The drizzle of rain came as expected, washing away all the blood and suspending all killings. The birds returned to their nests in the forest, and the army was like wasps returning to their nests, quietly guarding the city of Otopan, not knowing when this fruit would mature and fall.
Shulot was sitting in the hut in the camp, carefully looking at the Tlaxcala long wooden bow in his hand.
This kind of bow is obviously a single bow. Even if it is made of the same material, it is also a long bow. Its length is more than 1.4 meters. Bowstrings are made from treated deer sinew, which is tough and has no stretch. The bow body should be made of oak, which is one of the better bow materials. The corners of the bow are repeatedly wound and fixed with cotton thread, and then bonded with bone glue.
Generally speaking, the craftsmanship is relatively skilled and the cost is not high. It should be able to be produced on a large scale. The Tlaxcalans must have had a sizable army of archers.
Shulot tried the power of the bow and arrow a few more times, and it was very stable. Shooting from a small angle, it can kill 120 meters without any armor.
"Sanjusangendo Long Shot"! This is a difficult horizontal shot of 120 meters. Shulot patted his head and remembered the Tiantai sect temple he had visited during his trip to Kyoto. It seemed that this single bow was slightly inferior to the compound bow when the Japanese samurai first emerged.
Since encountering the last attack, Shulot has been thinking about the long wooden bow in his hand.
Bows and arrows, this kind of equipment that deviates from the glory of the warrior and cannot capture prisoners, has always been ignored by the Mexica people. In fact, it is the weapon with the greatest development potential among Central American tribes. Its development ceiling has the smallest gap with Europeans. In the future, it will be able to break through the chain armor of ordinary knights and damage horses that cannot be closely protected by plate armor knights. It does not have a strong demand for metal, and it is the most powerful weapon when primitive civilizations like the Jurchens and Mongols rise. Dense bows and arrows or crossbows were the best way for Mexicaans without cavalry to deal with the conqueror's cavalry.
At the same time, Central America is rich in high-quality wood resources. The best ones are ironwood and sandalwood, which are top-grade woods with hard texture and the strongest energy storage. The quality of the bow material even exceeds the yew wood of the English longbow. Thinking of this, Shulot chuckled. The names of high-end equipment such as ironwood bow and rosewood bow were very familiar in his memory.
The ones with slightly lower production costs are common spruce and oak, which are also high-quality materials for bow making. Fir bows and oak bows were widely used by the Germans throughout Europe. These trees are common throughout the Americas, and all spruce plants are of North American origin.
Develop bows and arrows! While thinking about the resources at hand and future development, Xiulote quickly became excited. He finally found a bright road for Mexicans to develop their military under the current conditions!
Then, he continued to think about the shape and type of bow, and searched the remaining memories in his mind.
The first thing that comes to mind is naturally the scenes in various costume dramas. Northern cavalry's horn bow? Shulot shook his head, no cows, no horns, no livestock, no chance. The general's iron bow? This should also be a difficult compound bow, no need to think about it. Soon, he discovered that the classic bow shapes of ancient China could not be restored.
"When it comes to making a bow, the dry part is separated in winter and the liquid is released in spring; the tendons are cured in summer; the three materials are combined in autumn; the body is laid in cold; and the string is stringed in spring." It is mentioned in "Kao Gong Ji·Gongren" that making the most classic of ancient China A composite bow requires six materials: wood, horn, tendon, glue, silk, and paint, which are wood, animal horn, animal tendon, adhesive, silk, and paint.
There are also four seasons of "spring, summer, autumn and winter". In the winter, the wood is prepared, in the spring the angles are processed to make the bow horns, in the summer the tendons are processed to make the bow strings, in the autumn the composite bow body is made, in the winter the composite bow is shaped, in the spring it is strung and adjusted, and finally it is painted to prevent insects.
Who can afford this? Shulot shook his head. Although a compound bow is more powerful than a single bow of the same length and has a faster and more accurate rate of fire, it is really unusable. He counted on his fingers and found that there were not enough materials and the production time was too long. Moreover, Central America had abundant rainfall and was very humid. The composite bow was too easily damaged and difficult to prevent moisture and insects.
In the history of the Chinese dynasty, the Mongols and Jurchens had to avoid the Huangmei rainy season when they went south. One reason was that the rainy season was too harmful to bows, and it was common for several bows to become useless in one summer. Forget it, let’s adapt to local conditions and develop single-wood bows.
Thinking of single bows, Shulot first thought of the various Japanese bows in the Dahe Opera. They were made of bamboo and wood, more than two meters long, and their range was not as good as the horn bows half the size of the Celestial Dynasty. This is because Japan lacks high-quality wood and does not have enough cattle, so it can only use bamboo to make up for it. The kinetic energy of the bow comes from the energy storage of the bow body, but the energy storage efficiency of bamboo is too low, and the range and power cannot be increased. Of course, with the introduction of Chinese technology, Japan later began to extensively produce compound Japanese bows, using larger draw lengths to compensate for the power of Japanese bows.
The next thing that comes to mind is naturally the famous English longbow. In European movies, arrows rain down like rain, and the knight tragically falls from his horse. Schulot calculated carefully that less than seventy years had passed since the famous British-French Battle of Agincourt. In this battle, 8,000 English longbowmen defeated 30,000 French knights, the French marshal was captured, and 5,000 nobles and nearly 10,000 knights were killed. England only suffered hundreds of casualties, and the reputation of the longbow became famous throughout the world. Although the terrain had the greatest effect in this battle and the French army's command also had great problems, the longbow's large-scale combat capability was also recognized.
Generally speaking, the early Japanese bows, Welsh longbows, and later English longbows were single bows with very low manufacturing technology. It is a bow body made of a single piece of wood, with high draw force and draw distance. The power storage efficiency comes from the wood, which is lower than the high-cost compound bow. Therefore, longbows require high-quality wood and a larger and longer bow body to achieve higher power storage and draw length, and to release greater kinetic energy to the bow and arrow. High-quality English longbows are more than two meters long.
The advantage of a longbow is that it is much cheaper to make than a compound bow, requires less maintenance, and is extremely fast to make because there is no cementing process for the composite materials. If you compare the compound horn bow to a samurai sword, it requires careful care. It must not be dry or damp. When the weather is cold, you have to warm it yourself before use. That long bow is probably just a big iron rod. You can throw it away and keep it for half a year. You can take it out and play with it casually. Shulot thought about it and laughed again.
Compared with the horn bow, the biggest disadvantage of the longbow is that the bow body is too long for the same weight and cannot be used on horseback, and cannot be used by cavalry. "Anyway, there are no horses in America now." In addition, the shooting speed is too slow, the accuracy is slightly low, and the sound is loud. "Large-scale infantry and bow formations don't care about this." In the end, it consumes too much wood, especially high-quality wood. "There is no shortage of high-quality wood in Central America." After weighing it repeatedly, Shulot finally decided, "The longbow is yours!"
The technological development route has been decided, and the next step is the specific technical implementation.
Just as he said, Shulot immediately summoned the craftsmen given by the king, then took out the Tlaxcala long wooden bow and asked, "Who has experience in making bows?"
Dozens of craftsmen looked at each other. A few carpenters wanted to go out but were hesitant, obviously not confident enough in their skills. Only one old craftsman looked at the long wooden bow carefully for a while, then nodded and went out.
"Dear Priest. This is Tlaxcala's long wooden bow. I have copied it and can make it." The old man smiled confidently, showing wrinkles on his face.
"Okay! What do you call the master craftsman?" Xiulote was overjoyed.
"Master Priest, I am Cuaud, one of the chief carpenters of Tenochtitlan. This time I was recruited by the king to participate in the construction of the camp during the march."
Tenochtitlan, carpenter. Shulot thought for a while and asked, "Do you know Kusola?"
The old carpenter was a little surprised: "This is a descendant of our family. He is a very good craftsman, but he later became a samurai."
Xiulote nodded: "He is my follower and died for me in the previous battle. When you return to the capital, take me to his home."
Kuaud nodded respectfully. Afterwards, the two formally discussed the making of the longbow, and several carpenters nearby also helped with reference.
"I need to make a large bow that is long enough. The bow should be more than two meters long. The shape is very simple, just a long curved line. The bow string is first made of deer sinew or deer skin. Next, you need to study how to use cotton thread or hemp thread. Make a replacement bow string..." Shulot left only Kuaud and a few carpenters, and let the other craftsmen disperse.
The short discussion lasted only half the afternoon, and then came the formal production.
Xiulote found some leftover rosewood from his previous trebuchet and chose a three-meter-long straight piece of wood. Then several craftsmen took out copper tools and cut out wooden strips with a length of two and a half meters and a width and thickness of about eight centimeters.
Next, Kuaud used a tool similar to an ink fountain to draw the center line, and then based on the center line, he drew the specific shape of the longbow, and then carefully cut and polished it to make the bow shape out of the wood.
In his first attempt, Shulot didn't dare to make the bow too thin. Since we are pursuing practicality, there is no need to consider the modification of the bow. Everyone started bow training directly, a process of adjusting the wood.
Bow training is done on the bow training stand. The bow training stand can be simply understood as a long stick with equal-length slots. Kuaud first hooked the two ends of the bow with a string, then stuck the center of the bow on the top of the long stick, and then pulled the two ends of the bow down one slot at a time.
Pull one frame every quarter of an hour, pull the bow from straight to arc, until it reaches the maximum, and then stay for twenty or thirty minutes to release the stress on the bow. Then recover, rest for another quarter of an hour to allow the bow to recover, and then practice the bow again.
Because the wood used was so high-quality, this bow training took place at night. The aroma of food wafts from afar, this is the smell of night. Shulot had no intention of eating. He just raised a fire pit in the house and paid attention to the work of the craftsmen. After a while, Bertard brought him some corn tortillas, and the two continued to watch while eating.
It wasn't until the bow training was over that the hungry Kuaud took the tortillas from Shulot and had a simple dinner. Next came another detailed work. The old carpenter used obsidian tools to polish the bow body carefully. He worked for half an hour until the bow body was smooth and smooth.
The last step is oiling. In Mexico at this time, oil was a precious commodity. Neither the Chinese tung tree nor the West African oil palm has spread to Central America, which is suitable for planting, and lard and butter are out of the question.
Shulot begged for a long time at night before he got a small bottle of sunflower oil. He also had someone squeeze out a bottle of expensive avocado oil. If he had time, he could bake some pine oil. Kuaud spread the oil all over the bow body without feeling distressed. Next, everyone just had to wait for the oil to penetrate and the bow to dry.
Unconsciously, the night has deepened and it is already time to rest. Kuaud took the craftsmen and left. Only Shulot was left tossing and turning. The young man opened the curtain and stared at the bright stars in the sky. Under the stars were ancient city-states and nations that had not changed for thousands of years.
Turning around, he looked at the long bow in the middle of the tent. The bow body is white and smooth, and is two meters long, outlining the curves of strength and beauty. She is like a peerless beauty, hiding a fierce murderous intention.
Shulot watched in trance, with a look of longing on his face, his thoughts drifting away: "How powerful is this long bow?"
