Chapter 672: Genius’s Idea
Zhuang Mengdie has always lived in Black Moon City, and in order to facilitate subsequent expansion and construction, Black Moon City will not erect a wall like this to restrict its own development.
This also meant that Zhuang Mengdie had basically never seen city wall facilities like this.
Now standing on the wall of Huangsha City, the unprecedented sense of freshness also aroused Zhuang Mengdie's great interest.
Zhou Xu didn't rush to speak. When Zhuang Mengdie became interested in the wall, he let her observe it by herself and waited until she had seen enough before speaking.
After all, Zhuang Mengdie is a smart person with an intelligence potential of up to four stars. Smart people often have their own thoughts, and even from time to time, genius ideas will flash through their minds.
If you interrupt it casually, and let the inspiration that the other person has finally grasped slip through your fingertips, you will suffer a great loss.
With this mentality, Zhou Xu waited quietly for Zhuang Mengdie to finish observing the wall, and after looking at him, he spoke out his thoughts.
"The space on the wall is limited. If we need to deploy troops, the three-bow crossbow is a bit too big and can't be deployed here at all."
Leading Zhuang Mengdie, Zhou Xu walked on the wall, gesturing and talking.
"And there's also the problem of recoil. There's no way to fix it on this masonry wall unless we make a special fixing platform."
"But the aiming range of the three-bow crossbow is already limited. If a fixed platform is installed, it will probably be completely fixed, and it will lose the ability to adjust the attack angle or even the direction."
As the person who personally developed and manufactured the three-bow crossbow, Zhuang Mengdie can be said to be the person who knows the three-bow crossbow best in the entire Great Zhou Dynasty. She knows every part of the three-bow crossbow like the back of her hand, and she also knows the functions of those parts and the effects those parts need to achieve.
The three-bow crossbow was able to adjust the attack direction to a large extent before because it was not fixed on the ground. However, once it was moved to the top of the wall and had to be fixed, it could no longer adjust its direction like on the ground.
As for the angle, there is not much that can be adjusted on the ground, and you can basically only shoot horizontally. After fixing it on the wall, don't expect it to be able to do anything.
"If we add a rotating structure similar to an axle between the fixed platform and the crossbow, can we rotate it left and right, or even 360 degrees horizontally?"
As soon as he said this, Zhuang Mengdie reacted and shook his head.
"No, considering the recoil of the crossbow, the structure itself is not strong enough to ensure flexibility. It will be at risk of breaking after a few uses."
Zhou Xu had been thinking about a series of related issues for a long time, so he had already made a conclusion in his mind, but Zhuang Mengdie had just learned about it.
Under this premise, she immediately thought of using the bearing structure for improvement, but her own experience quickly made her realize that this would not be strong enough. It was a nice idea, but it could not be implemented in practice.
"Right! Maybe we can use metal materials! Copper has good ductility. We can use copper, or use copper to fuse other metals and try to research an alloy."
Thinking of this, Zhuang Mengdie couldn't help but frowned and fell into a dilemma.
She had never made such an attempt before, and although she was sure that the wooden structure would not be able to withstand it, she was a little unsure if it was replaced with metal.
From Zhuang Mengdie's perspective, the answer to this question can only be obtained through actual testing.
At this moment, Zhou Xu spoke...
"It's highly unlikely."
Although no tests have been conducted, Zhou Xu, as a time traveler, understands the principles behind it better.
For the sake of convenience, he brought the design with him, and now he spread it out directly on the wall, then picked up the charcoal pencil wrapped inside and started drawing on the edge.
"Once a design with this structure is chosen, the bearing structure will become the core connection point between the bed crossbow and the fixed platform, and will also bear all the burdens. According to the current process technology, the bearing structure manufactured will most likely not be able to bear the burden."
"As a city defense equipment with a huge impact, it is related to the life and death of an entire city, so the most important thing about it is stability!"
Having said that, Zhou Xu pointed to the blueprint he had drawn long ago.
"It is precisely with this in mind that I made a trade-off and decided to reduce the range and power of the three-bow crossbow in exchange for its flexible and stable firepower on the wall."
"As for the idea of metal bearings, there is no problem with that, but in my opinion, it would be better to replace not only the bearing part but the entire core structure with metal, so as to further improve its stability!"
Previously, Zhuang Mengdie wanted to try to maintain the core design of the three-bow crossbow and solve the problem of moving the three-bow crossbow to the top of the wall while ensuring its power and range.
But after personally confirming the wall of Huangsha City and understanding the whole situation, Zhuang Mengdie, the developer and manufacturer, also had a deeper understanding of why the three-bow crossbow could not be installed on the wall normally.
Under this premise, the improved design proposed by Zhou Xu suddenly became reasonable.
Of course, in this process, Zhou Xu was only responsible for proposing ideas; the specific design, research and development, and even the subsequent manufacturing work, basically fell on Zhuang Mengdie's head.
After absorbing the various improvement ideas provided by Zhou Xu, Zhuang Mengdie looked down at the design drawing in his hand, then looked up at the wall of Huangsha City.
Then, as if she had some idea, Zhuang Mengdie reached out and touched the protruding pieces of wall on the city wall that could be used as shelters. She came up with a bolder idea.
"My king, why don't we just make the size of the bed crossbow smaller?"
Zhuang Mengdie gestured as he spoke.
"Then install a bracket pointing backwards under the crossbow. This way, when using it, the crossbowmen can place the crossbow directly on the wall, with half of the main body outside the wall. The bracket extending backwards can support the wall from the outside to withstand the recoil..."
Listening to Zhuang Mengdie's description, Zhou Xu quickly imagined it and was stunned at first, and then he was filled with uncontrollable ecstasy.
"Damn! Mengdie, you are such a genius!"
He had been concentrating on modifying the bed crossbow, but ended up getting stuck in a dead end.
Simply put, the crossbow is equivalent to the cannon in the cold weapon era. Whether it is a single-bow crossbow or a three-bow crossbow, they are all "cannons" and will not change in essence.
Before, Zhou Xu was only thinking about how to transform this "cannon" into a city defense cannon.
But Zhuang Mengdie's idea jumped directly out of the framework of "cannon". She planned to set up a row of "anti-material sniper rifles" on the wall!
(End of this chapter)
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