Chapter 84

"Stay calm, stay calm. So, you know about crossbows, right? Come on, do me a favor!" Hong Tao didn't know why Karl had such a deep hatred for crossbows; he must have been hurt by them before. This had nothing to do with him; all he wanted was Karl's knowledge of crossbows to help him check if the one he made was up to standard.

Why not ask someone else? What a question. Crossbows were prohibited in the future, and Hong Tao thought they would be similarly restricted in ancient times. Asking others wasn't safe! It wasn't that he was afraid they would betray him, but that he was afraid of scaring them. The word "rebellion" was still very frightening.

A crossbow, or a bow, these two things are the same word in Latin and English. The bow is what the Chinese call it, and it was also invented by the Chinese. As for when it was transmitted to the West, Karl said it wasn't long ago. During the First Crusade, the Crusaders suffered greatly from the Arabs' hand crossbows. A well-trained Crusader knight could be instantly killed by an Arab farmer who had just joined the battlefield with a hand crossbow. Therefore, Europeans, including the Church, hated this thing to the core. Although they learned how to make hand crossbows from the Arabs, they imposed very strict restrictions, not allowing them to be spread casually. Anyone who privately made or used a hand crossbow would be executed if discovered by the Church.

Could Hong Tao make a hand crossbow? Not just a hand crossbow, on the Ratman Superhero, he even made mortars. The female electricians and mechanics on the ship were his personal playmates, teaching him whatever he wanted to make. The workshop had all kinds of digital lathes, milling machines, and drilling machines. As long as Hong Tao wanted, he could even install a steel furnace. What couldn't he make? Tired of guns and cannons, he sometimes played with ancient weapons, like compound bows and compound crossbows, using them to shoot fish in the sea. After getting tired of them, he started to take them apart, then figured out how to make them himself. Once he made them, he lost interest and moved on to other interesting things.

This time, what Hong Tao made was a very advanced modern compound crossbow. The materials were not carbon fiber and alloys but whale baleen, whale bone, whale sinew, bamboo strips, hardwood, and ordinary Song Dynasty steel. He selected thick whale baleen, ground it into strips one centimeter thick and five centimeters wide, each strip longer than the last, the longest being about 4 centimeters. He drilled holes and fixed them together, then tightly wrapped them with fine hemp rope. This was the crossbow arm, commonly known as the flat bar.

He chose the thickest whale rib, processed it into a rifle-like shape over a meter long with a stock, and installed a trigger made of carved hardwood. This was the crossbow body. There was no spring, so the trigger would rattle when not strung.

On the flat surface of the crossbow body, he carved a straight, shallow groove, higher on the sides and lower in the middle. This was the arrow track. When placed, the arrow would rest on the shallow groove at both ends, slightly suspended in the middle to reduce friction and increase initial speed. However, this also had a downside: the arrow's construction had to be very precise. Any slight deviation would cause it to miss the target.

Below the shallow groove, he embedded three magnets. This way, even if the crossbow was stood upright, the steel arrows would not fall. He then attached a whale bone strip with a similar shallow groove to the crossbow body, effectively sandwiching the arrow between two whale bone strips, leaving only a smooth gap for the bowstring to pass through. At the front of the crossbow body, there was a leather strap. When stringing the bow, he would step on this strap with his foot and pull the bowstring with both hands to hook it onto the trigger's catch, which also served as a sight for measuring distance and aiming.

If it were just a simple crossbow, it wouldn't be a compound crossbow. The shooting range and power would be average, and it would only be a toy, not a weapon. Hong Tao, of course, wouldn't be so unprofessional. He had personally made and even designed modern compound crossbows. His crossbow looked very different from others, even those who had never used a crossbow could tell at a glance.

This difference mainly lay in the crossbow arm. His compound crossbow's arm was not bow-shaped and bent backward but folded forward from the middle to the rear of the crossbow body, slightly spread out, resembling a trident when placed together.

This was called a reverse crossbow, a high-tech invention from the future. It could reduce the width of the crossbow body without decreasing the firing power and lower the elasticity requirements for the arm material. It only needed to be elastic and tough, not long. Whale baleen fit these characteristics perfectly. It was very elastic but not very tough. If made as long as a meter, it would deform after repeated use, but when shortened, it was fine.

Regular crossbows relied on the force of the arm being bent backward and then springing forward to drive the bowstring. Reverse crossbows, however, relied on the force of the two bow pieces being pulled inward and then springing outward to drive the bowstring. However, the movement distance of the bow pieces in a reverse crossbow was very short, producing less elasticity. What to do? Hong Tao had a solution: use a large eccentric wheel system to compensate for this shortcoming.

The eccentric wheel system was the main component of modern compound crossbows, typically consisting of three to five eccentric wheels arranged in a specific structure at both ends of the bow arm. When you pulled the bowstring, the eccentric wheel system would rotate, not saving you any effort. But the more you pulled, the shorter the radius became, making it easier to pull. By the end, you could string it with one hand. This was the opposite of regular crossbows, which were easier to pull at the beginning but became harder as the arm bent more.

When the trigger was pulled, the eccentric wheel system was at its highest torque point. Using the elasticity of the bow arms, it would greatly increase the force of the bowstring. Once the eccentric wheel system rotated, the bowstring would stop moving.

The principle of this eccentric wheel system was very complex. Each wheel in a set had a specific size and axis position, and any deviation would reduce its effectiveness or even render it useless. They were designed with computer assistance, and there were many combinations, from three to five wheels. Hong Tao only remembered two. One was a basic set of three wheels, which didn't have strong explosive power but made stringing the bow very easy. The other was a high-end set of five wheels, developed by crossbow enthusiasts, not available as a finished product. It had to be made by oneself. Its characteristics were the opposite of the three-wheel set: it didn't help much with stringing the bow but had very high explosive power, exceeding that of other compound crossbows by more than half.

"What is this?" Karl followed Hong Tao to the east side of the island, a forest where no one usually went. When he saw Hong Tao pick a strange thing with three strings and two pairs of large wheels from a small tree, he didn't recognize it as the crossbow he hated so much.

"This is a crossbow I designed. Help me evaluate its range and accuracy compared to your empire's crossbows so I can make improvements." Hong Tao didn't make things difficult for Karl. He stepped on the leather strap with his foot, pulled the bowstring with both hands, and hooked it onto the trigger. Then he lifted the protective cover, placed a steel arrow with a pointed and a round end, and clicked the cover shut, lifting it with one hand.

"Is this a crossbow? From the Song Dynasty?" Karl still didn't believe it was a crossbow. He couldn't understand how the bow arm, which didn't open but retracted, could even shoot an arrow.

"No, I invented this based on Australian crossbows. Let's try the power at 10 meters... about 11 yards, right?" Hong Tao pointed to a tree in the distance, where he had nailed a piece of cloth the size of a human body. Units! Units again! Hong Tao was almost driven crazy by the units of measurement in this era. He had to use different units with different people, no wonder Qin Shi Huang standardized them; it was absolutely necessary!

"Bang... hum... snap!" Three different sounds rang out almost simultaneously. The crossbow arm in Hong Tao's hand suddenly opened, like a flower blooming. The two secondary strings and the main string, driven by the eccentric wheel system, instantly came together. These changes left Karl dazzled, and he didn't even think to check if the arrow had hit the target.

"Hey, what are you looking at? Look over there!" Hong Tao tapped Karl on the forehead, snapping him out of it.

"Oh... it... it can't be pulled out..." Karl ran to the tree, still thinking about the principles of the crossbow in Hong Tao's hand. The wheels on it were truly baffling. When he reached the tree, he found something even more perplexing: the steel arrow was half embedded in the tree trunk. Even if the tree trunk was soft, the power of this crossbow was too great. If it hit a person, even with full armor, it would be fatal! The thought of someone aiming this at him made Karl, the knight, shudder and stutter.

"Then don't. I have more. This time, it's 20 meters, about... 21 yards! Karl, you're not good at Chinese, and you find it hard to learn units of measurement? I'll give you two months. If by spring you still can't figure out the relationship between meters, feet, yards, and inches, I'll shoot you three times with this thing. If you survive, you pass the exam, you stubborn guy!" Hong Tao took another steel arrow from a small tree, strung it, flipped the cover, loaded the arrow, and closed the cover in one smooth motion, all while threatening Karl. He raised the crossbow and aimed at a tree further away, quickly pulling the trigger.

"God... I still can't pull it out. This is 21 yards?" Karl, hearing the three sounds, immediately ran over, his face even more pale. The arrow was no different from the previous one, half embedded in the tree trunk, impossible to pull out by hand.

PS: Clicks, favorites, and recommendations! Throw them at Hong Tao...

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