Chapter 673: City Defense Crossbow Birth
According to Zhuang Mengdie's idea, they don't need a fixed platform at all. The city defense crossbow they built only needs two or three soldiers to operate it. If you want to launch an attack in a certain direction, you just need to carry the city defense crossbow and place it on the top of the wall.
It not only solves the problem of flexibility, but can also reduce some of the wall space that would otherwise be occupied by city defense crossbows.
Afterwards, without paying any attention to the soldiers patrolling on the wall, the two men spread out the animal skin drawing and started drawing with charcoal pencils.
Although this idea was first proposed by Zhuang Mengdie, as a time traveler, Zhou Xu was able to come up with many useful ideas after coming up with this idea. In just a few words, he was able to enrich Zhuang Mengdie's thinking, making Zhuang Mengdie regard him as a god.
However, when Zhou Xu felt Zhuang Mengdie's gaze, he couldn't help feeling a little ashamed.
His advantage lies in the fact that he is a modern man who has experienced the huge impact of online information. Compared with him, Zhuang Mengdie, who can use his own brain to break away from thinking and come up with this idea from nothing, is obviously more talented.
After some discussions, the two of them finalized the design of the latest version of the city defense crossbow right on the wall of Huangsha City.
If we want to make any changes later, we can only wait until the actual product is made, see if there are any problems during actual use, and then make targeted adjustments and improvements.
"Then let's make this first version of the city defense crossbow and test it out."
They basically brought all the tools and materials they needed with them, and there were also many materials and equipment in Huangsha City that they could use at will.
The work started quickly. Although the specific positioning of the city defense crossbow and the three-bow crossbow had completely changed, leaving this issue aside, many parts of the city defense crossbow were actually smaller versions of the three-bow crossbow. These parts could be easily handled by the few assistants brought by Zhuang Mengdie.
Zhuang Mengdie himself was concentrating on making the core components.
Putting aside the previous bearing design that has become a scrapped design, in order to improve stability and durability, the core structure of the bed crossbow is also made of metal, and this city defense crossbow is naturally no exception.
And currently, in the entire Great Zhou, only Zhuang Mengdie can make this core component.
"Deputy Minister, all the parts have been cast."
"Okay, thank you for your hard work."
As he spoke, Zhuang Mengdie glanced at the plates where the parts were placed one by one, picked up one of them with tongs, and put it directly into the hot forging furnace.
After the metal parts were burned red, he clamped them out and then swung the small hammer in his hand, which was not even as big as a palm, slightly and started knocking on them.
At this moment, Zhuang Mengdie was completely focused and completely ignored the existence of other people around her.
One of the accompanying staff members was staring in a daze at the movement of Zhuang Mengdie hammering on the parts.
"Brother Li, what the deputy minister is making now should be the core component, right? He just made it right in front of us? Doesn't he need to back off or something?"
"unnecessary."
The man called Brother Li glanced over there.
"The structure of the core components is no secret. The real difficulty lies in the craftsmanship and the control of precision."
As he spoke, Brother Li threw a piece of wood in his hand to the member.
"You can talk, but don't stop working."
"oh oh."
The accompanying staff member responded and quickly got busy.
After seeing this, Brother Li continued talking.
"Parts simply cast using a mold are very brittle and lack strength, so they break easily. In order to increase their strength, they must be repeatedly forged. You should know this, right?"
The entourage nodded quickly.
"Know."
To join the Ordnance Equipment Department, this is a common sense question, and Brother Li continued to talk...
"When the parts are cast in a mold, the size of the parts can be unified, but during the forging process, as the strength of the parts increases, the thickness, width and other dimensional data of each part will also change."
When Brother Li said this, the accompanying staff member vaguely knew where the problem lay.
"So considering this, our molds are generally made slightly larger to reserve a certain size for subsequent forging."
"Under this premise, there are a total of 27 parts that make up a core component. If any one of these parts is not forged in place and cannot fit together perfectly, it will affect the stability and durability of the entire finished product, as well as the normal operation of the internal mechanism structure."
At this point, Brother Li paused, then looked at the accompanying member whose expression was gradually becoming confused with a half-smile.
"That is to say, when you forge it by hand, you must ensure that the sizes of the twenty-seven parts are perfectly matched and can be combined together seamlessly."
"So far, the only person who can improve the precision of this craft to this level is the deputy minister. If you can do it, the deputy minister will definitely be very happy. After all, there will be someone to help her share the work."
After hearing what Brother Li said, the accompanying staff member felt that the requirement for such precision was simply abnormal.
But then, a clever way of doing it came up.
"Brother Li, if we can't make it fit perfectly, how about just filling the seams with juice?"
What the entourage meant was to pour molten copper or iron into the gaps to fill them up. In this way, the entire structure could be made to fit seamlessly.
Hearing this, Brother Li rolled his eyes subconsciously and felt speechless.
But then he changed his mind and thought that this accompanying staff member was just here to help them and was not a formal technician, so he felt relieved.
After all, the other party is just a handyman, so it's normal that he doesn't understand these things.
"This core component is not as simple as just putting 27 parts together. As I said just now, there is a mechanical structure inside, and there are internal linkages. Once the juice is poured, it is possible that the entire core component will be destroyed."
"At the same time, a delicate mechanism like this needs to be disassembled and maintained every once in a while to ensure that it is sensitive and smooth enough when in use. How can it be maintained if it has been poured with juice?"
Brother Li's words completely frustrate the accompanying staff.
Coming to the Ordnance Equipment Department, he certainly didn't want to just be a handyman, but if he wanted to make a name for himself, he was clearly still a long way from being able to do so.
Leaving aside this little episode, after a period of time, an ingenious mechanical component was soon assembled in Zhuang Mengdie's hands.
Every piece fits together perfectly, and the superb precision brought by those skillful hands is simply abnormal.
The manufacturing of core components can be said to be the most time-consuming, while other components have already been prepared and waiting.
The final assembly work was quickly completed, and their Great Zhou’s first city defense crossbow was officially launched at this moment!
(End of this chapter)
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