Taking the weather in the Sichuan and Shaanxi area at the end of the Han Dynasty, it started to snow in the October lunar month of the Qinling area.

It’s just that it’s not the continuous snowfall, but a cold air comes, and the weather will melt even if it’s good in the middle, so the plank road can be walked for the time being. Basically, it will be so cold that it will not melt completely when it snows, and the plank road will be cut off.

The 260-mile-long Baoxi Road can only take a round trip for ten days if the road conditions are not good, and the driver who pushes the cart is still working hard. So before Fa was closed, there was not much time.

On October 12th, it is expected that Lu Su will get a total of 800 carts for Fa Zheng from half a month before the closure of the mountain. This is also the first batch of goods sent to him by Lu Su after Fa Zheng told Lu Su about the latest situation on the Wuzhangyuan battlefield. It is estimated that there will be another wave later. If there are more, it will not be guaranteed. It depends on the weather.

The cart came from eight hundred experienced crossbowmen. After they arrived, they would leave a defense, and at the same time, the surrendered militia in Mei County who needed to retreat pushed the empty car back.

The militia obtained by extortion from Mei County before was too poor in combat and did not play much role in the camp defense battle. The combat effectiveness of two or three people may not be as good as a trained crossbowman. Keeping it will be a waste of food. So no matter whether Fa Zheng wants to defend the exit of the plank road, he must gradually become elite and rotate the weak soldiers to the rear.

Fa Zheng attaches great importance to this batch of materials, so he personally participated in the acceptance and inventory.

When he found that there were 100 cars of swords and guns, fifty new Zhuge crossbows, 100 cars of Zhuge crossbows, 300 cars of ordinary crossbows, 200 cars of other grocery weapons and consumables, and strange mechanical parts, Fa Zheng was also quite surprised and hurriedly asked the escort officer sent:

"What happened? Zijing didn't know that the most lacking thing for the crossbows at the moment is the featherless arrows for the crossbows? He actually transported a little bit of arrows, but instead gave me fifty more crossbows. The reason why I only brought fifty of them was because this thing consumed the arrows too fast, and no matter how many more it was, it was useless. After shooting, it would be a waste.

Now, you have so many ordinary arrows, but you can't fill them into the receiver. If you give them a crossbow but not a arrow, are you neglecting your duties when you receive goods?"

The escort immediately called Qu: "The Faduwei is wronged. How could a humble official neglect your duties? These things were personally told by the Lord of Lu's Mansion. Please listen to my explanation. These machines are used like this... Also, don't look at the few arrows transported this time, but there are not many arrows at all.

Now, these fifty cars are conical iron arrows specially equipped for crossbows. When the time comes, they can be used by processing the arrow shaft. The arrow is only two inches long, which saves space. One car can transport many times more. If it is really used up in the future, it can be used directly with hardwood and sharpened. It is just that it cannot break the armor, and it can still be used when encountering enemy armorless ants."

After hearing the explanation, Fa Zheng calmed down for the time being, grabbed an empty arrow and looked at it: "Zijing is asking me to produce arrow rods by myself on the front line? It's easy to say, how many craftsmen can there be in the army.

Moreover, this is already the northern slope of the Qinling Mountains, with a cold climate and not even many bamboo forests. It is not easy to build bamboo arrow rods that are easy to straighten. Although there are many trees, the wood is not easy to straighten the rods. The crossbow receiver is famously picky. The defective curved arrows that ordinary archers can shoot cannot be inserted into the crossbow, which is simply a mistake!"

In ancient times, the materials for arrow shafts of arrows were mostly made of wood in the north and bamboo in the south. The processing of wooden arrow shafts was more difficult, but the quality was slightly better. The arrows used by military generals were to be mulberry wood as poles, and ordinary crossbowmen also needed oak trees.

The advantage of bamboo is that it is easy to mass production, because when the bamboo is cut open, the fracture surface is relatively neat, the fibers are very straight, and "out of the momentum", and when working, they use bamboo to make arrows.

In "Romance of the Romance", it is written that borrows arrows from a straw boat, and it is also written that "Zhou Yu ordered that the arrows, bamboos, feathers, glue paint and other items be kept in place, and the date will inevitably be missed." This shows that.

Fa Zheng is now in a state of great danger. Of course, he also thinks that "even if he wants to build his own arrow shaft, he must be considered unless there is enough bamboo." Relying on wood will definitely make mistakes.

Just when he was about to get angry, the escort officer quickly calmed his emotions, and then asked someone to bring dozens of craftsmen over: "Guardian, I can't explain this clearly. Anyway, the Duke Jun has thought of a comprehensive solution. If you ask these craftsmen, and if they have dismantled the machine from the cart, they will understand."

Fa Zheng had to wait patiently for a long time and saw the craftsmen installing more than 20 strange machines. These machines were quite bulky and thick, each of which occupied the transportation capacity of two wheelbarrows, which was much heavier than a Zhuge crossbow.

There were fifty craftsmen who came this time, obviously they were asked to use a machine to work in shifts for five or six hours a day, and the people kept shutting down.

After installing it, Fa Zheng carefully observed and noticed that this was a footwheel drive with rudder teeth, with rope chains on it driving two small rudder gears, and a broken shaft in the middle that can clamp things.

"How did this thing be used?" Fa Zheng asked with a serious expression.

After the craftsman's representative salutes, he demonstrated: "This object is called 'lass'. If you step on the large wheel below, you can make the small wheel above rotate at several times. A piece of wood is clamped between the small wheels and then put the knife holder close to it, so that the wood can be rotated to the edge of the knife and be cut into pieces.

To cut a short crossbow rod that is eight inches long, it is basically enough to cut a knife. The length of the knife holder is eight inches. As long as you step into the knife, your strength will be completely sucked. If it is a spear, you must slowly move the knife holder horizontally. Every time you cut eight inches, the rod made is straight and round, which is better than the ordinary ones that are slow and crafted and tidy."

Obviously, the craftsmen used the lathes used in early car wood, and they were pedal-style. This thing has no technical content, and is at least three or five centuries lower than that of sewing machines or even crossbow looms.

Because in history, weapons craftsmen in Milan, Italy, used this type of lathe gun rod as early as the early Renaissance, around the 12th to the 13th century.

Cutting wood with long, straight and thick metal blades does not require much difficulty in materials science, and no matter how fast or deep the cutting is, it will not collapse. As for lathes for cutting metal, it is much more difficult, and it will basically not appear until the end of the 18th century.

With the wooden bed of a car, the roundness of the thick wooden arrow rod is much faster. If you step on a few feet and turn it around, you will be cut into pieces and turn it around. It is no problem to use a lathe for a few hundred cars per hour.

Fa Zheng looked at it and was amazed: "What a wonderful thing, how could Zhuge Liang think of this thing?"

The craftsman leader didn't understand it very well, but just replied in contemplationly: "The old man has been using this for more than two months. It was made by Mr. Zhuge under the supervision of the right general when the king inspected the Taoist road. At that time, the king was also patrolling the military industry and told people that "Zhuge crossbows consumed too fast and could not make crossbow arrows."

Seeing that the king was concerned, the right general discussed with Mr. Zhuge, and seemed to find that the arrows could be cast in iron, and they could be made a lot of them in one mold. On the contrary, the arrow shaft was cut too slowly, so somehow he made this machine. We used this object to make guns, arrow shafts for a while.

Last month, the Lord of Lufu reported to Chengdu and said that the fierce battle was in full swing on Baoxi Road, and the generals of the Ma family in Xiliang surrendered, all relying on Zhuge Bibiao to guard the camp. The king discussed with whom he sent us and these machines to the Lord of Lufu."

After listening to the whole story, Fazheng finally felt great peace in his heart.

Haha, didn’t Jia Xu want to test whether the frontline weapons and consumables are enough after the heavy snow covers the mountain? Then just give it a try.

With the military literacy of Fazheng, he could certainly see that this thing was a good thing. The Right General and Zhuge Liang were in Shuzhong. They seemed to have already developed and increased the production capacity of industries related to military industry, such as textiles and metallurgy, and leather products were gradually developed and supplied with sufficient supply due to the complete pacification of Nanzhong.

Originally, the processing of wooden structures should not be a shortcoming of military production, but because other boards are long, the carpenter's links seem to be shorter. Now, the wooden lathes are fully laid, and the working hours cost of guns and arrows has plummeted at least several times.

To put it bluntly, in the future, if you want to build houses in construction projects, those beams and columns, the carpenter's workload will be much smaller.

Of course, in terms of the current situation, in addition to Li Su and Zhuge Liang's ingenuity, we should also thank Lu Su for his dispatch:

Although Lu Su has not studied modern logistics management courses, he actually made the decision of "low-technical content, low-value-added, huge and bulky parts localized production, high-value-added and high-tech content, and lightweight things imported and transported" without any guidance, and is definitely a de facto master of supply chain management.

After obtaining sufficient supplies, Fa Zheng felt more at ease. He comprehensively accelerated the execution of surrendering troops from Mei County to retreat south.

Ma Chao also provided more than 20 Zhuge crossbows and 100 chariots of crossbow arrows, so that Ma Chao could put his worries back in his stomach. He chose three thousand cavalry to be led by Pang Tong, left the weapons and equipment behind, and then retreated to Baozhong in the south.

Only Ma Chao led two thousand people to defend Mazhong Mountain, and the camp also further contracted, basically only ensuring the entrance of Baoxie Road to prevent the enemy from setting fire to the plank road.

After removing the drought and retaining the essence, Fa Zheng's troops left by the first-line base in Taibai Mountain-Wuzhangyuan this winter was reduced to 4,000 people, which was enough to "save food for the Northern Expedition and minimize and optimize the defense force at the level". This not only ensures safety, but also makes people have to believe that before the autumn harvest next year, Liu Bei's army will really flock here.

On October 24, heavy snow fell on the Qinling Mountains again. This time, the Baoxie Plank Road was completely blocked. Fa Zheng could no longer get the supplies from the south. He had to rely on existing parts and his own production to support himself until early February next year.

After confirming the weather, Li Jue launched several tentative attacks on Wuzhanghara and Mazukayama Camp - he didn't expect to break through at once, because he knew that even if the main support of the algorithm was cut off, the stock of crossbow arrows and other weapons and consumables stored in the camp at the beginning must have been large.

So the first few times were only small troops tentatively attacking, similar to "firepower reconnaissance", which lured the enemy to waste firepower.

Unfortunately, all of Li Jue's temptations failed. The law was correct and he was very arrogant. He was as arrogant as the Americans fought a war and did not hesitate to ammunition at all, and he always "shooted me".

After several consecutive tests, he found that the firepower was not weak at all. Li Jue was not patient anymore, so he let Yang Ding surround him. He no longer cared about the battlefield in Mei County. Anyway, the level had been repaired, and Fa Zheng could not make trouble.

Li Jue returned to Chang'an by himself to welcome Jia Xu, who was also about to return to Chang'an, and made subsequent preparations for the overall plan.

Guo Si, Zhang Ji and Zhang Xiu's respective wars also completely stopped due to the arrival of winter. Han Sui and Ma Chao, who were still breathing a sigh of relief, and everyone turned to the defense on the spot.

Fa Zheng's last report on the battle situation and the conclusion of the enemy's investigation were successfully given to Lu Su before the heavy snow closed the mountain. Lu Su sent it to Chengdu in early November. He himself would return to Chengdu in November to hand over the defense replacement plan for the coming year.

——
Chapter completed!