Chapter 133 Weapons Development
Because the copper ore needed to be screened, although the transport team received the order to set off urgently on the same day, it was not until noon the next day that they returned to the Black Moon Camp with the screened copper ore.
This batch basically brought back all the copper ore dug out there.
At the same time, the original quarry was transformed into a mine, and its value skyrocketed.
Although this means that the quarry he specially built is gone, the mine itself still has incidental stone output.
There were not enough before because the coal mine was in a cave in the ground with limited space. Even if he arranged a hundred people to go there directly, only a dozen or twenty people could work in the mine at the same time.
This has, to a certain extent, limited their mining efficiency, and the output of stone as a by-product has also been significantly affected, and this problem cannot be effectively solved for the time being.
But it’s different here at the copper mine, this is a typical open-pit mine.
In other words, as long as he has people within the mine, he can send as many people as he wants to dig.
While improving mining efficiency, it also produces a considerable amount of stone as a by-product.
With the addition of the mines on both sides, the stones for their tribe’s daily construction are basically enough.
At the Black Moon Camp, once this batch of copper ore arrives, the forging department can undoubtedly officially start work.
The steps are very clear. First, crush the ore, then smelt it, remove impurities, and then pour the molten metal into the mold.
Before this batch of copper ore was delivered, they were not idle and started making molds.
However, this mold is not made of any weapon, but the tools needed by blacksmiths for their work.
They had a forging hammer, but in addition to the forging hammer, they undoubtedly needed pliers and a suitable forging table.
If you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools! At this moment, Zhou Xu was not in a hurry, and he patiently arranged tools and equipment for the members of the forging department.
After the first batch was made, Zhou Xu no longer cared about the production of the following batches of tools, and handed them all over to these newly employed "blacksmiths" to give them training and accumulate experience.
After making these tools, Zhou Xu had already given orders on what to do with the next batch, which was to make copper pickaxes.
The mining efficiency of stone pickaxes is too low and they are easily damaged, which also increases the workload of the equipment department.
But as long as the more durable copper pickaxe is made, the equipment department will not need to make drafts directly. While reducing the work pressure of the equipment department, it can also effectively improve the mining efficiency, allowing him to obtain more copper ore, and then use these copper ore to refine metal and forge weapons! As for what weapons to forge? At this moment, Zhou Xu was spreading out animal skin paper on the desk in his residence and drawing the design seriously.
During this period, the newly established forging department was also busy.
The metal is melted, poured into a mold, cooled, and then simply polished with a forging hammer.
As long as you don't make any undue demands, this thing itself is not difficult.
After equipping himself with the tools, the first batch of copper pickaxes were quickly produced and sent to the mine.
While he was working on this, Zhou Xu had already drawn up the weapon design and had the equipment department help him make the mold.
After the latest batch of copper ore was delivered, the blacksmiths, who were already quite skilled in the movements, started to work on their furnaces.
This casting method is equivalent to the general assembly line method and there is basically no difficulty.
The first weapons were officially unveiled the moment they left the mold.
It has a sharp gun tip. If you move the gun tip downward and follow the blade, you can quickly see that there is a section of metal structure underneath, with a crescent-shaped blade extending from one side.
At this moment, the first metal weapon Zhou Xu designed for their tribe was none other than the Crescent Halberd! Unlike a simple spear, the Crescent Halberd has a crescent-shaped blade on one side, so it can stab, pick, and chop, making it a more comprehensive attack method.
But relatively speaking, more materials are used.
Basically, the material used to cast a crescent halberd is enough to make two spear heads.
But after weighing the pros and cons, Zhou Xu decided to make a crescent halberd.
After all, he was planning to go the elite route. Since he was already going to make elite soldiers, would he still be entangled in the materials? At this stage, the crescent halberd that came out of the mold can only be considered to be basically formed, but in order to be completely completed, it still needs to be polished and sharpened.
To be honest, grinding and sharpening is a laborious and time-consuming task.
After that, I don’t know if good things come in pairs, but good news came from Zhuang Mengdie in the Equipment Department that the new bamboo bow had been made.
The new bamboo bow has greatly simplified the mortise and tenon structure, and only uses simple combinations in some key locations that require structural strength.
This approach not only ensures the strength and durability of the bamboo bow to the maximum extent, but also significantly improves production efficiency compared to pure combination bows, and to a certain extent, meets the requirements of mass production.
Needless to say, Zhou Xu naturally immediately asked the equipment department to mass-produce bamboo bows.
During this time, he did not forget to remind Zhuang Mengdie of another thing...
"By the way, Mengdie, please find some time to make a mold for the arrowhead yourself. Now that we have discovered the copper mine, we can use better materials to make arrowheads."
To be honest, Zhou Xu really didn't expect that the stone arrowheads that their equipment department had just polished would be eliminated so quickly.
Fortunately, since the bamboo bow needed to be modified, Zhuang Mengdie was busy with research and had no time to polish this.
As for the other people in the equipment department, their skills are not yet good enough to polish such exquisite stone arrowheads, so it does not constitute much loss at the moment.
After all, to be honest, polishing a fine stone arrowhead is much more difficult than casting a copper arrowhead.
This is also the main reason why their leader transferred a lot of people to the forging department but did not have much impact on the work of the equipment department.
Under the department's greenhouse, Zhou Xu was talking to Zhuang Mengdie about the mass production of bamboo bows and the making of arrowhead molds, but Zhuang Mengdie seemed a little absent-minded.
Seeing this scene, Zhou Xu immediately asked...
"Mengdie, is there something wrong?"
Facing Zhou Xu's question, Zhuang Mengdie hesitated for a moment before slowly speaking...
"Actually, Chief, while I was researching and improving the bamboo bow, I suddenly thought of a new weapon."
Zhou Xu raised his eyebrows when he heard this.
"A new weapon? Have you drawn a diagram? Take it out and let us see it?"
In response to this, Zhuang Mengdie did not act pretentiously and quickly spread out a roll of animal skin paper at hand.
The design above is very sloppily drawn, but it's still understandable.
It was a huge bow, placed on a wooden cart.
Looking at the drawing, Zhou Xu gasped on the spot, then glanced at Zhuang Mengdie who was looking distressed.
[Oh my goodness, is she planning to build a bed crossbow?!]
Updated, thanks to the book friend '孤寂的鸿' for the reward (this chapter is finished)
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