Chapter 1011

"Haha! With this bow, the Empire's great army can increase its strength several times over. The rebel army outside Nanjun..."

"Hmph! Next time they dare to come over, let them taste the power of this new powerful bow."

Wang Ben was overjoyed; truly feeling the power of this powerful bow, he was full of excitement.

It was just that whether this powerful bow could be built on a large scale was still a question, so he looked at Su Fan.

Su Fan saw the gazes of the crowd and nodded, saying: "Large-scale construction is possible, but it requires manpower. This powerful bow uses a new rune technique, and currently, those who can use runes are only Nan Sun and the dozen or so others."

"Relying solely on them, the number they can build every day is not much."

Su Fan said indifferently: "If you want large-scale, then you need more people to practice and learn the rune technique."

"In Nanjun, the craftsman institute has eight hundred craftsmen, but those who can truly learn runes are only a hundred or so. If these hundred or so people all learn it, they could build about thirty thousand of these ordinary powerful bows every month."

"Thirty thousand powerful bows!"

The crowd heard this and nodded secretly, "That's already not bad."

Thirty thousand powerful bows a month means over three hundred thousand a year. Although bows and arrows are consumables, generally speaking, if a soldier cherishes a powerful bow, using it for a few years is not a problem.

Of course, those lost on the battlefield due to defeat or death are not counted.

However, averaged out, a soldier consumes one powerful bow every three years.

Great Qin has nearly two or three million archers; almost all soldiers entering the army will undergo basic training in bows and arrows, and only those who truly have talent in bows and arrows will join the archer corps.

With millions of archers, they might need millions of powerful bows; for the Nanjun craftsman institute to build so many would take decades.

But Great Qin's craftsman institutes are not just in Nanjun; Great Qin has over a hundred commanderies, and each commandery has a craftsman institute, just of varying sizes.

Nanjun has eight hundred craftsmen, and the scale is indeed not small, but it can be considered medium-to-high. These eight hundred are all master craftsmen, and the reason it is like this is because Wang Jian's great army is here, so it is a bit larger than ordinary commanderies.

Of course, compared to the craftsman institute in Xianyang City, it cannot be compared.

The craftsman institute in Xianyang City has tens of thousands of master craftsmen alone, and plus the supporting apprentices and so on, there are fully hundreds of thousands of people.

As long as the runes are spread, then gathering all the master craftsmen of the Empire to build these powerful bows will be an easy matter.

The key lies in whether the former is willing to spread this rune technique.

However, Wang Jian felt that Su Fan would not hide it; since he was willing to teach Nan Sun and these few people who had no connection to him, then spreading the Dharma to the world was also very normal.

Sure enough, next, they heard Su Fan continue: "General Wang Jian, if you want to speed up the construction of these powerful bows, you can send people to have the people from the Craftsman Bureau come over to learn the rune technique from Nan Sun and the others, and then spread it to the world. This way, with more master craftsmen learning it, building these powerful bows will be simple."

"Mr. Su is righteous. This old man thanks you on behalf of the Empire for your generosity."

Facing these words from Su Fan, Wang Jian felt even more admiration in his heart. Although Wang Jian did not understand this rune technique very well.

But just the fact that it could have such a strengthening effect on ordinary powerful bows meant it was clearly absolutely not a simple secret technique.

To spread it out so casually without any reservation—just this state of mind, how many people could compare to it?

Wang Jian, as a powerful noble of the current Great Qin Empire, naturally understood that many nobles or forces were very possessive, conservative, and controlling regarding knowledge.

Those nobles might not care much about wealth, but they valued knowledge, even to a terrifying degree.

Everyone knew that knowledge could change many things; it was almost impossible for ordinary people to change their class, because changing class required meritorious service.

In the army, it was a bit better, because you had the opportunity to practice the body-tempering techniques passed down in the army.

But this kind of military body-tempering technique actually had very great flaws; military body-tempering techniques could briefly develop human potential, making the practitioner's cultivation speed faster.

The consequence was that potential was rapidly consumed, and it would be impossible to break through to a higher realm in the future.

Unless it was someone with very high talent who was valued by the high-level figures in the army and was taught the technique of nourishing the body, which could eliminate these flaws of the military's explosive body-tempering.

But there were almost very few who could have such an experience.

Although it was said that there was class upward mobility in the army, the middle and high-level military officers in the army were almost all monopolized by those military clans and various great families.

In the army, low-level officers—squad leaders, platoon leaders, and even hundred-man commanders—could strive for these positions based on their own strength.

But after exceeding a hundred-man commander, these officers not only needed to be examined for personal bravery, but also needed to have certain abilities, such as leading troops, being literate, being able to understand some military orders, and so on.

And these were all knowledge; ordinary people at the bottom could not come into contact with them at all, and they could not compare to those children of families and military clans who had received various knowledge from childhood.

So the army was still cruel.

As for the civil official system, there was even less need to compare.

The monopoly of knowledge made it almost impossible for those at the bottom to turn their lives around; if you were a farmer, you would be a farmer for generations. If you wanted to turn your life around, perhaps you could join the army, and after generations of deep cultivation in the army, perhaps one day you would turn your life around.

Some families in the localities of the Great Qin Empire were actually formed this way; some took a few generations, and some even took dozens of generations or hundreds of years to become small landlords in the commanderies and counties.

Wang Jian was clear that the monopoly of knowledge was top-down, and immortal techniques, martial arts methods, and various secret techniques were even more precious knowledge.

Every single thing Su Fan had brought out previously, and what he was bringing out now, was enough to allow a family to gain a foothold in Great Qin, or even become a top-tier family of the Empire.

Such knowledge was spread so casually.

He was truly worthy of being the greatest sage since the Empire.

The title of sage of the human race was also well-deserved.

Wang Jian felt reverence in his heart; if it were him, he certainly wouldn't be able to be so free and easy.

"Sir, I wonder if we can learn this rune technique?"

Just at this moment, suddenly Wang Heng, the Prefect, couldn't help but say.

This rune method looked simple, but it was absolutely an extraordinary secret technique. Since this gentleman was not stingy, he couldn't help but think that if his family could learn it and practice it to a deep level, perhaps they could also rise to a high position in Great Qin.

The Great Qin Empire had never discriminated against any craftsmen; among scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants, the gap in status in Great Qin was not very large.

Even if you were a merchant, if you reached a certain level, no one in the locality would dare to ignore you.

Being from a craftsman background, one could also reach the Nine Ministers, provided you had outstanding talent.

A former Shao Fu of Great Qin had risen from a mere county craftsman to finally become one of the Nine Ministers.