Zheng Quchi asked, puzzled, "Why are you following me?"
"I'll grow up alongside you," Xiao Meng said cheerfully.
After hearing this, Zheng Quchi simply smiled and swallowed the thin porridge that could only warm his stomach in a few bites.
She noticed that the strap of Xiao Meng's basket was torn, so she took it, first removed the loose bamboo strips, and then re-woven it. In the end, the strap looked brand new again.
Xiao Meng rested her chin on her hand and looked up at her: "Sister, you're so skillful."
"It's not difficult."
"But I can't do that. Compared to you, I feel so stupid," Xiao Meng sighed.
At this moment, Gong Chenya wiped the sweat from his forehead and came over, his bright eyes curving slightly: "What are you talking about?"
"Brother Ya, are you done with your work? Look, Sister Ruler re-braided this ribbon for me."
Xiao Meng jumped up and showed off his basket to Gongchen Cliff.
"Not yet, I've come over to rest for a bit."
After speaking with Xiao Meng, he looked at Zheng Quchi.
"Ah, a ruler? You can even weave these?" Gong Chenya's dimples deepened as he leaned closer. "And what else do you know?"
Given their kindness in taking him in, Zheng Quchi was actually willing to do something for them within his capabilities as a way of repaying them.
She heard from Xiao Meng that Gong Chenya and the others had been busy repairing the car since the afternoon, but judging from his reply just now, it seemed that things weren't going well.
She looked up and said calmly, "I can fix cars."
Gong Chenya was stunned: "Huh? Ruler, what did you say? You can fix cars?"
Zheng Quchi propped himself up on one side and stood up: "Hmm."
"So what kind of vehicles can you repair? Handcarts? Horse-drawn carriages or oxcarts?"
Zheng Quchi slowly walked forward: "I can fix the cars you can't fix."
When Gong Chenya heard this, he thought she was just bragging. Did she even know what kind of complex construction and design the car was that even he couldn't fix?
“Wait a minute, you’re still injured. Besides, this carriage is no ordinary one. It’s not just any ordinary carriage from our Julu Kingdom. It’s the Yan Ying of the Gongshu family in the Beiyuan Kingdom. Ordinary craftsmen simply can’t handle it. I couldn’t fix it no matter what I tried.”
He followed beside her, explaining things to her while looking at her profile.
She was still wearing that slightly oversized cloak, but unlike before, she was no longer wary of those around her, afraid that her facial features might be revealed.
Although he couldn't see her whole face, he could see her delicate, upturned nose, her perfectly shaped lips, and her full, rounded lips...
"I can't do much, but I can see how to fix it."
She walked up to the car that was parked in the open space.
Roughly estimated, the vehicle body is about five feet long, the width of the cargo box is about four feet, and the depth is less than four feet...
She circled it once, then squatted down to examine the bottom: "What's the problem?"
Seeing her interest, Gong Chenya moved closer to her, his eyes shining with curiosity, and said, "The wheels don't move smoothly, and they make a clicking sound when you push them hard, but I checked and there are no foreign objects stuck in them. Also, once the carriage is full of heavy objects, the carriage shakes violently, even though it was quite heavy-duty at first."
"What kind of inspections and repairs have you done?" she asked again.
Her language was quite novel. Gongchenya took a moment to understand before saying, "I checked the hub, and there was no damage. There was also no problem between the rim and the hub. I even reinforced the spokes of the vehicle again, but it's still the same. There's no improvement at all."
"Then it's probably not a problem with the car itself."
The people who had been surrounding the vehicle to examine the problem all moved aside. Zheng Quchi looked at, touched, and measured every component of the vehicle. After a moment of contemplation, she said, "28 spokes... large wheel diameter, wide but shallow carriage, and four shafts. This shouldn't be an ordinary civilian vehicle, right?"
She had only seen this type of vehicle in documents. It was used for military purposes. Generally speaking, in order to increase stability and protect the vehicle from being approached by enemy vehicles, the wheel hubs of tanks are usually much longer than those of civilian vehicles. This is exactly what it is meant to do.
The track width gradually decreased, the shaft gradually shortened, and the number of spokes on the wheels gradually increased, the purpose of which was obviously to improve the maneuverability and speed of the chariot.
Gongchen Cliff's eyes widened: "Yes, it is indeed a siege vehicle."
Zheng Quchi stood up and patted the mud off his hands: "This vehicle should have a load capacity of about 1,600 to 1,700 pounds, but its characteristics are not in load capacity, but in agility and speed. Overloading for a long time will cause its parts to wear out prematurely and cause irreversible damage."
Those around were stunned, and some who had just arrived after hearing the commotion stared at the scene in astonishment.
"Then what should we do?" Gong Chenya blurted out.
After he finished speaking, he was stunned.
Does he... believe what she said?
Zheng Quchi was also thinking of a solution. While filtering through her thoughts, she said, "This is a rigid suspension. There are shock absorbers between the floor of the carriage and the axle. But doing so is equivalent to rebuilding a supply wagon. So the solution should be determined according to the characteristics of this vehicle. There are two options: one is to reduce the weight and keep the weight of the vehicle within the range I mentioned; the other is to wrap the wheels with soft cloth to reduce the bumps on the road."
The sloshing is obviously due to overloading, while the bumps and swaying may be due to uneven road surface or uneven stress on the vehicle body.
Seeing that the problem that had troubled them for so long had been solved by her after just a casual glance, Gong Chenya was somewhat incredulous: "Does this really work?"
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