Chapter 134 Comprehensive Upgrade
Of course Zhou Xu knew about the bed crossbow, a powerful weapon for siege cities and strongholds, but Zhuang Mengdie didn't know it. She had never had this concept before.
In other words, this drawing was entirely the product of her own inspiration.
The reason why Zhuang Mengdie came up with such an idea was very simple. When she was making a bamboo bow, she had discovered that the longer the bamboo bow was, the longer the range and the stronger the power.
Following this line of thought, a simple and crude concept of a bed crossbow appeared in Zhuang Mengdie's mind.
"My problem now is how to draw such a strong bow."
Seeing that Zhou Xu was looking at the drawings without saying anything, Zhuang Mengdie herself told him about the difficulties she was facing.
Zhou Xu listened and nodded calmly.
"It seems that you also know what the problem with this thing is."
Hearing Zhou Xu's words, Zhuang Mengdie was stunned, and then spoke...
"Chief, have you thought of this a long time ago?"
Judging from the tone of their leader just now, it was obvious that he had thought of this weapon long before her.
Zhou Xu did not deny this.
“I guess so.”
Under normal circumstances, a crossbow is not a weapon that can be pulled by manpower alone. If you want to use it, you have to rely on some mechanism designs to make it easier to draw the bow.
Zhou Xu actually had some ideas about this, but...
"We don't need this right now."
The crossbow is a typical siege weapon, and its main targets are huge city defense facilities or large enough giant units.
But in this tribal era, where are the city defense facilities that require them to push this out?
As for using a bed crossbow to fight a single soldier...
This is no longer a matter of using an anti-aircraft gun to kill a mosquito, or wasting its resources. Rather, it is just that its accuracy is not that high, and it cannot hit more than a few soldiers once it is fired.
To put it more bluntly, you use a ten thousand dollar artillery shell to shoot down two fifty dollar soldiers. What's the point of doing such a loss-making business?
Not to mention that at this stage, making a bed crossbow is still time-consuming and labor-intensive. How could he have the extra manpower, material resources and time to do this?
As such, the research and development plan for the bed crossbow will be put on hold.
After getting this answer from Zhou Xu, Zhuang Mengdie stopped hesitating and started to concentrate on making a new type of bamboo bow.
At the same time, all the copper arrowheads cast by the forging department will be sent to the equipment department for polishing.
In this way, the comprehensive upgrade of Zhou Xu's tribal weapons is in full swing.
If it is only necessary to arm the existing fifteen soldiers, then the work pressure is actually very small.
But when an armed conflict really breaks out, Zhou Xu certainly won't be able to lead only fifteen people into battle. He will still draw tribal warriors from various departments within the tribe, but these fifteen professional soldiers can be mobilized as the core combat force and play a role in determining the outcome of the battle.
For this reason, Zhou Xu directly requested that the first batch of weapons be cast in fifty sets.
After giving this order, Zhou Xu fell into deep thought.
He is now struggling with a problem, which is whether to equip the skeleton soldiers with copper weapons.
There is no doubt that the skeleton soldiers are an important fighting force in his hands, and are also an important part of his current core tactics. If the weapons of the skeleton soldiers can also be fully upgraded, then his fighting power will definitely be able to be improved by leaps and bounds.
But the problem now is that normal skeleton soldiers are too fragile. In a head-on conflict, they will quickly be defeated by the enemy.
Even though he could use the power of truth to pull the skeleton soldiers up again.
However, in this process, there is no guarantee that their weapons will not be snatched away by the enemy.
In other words, there is a high probability that it will be snatched away by the enemy.
After all, those enemies are not stupid. Anyone with a discerning eye can see that their weapons are better.
The weapons of forty or fifty skeleton soldiers are enough to arm the entire opposing tribe. If we are not careful, we will be making things difficult for others.
Thinking of this, Zhou Xu completely gave up this idea.
For now, the core value of the Skeleton Soldiers still lies in their constant consumption. There is no need for him to specifically upgrade the Skeleton Soldiers' weapons to bear this risk.
After figuring out this problem, Zhou Xu quickly moved on to another matter.
Now that we have weapons, it's time to think about armor.
Considering the background of the times, the most common protective gear should be leather armor.
However, Zhou Xu directly skipped this option.
Animal skins are one of the most important resources of this era, and their tribe must have them.
Previously, the tribe was in a camp in the barren mountains, and they were able to obtain some leather resources by hunting in the mountains.
But later, with the migration of the tribe, after arriving here, not long after development, Zhou Xu directly started fishing and breeding.
This also led to a sharp drop in their demand for hunting, and the source of leather naturally became less.
Under such circumstances, it is simply unrealistic to ask them to produce leather armor on a large scale.
Fortunately, Zhou Xu has his own ideas.
Don't forget, what he is best at is weaving and handicraft.
And in the history of their Celestial Empire, there was a very distinctive type of soldier called the Rattan Armor Soldiers!
Rattan armor has many advantages, including light weight, low cost and excellent defensive capabilities.
However, its disadvantage is also very obvious, that is, it is afraid of fire.
Burning the soldiers in rattan armor has an allusion to this.
However, Zhou Xu just wanted to bet that primitive people did not understand this and could not discover this.
Zhou Xu, who had already made up his mind, had ordered people to collect vines from the surrounding woods.
Although he had never woven rattan armor before, he had woven rattan baskets. He left a few holes in the basket so that people could stick their hands and head out. If he rounded it off, wouldn't it be a piece of rattan armor?
Or he could simply split the vine armor into several parts such as chest guard, shoulder guard, elbow guard, and wrist guard.
In this way, the safety of key parts can be guaranteed, the weight of the protective gear can be further reduced, and their flexibility will not be affected.
In fact, these two ideas can be regarded as the difference between "heavy armor" and "light armor". He still needs to think about how to choose.
However, when it comes to making the rattan armor alone, Zhou Xu has the confidence that it will not be a problem for him.
While Zhou Xu was thinking about this, the people he sent out had already pushed back cartloads of vines.
When Zhou Xu saw this, he signaled his subordinates to quickly process the vines and soak them in water.
This vine cannot be used directly. In order to make it stronger and more durable, and easier to weave, it needs to be processed through a series of steps, such as soaking in water, drying, and then soaking in oil.
Anyway, that's what his grandmother did in the past, so he did what his grandmother said. Later, his grandmother thought it was too troublesome and stopped weaving wicker baskets and hats.
But I didn't expect that the little experience I had accumulated at that time would come in handy at this time...
(End of this chapter)
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