This traveler only wants to choose the lowest difficulty

Chapter 266

Wang Dong asked Hou Junji, "Can you release it now, my lord?"

Hou Junji was about to see the effect of the trebuchet, so he hurriedly said, "Quickly release it."

Wang Dong and several craftsmen turned the capstan vigorously, and the capstan pulled the rope. As the rope was tightened, the sickle at the other end of the rope was slowly pulled away. Suddenly, the sling arm lost its restraint, and was driven by the counterweight quickly. With a loud sound of breaking wind, the first ten arms pulled the rope on the load-bearing arm, pulled up the leather bag, and threw the boulder the size of a pocket into the air, and then the rope was unhooked at the highest point. Throw the boulder far away directly.

Everyone looked at the big stone.It drew an arc in the air, flew straight to four or five hundred steps, and then boomed.

Hou Junji and the others felt the ground tremble again when the stone fell to the ground. They couldn't help but feel rather surprised at the terrifying power of the trebuchet. The live bullets that landed almost completely smashed into the thick soil. If this thing hit the city wall, Can't just smash the city wall with one shot?

At this time, Wang Dong also hurriedly asked He Luo to ride forward.

He Luo rode to the place where the stone landed and dismounted, then measured it with his footsteps, then came back quickly, and happily reported to Wang Dong: "My lord, the difference between the place where the stone landed and the last time is only two steps away."

Hou Junji nodded. The purpose of Wang Dong's test was to check the accuracy of the trebuchet. At a distance of several hundred meters, the difference between the falling boulders was only two steps. The accuracy of the trebuchet exceeded But at this moment, he heard Wang Dong ask: "How many steps is the stone falling from here?"

He Luo quickly replied: "Between 470 and 480 steps."

Wang Dong nodded, and then said to the craftsman beside him, "Now try again with a marble that has lost five catties."

Hou Junji and others followed Wang Dong's words and saw a craftsman quickly running aside. Only then did they realize that a shed had been set up next to the trebuchet, with many stones and a pole in it. On the big balance, the craftsmen were lifting the stones off the scale, then carefully chipping away some with chisels, and then placing them on the scale, constantly calibrating the weight of the stones.

Hou Junji asked with some doubts: "Yes, what does this mean?"

Wang Dong smiled and said: "My lord, wait a minute, you will understand later."

Wang Dong made such a good thing, when Hou Junji was happy, he didn't care whether Wang Dong's words would embarrass him, so he waited patiently.

Soon the catapult craftsmen finally pressed the stone to the weight required by Wang Dong, so the trebuchet was set up again, and it took about half a stick of incense to prepare again. With the sound of breaking wind, the stone was launched.

Hou Junji noticed that the stone seemed to have landed farther this time than last time. Sure enough, He Luo rode his horse to observe it and came back to report: "The stone landed ten steps farther this time."

At this time, Hou Junji saw Wang Dong take out a piece of paper and carefully write down a piece of data with a brush on it. Hou Junji thought for a moment and seemed to understand what Wang Dong was doing, so he quickly stepped forward and took Wang Dong's hand. Looking at the piece of recording paper in my hand carefully, I couldn't help but feel happy.

I saw two columns of numbers on that piece of paper. One column of numbers marked the number of steps from the landing point to the trebuchet, and the other column of numbers marked the weight of the stone. It turned out that Wang Dong was calculating how far he could hit with different weights. .

This discovery made Hou Junji's eyes light up. This gravity trebuchet can actually adjust the range!
This is also the real advantage of the gravity trebuchet, because the counterweight of the gravity trebuchet remains the same, and the conditions are theoretically the same every time it is launched, so as long as the weight of the stone projectile is changed, the range of the stone projectile can be adjusted. In the eyes of Hou Junji, who owns a human-powered trebuchet, this is obviously a novelty.

The range of the human-powered trebuchet depends entirely on the strength of the manpower in the hands of the man-made trebuchet. Every time he uses the human-powered trebuchet to attack the city, what he can ask for is that the stone is not far enough, so he pushes the trebuchet a little further. Or make people use more effort, and it is impossible to plan the impact point so accurately.

Hou Junji looked at it again and again, and couldn't help asking Wang Dongdao: "Is this table accurate?"

Wang Dong smiled and replied: "Sir, we have measured twenty or thirty stone bullets. The largest difference between the impact points of each stone bullet of equal weight is only five steps, and the smallest is only one or two steps. "

Hearing this, Hou Junji couldn't help but nodded joyfully, and his eyes were full of admiration when he looked at the trebuchet.

At this time, Wang Dong continued: "My lord, our trebuchet can not only throw stones in field battles, but also guard cities.
"Oh!" Hou Junji stared at the trebuchet for a moment, then couldn't help laughing and said, "If you want to push such a big machine to the city wall, it may be very difficult on the first floor."

Although he disapproved of defending the city with a trebuchet in his heart, he was already extremely satisfied with this machine at this time, so even if Wang Dong said something wrong, he would just point it out with a smile.

Although this trebuchet is good, but if such a large machine is placed on the city wall, and it is made of wood, it will not move and it will be a heavy burden on the city wall. More importantly, although this thing is thick, But it is very precise, and it is easy to become the target of the enemy's attack. Destroying a piece of material and manpower is not a waste, but the fallen wood is enough to smash the defenders on the city wall to death.

So Hou Junji didn't think it was feasible for Wang Dong to say that he wanted to defend the city with trebuchets.

At this moment, Wang Dong smiled slightly and said, "My lord, let me demonstrate for you."

After he ordered a few times, Hou Junji saw the craftsmen quickly hanging the two iron chains on the trebuchet arms. Hou Junji looked at it in confusion, and then saw the craftsmen spending a few minutes to catapult the trebuchet again. The machine was fixed and the stone bullets were loaded. Wang Dong gave an order to launch the trebuchet. The stone arm made a burst of wind and lifted the stone again. However, as the trebuchet moved into the air, the trebuchet was The iron chain was suddenly restrained, and instead of rising to the highest point, the stone was thrown diagonally in mid-air. The stone flew upward diagonally for a while, and then turned and rushed downward diagonally, in the air. It drew a parabola and then crashed into the distance.

Seeing the parabola, Hou Junji was taken aback for a moment, but after thinking for a while, his eyes suddenly lit up.

He understood what Wang Dong meant by using a trebuchet to defend the city. Because the stones were shot in a parabola, the highest point of the stone thrown by the trebuchet was higher than the highest point reached by the catapult arm. , This means that when they are really defending the city, they can design a trebuchet that is shorter than the city wall and place it in the city, and then constantly adjust the weight of the stone bullets to change the distance of the catapult.

Think about such a scene, the enemy soldiers gathered in the siege and huge stones flew out from behind the city wall to attack them, but they couldn't see the location of the trebuchet, and there was no way to destroy it, and then let the guards take it. The last shot table that was drawn up, chased those siege soldiers behind their buttocks... Hou Junji himself has commanded many siege battles, and he can't help but imagine that he would have little knowledge of such defensive equipment on the side of attacking the city. How do you feel?
Then he couldn't help but nodded happily.

Seeing Hou Junji's overjoyed look, Wang Dong couldn't help but smile in his heart, and used a trebuchet to hit a parabolic trajectory. This method was thought up by the people of the Song Dynasty. At that time, it caused headaches for the Jin people and the Mongols. Putting it into Datang for use in the year, it can definitely be called a black technology.

(End of this chapter)