Insufficient balance

  There are some small villages along the road, these villages were all formed after Zhao's commercial road was repaired, each of which is a residential point with different functions.

  For example, this village they are passing through is famous for producing the best fruits in hundreds of miles around. It's also the main source of yellow sand city's candied fruit, fresh fruit and brewing materials.

  "Whoosh...... Whoosh......"

  With the sound of breaking arrows, long arrows flew over from the edges of fruit trees that stretched out from the fence walls along the road. As they flew by, strings of dates, grapes, or individual mangoes and papayas fell down in response.

  What made Zhao Fubo unwillingly admire was that although Little John looked a bit too feminine, he was actually very skilled at playing the bow and arrow.

  Although he didn't ride a horse and play with archery, standing on the thick top cover of the carriage, a long bow would pick up fruits from the trees by the roadside.

  Mr. Zhao Fubo's teacher, Martin, sat in the car and looked at the fruit falling by the roadside, furrowing his brow as if thinking of something.

  Muker galloped back and forth like a performing horseman, bringing back the fruits shot down by Little John and delivering them to the two carts.

  Surprisingly, all the fruits were shot off from their stems and there was not a single scratch on their peels.

  Riding on Xiao Hei, Zhao Fubo galloped back and forth, shouting as he tried to shoot a few arrows with his recurve bow while on horseback. The results were accurate, but compared to Little John, it seemed a bit off.

  "Little John is good at archery, I'm no match for you!"

  Zhao Fubo was fond of martial arts but not obsessed with them; he had even more admiration for those who were better at their own skills than he was.

  At this time their convoy was with Zhao Xu's large vehicle, and the horse-drawn carriage traveled on the desert terrain, which was a rather painful thing.

  Especially the Zhao family, who kept the Song people's habits, liked to use big carts, and they were not moving quickly on this soft road surface.

  This is also where their family differs from others, as locals prefer long camel caravans. Although these desert boats carry less cargo than large trucks, they always have good mobility.

  Of course, this excludes the two cars made by Martin. The biggest difference between them and Zhao's horse-drawn carriage is that it uses a long axle and extremely wide wheels. On the iron axle, Martin only had people drill holes without making any other changes.

  At this moment, an oil can is slowly dripping vegetable oil into it, and the long axle has those ingenious wide wheels installed at both ends.

  Zhao Fu-Bo, who participated in the manufacturing process, knew that it was just a matter of using some thick wooden boards to connect two ordinary wheels together. There were thumb-width gaps between those boards.

  He had once wondered if such wheels could really be driven on the road. At this moment, the sand that had drilled into the wheel hub was falling down continuously with those gaps, and two wide tire marks were left on the sandy ground.

  Compared to Zhao Fubo's quick and agile team, Zhao Xu's carriage seemed much clumsier. Firstly, with his wealth, he hadn't bought a few things in Purple Cloud City, and secondly, the narrow wheels had caused him no small amount of trouble.

  Zhao Fubo, who was heartless and unfeeling, didn't go to coax Shu Yun'er into happiness. Instead, he sat in his own car with Teacher Ma Ding and chatted with him and Little John.

  "These English longbowmen shoot arrows at a speed that's at least twice as fast as mine! If we had such a team of archers in the future, our Song Dynasty infantry would no longer fear those Xia Jin cavalry!"

  As Zhao Fubo said these words, Martin sipped his tea and quietly observed him.

  He who was familiar with history knew that the so-called weakness of the Great Song lay in its lack of martial spirit, and that the tradition of emphasizing literature over military affairs had excessively suppressed the tension of the Han people's character.

  As for saying that a warlike nation will be impoverished, if one looks at the "war" of the great maritime era, one would roughly know where the problem with this argument lies.

  While thinking of these things, he did not forget his "translation" function and translated Zhao Fu's words to Little John.

  "That's natural, we English archers... My father was a master bowman, he could..."

  When it came to his father, Little John's overly clear and beautiful blue eyes rippled with pride. Zhao Fubo took Little John's longbow in hand and tried drawing it a few times.

  "The longbow's strength is somewhat weaker than ours, and it's also harder to draw..."

  Martin listened disapprovingly to Zhao Fu's evaluation of the longbow, thinking in his heart whether he should give him a modern thought lesson.

  The longbow was at its best in England, where a skilled archer could shoot twelve arrows per minute aimed and fifteen per minute unaimed.

  Of course, in the eyes of modern people, longbows are not good bows and arrows. At least in terms of physical testing, longbows cannot surpass the Eastern recurve composite bow.

  One question that cannot be avoided is that, under the condition of not lacking materials, it only takes a few hours to make a good longbow. However, even with all the materials ready, it still takes several years to manufacture a good recurve composite bow.

  Just like the Soviet T-34 against Germany's Panther tank, although inferior in quality and accuracy, it can overwhelm the opponent with sheer numbers.

  If the Southern Song Dynasty had played with people's war when defending the city, that battle might not have been fought, and the number of people would have been clear.

  So when Zhao Fubo counted the benefits of the recurve bow and Little John was speechless, Martin spoke up.

  "Yes, what you said is absolutely right. The quality of longbows is indeed not as good as compound bows, but there's a problem. It only takes one or two hours to make a longbow, while how long does it take to make a compound bow? How much silver money would be needed to equip an entire army with compound bows..."

  Ma Dingyue said that Zhao Fubo was even more surprised, if it were only a matter of archery, Zhao Fubo might have been able to say one or two things. If he had to shoot a few arrows, he could still do three or four.

  Let him calculate the numbers, Zhao Fubo, who has not yet opened his mind to reading books, is not clear about it.

  "...So, as your master, I've already made a reading list for you. If you can't finish it, then don't even think about practicing sword fighting! Someone like you who doesn't understand economics, wants to go back to the Song Dynasty to protect their family and country? I think it's better to just forget it, or else you'll end up harming the lives of good people's children!"

  The more Zhao Fu Bo listened to Martin's words, the more he felt that this teacher he had bought was indeed a pedantic and out-of-touch scholar. Especially his next sentence made Zhao Fu Bo's originally good feelings turn extremely bad.

  Some phrases from "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu that I had memorized with great difficulty floated into my mind again.

  "Thus, our strategy will be to make the enemy work for us, one meal from the enemy is equivalent to twenty meals of ours; one bundle of firewood from the enemy is equivalent to twenty bundles of ours..."

  After thinking for a while, Zhao Fubo finally responded with a series of "uh-huhs" and "ahs".

  "Ah......this......so it seems that reading books is still a good thing, but unfortunately my brain is so stupid, when will I be able to finish reading these books?!"

  But he didn't get a response, his teacher Martin was staring at two wide tire tracks on the sandy ground in a daze.

  Then he took out a thick notebook and scribbled some writings and drawings on it, but what exactly was written was unknown. Zhao Fubo only saw two long parallel lines apart from which nothing else made sense to him.

  Look at the teacher busy, under the uninteresting Zhao Fu Bo jumped off the car and returned to his own little black coal back. He picked up his big gun again, wanting to gallop on the sandy ground for a while, but somehow he always felt that there was something stuck in his heart.

  He used to think that as long as he practiced his gun well, he would be able to return to the Central Plains in the future and avenge the shame of being bullied. But now it seems that his previous thoughts were not quite right.

  I want to make some changes, but I have no idea where to start.

  "Hmm, Yu'niang is a clever girl, or maybe she knows what to do. And if she finds out I want to read books, she'll probably be delighted!"

  He thought to himself, and rode his horse swiftly to the side of Shu Yu'er's carriage. He didn't care about Shu Yu'er's mood inside the carriage, nor did he care about Zhao Xu showing off his literary talent on the other side of the carriage, he just shouted loudly.

  "Miss Yu, Miss Yu, I have something to ask you!"

  The curtain was lifted, revealing the face of Shu Yiner, who had been ignored by him for a long time. However, her beautiful face was covered with a layer of frost.

  "What's all the commotion about? My eyes are still heavy with sleep, spare me if you wake me up!"

  This time, he indeed suppressed Zhao Fubo's voice. He rode his horse closer to Shu Yiner's carriage and whispered.

  "Yu'er, I want to read books, but how can this book be explained? Look at the book list my teacher gave me, won't it make me a fool?"

  As soon as Zhao Fubo mentioned wanting to read books, Shu Yiner's heart leapt with joy. But after hearing the second half of his sentence, she immediately turned cold and scolded him.

  "What does it matter to me if you read books or not? You want to read today and don't want to read tomorrow, isn't that a waste of my efforts?! As for the book list your teacher gave you, just read it or not, it's all the same, just be a muddle-headed fool for the rest of your life!"

  Zhao Fubo, who had no intention in his heart, had long seen that Shu Yuner was diligent in reading books. However, he mistakenly thought that Shu Yuner stared at him to read books, all because of San Niang's orders.

  "San Niang told me to listen to you completely when it comes to reading books, so naturally I want you, Yu Gu Niang, to teach me!"

  Shu Yiner heard him mention San Niang, and her heart felt somewhat uncomfortable. She widened her almond-shaped eyes and glared at him.

  "Pshaw! Don't try to intimidate me with Third Sister's orders! If you want to study, you need to calm down. You only love dancing with knives and guns, are you capable of it?"

  Zhaofu Bo's straightforward and confident response was music to Shuyin'er's ears.

  "You are the best in our family, if you want me to study, I will work hard and make sure I do well!"

  This sentence made Shu Yu'er's facial expression soften a lot, and her beautiful eyes had some emotional meaning, quietly taking the opportunity to tease him.

  "How is it that when I want you to study, you study hard, but when I tell you to listen and work diligently, you don't?"

  Wanting to read books doesn't necessarily mean Zhao Er Lang has really opened up his mind, listening to his response will prove this point.

  "It's only natural, the teacher asked me to read, you also asked me to read, so I'll just read then! Sometimes when I'm tired from practicing martial arts, reading books is a way for me to take a break!"

  Naturally, his foolish words could only elicit a sigh from Shu Yu'er.

  "Oh, my silly little one, when will you ever grow up?!"