Daqin Engineering Corps

"Besides, the walls of Daliang City are strong and thick, and the surrounding water network is densely covered. It is not easy to attack the city."

This is a characteristic of Daliang, the capital of Wei State.

Since King Hui of Liang moved his capital to Daliang City in the sixth year of Wei State, it has been strengthening the city wall for more than a hundred years.

Today, the city wall is already a well-known fortified city in the world. In history, the Qin and Qi countries attacked Daliang City several times, but they all returned because they could not break through the city.

The thickness of the city wall is only one of them. The more important thing is that Wei Guo has been digging canals in the Daliang area to divert water from the Yellow River for irrigation.

These canals and ditches fan out around the girders, dividing the open ground into smaller pieces.

This caused a lot of inconvenience to the offensive side.

Even the Wei army counterattacked from the city from time to time, and combined the defense with the city pool and water network, making the enemy helpless.

But Wang Jian said to Yang Duanhe:

"I'm not too worried about the siege, isn't there an engineer named Shen Bing under your command?"

Yang Duanhe quickly replied:

"To the General."

"Shen Bing has been promoted to be a miser!"

Wang Jian nodded and said:

"So good."

"It is said that he has recently made another... floating bridge?"

Yang Duanhe replied:

"What the general said is true."

"This pontoon bridge is made of logs, so it floats on the water like a raft."

"It only takes a few hours before and after to build a bridge for soldiers to pass through."

Wang Jian nodded and said:

"That's it."

"In the past, our army was unable to capture the girders mostly because of the obstruction of the water network."

"Now why don't we use the pontoon to overcome the water net and use the trebuchet to attack the city wall?"

"You must know that under Shen Bing's trebuchet, even the strong city of Handan can be easily broken, and how many days can Daliang withstand it?"

Yang Duanhe thought for a while, then nodded and said:

"What the general said is true, this method may be feasible."

Ying Zheng nodded and said:

"That's it."

"If our army can make a pontoon bridge to attack the water net, this water net can be used by me."

"In this way, even if the Chu army comes to help, we will be blocked by the water net."

Then he laughed again and said:

"In the end, it was Shen Bing who broke Daliang City..."

"I don't know where Shen Bing came up with all these ideas."

"Waterwheels, overturned carts, trebuchets... and now there are pontoon bridges."

"It's just breathtaking."

"You two should take good care of Shen Bing, and don't let him make any mistakes."

"Otherwise, I, Great Qin, will lose one of my lucky generals!"

Wang and Yang hurriedly nodded in agreement.

Yang Duanhe was startled in his heart, he can't send Shen Bing to any dangerous place in the future, otherwise the king will blame him...

Therefore, when Shen Bing and his party returned to Handan, they received an order to build a floating bridge before taking a breath.

Shen Bing didn't know the significance of learning to make pontoon bridges in large quantities. He only knew that his superiors gave orders and followed them.

To be precise, it is not to make pontoon bridges, but to teach other craftsmen and soldiers how to make pontoon bridges.

To be more precise, it should be training instead of teaching pontoons.

Because the pontoon is relatively simple to make, the trouble is to quickly splice it together.

If there is any trouble in making it, it is that the rafts tend to be uneven and inclined.

I had a similar problem the last time I crossed the river.

It's just that the river was not in a hurry and there was an emergency repair, and finally a pontoon bridge that did not affect the river was built.

Thinking back on Shen Bing at this moment, he felt a little scared.

At that time, if the troops could not cross the river smoothly because of these problems, I am afraid that I would lose my head.

But these two problems are easy to solve.

While drawing pictures on the sheepskin, Shen Bing said to Fatty Tun and Cang:

"If you find that some rafts are higher than the surface, don't think that you can reduce the height by removing some of the higher parts!"

Cang and Fatty Tun nodded repeatedly.

Many of them made this mistake last time.

Shen Bing went on to say:

"Instead, we should add weight to the high parts."

"Of course the weight has to be on the edges and not in the middle."

This is actually a matter of balancing buoyancy and gravity.

Fatty Tun and Cang don't need to understand it so deeply, they just need to know how to operate it.

Seeing that the two had no objection, Shen Bing went on to say:

"What's more difficult is the balance problem!"

This is the most important thing, because if the wooden talisman itself is unbalanced, such as one side is high and the other is low, its anti-wave and anti-sinking properties will be poor.

If the wooden planks were pushed upwards, the raft might start to roll in the water and the pontoon would overturn.

It is not easy to solve.

It is indeed possible to add weight.

But the question is how much weight to add?

Where is the counterweight added?

All of these require calculations and the calculations and operations are not simple.

Not only time-consuming but also prone to accidents.

Shen Bing knows that everything on the battlefield should be simple and easy to do, once it becomes complicated, it is easy to make trouble in a tense environment.

So Shen Bing thought of a practical method:

"Unification makes the raft long."

"Wood is stacked end to end and staggered."

The imbalance of the raft is mainly due to the uneven buoyancy caused by the thick wood at one end and the thinner end at the other end.

If the head and tail are staggered and interchanged, the weight can be offset to a certain extent to make the whole more balanced.

Even if it is still unbalanced in the end, it will not be too large and it will be easier to adjust.

Fatty Tun and Cang wrote down one by one and acted according to Shen Bing's instructions, and the situation was much better than before.

It doesn't matter to Cang, he just needs to know the method and he is satisfied.

But Fatty Tun was a person who wanted to know the reason. He was staring at the raft by the river for a while, scratching his head and scratching his head, but he couldn't figure out what was going on.

well!Is this talking about buoyancy?

Chapter 123 The Spy

The more difficult thing should be the construction of the pontoon bridge.

Cang had a different opinion on this, saying:

"Brother, if this pontoon bridge is finished."

"To build it, you just need to push it into the water and connect it into one piece. What's the difficulty?"

"Last time I waited only one stick of incense to set it up. If it was set up by soldiers, I'm afraid it will be faster..."

Shen Bing replied:

"The last time I built a bridge when the Yan army was unprepared."

"In the future, do you still hope that no one will defend you and let you build the bridge?"

When he said that, Cang lost his voice.

What Shen Bing said was that the bridge building in actual combat is to risk one's life under the enemy's trebuchets and arrows, and there is even the problem of landing on the beach, which is not as simple as imagined.

Shen Bing was not sure what his superiors were going to do, so he had to train soldiers to be proficient in the steps of building bridges.

Na Mengliang was not interested in these things, he just shouted beside him:

"Coward, I heard that the scallion pancakes you baked are unparalleled in the world?"

"How about another show tonight?"

"Wouldn't it be great for my subordinates to fetch two jars of fine wine at that time?"

Shen Bing may not have baked scallion pancakes for a long time, the main reason is that grease is not often available in military camps and the price is not cheap, but pancakes need a lot of grease...

Unexpectedly, Meng Liang even thought about this, and he went on to say:

"The subordinates have prepared the ointment, just wait for the miser to do it!"

Then there is nothing to say, Shen Bing is also greedy, scallion pancakes are one of the few foods that can be called "crispy" in this era.

Sure enough, Meng Liang did not lie, he prepared a whole wok of good ointment, and it was still fresh.

Meng Liang explained:

"The next door to Li Er's house on Wangcheng Street happened to be slaughtering pigs today."

"My subordinates bought a few stones when they saw it was fresh."

"I don't know if this is enough or not?"

Of course, Shen Bing didn't believe Meng Liang's words. The people in Handan had already starved to death due to the drought, and the people in Handan were no exception. They couldn't afford to raise pigs.

However, Shen Bing didn't care how Meng Liang got these, and asked people to cut the ointment into small pieces and boil it into lard.

This long-lost oily smell... Although Shen Bing is a doctor now, there is still no oily foam in the food.

Then, Shen Bing made scallion pancakes with chopped oil residue.

The unique taste almost made the artisans bite off their tongues.

Meng Liang went one piece after another... At last, still staring at the empty wok, he sighed:

"Hey! Before, I was drinking fine wine."

"Looking at it now, how can this wine match the aroma of scallion pancakes!"

Sure enough, he stopped drinking, as if he was afraid that the smell of wine would dilute the lingering aroma of the scallion pancakes.

When it's over, ask:

"Coward, when shall I do it again?"

"You can get as much ointment as you want!"