Chapter 64: Gathering Will and New Bows

  (Thanks for the support from "Zhao Wu Xu 2014", "Qi Meng Zi" and "Wo Niu Gong Gong".)

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  "White Wolf Camp Cavalry Commander?!"

  The main hall of Baima Castle, Ma Chao sat at the top, Taishi Ci sat on the right side, Tang Nu and Wu Chui sat on the left side.

  At this moment, Taishi Ci was staring at a black-edged red-bottomed wooden tray presented by the attendant, on which there was only one green bronze token with the six characters "White Wolf Camp Riding Commander" engraved on it.

  In the Han dynasty, the head of a division or regiment was usually a xiaowei, sometimes paired with a douwei, with a sima as deputy.

  The Han dynasty's Colonel, unlike later dynasties, was not worthless. Even in the late Three Kingdoms period, the value of this Colonel was greatly discounted, with various miscellaneous generals everywhere, and the Colonel was nothing. However, during the late Han and early Three Kingdoms periods, this Colonel was still impressive. For example, the famous Western Garden Eight Colonels, the Protector of Wuhuan Colonel, and the Protector of Qiang Colonel were all high-ranking officials of 2,000 stones, usually only appointed by the Emperor. In the first few years of the late Han dynasty, when the influence of the Han imperial house still existed, even many powerful vassals did not dare to grant their subordinates the title of Colonel, but instead used the Marshal as a substitute. This is also the reason why there were so many "Separate Division Marshals" under various vassals during the Three Kingdoms period, but few "Separate Division Colonels".

  A camp or a battalion usually consisted of one to two thousand cavalrymen, which was already quite good in the early Three Kingdoms period. Therefore, Sima can be said to be synonymous with Xiaowei in some sense, and is qualified to enter the ranks of high-ranking military officers.

  Tan Nu and Wu Zhui, two loyal followers of Ma Chao's household, are now only at the rank of Qu Jun Hou. With Tai Shi Ci's arrival, they were suppressed by him. However, the two men did not feel resentful because they completely obeyed Ma Chao's orders and also admired Tai Shi Ci's bravery and abilities. Although they had not seen Ma Chao and Tai Shi Ci's thrilling duel, their strength in single-handedly fighting against a pack of wolves and shooting down nearly a hundred wolves with their powerful arms and archery skills were far beyond what they could match. The grassland Han people respect heroes, not afraid of being surpassed by latecomers, but fear those who have no real abilities yet ride on top of others.

  Ma Chao treated him with such respect and courtesy that Taishi Ci was both delighted and hesitant.

  In the late Eastern Han dynasty, Taishi Ci was only a minor official in Donglai. Because of entrustment from his superior, he chased to the capital city, cleverly obtained official documents and destroyed them with a knife. As a result, he was hated by officials from various states and counties. Having no choice, he crossed the sea to enter Liaodong and began his two-year wandering life in Liaodong. Taishi Ci's behavior of destroying public documents for personal reasons would have been considered a punishable offense in times of peace, but in times of chaos, it was seen as a heroic act that prioritized honor over personal safety. As a result, famous scholars like Kong Rong, the Governor of Beihai, admired his name and sent messengers to visit him, and when they couldn't find him, they provided clothing and food for his mother.

  The price Taishi Ci paid was two years of wandering in a foreign land, leaving his elderly mother at home without support. For the sake of so-called righteousness, he abandoned filial piety; how many people know the guilt and pain in his heart? He longs to re-enter officialdom, return home in glory, and comfort his mother's heart. Now, an excellent opportunity is right before him. When Taishi Ci escaped from Huang County, he was just a hundred-stone assistant officer, but when he returns home, he will be a thousand-stone cavalry commander - this is truly returning home in glory!

  But Taishi Ci still hesitated, to be honest, he didn't want to serve under the Governor of Liaodong, Gongsun Du. During his two years of wandering in Liaodong, he had made friends with many famous scholars who all hated Gongsun Du and refused his repeated summons, so Taishi Ci also didn't want to work for him.

  There is another point, Tai Shi also doesn't think highly of Ma Hong, the lord of White Wolf Castle. White Wolf Castle isn't big, but its administrative scope is quite large, covering the entire White Wolf Mountain and its surrounding areas within a hundred miles. Moreover, this place in western Liaoning is too desolate, with a registered population of less than 60,000 for the whole prefecture, consisting of only five counties, which is not even comparable to Donglai Prefecture. The surroundings are all inhabited by miscellaneous barbarians. In such a remote and barren land, what opportunities are there for achieving great things?

  These unfavorable factors entangled in Taishi Ci's mind, making it difficult for him to make a decision.

  Ma Feng had some understanding of Taishi Ci's life experience, after all, Taishi Ci was so brilliant among the three kingdoms' stars. Moreover, he also knew that Taishi Ci was a talent who could be subdued. Because Taishi Ci was neither a noble family nor a powerful family, but a humble scholar. In history, after Taishi Ci returned from Liaodong, he joined Liu Yue, the governor of Yangzhou, but was not reused at all and only served as a Hou Xunxiao. At that time, someone advised Liu Yue to use Taishi Ci as a general, but Liu Yue laughed: "If I use Zi Yi, Xu Zi will surely laugh at me for not knowing how to use people."

  So, a versatile talent who excelled in both literature and martial arts, was left idle due to his background and reputation. Later, Sun Ce even said, "If Zi Yi abandoned me, who else could he turn to?" Yet, in this different world, there was another person who dared to confront Taishi Ci, and took the initiative to strike first.

  Ma Feng also vaguely guessed that Taishi Ci was entangled in something, but some words, he didn't dare to say clearly at the moment. He smiled and said: "If Zi Yi can't decide, this token will be put down first. Please ask Zi Yi to stay for a few more days, I still want to ask Zi Yi for archery advice."

  Tai Shi Zi's face turned red with shame, and he waved his hand repeatedly: "A defeated soldier under the command of a general, how dare I speak of arrows? Don't humiliate me."

  Ma Yun's face was sincere: "Two hundred steps away, you can't surpass me; within a hundred steps, I'm not as good as you. The name of Taishi Ziyi's divine shooting is not in vain. I hope my brother won't be stingy with his teachings."

  Tai Shi Zi was deeply moved and bowed his head in respect: "The Imperial Envoy attaches such importance to this, how could I dare not comply?"

  Ma Xuan took a deep breath, narrowed her eyes and smiled, and then she thought to herself: I'm just afraid you won't stay, as long as you don't leave me in the lurch, sooner or later you will become mine... Hmm, it seems like something is off...

  ……

  The White Wolf City is small and narrow, so Ma Han had to arrange some more important departments near the City Guard Mansion, such as his crossbow research institute. Entering from the side door of the City Guard Mansion, passing through a winding corridor, and entering a square courtyard, this is the White Wolf City's crossbow research and development base. Currently in charge of crossbow research are Meng Yuan and Ma Jun.

  Ma Huan had already figured out that the two were not just master and apprentice, but were even stronger than that. Meng Yuan was experienced and skilled in manual labor; Ma Jun was extremely clever and good at research and development. The two of them working together could overcome almost any obstacle. After Ma Huan took over White Wolf City, he directly handed a crossbow design to the two of them, telling them to quickly produce a prototype, putting aside their research on the mounted crossbow for now, and then ignored them. Until today, when he received a report from his guards that the prototype was ready.

  Inside the bow workshop, Meng Yuan and Ma Jun were both there. These two men now also had official positions, as gold officials of the second degree. Although their official positions were small, to Meng Yuan, a poor farmer from a family of eight, it was already an unattainable high position. To the extent that he now had a flushed face, and his heart was set on finding his wife and children back, reuniting with them in glory. When working, he also had abundant energy.

  Ma Jun's ancestors were indeed officials, but before he came of age, he was already appointed as a 200-stone Cao Yuan. He was the only one who had this honor. His heart was burning with excitement, and he had long since sent someone to deliver the news back home. However, Liaoxi was really too far from Fufeng, and it took several thousand miles of round-trip travel, which took more than a month. It was unknown whether the messenger had arrived home or not.

  Among the officials appointed by Ma Xian after entering Bailing City, Meng Yuan and Ma Jun were the most controversial. After all, one was a craftsman and the other was not yet an adult, which made people uncomfortable. But Ma Xian overruled public opinion and made a decision with just one word. The two men were grateful and secretly vowed to do their best to repay him. After receiving the task assigned by Ma Xian, they worked day and night, and in less than a month, they finally completed the initial work and presented a sample.

  Ma Huan now holds in his hand the heart and soul of Meng Yuan and Ma Gun for this month, a compound bow. In modern times, whether it's a recurve bow, a competition bow or a hunting bow, they are all compound bows with various heaven-defying labor-saving configurations, such as sights, shock absorbers, arrow rests, releases, main strings, auxiliary strings, string stoppers, string dividers, and bow limb sliders. In ancient times, it was impossible to replicate one exactly the same way. However, if you just borrow some simple labor-saving tools, it's still feasible. Ma Huan's blueprint only added three devices: eccentric wheels, triple strings, and a bow guard rod. These are the three most basic devices of a compound bow, and with these three, a basic compound bow is formed.

  The device is simple, and the principle is not complicated. Mang Yuan took the drawings, poured a large bowl of cold water on one side, and pondered on the other. Before finishing pouring a bowl of water, he made a sound with his mouth and figured it out. In his heart, he secretly thought that this thing was easy to make, but the "eccentric wheel" was not easy to handle.

  After that, he spent half a month on this pulley, first finding an ironworker to cast a mold, then casting the part, comparing it, and if it didn't work, doing it again, tossing and turning for several days, finally coming out with a qualified bronze part. Then there was grinding and polishing, and installing it on the bow that had been made earlier, which looked like something at last, but when drawing the string, it was very rough. The bow was easier to open by a lot, but the hand feel was not good, affecting accuracy and range, and in the end, Ma Kui's clever idea solved this problem.

  Ma Xun looked at the simple pulley bow in his hand with interest. This was a step bow, with a bow body five feet long, and a single pulley on each of the upper and lower bow arms, with two strings hanging from the wheels. On the grip, there was a horizontal bar protruding upwards, which was the string guard. Except for its somewhat strange appearance, it didn't differ much from the bows of this era. Ma Xun used his left hand to pull the string and test the bow's strength, feeling that it should be between one dan and one dan five dou.

  "It's a one-stone two-peck bow."

  Ma Xuan smiled and handed it to Ma Jun: "You try it for me."

  Ma Jun scratched his head, feeling a bit embarrassed. He knew what the city master meant. The city master could draw this bow as easily as drinking plain water, but it didn't show anything special. But he was different, even an eight-dan bow was hard for him to pull, if he could draw this bow effortlessly, then it would be meaningful to make such a bow. However, his archery skills were really poor, and to demonstrate the performance of this bow, the target had to be at least fifty steps away... But seeing the city master's smiling bright eyes, Ma Jun gritted his teeth and went all out... losing face.

  Behind the Institute of Bow and Crossbow is a narrow strip of open land, no more than three zhang wide but thirty zhang long, used as a testing range for bow and crossbow performance.

  Because the actual combat bow and arrow pursue speed, the shorter the time to shoot more arrows is better, accuracy is not important. Therefore, Ma Hu adjusted the pulley to have a larger diameter when opening the bow and a smaller diameter when fulling the bow. In this way, the resistance is small when opening the bow, and the resistance increases as it is pulled back, although it is not conducive to aiming, but can improve the shooting speed.

  Ma Jun put on his armguard and finger guard, took a deep breath, raised his bow and nocked an arrow, aiming at the human-shaped target sixty paces away. The bowstring slowly tightened, the pulley rotated, compressing the bow arm... When the bow was half-drawn, Ma Jun's pale face turned slightly red, gritted his teeth, and without stopping, continued to pull the string. Until it was almost fully drawn, he suddenly released it, whoosh! An arrow flew out, brushing past the human-shaped target, and thudded into the base of an old tree on the wall.

  Ma Jun's face was flushed red, he didn't make a sound and drew another arrow to shoot. This one hit the target, then another... He shot seven arrows in a row before finally putting down his crossbow, panting heavily.

  Ma Xuan nodded silently, knowing Ma Jun's arm strength. He could only open an eight-dan bow. If it were a normal one-stone-two-dan bow, he would be unable to draw it, let alone shoot arrows, and even less possible to shoot seven arrows in succession.

  Ma Xun walked straight to the target and carefully examined the penetrating power of the arrows, especially the one that shot into the big tree on the wall of the courtyard, observing for a long time before walking back with satisfaction.

  "Is it difficult to manufacture such bows in large quantities?" Ma Xun asked Meng Yuan directly.

  "It's very difficult." Meng Yuan said frankly, "The main problem is that the casting of pulleys is difficult and has a high scrap rate. Even if we cast ten, it's uncertain whether there will be one good one. Moreover, the inner and outer diameters of the pulley are different, curved and bent, with small holes, making casting and grinding very troublesome..."

  "How about adding more manpower?" Ma Xuan still held a glimmer of hope.

  Meng Yuan swallowed his saliva and carefully replied: "If it's possible to increase by twenty or thirty people, then it might be possible to make a hundred or so within three months."

  Ma Hu nodded, it was a bit slow, and it was difficult to deploy troops on a large scale. However, if we select a batch of quick shooters, not many, just over a hundred people, equipped with such bows, we can definitely crush the Hu cavalry.

  "Alright, that's it!" Ma Hong slapped his thigh. "Modify the cavalry crossbow to infantry crossbow for use by foot soldiers. Before next spring, we need to come up with mature infantry crossbows and produce 200 pulley bows. Oh, right, most importantly, modify my Demon Eye Bow into a pulley bow, get it done within a month. Hmm, the pulleys must be made of high-quality steel."

  Meng Yuan and Ma Jun exchanged a glance, nodded vigorously: "Obey the city defense order."