One thing that puzzled Li Mengxi was that he had already figured out that the most time-consuming part of making a crossbow was waiting for the wood to dry in the shade. He was puzzled and asked why it couldn't be dried in the sun. Wouldn't it be faster to dry in the sun?

The old craftsman laughed and said that if the wood was dried in the sun, the wood would crack and he would not be able to make a bow.

Li Mengxi asked again, why not put it on the fire to dry?

The old craftsman said that even if it is dried, it will crack.

Seeing that Li Mengxi really didn't understand wood, the old craftsman kindly explained to Li Mengxi the detailed craftsmanship of wood treatment.

From the very beginning of logging, after the tree is cut down, it cannot be dried directly in the shade. It has to be peeled off and put in water to soak for a year and a half. After retting, the tree will be smaller in size, and then it will be fished out after a year.

Leave it in the shade for a year. After one year, the wood will be completely dry and there will be no cracks at all. Only then can the wood be made into a bow or crossbow.

Again, the wood had to be immersed in water, which reminded Li Mengxi that it was related to papermaking, especially when the old craftsman said, "When the wood is soaked in water for a year, it will shrink a little." It's strange that the wood will still become smaller when soaked in water.

Shrinking?

What's wrong? Shouldn't it expand more the more it is soaked in water?

However, there is something contrary to common sense here. The water content of newly cut trees should be very high. However, after soaking in water for a period of time, the water in the tree actually soaked out. As it soaked, the tree shrank in a circle.

.

Li Mengxi vaguely felt that there was a lot of mystery here, which might have something to do with wood processing, so he secretly wrote it down.

In the entire process of making crossbows, the shortcomings of the materials for making crossbows are the extreme scarcity of sinew materials, and the shortcoming of time is that the wood needs to be dried in the shade for too long, which directly slows down the production cycle of the crossbows.

There is currently no way to solve the problem of sinew materials other than large-scale farming of cattle. However, if the problem of wood processing can be solved, the time for making crossbows can be greatly shortened.

The rebels now lacked both materials and time, and with their road blocked, Li Mengxi began to think about other ways to make long-range weapons.

He thought of the British longbow that was widely circulated on the Internet in later generations. The British longbow did not use sinew materials. It was just a single wooden bow. The production technology was very simple. Thanks to the wood used to make the longbow, the whole body of the longbow was made of purple.

Made of fir, this wood has excellent properties and gives the longbow a powerful range and lethality.

Li Mengxi wondered, single-piece wooden bows are simple to make and easy to mass-produce, and the British longbow's lethality is indeed pretty good. So is there any material in the Central Plains that can replace yew wood to make longbows?

After thinking about it again and again, Li Mengxi felt that the crossbow technology in the Central Plains was advanced enough. If the Central Plains had enough high-quality wood, the longbow would have been made long ago.

The reason why it has not been made shows that the performance of a single longbow made of ordinary wood from the Central Plains is worrying, so more advanced technology has been developed to use rib composite materials to enhance the bow power.

Imitation of the British longbow is not feasible.

Besides long bows, is there any other way to produce large quantities of crossbow weapons in a short period of time? After thinking about it, Li Mengxi vaguely remembered that it was said that there was another thing called a "steel crossbow".

Steel crossbow, as the name suggests, is a crossbow made of steel. Strictly speaking, it is a crossbow with a steel sheet as the crossbow arm.

What the crossbow arm needs is elasticity and energy storage, and steel, steel can indeed be elastic, such as the rumored spring steel.

Thinking of this, Li Mengxi, who felt he had found a way out, immediately set off for the blacksmith camp.

Arriving at the blacksmith camp, the blacksmiths were still busy making their own tools today.

Li Mengxi found the knife forging craftsman and gave a brief explanation, "Do you know about crossbows? Use steel bars to make a long thin piece, leave a gap in the middle for hanging the string, and it's done."

The swordsmith thought for a while, isn't a thin steel bar just like making a sword?

Swords are also made of bars, and steel crossbows also require bars. The two production processes are the same. In fact, steel bars have no edges or ridges, so they are easier to make than swords.

Half a day later, the knifemaker followed the request and brought over a steel bar that was as long as an arm and as wide as a ruler. The steel bar had obviously been quenched and tempered, and had a certain degree of toughness.

Li Mengxi knew that the key to making the steel crossbow was here.

Steel crossbows need elasticity, and in the forging process, heat treatments such as quenching are related to the hardness and toughness of the steel. If the quenching is not done well, the steel will be too hard and brittle, and it will break when you break it, and you will not be able to make a crossbow arm at all.

Therefore, the key to the production process of steel crossbows is actually quenching.

As for quenching, Li Mengxi suddenly remembered that he didn't know how well the craftsmen had studied the urine quenching and oil quenching method that he had given to the craftsmen before.

Li Mengxi asked curiously. At this time, the knifemaker thought for a while and answered cautiously, "I tried it secretly. After the knife was struck, it was first quenched with urine and then quenched in oil. This way it is less likely to warp and crack than quenching with water.

"

In other words, urine and oil are indeed useful.

Think about it, how many quenching combinations can there be for three different things: urine, grease, and water?

It’s just that there are six quenching methods for two-two combinations.

The differences are: first use water to quench, then use urine to quench, first water and then oil, first oil and then water, first oil and then urine, first urine and then water, first urine and then oil.

Just these six possibilities.

If all three quenching solutions are used, there are six possibilities: urine oil and water, urine water and oil, oil and water urine, oil and water urine, water and oil urine, and water and urine oil.

Li Mengxi didn't know why later generations used urine and grease to forge knives, but thinking about it, there are only these twelve kinds of quenching liquid combinations. If Li Mengxi were to find the answer on his own, he would just exhaust these twelve kinds one by one.

Just test it once.

I don’t know how the quenching method was given to the knifemaker, but it is obvious that the experienced knifemaker has produced results.

——

With the steel bars available, Li Mengxi took the steel bars to the carpenter's camp. He found carpenters and crossbow makers and asked them to find a way to make a crossbow out of steel bars.

After accepting the task, a group of craftsmen gathered together and looked at the steel bar. It was an ordinary steel bar with two holes on both sides that looked like hanging strings. Based on the craftsmen's understanding of iron, they used iron to make crossbow arms.

, can you pull it?

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! With confusion and doubts, the craftsmen got busy.

There are serious armorers in the army, and the armorers have sufficient experience in making crossbows. Therefore, although the task is strange, steel crossbows can be made quickly.

Before dark, the armorer made the steel crossbow.

When it came to deliver the goods, the armorer said that the iron was really difficult to pull apart and he didn't know if it could be used.

It is said that steel crossbows require a lot of strength to open, so steel crossbows are often equipped with pulleys to assist in winding. Li Mengxi knew that his small arms and legs were far from being able to open the steel crossbow, so he went to Guan Yu for help.

At that time, Guan Yu's military camp was newly moved to Beicheng. Guan Yu was rectifying military discipline and looking for people to train people everywhere.

Li Mengxi went to Guan Yu and told him that he had made a crossbow set, and asked Guan Yu to help him pull it open and try it.

When Guan Yu took the crossbow and took a look, he could immediately see the strangeness of the crossbow. The arms of ordinary crossbows were made of wood, but on this simple crossbow, the arm was a straight iron bar.

Guan Yu couldn't help but glance at Li Mengxi. Guan Yu thought, if this pull is continued, the iron will not bend?

With deep incomprehension, Guan Yu placed the crossbow against his leg, stepped on the step ring in front of the crossbow, bent down, pulled the thick tendon string with both hands, and exerted force steadily with both arms.

Li Mengxi stared with wide eyes. He saw that the originally straight steel bar creaked and slowly bent under Guan Yu's pull.

Just when Li Mengxi thought that the steel bar was about to be completely pulled apart, there was an unexpected bang and the steel bar broke.

As the saying goes, a broken bow kills a horse. The force of a broken crossbow arm is very scary. As a result, the steel bar broke, but it just bounced and hit the ground. From this, it can be seen that if the steel crossbow breaks, it is

It can't kill a horse, the elasticity of the steel crossbow is too poor.

Guan Yu bent down and picked up the two broken slightly curved iron pieces. He looked at the iron pieces and complained to Li Mengxi, "It's too strenuous and it hurts to hold it."

It was also an ox, and the blacksmiths could not fire the crossbow. Guan Yu broke the steel crossbow with his bare hands.

The first time the steel crossbow was made, it failed, so Li Mengxi was mentally prepared.

He recalled the scene when the steel crossbow was fired. The steel bar had not even been bent yet, but it broke.

There is a slight curvature. The curvature is less than half a finger long. How can it be used to fire a crossbow arrow?

Furthermore, a key problem lies in the steel bars, which are too hard.

At this time, Li Mengxi realized that the pursuit of hardness and toughness of swords is different from the pursuit of hardness and toughness of crossbows.

The craftsmen treated the steel bars according to the quenching process of swords. The result was that the steel bars could not be used as crossbow arms.

Li Mengxi understood that there was already a steel filling method, and steel was no longer a problem. The key was the quenching process. A special quenching process was needed to create steel bars with just the right toughness.

And this [just the right toughness] is the greatest difficulty.

Li Mengxi neither knew how tough the steel crossbow was, nor how to achieve the appropriate toughness through heat treatment. Furthermore, the reason why he made the steel crossbow was to make a batch of crossbows in the shortest possible time for possible wars in the next year.

Preparation is a helpless temporary emergency, so the steel crossbow must be mass-produced.

As for luck, the blacksmiths made ten or twenty steel bars, and one of them happened to be very elastic and could be used as a crossbow arm. However, this luck-based method obviously cannot be mass-produced and is costly.

Extremely high, defeating the original intention.

In sword forging, the quenching technology relies heavily on the experience of the craftsmen, and steel crossbows require a different quenching treatment than swords, so the experience accumulated by the blacksmiths over the years is not used.

The problem suddenly became troublesome. It took a long time to explore and accumulate experience, and the current situation in the military did not allow the craftsmen to accumulate time.

This made Li Mengxi realize that either he should stop making steel crossbows, or he should put aside his experience and find a process that can process steel efficiently in batches.

As for this batch heat treatment process, Li Mengxi had a vague idea.

In the batch heat treatment technology conceived by Li Mengxi, an important method is to control variables, and the most important tool is the earth kiln.

The specific method and principle is based on the last step of forging the sword, the tempering process. The tempering process is to heat the quenched sword to a medium-low temperature that is neither red nor hot, and then keep it warm for a long time.

And it just so happens that in another production type, when charcoal is made, the temperature in the charcoal kiln happens to be a relatively low, medium and low temperature, and in view of the fact that the tempering process requires long-term heat preservation, the sealed charcoal kiln also happens to be

Convenient for heat preservation.

Therefore, with all these conveniences, when studying the heat treatment process, Li Mengxi thought of the possibility of batch tempering in earth kilns.

Now, when it comes to the production problem of steel crossbows, the two things combined make Li Mengxi feel that it is necessary to research the technology of earth kiln heat treatment.
To be continued...