The development process of the improved trebuchet was not smooth, because Ma Yue could only have a vague concept, and even the winch should be installed in the front and rear of the trebuchet, and the counterweight of the twist should be supported by what mechanism and other details were not clear, and this improved trebuchet can be said to be completely different from the previous man-drawn trebuchet, so Chen Qun, who was responsible for the specific production, could only gradually improve it in continuous experiments. Pen & fun & Pavilion www.biquge.infoqΒ5、c0m/Drunken Dew Academy

Since the target of the improved version of the Mars trebuchet was the large building ships of the Wu and Chu naval armies, the stone projectiles thrown by this trebuchet must be heavy enough to ensure that they can chisel through the cabin of the naval warships, so as to inflict heavy damage on the Wu and Chu naval armies, and the throwing distance of the trebuchet must also exceed the range of ordinary bows and arrows by at least half, so as to strike first.

Chen Qun has done a simple experiment, only more than 200 catties (40 kilograms) of stones fall from a height of more than 5 zhang in order to penetrate the thick planks such as bulkheads and decks of naval warships, considering that the inner wall and the bottom of the deck of warships are often supported by reinforcing transverse bars, so the actual weight of the stone projectiles required needs to be at least 300 catties (about 60 kilograms).

The range of an ordinary bow and arrow is generally 100 paces, and more than half is 150 paces (about meters).

That is to say, the improved Mars trebuchet has to throw at least 300 pounds of stone projectiles to 150 steps away, which requires extremely tough and sufficient length of the rod arm.

When Chen Qun was helpless, Kuai Liang gave him extremely important advice, and Kuai Liang, who loves architectural art, was inspired by the beam structure and suggested that Chen Qun make composite rod arms, the principle of which is to use two relatively thin, lighter, parallel longitudinal rods and arms as the main body. In the middle of the two rod arms transversely support a large number of reinforcing transverse ribs, and then the outer surface is wrapped with animal skin, with animal tendons tightened, animal tendons will naturally shrink when drying, you can tightly wrap the two rod arms and the middle of the reinforcing transverse ribs into one.

In this way, the composite boom arm will be greatly increased in both its strength and elasticity, especially its weight is much lighter than that of a solid monolithic boom, so it is also lighter and faster when launching.

Chen Qun took Kuai Liang's suggestion, and after months of trial and error, he finally made a crude prototype.

After the prototype is formed. Chen Qun tried firing a few times, and the effect was quite good, so he invited Ma Yue and hundreds of civil and military officials to observe together.

Inside and outside the workshop of Luoyang Dongxiao, the security at this time was extremely strict, and the walls of the wall more than three zhang high were covered with Jin Ge warriors. The front and rear gates of the factory are three steps and one sentry, and five steps and one year old. In addition to the 3,000 Praetorian Guards who had been stationed here, and the 3,000 Imperial Forest Guards led by General Wei Dian Wei, nearly 6,000 elites of the Liang Army had completely blocked the entire workshop.

Without the Son of Heaven's Divine Decree, no one is allowed to enter or leave, and anyone who dares to approach within ten steps of the workshop will be killed!

Inside the workshop.

Liang Taizu Ma Yue, Jia Xu, Li Su and other civil and military officials were surrounding a huge machine and were amazed.

This instrument is four zhang high, two zhang wide at the bottom, and more than five zhang deep before and after. At the top of the instrument, a huge twisted chain is used to hold a huge rod arm that is about five feet long.

The front end of the rod arm is raised high, and a huge basket is pressed on it, the basket is full of stones, look at the length and width of the basket, and the height of the basket is a step, and the stones in it are afraid that they will not weigh tens of thousands of catties (2~10~:|,.u.=Firmly chained. The chain extends to the movable support at the bottom by means of a pulley at the top of the trebuchet. Drunken Dew Academy

When the trebuchet is fired, the soldier only needs to smash open the movable support.

The rear end of the arm is almost pressed to the ground, and at the top is also a basket, but much smaller, containing a specially polished triangular bluestone (tetrahedron). pyramidal). Obviously, Chen Qun put a lot of effort into this trebuchet. Even the shape of the stone projectile has been modified to be the most lethal quadrilateral triangular shape.

In the expectant eyes of the Son of Heaven and the hundred officials, Chen Qun took a deep breath, his raised right hand fell fiercely, and shouted: "Release!" ”

"Ping!"

The soldier slammed his hammer on the movable support.

In the suffocating silence, there was a sudden screaming moan, tens of thousands of pounds of stones quickly fell to the ground, the huge trebuchet bounced violently, accompanied by a terrible scream, the stone basket placed, weighing more than 300 catties of four-sided triangular bluestone has been thrown high in the air from the stone basket, and then tumbled forward in the air and flew forward nearly two hundred steps away before falling exhausted.

"Boom!"

With a loud bang, the volley smashed to the ground on all sides of the triangular bluestone and accurately hit the small "target ship" that Chen Qun had prepared in advance, and in an instant, the mast of the "target ship" was smashed together with the deck, and the broken wooden planks and broken masts flew everywhere, which was spectacular, and the civil and military officials who were watching around Ma Yue cheered loudly, and Ma Yue couldn't help but be overjoyed.

"Your Majesty, please be calm and don't be impatient, when it gets dark, throw the canister of fire oil, and then the flames will burn into the air, and the scene will be spectacular."

Seeing that the Son of Heaven and the hundred officials were all happy, Chen Qun was inevitably proud in his heart.

"Oh?" Ma Yue went to the dragon chair and said happily, "Then I have to wait and see, come and give me a seat, so that the hundred officials can accompany me to enjoy Chen Aiqing's performance, hahaha......"

……

Xiangyang, the water army Dazhai.

Gan Ning finished training the navy on the Xiangjiang River, and just returned to the general's mansion before he could sit down and drink hot tea, a general entered the house to report that the left attendant of the Ministry of Works, Sima Yi, and Lord Sima came to visit.

"Lord Sima?" Gan Ning shook his head in confusion and said loudly, "Let him wait in the side hall first." ”

"Yes."

The family will be ordered to leave.

Partial hall.

Sima Yi was waiting a little impatiently, when he suddenly heard the sound of footsteps, and when he looked back in a hurry, he saw Gan Ning walking out quickly, and hurriedly got up and said, "The lower officials see the governor of Ganda." ”

"Sima Da." Gan Ning said with a solemn hand, "Let's take a seat." ”

"Governor Xie."

Sima Yi thanked him, and the two of them sat down as guests, and Gan Ning asked, "I don't know what the adults are doing when they come to Xiangyang?" ”

Sima Yiyao arched his hand to the north, and said loudly: "By the order of the Holy Shangyi, I came to Xiangjiang to supervise the construction of a new warship." ”

"A new type of warship?" Gan Ning said confusedly. "What new warship?"

Sima Yi unhurriedly took out a silk silk from his sleeve and spread it out on the table, Gan Ning looked at it and saw a drawing painted on the silk, which was clearly a strange naval warship.

Sima Yi pointed his finger to Gan Ning and said: "Metropolitan Governor, please see, this new type of warship was personally conceived by His Majesty, and then supplemented and improved by the Ministry of Industry, but most of the officials of the Ministry of Industry are not accustomed to water warfare, and it is inevitable that there will be omissions or common sense contrary to water warfare, so the Metropolitan Governor must put forward opinions to improve it according to the actual experience of water warfare." ”

Ganning's finger pattern on the wheel-like thing. He asked, "Lord Sima, this thing looks like a waterwheel, but it is not a bamboo tube for scooping water, but a piece of wood." Drunken Dew Academy, but I don't know what it is? ”

"This is the oar." Sima Yi said, "The current warships rely on soldiers to paddle by hand, and with this kind of oar, you can step on it with your feet!" The advantage of pedaling with feet is that it can be done with the soldier's own body weight, which is more powerful, longer-lasting, and faster than just by hand! His Majesty's idea was to make two separate ships with narrow hulls, and then to fix them at regular intervals, with the space vacated in the middle for ten to twenty sets of oars, and the outer surface covered with animal skins to prevent fire. Then fix a sharp ramshell in the bow of the ship, and rely on the speed of the dash to smash the bulkhead of the enemy ship. ”

[The body structure is a bit like the catamaran missile speedboat that China has just developed.] ]

"This ......," Gan Ning frowned, "it's not difficult to make such a warship, in fact, it is to build two longer warships, and then fix them together at certain intervals, and install a ramshell on the bow."

Just install the paddle in the middle. But the question is, can this so-called oars really be more powerful and durable than paddling by hand? Can the boat row faster? ”

Sima Yi said: "This should be no problem. ”

"Okay." Gan Ning nodded, "Bendu, let the craftsmen of the dockyard build a warship like this." ”

[Warfare is not very skillful, but relies more on strategy, tactics, and the discipline and fighting spirit of the soldiers, while water warfare is highly skillful because it relies heavily on ships.] Therefore, it is difficult for Ma Yue's advantage to cross the crowd to play any advantage in land warfare in the era of cold weapons. In water warfare, you can use your ships and weapons to your advantage. ]

……

Luoyang East Effect, Ministry of Industry Workshop.

Chen Qun said loudly: "Ignition." ”

A soldier with a torch had already stepped forward. The oil tank in the throwing basket of the stone thrower burst into flames, and Chen Qun shouted again: "Release!" ”

"Puffy!"

A loud tremor moan sounded again under the dark night sky.

The burning oil tank was thrown up under the swing of the rod arm, and the flame pulled out a long broom tail in the air, like a meteor crossing the night sky with a dazzling trajectory, whistling away, when the burning flame gradually became smaller and almost disappeared, the fire oil tank finally hit the mast of the target ship, and then burst openly, the oil splashed everywhere, and turned into a spark in the sky in an instant.

Seeing that scene, Ma Yue felt like he had returned to modern society and was watching the fireworks go off.

"Good!"

"Great!"

"Great!"

"My Celestial Empire has this miraculous skill, how can I know that the South Barbarian is uncertain, and Wu Chu is immortal?"

"Your Majesty is blessed with the sky, and the fortunes of the Great Liang Country are prosperous......"

The civil and military forces of the Liang Dynasty, who were fortunate enough to witness this scene, began to sing praises one after another, as if with this sharp trebuchet, Wu and Chu south of the Yangtze River were no longer afraid and could be destroyed, however, Ma Yue, as the supreme ruler of the Great Liang Empire, did not dare to be careless! If there is no barrier from the Yangtze River moat, the combined forces of Wu and Chu are indeed vulnerable, and perhaps only the prince Ma Zheng will lead 100,000 Xiliang Iron Cavalry to the south to solve the problem.

Then, with the barrier of the Yangtze River moat, the situation is completely different.

If the Wu and Chu armies could not be eliminated and the Yangtze River moat could not be opened, the millions of cavalry of the Daliang Empire would not be able to cross the Lei Chi by half a step, even if they could barely smuggle tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of cavalry troops across the river, even if they did not hesitate to sacrifice the people of Jiangnan to sacrifice the bloody tactics of fighting to feed the war, the result could only be cut off by the Wu and Chu coalition forces, and then the whole army was annihilated in all sides.

Therefore, if you want to pacify Wu and Chu, you can only destroy Wu and Chu's naval armies first.

And to destroy the Wu and Chu water armies, it is far from enough to rely on Gan Ning's water army, Gan Ning's water army has not been able to compare with Wu and Chu water army not long ago, so the Liang army must find another way to make up for the gap in strength. That's why Ma Yue thought of improving trebuchets and improving naval warships, so can these improved ground trebuchets and warships really play their due role?

Until the final decision is made, everything is still unknown, and the only thing Ma Yue can do is to plan ahead and try to prepare for the big battle.

Losing this decisive battle of the naval army, of course, the Great Liang Empire will not hurt its vitality, but the day of the unification of Huaxia is only afraid that it will be postponed for at least twenty years, Ma Yue is already almost fifty people, he is very worried that he will not live to that time, if he can't dominate Huaxia in his lifetime. This is bound to become an eternal regret in Ma Yue's heart.

……

Three months later, Xiangyang.

A strange warship was quietly moored in the dock.

Twice as wide and twice as long as a regular ship, it looks like a reinforced version of the ship from the side. But from the front, it's a little weird.

From the front, the upper structure of this warship is connected, while the lower part is separated, the left and right sides of the catamaran hull are designed with sharp bows, and two rows of ramshells are installed on the bow, which looks like a hideous and terrifying big fish from a distance, opening its bloody mouth, revealing two rows of sharp fangs

In fact, there are two larger, longer ramsticks hidden below the surface, and these two ramsticks are the real killer features of this ship.

Next to this strange ship was an ordinary ship.

Not far away is a five-story ship. Gan Ning and Sima Yi stood solemnly above Feilu surrounded by dozens of naval generals.

Seeing that the two warships were ready, Gan Ning ordered: "Let's start!" ”

The general of the navy beside Su Li Ganning quickly raised a red pennant and waved it twice vigorously in front of him. In an instant, the sound of bright trumpets and passionate war drums rushed into the sky, and the blood was boiling in the sound of war drums. Rows of oars poked out of the oars of the ordinary warship and began to paddle wildly, the frequency of which ...... It's clearly the speed of the sprint!

Under the frantic rowing of the oars, the ship moved from stillness. Quickly start accelerating.

And the two walls of the huge and strange warship did not protrude from the two walls of the oars. Just when Gan Ning and the generals of the navy were disappointed. White spray erupted from the tail channel of the strange ship, and the whole ship slid out like an arrow, leaving the normal ship behind almost from the start, and the distance between the two ships was rapidly widened.

On the five-story ship's flying house. Gan Ning swung his iron fist viciously. His eyes suddenly looked a little hideous, and the generals of the navy behind Gan Ning cheered loudly. High-fives and celebrations one by one. While the generals of the navy were cheering, the strange warship that rushed forward quickly had already slammed into a horizontally moored target.

Listening to a crisp sound, there were already two rows of sharp hammers on the side of the target ship and crashed out of more than a dozen large holes, and the huge impact made the warship rush to the ground hull of the warship, and then the empty channel in the bow began to gush out white sprays in reverse, and the hull that had just stopped soon began to retreat, and the huge ramming mallet retreated, and the icy river water quickly poured from the hole into the cabin of the target ship.

In less than a moment, the target ship sank to the bottom of the river.

……

Luoyang East Effect, Factory.

Liang Taizu Ma Yue came again in person, and led the civil and military officials to observe the salvo of ten trebuchets again, and the visual impact of the salvo of ten trebuchets was naturally much more spectacular than that of a trebuchet, but Ma Yue suddenly felt that something was wrong, it seemed that there was a slight difference between the launch scene of the group of trebuchets in front of him and the trebuchet launch scene that he recalled in his mind.

Where it was, Ma Yue couldn't remember it all at once.

At this time, Prince Ma Zheng suddenly inadvertently asked Chen Qun: "Chen Shangshu, why don't you make the pole arm longer?" ”

Chen Qun said: "The prince doesn't know, this pole arm can not be lengthened, if the length of the pole arm is increased by one zhang, then the strength of the rod arm will have to be increased by two times, the difficulty of the rod arm will be increased by four times, and the weight of the whole trebuchet itself will be increased by six times, and the increase of the rod arm by one zhang will not increase the range of the trebuchet too much." ”

Ma Zheng asked, "What is the maximum range now?" ”

"The maximum range is one hundred and eighty steps." Chen Qun replied, "After repeated tests, Xiaguan found that six zhang is the most ideal pole arm length, when the rod arm length is shorter than six zhang, the firing range will be significantly reduced, and when the rod arm length exceeds six zhang, increasing the length will not promote a significant increase in the firing range, in addition, the firing range of Wu and Chu's bows and arrows is only about one hundred and twenty steps, and the range of our army's trebuchets is enough to suppress it from a long distance." ”

"That's not right!" Ma Yue finally remembered what the problem was, and shouted, "The range of this group of trebuchets can be increased by at least another hundred steps!" ”

"What!?" Chen Qun was stunned and said, "Add another hundred steps?" How long do you have to increase the length of the boom? ”

"Nope." Ma Yue shook his hand and said, "I mean that if you don't lengthen the length of the pole arm, you can make these trebuchets have a longer range. ”

Chen Qun said: "How is this possible? ”

"Why can't it be?" Ma Yue asked rhetorically, "If you tie two cables to the end of the pole arm and tie the throwing basket at the other end of the cable, wouldn't it be equivalent to adding an extra length of the cable to the original length of the pole arm when the trebuchet is launched?" With this extra length, wouldn't the range of the trebuchet be greatly increased?

Ma Yue finally recalled that when the trebuchet was launched, the trebuchet did not directly project the stone weakly with the rod arm, but pulled the cable through the rod arm, and then the stone projectile in the throwing basket was thrown out by the cable, because when the trebuchet was in the firing state, the rod arm was almost close to the ground, and the throwing basket tied to the cable was placed in the front of the trebuchet.

Therefore, when the rod arm bounces up, the cable will be pulled, and the initial traction force that is almost parallel to the ground in one direction will be given to the throwing basket, and under the action of this initial traction force, the throwing basket will swing in tangential direction with the end of the rod arm as the center of the circle and the length of the cable as the radius, and at this time the rod arm is also bouncing up, and these two movements are carried out at the same time.

When the rod arm crosses to the highest point, begins to be restricted, and decelerates by the counterweight, the cable swings around the tangent of the end of the rod arm but does not slow down, and finally the cable will form a straight line with the rod arm, if the stone bullet in the throwing basket happens to be out of the shackles of the throwing basket at this time, then the length of the actual rod arm should be the length of the existing rod arm plus the length of the cable.

As the length of the actual boom increases, so does its range, and the only problem that needs to be solved is how to ensure that the stone bullet in the basket will fly away when the boom is in a straight line with the cable.

Chen Qun obviously didn't understand this principle of physics, and asked in a daze: "Tie a cable at the end of the pole arm and let the cable pull the basket?" This can increase the range? ”

"Of course." Ma Yue replied firmly, "You'll know if you try." (Full Text)

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