Chapter 61: The English Longbow

Li Cunhuan suddenly remembered a kind of bow, Li Cunhuan is not a small person in modern times, his family background is good. My favorite thing to do is to go to a horse riding club. This also laid a solid foundation for him to come to the Remnant Tang and become a cavalryman.

Riding clubs, of course, won't be all horseback riding. There are other entertainments inside, including archery. You can choose to shoot archery on horseback or standing up. These arrows are not all modern bows, they also include some vintage weapons. For example, the famous Zhuge repeater in China, the divine arm bow of the Song Dynasty, the English longbow in the West, and the Mongolian riding bow.

Among them, Li Cunhuan likes the English longbow the most, not that Li Cunhuan admires foreign flattery. Rather, the crossbow is too simple, and it only takes a week of training for a farmer to become a qualified crossbowman. As for the Mongolian riding bow, Li Cunhuan did not have such a superb calculation, so he chose the English longbow.

I like it too much, it's like reading too many novels, and I'm itching to write a book myself. Li Cunhuan also tried to make his own, and learned to make an English longbow from an Englishman in the club at that time.

The Englishman himself said that his family had been England's longbow makers for the royal family three hundred years earlier. Either way, Li Cunhuan once saw him, and it only took two hours to make an English longbow. Li Cunhuan tried, and the range reached the range of 300 meters of a normal English longbow, and he did not cut corners at all in order to speed up the production.

Li Cunhuan couldn't help but think: Isn't this the most suitable bow for mass production? With only enough materials, a skilled craftsman could make five or six English longbows in a day. And the power of the English longbow is even more needless, the range can reach three hundred meters. It's completely much more powerful than a normal compound bow. In terms of training, you can choose to concentrate on throwing, although you will waste a certain amount of arrows, but you can also quickly train a group of longbowmen without weakening the power of longbowmen.

Thinking of this, Li Cunhuan's heart couldn't help but get excited. Li Cunhuan immediately instructed Zhao Chao: "Immediately find me a yew tree, it must be whole, and it cannot be cut!" Find someone to lead the way to the bow and crossbow camp. ”

Zhao Chao was stunned, with a hint of hesitation on his face, and said, "Yes, Xiaguan will go to find the yew tree!" Lin San, you lead the way for the adults and go to the bow and crossbow camp. ”

As soon as he came to the bow and crossbow camp, Li Cunhuan couldn't wait for someone to clean up a workbench and come out, and Li Cunhuan took care of himself to swing those tools.

After a while, Zhao Chao walked back with an embarrassed face and said, "My lord, I have asked all the craftsmen, and none of them know what yew is, and they don't know what this kind of tree is?" ”

When Li Cunhuan heard this, he frowned dissatisfiedly, but he still spoke: "When the fruit of this tree is ripe, it grows like red beans, hanging on the branches, also called yew. ”

When Zhao Chao heard this, his eyes lit up, and he clapped his palm and said, "Oh! It turns out that the lord is talking about acacia trees! ”

"Acacia trees?" Li Cunhuan asked suspiciously.

The eldest grandson on the side, Chengliang, opened his mouth and explained: "My lord, this acacia tree is probably the yew you said. Because his fruits are like red beans, he responded to the sentence of the great poet Wang Wei's "Acacia": Red beans are born in the south, and a few branches are sent in spring. This acacia tree bears fruit in January and February in the south, unlike us in the north, which only bears fruit in May and June. I don't know when it began, some people called this tree the Acacia Tree, and now not many people remember his previous name. ”

Zhao Chao on the side interjected on the side: "It's that we are lonely and unheard, and we don't know that this yew is actually the previous name of the acacia tree, it's really rude!" ”

Zhao Chao said this in exchange for Li Cunhuan's face, so as not to lose face in front of everyone. After all, I don't know the name of this tree, and I look confident, which will undoubtedly become a joke for everyone after dinner.

Li Cunhuan didn't care that Zhao Chao was so careful, and asked Zhao Chao: "Then is there a whole yew tree here?" ”

Zhao Chao thought for a while, couldn't help laughing, and said, "What a coincidence, that acacia tree, oh no!" It happened to have a yew tree where it was put for five days, dried in the sun, and was just ready to be used to make a spear today. I'll call for someone to pick it up right now. ”

This time, Zhao Chao was fast enough, and soon let people lift a four-meter-long, about forty-centimeter diameter, which was simply the best raw material in Li Cunhuan's eyes.

Li Cunhuan immediately picked up the saw and said to Zhao Chao: "You immediately go and find me ten seventeen or eighteen-year-old clever young men to come over!" ”

Zhao Chao was not slow to do things, and soon found ten young people who met the requirements to come over. However, looking at the dress of those young people, it is estimated that they are all slaves in the weapons workshop.

"You are optimistic about everything I have done now, I will only teach you once, and if anyone can learn it, then immediately become a craftsman. Ten points to get free. Li Cunhuan glanced at the ten young people coldly, and said without a trace of emotion in his tone.

Ten young people swallowed a mouthful of saliva nervously and nodded vigorously. It seems that they also cherish this opportunity to be free, and before it has begun, everyone has already stared at Li Cunhuan's hand to see how he will work for a while.

"The raw material should be a straight part of the middle of the trunk, with a uniform texture, and no or as few knots as possible. Most of the sapwood of the log is cut off and made into a piece of one inch and two minutes (about four centimeters) square, and the length is temporarily set at four and a half feet (1.5 meters), but this can be modified according to the height of the archer because it is fast to make, and it is more suitable for the height of the archer to exert the maximum power. When he spoke, Li Cunhuan did not slow down the movements in his hand, and after a while, a slender wooden stick traveled in his hand.

"From the cross-sectional point of view, it is necessary to take the middle part, half of which is the core of wood and half of which is sapwood. The core is relatively soft and compression-resistant, and is placed on the inside, while the hard tensile sapwood is used on the outside. This can be judged by looking at the wood grain in the cross-section, with the relatively sparse side being the outside. By cutting one side of the wooden core, the material is trimmed to a thickness in the middle and a little thinner at both ends, and then the two ends are slightly narrowed by the two sides, slightly like a flat shoulder. The two ends are further trimmed into an octagonal shape with a planer. In the trimming, it is necessary to achieve a smooth surface, symmetrical at both ends, and consistent thickness in order to exert force evenly. ”

"After the shape is cut, a bending test is performed to check whether the bow's segments are even. Because it is difficult to be completely uniform with naturally grown wood, there may be some places that are harder, some places are softer, and the strength may not be the same just because the shape is uniform. Therefore, it is necessary to correct it through observation and make the hardness area slightly thinner. Once the back of the arch is roughly adjusted, you can file the chord grooves at an inch and a half (about 5 cm) at both ends, with the outer side of the back of the arch being deeper and the inner side slightly shallower. ”

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