Chapter 378 The range of the arrow has reached 200 meters
The huge tree trunk was dragged to the ice-covered dock by the combined efforts of crowds and deer, where further processing of the big tree awaited.
The pier at the pier is covered with snow, the vast river is covered with solid ice, and a group of ships are covered with a lot of snow on the shore. It seems that this is a dead scene? In fact, it is not so at all.
The wharf has not only become a storage yard for lumber, but also a log processing place.
The big tree was just dragged to the dock, and Rurik turned around and fulfilled his promise.
The three pounds of wheat reward promised to the laborers immediately became a reality. This favor was not only for the Russians and mercenaries, but especially for the tribesmen who fought hard.
The scope of the favor has expanded. In just one dinner, the current residents of Ironburg have consumed as many as 500 pounds of oats. This is the first time in the lives of the children of the tribe that their small belly bags have been eaten.
When a lot of wheat is filled up, the feeling of fullness is what they consider happiness.
This is just the wheat eaten by people, those reindeer who worked hard and took advantage of it, they simply consumed nearly a thousand pounds!
Only when Rurik really counted grain consumption seriously did he realize that his previous estimate was naive.
Indeed, seventy thousand pounds of grain arrived here, weighing over twenty-five tons.
A thousand years from now, transporting grain of this magnitude will only require a heavy-duty truck to complete the task instantly and easily.
In the current era, the Russians use a large number of cargo sleds to transport them. The sleds are generally made recently, and the materials used are mostly oak, so the overall structure is quite strong. The sleds can generally carry up to two tons of materials.
, there is no problem in transporting grain by them.
The current problem is that even if there is so much food, if the people in the entire settlement are ordered to do high-intensity winter material production, especially felling, transportation, and deep processing of wood, the food will be completely consumed in two to three months.
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Although the large amount of grain arrived is to provide sufficient security for the labor force, they need to do a bigger job, which is to provide surplus grain to the residents of Ellenburg, which can also be regarded as a useful feedback after taking away a large amount of iron from their hands.
Extreme logging should come to an end.
Trees still need to be cut down, but certain restrictions must be made.
No, there is no need to continue cutting down those ordinary small trees. Digesting the tree trunks all over the ground is an arduous task for Ellenburg.
The focus of felling was entirely focused on those tall spruce trees that "stand out from the crowd". In order to get them, Rurik had to send a large number of strong men, as well as the strongest group of reindeer, and provide a large amount of wheat as their strong backing.
Only then, on the eve of the Russian Hanukkah, five large cedar trees were cut down and transported away.
The height difference between them is quite large, but the shortest one has more than 20 stikas.
Overall, their height is too extreme.
While the brave ones cut down the tallest trees, others are doing a very delicate job.
That still has to start with the arrival of the team transporting supplies.
The deer herders have taken part of the deer herd for winter grazing, and they will not consume a single bit of Ironburg's supplies. The people who stayed in the settlement and their active logging were essentially hired by Rurik to provide wheat.
As a reward, it becomes a matter of course.
Life has added challenges, and the feeling of boredom seems to have been diluted a lot.
On a quiet night, there were only a group of mercenaries on duty, lighting bonfires outside each gate of the wooden wall of Ironburg. They were ordered to serve as night watchmen, and the fierce bonfires dispelled the cold.
Rurik didn't want to go to bed early that night.
A bundle of tree trunks, which looked gray under the light of an oil lamp and were as thick as an adult man's thigh, was carried to the meeting hall of Rurik's mansion by mercenaries.
Mechasta, the leader of the tribe, is naturally sitting here. Today he was asked to sit down by Rurik because he was ordered to witness these trees.
Rurik didn't know if this person knew the "ash tree" as well as Jevro did.
"Do you recognize this tree?"
"This...could it be cut from the forest?" Mechasta's expression fully demonstrated that he had no idea.
"Huh? You really don't know?"
"Yes. It seems that the color of these tree trunks is very special, just like the pebbles in the stream, most of them are gray."
"My mercenary captain told me that this is an ash tree, the best material for making bows." Rurik asked again: "I thought you knew it. Unexpectedly..."
"Is it a good material for making a bow? To be honest, I have never seen it. Master, can I touch it."
Rurik shrugged: "Of course, you can do it yourself."
The gray tree is an ash tree, and its bark is generally grayish in color. People who are sensitive to color can easily spot it in the woods. In addition, a major feature of wild ash trees is that their trunks are very straight.
This was indeed the first time in Mechasta's life that he saw an ash tree. Since this material is a good material for making a bow, it must at least show good elasticity. He untied the hemp rope and found a rope that was much thicker than his forearm.
Try to bend the wooden pole with your feet.
The result? The tree trunk had a very obvious bend. When Mechasta relieved the force, the tree trunk instantly returned to its original shape.
This magical tree trunk named "Grey Tree" completely refreshed Mechasta's understanding, and his whole expression changed from cautious to ecstatic.
"It's really a good material for making bows, much better than the oak we commonly use."
"Of course." Rurik shrugged, "I think it is expedient for you to choose oak. Oak is very hard and should be used to build ships. You Kovin people are very good at archery. Now I order you to use this wood to make a batch of
Longbow. I will ask no other tribute from you for this. Once you make the bow, it will be your weapon. My only request is that if my army is to fight the enemy, you must send some archers to fight for me.
war."
Mechasta immediately understood that the wood for making bows was not as simple as a reward. His tribe had handed over thousands of axes and spearheads as tribute, and the tribe had to bear a heavy burden for this. As a result, Liuli
While collecting the tribute, Ke also gave back a batch of wheat and these bow-making materials. There really was a sense of commercial transaction between them, even if Rurik didn't say so.
The more Mechasta thought about it, the happier he became, and he couldn't help asking: "My master, where did you get these precious woods?"
"From a magical island."
"Oh..." Mechasta's cheerful old face was a little stiff. He felt that this was a secret kept by the Russians, so he did not continue to ask.
The fact is that Rurik told the truth.
Although Europe is not suitable for the use of sinew composite bows, in the 15th century, a batch of composite crossbows made of wood and beef tendons were already put into battlefield. Of course, with the mass production of steel-arm crossbows and their relative
With low maintenance costs, the steel-arm crossbow became the mainstream of long-range weapons in an era.
Longbows made of rosewood have almost become exclusive to British residents. In order to obtain the rosewood produced in the warm Mediterranean, they paid a high price.
Most of the single bows in other parts of Europe are made of various types of oak. In the final analysis, this is also a temporary measure. After shooting five hundred times, weight loss is inevitable.
It’s not that they don’t understand the subtleties of using ash poles to make bows, but the distribution of ash trees in Europe is also very strange. They mainly grow in the south. Even if this species can endure the extreme cold of minus 20 degrees, it doesn’t mean that it can
It grows widely in areas such as Finland.
For example, the ash tree does not exist in the Oulu River Basin where the Kovin people once settled, and it does not exist in the Kemi River Basin further north. Even if the saplings are artificially moved to Ellenburg for planting, the result is still the same.
Frozen to death in winter.
Rurik believed that the "hard stone island", that is, Gogland Island, due to geographical reasons, the Finns and Estonians were unable to touch it.
There is an ash forest.
Of course, if you use ash to make a long bow, it's still not as good as yew, but it's much better than an oak bow.
Rurik asked the key question: "Now that the wood is given to you, how many can you make? Remember, I don't want short wooden bows, I want you to make a batch of long bows that are similar to your height."
This gave Mechasta a little trouble.
"Well, maybe... twenty sheets are fine."
Rurik knocked on the wooden floor hard and asked loudly: "How many men do you have who can draw a bow? Are there thirty?"
"Yes! If you count some boys who are about to grow up, there must be thirty of them."
"That's thirty bows, which must be as long as your height."
"Ah this! Isn't it too extreme?"
"It's not extreme. Listen, only a longbow can shoot long arrows, so that the arrows can go farther. Just do as I ask. When you are done, we have to hunt a few bears to test the effect."
In this way, Mechasta began to organize manpower to use the newly obtained high-quality wood to process bows of extreme lengths.
They used the traditional method of cutting the wood first. Since the advent of hard and sharp scrapers made of chrome iron, choppers, axes and saws, the efficiency of processing wood has reached an unprecedented level.
The wood was cut into a wooden stick that was as thick as a child's forearm and was almost a cylinder. After processing, the bow's excellent elasticity and good hardness were demonstrated. However, it was a cylinder, and Rurik gave a big order, that is,
The Kewen people who asked to make a bow used a scraper to flatten it, that is, it became like a pole.
They have never processed bows in this way. In fact, they just don't know the benefits of doing so.
In this era, the bow arms of European single bows were all made of a cylindrical wooden stick. Their poor structure caused a serious waste of their power storage capacity. Only flat bow arms were correct.
The flat bow arm is baked on the flames. This is a heat treatment operation that uses the heat to bend the wood. A crude bowstring made of hemp rope is tightened on it, and stones are dropped for bow training.
There are exactly thirty bows for processing, which is considered a mass production operation. Mechasta's men are forest hunters, and they make their own bows. Due to the quality of the oak shortbows in their hands,
, they often make new bows, so everyone has rich experience in making bows.
In order to make these thirty bows, they spent more than ten days, but even then they were rushing to work.
The length is fixed at 1.6stika, which is actually 157cm. Thirty longbows are all of this length, and they are all based on the height of Mechasta himself.
Yes, the man Mechasta is a dwarf himself, and his people are all dwarfs. They are far less tall and strong than the Russians, and they are well aware of their natural disadvantages, so they are very careful in archery training.
The pewter longbow was all completed. On November 11 of the Julian calendar, when the day was so short that it was almost a "god's charity", Rurik gave it to the bored residents of Ironburg in public.
, showing the style of these brand new longbows.
No, a team of thirty archers suddenly appeared. Among them were Covins, Rus's, Melalen mercenaries, and even a Finn named Jevlo.
The arrow shafts are all made by women, and the material is pine wood. The arrow feathers come from birds caught in traps. The flight feathers are bonded to the arrow shaft with rosin. As usual, it also has three tail feathers. In order to pursue a gyroscopic effect and stability, the arrow feathers are bonded
It's still slightly tilted to the arrow shaft.
As for the arrow cluster, it is also very high-end. It is made of chromium iron by the Kowen blacksmith, and finally rosin, and hemp rope is tied to the arrow shaft.
The iron cluster arrows that were extremely precious to them in the past have now become standard equipment.
Thirty people wielded the longbow, and every person who pulled the bow felt the unprecedented power of this bow.
Because in the past, their short wooden bows weighed only twenty pounds at most, but what about their long bows? They all weighed forty pounds.
Even the Covin people are short in stature. They have done a lot of heavy manual labor in the past, and their food arrangements are much better than before. They have become stronger, and it is natural to use double the strength to draw the bow.
.
Of course, even if it is a 40-pound single-body bow, don’t expect it to really break armor when it fires armor-piercing arrows, but its arrows do have the ability to penetrate the fur of polar bears. The truth is that the power does not need to be too high, it is just right.
That’s it.
A shooting range appeared in Ironburg, and thirty people were ordered by Rurik to line up in a dense formation and shoot at the crudely erected wooden wall fifty meters away.
With Jevro taking the lead in roaring, they fired their arrows.
These rotating arrows left a shocking and beautiful pattern in the air. They formed a rain of arrows. Each arrow rotated crazily and flew towards the target in a parabolic cluster on the ground. Soon after the target was hit, there was a crackling sound of the arrow hitting the target.
They all have a good ability to handle short wooden bows. Now that they use long bows, they generally feel that their skills have improved. This is not their feeling, because when checking which arrows hit, Rurik saw that they had not hit the arrows.
To pull out the arrow clusters from the pine tree trunk, a strong man had to hold the arrow with his own hands and pull it hard. Many arrow shafts were broken in a short time.
Do you still have any doubts about longbows? Rurik even lamented their excellent eyesight and even their excellent archery ability that was suppressed by inferior short wooden bows.
After that, these thirty people stood outdoors again and shot at a 45° angle towards the ice in the distance. It was later found that most of the arrows had flown an astonishing 200 stikas, which was a distance of 200 meters.
The killing distance of this projectile is more than twice the ability of the oak short bow! Didn't it greatly shock the Russians?
Because two hundred meters is already a very astonishing distance, it can give the Russians a huge tactical advantage. If this is used together with a crossbow, it will be a smart Eastern tactical method.
People's understanding of arrows has been refreshed.
Five days later, a hunting team led by Jevlo, armed with longbows and steel-armed crossbows, hunted two wandering polar bears using only longbows in an unexplored forest further north from the mine.
.Just the long arrows fired from the longbow achieved results, and there was no need to use the powerful steel-armed crossbow.
Jevlo's main purpose is to improve his life by hunting, and his secondary purpose is to find a big cedar tree. Even if he doesn't cut down the tree immediately and take it away, he can still get it after marking it.
The equipment of the pewter longbow once again enhanced the strength of the Iron Squirrel tribe.
It is precisely because of this work that Rurik thoroughly understood the fighting power that the tribe still possesses.
It can be said that the combat effectiveness of those Corvin women needs to be ignored, because they are all becoming big-bellied one after another, and the fathers of their children are generally Russians. Every child will find his own identity, is he a Corvin or a Rus? For the sake of honor
, economic status and even future, they still have a very simple bloodline. They cannot deny that their fathers are Russians, and their home is one of the many settlements in Rus.
After a disastrous military defeat, the Iron Squirrel Tribe has only about thirty string controllers left, and these people are destined to be a tiny fraction even as servants.
This Kewen tribe has an absolute population disadvantage, and it will not take too long for it to be assimilated by the Rus.
Making excellent longbows made the days before Hanukkah a little more fun. People in the entire settlement saw those holding longbows shooting targets as a game, and they were eager to try it.
The Rus' Hanukkah has finally arrived. In fact, on the day of "complete darkness", the Rus' of Ellon lit a large number of bonfires to celebrate the most important festival of the tribe every year.
The Kewen people were also performing sacrifices, especially the priestess Parla dressed as an owl. She was beating a small leather drum and playing a harmonica. The strange and solemn sound made the sacrificial ritual complex and diverse.
change.
Yes, Rurik was happy to see the two groups performing sacrifices on the same day. As usual, he beheaded a sacrificial stag with his sword, showed the deer's blood to the Northern Lights, cut open the deer's liver, and announced in public: "Guard Rus.
Odin wishes that Ailon-Olawa Castle will be stable and people will be prosperous."
Everyone was cheering, and Rurik knew that he had stabilized the hearts of the settled Russian fishermen. He also understood the oracle of the priestess Kovin, that is, "The gray squirrel tribe surrendered to the Russian people with the permission of the mountain god and river god."
". In fact, the words of the priestess have political considerations. After all, the noble Rurik understands their language, and the words are spoken to Rurik, which is a clear statement of surrender.
Rurik naturally understood it tacitly and told her his relief with his eyes.
"Now that Hanukkah is over, I also played a guest role as a priest. Otto, it's time for your winter hunting army to come back. When you come back, I will control the sled, pull all the wood I have prepared, and take me
People have returned to their hometown." Rurik has already planned the next thing. The "Avora", the first Russian ship to imitate the Caravel ship, must install the most critical mast as soon as possible.
, it must be launched into the water for trial navigation after the sea thaws.
No, it was no longer a trial voyage, but was put into use to become the best transport ship and the most combat-effective warship.