In Hefei City, the hall that has changed the owner, Qiao Ren sits at the top of the golden knife, and Qiao Ren has only a few staff members in the hall, but the military general is only Dai Gang.

"During the battle of Guandu, Cao Cao once used a thunderbolt to break Yuan Shao's arrow tower, Ren was inspired by it, and after several thoughts, he specially invented this thing and took a name, called a ballista."

Qiao Ren said and took out a drawing and spread it on the table. Immediately, Jiang Ji, Liu Ji and others surrounded them together.

"The cannon uses the torsion generated by two bundles of tensioned horsehair, leather rope or ox tendon as a power to drive the crossbow arm to drive the bowstring to throw projectiles or arrows." Qiao Ren explained as he spoke.

"I don't know what the difference between this cannon of the Metropolitan Governor and the bed crossbow installed on the ship a few days ago." Dai Gang had seen the bed crossbow on the ship of the Dongwu Navy Tower, so he asked first.

Only after the Battle of Chibi, when Zhou Yu was still the governor of Dadu, he used Qiao Ren's drawings to make the bed crossbow, and together with Qiao Ren, he installed it on the building ship in accordance with the sidechord run of the wooden warship of later generations, which greatly improved the long-range combat effectiveness of the Wu army.

Qiao Ren had long expected that someone would ask this question, but he didn't want Dai Gang to bring it up, and he couldn't help but feel relieved that Dai Gang had finally grown to this point. At this time, Qiao Ren took out another drawing from his bosom, "The ballista designed by Bentu has a sturdy bracket, the main beam is placed on the bracket, and its front end is flanked by two torsion spring sets, each of which drives a crossbow arm, and the end of the crossbow arm is connected to a bowstring, and in the center of the bowstring is a braided net bag containing the projectile. ”

Shown on this diagram is a diagram of the bracket and the ballista mounted on the city wall. Everyone looked at it, their eyes lit up, according to Qiao Ren, the range of this ballista is fourteen strokes (one citation is ten zhang, and fourteen bolts are about more than 250 meters). Such a distance is really too rebellious, you must know that the range of bows and arrows in the Han Dynasty was only between 100 and 120 steps, that is, 70 or 80 meters, and the effective killing distance was even shorter, and only within 100 steps could the leather armor be penetrated. The range of the ballista is 14 and due to the weight of the crossbow itself, as long as the effective range can cause damage, the ballista is placed on the city wall, and the defense of the entire Hefei will be increased by more than several layers.

And the crossbow arrows needed for these ballistae do not even need to be specially made, only a spear of a certain weight and length is enough. Thinking of this, Jiang Ji couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "Metropolitan Governor, this crossbow arrow seems to only need a wooden spear to exert its power. ”

"Exactly! Even if our army is surrounded, it can be cut into a spear, and it does not need to be made like a crossbow arrow for a bed crossbow, which requires a sophisticated craft. Qiao Ren was very satisfied with his invention, in fact, this so-called ballista was the sharp weapon of ancient Greece, and the pretext of thunderbolt was just an excuse for Qiao Ren.

Some people say that it is people, not weapons, that decide the war, this sentence of course has its truth, but it is not entirely true, for example, in the history of that year, if Cao Wei did not have an iron cavalry army, if Shu Han did not have a strong crossbow army, if the Wu army did not have a giant naval warship...... How exactly history will evolve is still unknown. When Hefei, equipped with such a weapon to defend the city, appeared in front of Cao Cao, he didn't know that it would be like this.

Since ancient times, the Northern Expedition from south to north was not uncommon, and during the Eastern Jin Dynasty and Southern Dynasties, the southern dynasty recovered Luoyang many times, and even recovered Chang'an, fortified along the Yellow River. But all the time, Forte was finally abandoned for various reasons, some of which were political struggles, some of which were due to lack of food and grass, and more importantly, the weakness of defense. With Qiao Ren's ballista, the Wu army could easily defend against the counterattack from Cao's army on the way north.

Historically, because the national strength of the Shu Han regime was inferior to that of the Wei army and there was no advantage of cavalry, it attached great importance to the use of advanced technology in army construction, such as the crossbow troops that made the Wei army fearful, and the Pu Yuan knife that could sharpen iron like clay, which seems to be related to Zhuge Liang and other Jingxiang scholars who attached more importance to the tricks of the machine.

And Dongwu not only has no cavalry, but also does not even give foot soldiers, and there are more people in the heart, and the military strength is not even as good as that of Shu Han, but it only pays attention to the construction of the naval army, which is really incomprehensible.

Today, Qiao Ren is constantly changing this phenomenon. Of course, the results are obvious, "Grand Duke, if this ballista is placed on a chariot, can it be used in field combat?" Dai Gang asked again, it was still a technical question.

Just imagine, placing a ballista with a range of more than 200 meters on a mobile tank is simply a tank of the Three Kingdoms era, but such technical requirements are too high. In Qiao Ren's mind, he kept recalling the famous battles in later generations to see if he could find such a case.

"But the moon array!" A classic battle of breaking through the cavalry with foot came to Qiao Ren's mind. In the historical records of the Moon Array, Liu Yu's chariot only placed the giant crossbow on the chariot, and could not rotate back and forth like the ballista.

However, the Moon Array has extremely strict requirements for the command of generals, not only to be good at commanding infantry and naval forces, but also to be good at commanding all soldiers and armies to fight together. Moreover, the limitation of the moon formation is also very large, that is, the requirements of the terrain are very large, and once there is a mistake, there is a danger of being penetrated by the opposing cavalry from the flank or from the rear flank. If it weren't for Liu Yu's backwater formation, if the Northern Wei cavalry was allowed to copy from behind, Liu Yu's Moon Formation would be difficult to work.

However, Dai Gang's words are some inspiration from Qiao Ren, the strength of the Eastern Wu Navy can be said to be unique in the Pacific Ocean, and it is a good tactical idea for the Navy and the Army to work together, and the Eastern Wu Navy with a bed crossbow also has such an ability.

"You can let the craftsman try it, and if it succeeds, our army can be equipped with big things." Qiao Ren thought about it for a long time, and in the end, it could only be an experiment by a craftsman.

"The Grand Duke! There is news coming. Qiao Ren thought about it, and didn't notice that Zhang Wen had disappeared for a minute, afraid that he had received an important piece of information.

"What?"

Zhang Wen pretended to say in a deep voice: "Cao Cao's army has arrived in Shouchun, and the scout return is about 100,000. In addition, there was a detailed report, and Xun Yu died of illness in Shouchun the day after Cao Cao arrived. ”

"Death?" Qiao Ren remembered in a trance that Xun Yu did not die of illness, but in any case, Xun Yu, one of Cao Cao's two most important advisers in the early days, who was known as Wang Zuozhicai, also died, and Cao Cao basically lost his chance to win from then on. (After the deaths of Guo Jia and Xun Yu, Cao Cao's victory rate dropped dramatically, and since both died, Cao Cao barely won a battle.) ）

Shouchun is less than ten days away from Hefei, although it will take a certain amount of time for Cao Cao to march, it may be December or January next year, but for Qiao Ren, he does not dare to slack off for a moment.

"Hui Shu always inquired about the news ahead, and Jing Yu ordered the craftsmen to immediately make a hundred crossbows and place them at the head of the city, covering every inch of land outside the city."

"Whoa!"

"Ziwei! Immediately get up and go to the foothills of Jiming Mountain, where numerous arrow towers and simple fortresses have been built. The topography here is important, and Hefei is an important topography. ”

"Whoa!"

After the meeting, Liu Ji, who was fully sponsored by Qiao Ren, was able to mobilize the best blacksmiths and carpenters in Hefei and made two ballistas in three days. Then, at a secret venue outside Hefei City, Qiao Ren demonstrated his secret weapon in front of a group of civil and military personnel.

The power of the ballista cannon was really strong, and the two guns combined successfully shot a cow two hundred paces away with a hit rate of four out of ten shots, and carried it away a hundred meters with an unstoppable momentum. Such a high hit rate was quite high in the eyes of Qiao Ren and others, and the terrifying lethality made Qiao Ren and the generals strengthen their confidence in defending Hefei in front of Cao Cao.