Chapter 1462 Monolithic Bow and Compound Bow

In fact, although the boss seemed to be carving wood, he had been secretly observing Xiao Peng and the other man. They were speaking Chinese, which he could not understand, but he could see that Xiao Peng really liked this bow.

Hua Chong thought 20,000 yuan was very expensive, but Xiao Peng thought the price was... very cheap!

"Twenty thousand?" Xiao Peng was stunned.

He'd read about the traditional bow-making methods in Hedeby in historical documents, and the most difficult part was the quenching process, a long-term project that typically took two years. Two years of hard work for only 20,000? That was a steal! Perhaps it had something to do with the stall owner's inability to sell the bow; he looked quite down and out.

This traditional bow-making craft, like many other intangible cultural heritage projects in China, is basically facing a lack of successors. Who among the young people is willing to learn these things now?

The boss nodded and said, "Twenty thousand! It can't be any lower."

"Can I see the arrow?" Xiao Peng asked.

The boss took an arrow from a box nearby and handed it to him. It had a carved wooden shaft with an iron tip and three rows of raven feathers at the end.

No matter which country in the world, the arrow nocks of bows and arrows have three rows of feathers, spaced 120 degrees apart: of course, except in movies and cartoons - there are double feathers there.

Xiao Peng tested his balance and asked, "Did you do all this yourself?"

The boss nodded.

Hua Chong whistled at this time: "Expert, moving the center of gravity forward will allow the aircraft to fly farther and maintain a better flight trajectory."

Xiao Peng picked up the shortbow and asked, "Boss, the shape of these shortbows doesn't look like the style of Hedeby's bows."

"Huh?" The boss was stunned. "Do you know my bow?"

Xiao Peng said helplessly: "Why would you want to buy it if you don't know me?"

The boss introduced: "These short bows are Norman horse bows, the best single-piece horse bows in the world."

Hua Chong shook his head after hearing this and said, "The best horse archery bow in the world? You've never seen a Mongolian bow!"

But the boss said, "I'm talking about a single bow! Don't you understand?"

Hua Chong was stunned after hearing this, and turned to ask Xiao Peng, "Boss, what is a single bow?"

Xiao Peng held up the longbow in his hand and said, "Look, isn't this a single-body bow? Look, the limbs are made of wood. Similar bows include the English longbow and the Nepalese bamboo bow. This type of bow has low production costs and a short production cycle. It's easy to make with the right wood, but there's a problem with this bow. If it's too small, it won't be very powerful. If it's too big, the pulling force is too great and it's difficult to control. Just like the English longbow, the British praised it to the skies. It's called a 'miracle in the history of cold weapons,' but to put it bluntly, it's nothing more than a Viking longbow. It's completely destroyed when it comes into contact with our bows!"

"Why is this?" Hua Chong asked puzzled.

Xiao Peng asked, "When have you seen bows this long in our country? Aside from some backward ethnic minorities who used single-piece bows, most bows in our country are compound bows. They're made from a combination of animal sinew, horn, glue, and wood. The Mongolian bow is a prime example. Because it uses animal sinew and horn as raw materials, it's also called a 'horn bow.' Its advantage is high mechanical efficiency, with the bow's draw weight closely matching its actual power. If you draw 140 pounds, you can still shoot with at least 120 pounds of force, which is impossible with a single-piece bow. And because they're mostly recurve bows, they're more stable and accurate. However, horn bows also have drawbacks: the craftsmanship is too delicate, resulting in high costs and a long production cycle. A good bow can take seven years or even longer to make, and they're less resistant to extreme environments. For example, they're prone to cracking in cold temperatures and breaking in excessively humid and hot environments. But one thing is for sure: in terms of bow quality, compound bows are far superior to single-piece bows."

Hua Chong said proudly: "Isn't this still the result of our ancestors' strength?"

Xiao Peng shook his head after hearing this: "Well, it seems that the composite bow was not invented by our ancestors. According to current evidence, it should have been invented by the Scythians. The Scythians originally lived in the Cimmeria region of Central Asia, which is now Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India and other places. Later, due to the failure of the war, they left their homeland and established the Scythian Kingdom on the northern coast of the Black Sea. It existed for about four hundred years from the seventh to the third century BC. They also repelled the Persian King Darius I, and were later destroyed by the Goths. What they were best at was making composite bows. I have a copy of it in the Cologne City Museum in Germany. I've seen the bows used by the Scythians. Their bows are only 80 centimeters long, with strings made of horsehair or animal sinew. A well-trained archer could fire ten arrows a minute! The maximum range was 400 steps! Even this longbow couldn't do that! Strangely, the technology for making composite bows didn't spread to Europe, which was closer to them, but instead spread to Asia. So there's a theory that composite bow technology first appeared in Asia and then spread to the Scythians. Of course, such a claim requires evidence, but there's currently no solid proof.

The two of them were chatting in Chinese, and the boss didn't understand. He asked impatiently, "Do you want it? If not, can you put it down?"

After hearing this, Xiao Peng handed the bow to Hua Chong. "It's such a beautiful ornament, why don't you want it? Twenty thousand, right? Cash or check?"

The boss scoffed at this and said, "You have so much cash? If you can really handle it in cash, I'll give you 15,000!" Xiao Peng sighed and pulled out a stack of 200-yuan bills from his backpack. He picked out 15,000 and handed it directly to the boss: "The bow is mine!"

The shopkeeper was a bit confused. He didn't expect Xiao Peng to actually pay cash for his longbow. After a while, he came to his senses and said stubbornly while counting the money, "Humph, you thought you got a bargain? Let me tell you, if it was only 12,000 yuan, I would have sold it to you."

Xiao Peng was about to leave, but stopped when he heard his words. "Boss, since you're telling me this so sincerely, I'll tell you sincerely too: I'll buy this bow even if you offer a price of 100,000. After all, I like its shape."

The boss's voice choked. Xiao Peng and the others heard hurried footsteps. They looked in the direction of the sound and saw that it was the antique shop owner from before.

The owner of the antique shop witnessed the entire process. After seeing Xiao Peng casually spend a large sum of money on a simple, unsold longbow, he hurried over and said, "Boss, didn't you take a fancy to my box just now? I'll give you a reasonable price and you can buy it."

"Are you willing to sell it to me now? Sorry, I don't want to buy it!"