Watching the carpenters work, Zhao Xin was also bored, and when the carpenters were concentrating on their work, they were not idle, and when they went to another part of the village, he had to consider the practice of bowstrings. The bowstring of the longbow www.biquge.info pen & fun & pavilion is not high, ordinary rope is fine, flax is the best choice, Zhao Xin hesitated, and chose silk thread, which is the easiest fiber to find in China.

In the card system, all that appears is silk, and the unit of the thread is too small to be embodied by cards, even if the silk is displayed, the silk is processed and dyed, the color is not suitable, and the toughness is greatly reduced, which is not suitable for bowstring making.

The cost of silk is very high, in the high cost, silk only occupies a small part, mainly artificial, only one-tenth of the hair silk, or even thinner silk thread as the main raw material of silk, so fine silk woven into a huge, beautiful silk, which requires a very large amount of labor, and then the expensive silk, the silk thread removed, not to mention the length is enough, this labor is quite high, not in vain, both sides of the labor are consumed.

There are few silkworms in the north, that is a specialty of the south, it is a kind of silkworm that has been domesticated for a long time and eats mulberry leaves, but it is all over the north, but there is also a kind of silkworm, it is a wild silkworm, which is placed in the oak forest, this silkworm is also a cash crop, but its quality is not very good, it can not enter the field of high-grade silk, it can be used as a low-end product, or the existence of taxes and fees.

The silk of the silkworm is a natural fiber, not as good as the mulberry silk, it is thicker, it is nearly 10 times the ordinary silk, the color is not too bright, the fabric made is not as beautiful as the mulberry silk, but it is a natural material for making bowstrings, dark color, on the silk, is an absolutely indispensable color, even in the 21st century, the invention of a special rinsing chemical, it is impossible to change too much, and eventually it is impossible to make clothes, only to make the inside of the silk quilt.

Silk is quite long, the longest silk, there are more than 3000 meters, squeezing silk is slightly worse, about 1500 meters, most of them are not more than 1200 meters, whether it is 3000 meters, or 1000 meters, it is a very long concept, there is no need not to meet the longbow, because the longest longbow is only about 1.9 meters, and the distance of several hundred meters, how is enough.

Of course, Zhao Xin knows that the material of the simple bowstring, flax silk is the best, it will not be affected by water, in the rain, most of the bowstrings will be affected, including silk is no exception, flax will not, flax silk needs to be bonded, mixed into strands before it can be used, not a short time can be made, silk is currently the best material that can be found.

During the visit, visited the silk workshop, Zhao Xin also went straight to where, in the place where the silk was specially peeled and peeled, found the silk, it was squeezed silk, was pulled out, put there to process, a piece is a very long piece, at least more than 1000 meters, obviously, the quality of the silkworms in Miaojiazhuang is very good.

This is the advantage of a large village, in exchange for a small village of thirty or fifty households, it is impossible to have such a large-scale carpenter's workshop, silk workshop, and in other places, you can also find these things, whether it is elm, or silk, it is not uncommon in China, but it is not so convenient and it will take longer.

Zhao Xin wants to be fast, otherwise, it can be made the best, choose the most suitable type of elm, not so casually go to the carpenter workshop to find, the bowstring can also be slowly woven with flax silk, you can replace it, the effect is a little worse silk.

Zhao Xinzhong, there is a greater expectation, relative to flax, the whole of China's silk production is very large, rather than expanding the production of flax, it is better to maximize the output of mulberry silkworms, China planted mulberry oak trees, the number of mulberry hemp breeding is very large, the technology is also quite mature, which will become the main source of bowstrings, coupled with the traditional advantages of China's elm, it can be unceremoniously said that there is the possibility of large-scale equipment longbows.

Among the drawn silk, pick out the fullest, the relationship between the long bow is long enough, at least 1.6 meters, 1.7 meters is better, the number of tussah silk is a lot, Zhao Xin selected the longest kind, all selected the longest above 1200 meters, selected about 10, with 1 as a strand, multiple folding, 1.7 meters long bowstring, each strand has at least 700 strands to 800 strands, squeezed silk is much thicker than silk, after multiple folding, the thickness reaches about 4 mm.

If you change it to silk, you need at least 4,500 to 5,000 strands, silk is about seven or eight times thicker than silk, simple silk, the strength is not large, but nearly a thousand strands are mixed together, enough to withstand the strong force, which is also the source of the strength of all fine fibers.

The first batch of bowstrings, only ready to make 10, as long as the experiment is successful, the scale will be expanded in the future, when the time comes, the entire Miaojiazhuang, how much can be recruited, how much to prepare, now, even if all the Jiading and Sun Ji and others are counted, that is, 24, they are all proficient, with a little training, they can come in handy.

The longbowman is easy to train, because he is the simplest single bow, the bow power is not too large, it will not be like the elite archers, maybe about 20 arrows, the strength will be exhausted, the highest bow is only about 1 stone, most of them are about half a stone, will expand the selection of archers, and do not pursue accuracy, just the pursuit of rate of fire, and relatively easy, longbowmen never rely on accurate shooting to exist, the accuracy of the single, it is a huge gap with the short bow and the recurve bow, but the heavy arrow, Penetration and the ability to quickly form density are what the longbow is really useful for.

An elite archer needs to consider the wind, curve, and even the angle of shooting the opponent, but the longbowman, as long as there are one or two elites, can drive everyone, how much strength everyone has, which direction to aim at, or in a certain order, slowly form a rain of arrows, relying on large-scale projection ability, so that the training is only strength and aiming in a certain direction, with how much power to attack, the difficulty is greatly reduced.

Zhao Xin asked for very few things, so Miao Yuan was relieved, calculated that it would cost 10 silk squeezes, and there was no problem for the whole, a batch of silk cost thousands of cocoons, and the silkworm output was huge, as long as there was enough food, it could be produced in large quantities, which was much less difficult than others, and he thought that Zhao Xin was here to harm these silks, but there were so few of them, there was no problem at all.

Silk is a material for making bowstrings, but it is not a strong bow, and the elasticity of silk is not enough to become a bowstring of a strong bow.

The general bow and arrow is made of animal tendons, and the tendons of large animals are very long, but they must be handled, maintain elasticity, and have almost the same elasticity, which is also the root of the rare longbow in ancient China, the bowstring is a very scarce resource, 1.8 meters long bowstring, can be made into 3 short bows when the bowstring, the longbow is not desirable at all, and it is not economical to make it so much that it is enough to be eliminated.

China did not develop longbowmen, which is directly related to the development of China's war, China did not develop a heavy cavalry team and militia team like Europe, but professional soldiers, all soldiers, armed to the teeth, light cavalry replaced heavy cavalry, became the main force of cavalry, infantry, short bowmen are responsible for short-range fire coverage, long-distance is completed by crossbows, but there is no room for the development of longbows.

Of course, China's original longbowmen were not as simple as the English longbow, easy to find, and after proving that the longbow was not suitable for development, no one spent effort in it, and therefore, there was no longbow in China, but it just missed this weapon that was more suitable for the Northern Song Dynasty, compared to the hand-to-hand infantry duel, the combination of archers and heavy infantry was the best weapon for the nomads, and his projection ability was several times that of a ballista and an ordinary foot bow.