The people of the Song Dynasty undoubtedly liked to read, even in the last days of the Southern Song Dynasty, people still believed that everything was inferior, and only reading was high. Even if it is a small person who is promoted to the Doudou, he will try his best to let his children read the books of the sages for a few days, even if they do not have the talent to test their fame, it is good to know a few more words and understand the principles of the sages.

But Lu Shihu, who thinks he is well-read, really can't imagine that cannon shooting has anything to do with reading - it is artillery, not artillery, and the artilleryman who makes artillery can also read the "Luban Book". What books should I read for artillery? It can't be "Qimen Dunjia", right?

Lu Shihu felt strange, Chen Dexing's ordinary brothers below were also suspicious, but they didn't say anything, they all looked at Chen Dexing fixedly.

"The first thing to do is arithmetic, only by calculating the distance, azimuth, wind speed, cannon weight, chord force, angle, and parabola, can we make a hundred shots and a hundred hits, so that our artillery army has become a powerful force under the command of the privy minister to defeat the enemy!"

Everyone below blinked their eyes, and they didn't understand what Chen Dexing meant at all-why don't you just hit a cannon? At most, if you measure the distance, why are there so many doorways?

"Qingzhi, I also have some knowledge of arithmetic, and I have also read the ten books of arithmetic, but I don't know what algorithm to use for artillery?"

Lu Shihu, who was on the side, interjected with great interest at this time and asked.

Although the scholars of the Song Dynasty somewhat ignored the natural sciences, they did not ignore them. At this time, the science that has gradually become the mainstream of Confucianism also pays attention to "learning from things", and it is necessary to "be poor in heaven, understand people's ethics, speak holy words, and pass accidents", and this "accident" includes plants, trees, and utensils. The science of the Song Dynasty only used plants, trees, and utensils under the principles of heaven, which was regarded as the elaboration and application of the principles of heaven. Zhu Xi, a master of science in the Southern Song Dynasty, also studied natural sciences a lot, and in his books "Beichen Dialect", "Yaodian" and "Shundian", there are a lot of research contents on astronomy and geography. In addition, Zhu Xi has insights on geological fossils, denial of creationism, the origin of the universe, geocentrism, the rotation of the earth, solar and lunar eclipses, tides, the shape of hexagonal crystals of snowflakes, the formation of rainbows, the influence of geography on climate, biological and human origins, traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis, agricultural production structure, crop layout and specific production technology. The "Annotations on the Collection of Four Books and Chapters and Sentences", which was later designated as a scientific program, was only a part of the Southern Song Dynasty science.

At this time, the Confucian scholars of the Southern Song Dynasty, although they had taken moral articles as the first, were still more interested in the study of plants, trees and utensils than in the Ming and Qing dynasties - but the mainstream thought of Confucian scholars and scholars still regarded Confucian scriptures and righteousness as the avenue, and the rest were small paths......

"Brother Lu Shi, the algorithm that Dexing wants to use for artillery is not derived from the Ten Books of Arithmetic, but from countries such as Dashi, Tianzhu and Daqin in the Western Regions."

Chen Dexing replied with a smile. In his previous life, he was a senior seafarer with a professional background, and of course he was not bad at mathematics. However, the mathematics of later generations all originated from the West, and it is not in the same vein as the Chinese Ten Books of Arithmetic. Chen Dexing himself has not read the Ten Books of Mathematics, and it is impossible for him to expound the mathematical knowledge he has mastered in later generations in the language and standards of the Ten Books of Mathematics - this is a university question! Without years of painstaking research, it would have been impossible to succeed. If Chen Dexing was interested in becoming a great mathematician of the Yuan Dynasty, he could do this......

"Why don't you count the knowledge in the ten books?" Lu Shihu was just curious, and did not show the slightest disdain. If there is any difference between the Confucianism of the Southern Song Dynasty and the Confucianism of the Ming and Qing dynasties, it is that they do not reject the outside world, nor are they blindly arrogant.

According to Chen Dexing's memories in this life, the Great Song Dynasty was actually a fairly open country, and foreign trade was extremely prosperous. Quanzhou, Guangzhou, Mingzhou, Lin'an and other places, Chinese and foreign merchants gathered, and many merchants from Dashi settled there. The merchants of the Southern Song Dynasty were also all over the surrounding countries such as Japan, Goryeo, Cochin, Sriwijaya, Java, Champong, and Khmer. There were even many merchants of the Song Dynasty who went to Tianzhu and Dashi to do business. The officials of the Song Dynasty were naturally not ignorant of the outside world.

Moreover, since the founding of the country, the Song Dynasty has been a weak country that has been passively beaten, and it is not at the peak of the international power structure of the East Asian world. In the Southern Song Dynasty, it became a small state in a corner of peace, so Song Confucianism did not have much thinking about the Heavenly Empire in his head - where in the world was there a great Celestial Dynasty that paid tribute to foreign countries?

"Don't hide it from the world, the younger brother has not studied the ten books of arithmetic, but he has learned the arithmetic of Dashi and Tianzhu by chance, and some of the algorithms are simple and practical, which are just used to teach sergeants." Chen Dexing did not hide that he did not know how to calculate the ten books, so that this black charcoal-like scholar had nothing to do and discussed some advanced arithmetic that he couldn't understand.

"Oh, I see." Lu Shihu nodded noncommittally, and no longer dwelled on what to use to teach the soldiers and men to fight artillery - anyway, artillery is not a imperial examination, no matter how it is calculated, as long as it can be beaten. But the question is, is it really useful to use a cannon?

"You don't understand the connection between artillery and arithmetic, do you?" Chen Dexing glanced at Lu Shihu from the corner of his eye, and said with a smile, "The opportunity to throw stones has existed since ancient times, and I have never heard of using arithmetic." However, the ancient stone thrower is also useless for field fighters, and there is no way to aim at it, most of them are to shoot directly at the city wall by visual inspection and calibration, so naturally there is no need to use arithmetic. ”

"Qingzhi, what do you mean by the intermittent sight?" Lu Shihu heard a new word again and asked curiously.

"Intermittent aiming is when the artillery shoots stones to break the enemy without being able to look directly at the enemy!" Chen Dexing said, "In this way, the artillery can be used after the infantry to prevent the artillery from being trampled by the northern captive horse team." ”

"Isn't it the same as a crossbow projectile?" Lu Shihu said, "The crossbow projectile is not very accurate...... If you shoot at the enemy formation 300 paces away with a stone machine, I am afraid that it will be too far away. ”

"And the enemy formation is not a city wall, and it will not stand still and wait for the artillery army to slowly shoot, so the artillery army must use arithmetic in field combat. In addition, the artillery army also needs to pay attention to the following points in field operations......"

Chen Dexing explained very carefully to Lu Shihu and the artillery officers who were sitting there the difficulties of the stone machine field battle - he did not remember any successful cases of stone machine field battles in history, and this weapon was also mostly used in attack or water warfare in Europe. In land field warfare, the weakness of the stone machine is very obvious: first, it is too bulky and difficult to move. At this time, the stone machines used on the battlefield of Mengsong were all large towed stone machines, which basically had no ability to maneuver, and most of them were made on the battlefield. It's fine for sieges, but not for field battles, and the enemy won't give you time to build a stone machine.

The second is that there is not much threat to moving targets, but no enemy will be stupid enough to wait for you to use the stone machine to slowly calibrate and shoot, if you hit a few misses, people will already move their nests. Therefore, in order to exert its power in the field, in addition to having a certain amount of mobility, the stone machine must have a high level of artillery - it must blast as many cannons into the enemy's formation as possible before they can react!

The third is to have a powerful iron cannon (cannonball), if it is only to throw stones, the lethality of the stone machine to field targets is very limited, and it is difficult to become a decisive force that can determine the victory or defeat of the battle like the artillery of later generations.

After listening to Chen Dexing's explanation, Lu Shihu took a deep breath, nodded and said: "I didn't expect this opportunity to send stones, even though there is so much knowledge, Shihu is really eye-opening today." ”

Chen Dexing knew that the other party was here to steal the teacher, but he didn't care, for him, this stone machine was just the beginning, so he immediately arched his hand and said: "Brother Shi said this, the method of this stone machine is really a small way, not worth mentioning." ”