world to cut down trees for himself, and each tree only required to cut two trunks to bring back.

The Governor of the Governor's Guard, Wendell, was also sent by Bai Feng to recruit about 500 bow makers for the city of Rome in the camp of Tasia and the newly built camp next door, and to bring all of these attacks to the city.

At the same time, Bai Feng also began to slowly write out the longbow making method in his memory in the Doge's Palace, preparing to let the recruited bow craftsmen make this longbow for the city of Rome on a large scale, and the longbow production method was brought to the other world by Bai Feng.

The raw material should be selected in the middle of the trunk straight part, the texture is uniform, there is no or as little knots as possible; most of the sapwood of the log is cut off to obtain a cross-section of about four centimeters square, the length is the same as that of the shooter, from the cross-section, to take the middle part, half of the wood core, half of the sapwood.

The core is relatively soft and compression-resistant, placed on the inside, while the hard, tensile sapwood is on the outside, which can be judged by looking at the cross-sectional wood grain, with the sparse side being the outside.

By cutting one side of the wooden core, the material is trimmed to a thickness in the middle and slightly thinner at both ends, and then the ends are slightly narrowed by the two sides to slightly resemble a flat arm, and the cross-section is further trimmed into an octagonal shape with a planer at both ends.

In the trimming, the surface should be flat, the ends should be symmetrical, and the thickness should be the same, so that the force can be even, and after the shape is cut, the elasticity of each section of the bow should be checked by bending test.

Because it is difficult for the naturally grown wood to be completely uniform, some places may be harder, some places are softer, and the strength may not be the same just because the shape is uniform, so it is necessary to correct it through observation and slightly thin the hardness places. Once the back of the arch is roughly adjusted, you can file the chord grooves at 5 cm at both ends, with the outer side of the back of the arch being deeper and the inner side slightly shallower.

The most important process of making a bow is to bend it, the longbow is a simple arc shape, there is no complex shape of the Chinese angular bow bending, the British do not use the way of fire, that will reduce the tension of the bow, can not be bent in place at once, in that case, the back of the bow is not broken but also cause internal injuries and lose elasticity, just a period of busy work in vain.

The process of bending is called 'taming', which is to adapt the back of the bow to the bending, and to do this requires a special bracket made of hardwood, with a groove dug vertically at one end to support the back of the bow and the other end to be fixed vertically to the ground.

The sides are carved from top to bottom at an equal distance of about four centimeters, of which the first chord groove is about twenty centimeters away from the head of the bracket, and the rope is tied to both ends in the relaxed state of the bow back, and the center of the bow back is set on the groove of the bracket, and the string is slowly pulled with even force, and the bow back is slightly bent when hung into the first chord groove.

At this time, it is necessary to carefully check whether the curve of the bow back is smooth and even, mark the place where it is too stiff, and trim and fine-tune the bow back after relaxation until it is satisfied; then pull the rope apart, increase the opening and hang the groove downwards one by one, and constantly trim the bow back until a satisfactory uniform arc is formed, and the rope can be tightened for every three or four chord grooves of the opening.

This process should not be rushed, especially before each increase in opening, it is best to 'rest' the arch for about thirty minutes to release the internal stresses and avoid damage to the wood, and not too much at a time, preferably one inch at a time.

The bow is tamed when it reaches the full opening that is suitable for the archer, which is the maximum opening that the archer can open, which is equal to the distance from the palm to the chest when the arm is stretched out.

At this time, remove the bracket and brush the bow back with several layers of linseed oil as a moisture-proof protective layer, and when the oil is dry, you can hang the string, which is made of sheep intestines or tendon tanning, and the elasticity and toughness are very good.

The fixed opening when hanging the string is held at the distance between the bowstring and the center of the bow back to reach the height of the fist, which is the term in archery, which is equivalent to the height of a clenched fist and a thumbs up, which is 15 centimeters larger. When tying the bowstring, tie it into a special 'shooter's knot' so that it doesn't slip.

The figure-of-eight knot buckle is simple but effective, the tighter it is pulled, the bow is made, you can use the method of hanging weights to measure the elasticity, the harder the bow range, but it also requires stronger arm strength, the general longbow to pull the full moon roughly needs 50 kilograms of force, the strongest reaches 80 kilograms.

As long as there are sufficient materials, the longbow can be mass-produced as a standard weapon, without the need to be tailor-made like swords and armor, and the archers themselves can make them with simple tools without relying on specialized equipment and craftsmen, while the production of crossbows requires the skillful cooperation of multiple trades and complex equipment, and it is simply impossible for barbarian bow craftsmen to make them.

After the five hundred bow craftsmen were brought to Rome by Wendell, Bai Feng first took the longbow making method he had written and explained it to these craftsmen little by little; maybe they didn't understand Bai Feng's words very well, but the specific method was a little bit clear.

This is the advantage of dealing with professionals, you know that they understand, and they understand what you don't understand, and Bai Feng only gave them a little bit, and these veteran craftsmen learned how to make the longbow that Bai Feng said.

The trunk of the tree that Simpson led his troops to cut down was for the craftsmen to practice their hands, and they had to find the best wood to make the longbow while figuring out how to make the longbow.

The trees in this world are completely different from the trees on the earth, and Bai Feng doesn't know what kind of trees are the most suitable for making longbows, so he can only let these craftsmen practice and properly identify the trees that make longbows.

After nearly ten days of hard work, these craftsmen had made seventy-four longbows that looked similar from thirty-seven trees, so Bai Feng found a few ordinary archers to test the longbows to see which tree made the longbow had the longest range.

It turns out that there will always be something that surprises Bai Feng in this world of swords and magic, and when there are more than twenty longbows in a row with a range of less than two hundred meters, a longbow made of a tree called Leng Locust actually shoots a range of more than four hundred meters!

Bai Feng, who was shocked and overjoyed, even tested one himself, and determined that under the premise of not using spiritual power, the sharp arrows shot by this Leng Huai longbow were enough to penetrate the leather armor three hundred and fifty meters away;

The longbows made by other trees are more than a step worse than the cold locust longbow, and the cold locust tree is an ordinary tree that can be seen everywhere in the wild land, and the large-scale production of the cold locust longbow in the city of Rome has begun!

At this time, among all the legions in Roman City, only the Cheetah Legion had thousands of archers, and the other legions did not have archers, which was also related to the fighting style of the barbarian warriors; however, in order to give full play to the power of the Leng Huai Longbow, Bai Feng still deliberately set up a new 3,000-strong longbow force in addition to the Cheetah Legion, which temporarily belonged to the Governor's Guard.