Chapter 108: Crossbow

Baifeng's goal is to hold a primitive wedding ceremony; for one, it provides a sense of ritual, and having lived two lifetimes, he certainly cannot just muddle through his own life's major event.

Furthermore, he has an idea: to imprint the concepts of "family" and "husband and wife" more deeply into the hearts of the tribespeople, letting them have this awareness. Although under Baifeng's guidance, many small families have already formed, they are basically just living together, without any deep bonds.

Two people with relatively strong abilities live together, then eat what they earn and live under the same roof; it seems no different from being husband and wife, but in terms of reproduction, it is still very chaotic. Baifeng mainly wants to have them fix their ethical relationships.

One cannot know only the mother and not the father; only with a family system can lineage be clarified. This is also a necessary part of evolution. The consequences of inbreeding are too severe. In some countries of later generations, such as the royal family of the "little islanders," in order to maintain so-called bloodlines, they practiced inbreeding, and the princesses and such all looked indescribable; there were hardly any normal-looking people among them.

Although the Baifeng tribe now has a larger population and more choices for reproductive partners, there is no way to guarantee that inbreeding will not occur. After all, you don't know who my father is, and I don't know who your father is. They might not have the same mother, but they could have the same father. The Baifeng tribe has some dull-witted tribespeople, and Baifeng is not sure if it is simply because they are not bright, or if it is caused by inbreeding.

However, the wedding cannot be held right now; it is currently the busiest time, and he cannot let this matter affect the tribe's Harvest. He will wait until the Harvest season is over.

For the sake of future wars, Baifeng is racking his brain thinking about the weapons he can create, and they must be of the overwhelming kind.

It seems the most powerful thing is firearms. Baifeng also knows their composition and how to maximize their power. In the past, Baifeng did not want to release this lethal weapon thousands of years early, but now he feels that even if it is not used for killing, using it to play god is a pretty good choice.

Unfortunately, Baifeng can find carbon, and there is enough Saltpeter on this saline-alkali land, but Sulfur is really hard to find. They have no large-scale geological activity here; there are no hot springs or volcanoes, so finding Sulfur is indeed quite unlikely.

A bow requires great strength, and rapid fire is also difficult; if ambushed, there is no way to loose an Arrow immediately. Therefore, Baifeng is pondering making a Crossbow—it saves effort, can be kept ready to fire, and is easy to aim. Most importantly, the women in the tribe can use it easily, which would raise the combat power of the Baifeng tribe to a whole new level.

However, the most troublesome part of a Crossbow is not the body, nor the bow or the string, but the Iron Crossbow Mechanism. It seems like a very simple structure, but it is currently very troublesome because they cannot make springs. The steel they make lacks sufficient elasticity, and they cannot produce high-elasticity and durable springs.

This makes Baifeng very worried. Although he was once a fan of ancient weapons and had learned about the Han Crossbow and Qin Crossbow, having him actually make a Crossbow Mechanism is truly going to be the death of him.

The Crossbow Mechanism of a Qin Crossbow is composed of several parts: the sighting device, the hook, the rotating blade, and the trigger linkage. The function of the sighting device is for aiming, and it is integrated with the hook. The hook is used to catch the string and is usually hidden in the Crossbow body. When one wants to cock the string, the inverted sighting device is lifted, and the hook emerges to catch the string.

The rotating blade is equivalent to the Banjiji, and the trigger linkage connects the sighting device and the Banjiji. It seems like just three simple objects, but what their shapes should be and how they should connect—Baifeng racks his brains and cannot figure it out.

However, he has also begun to pool everyone's wisdom, calling over the Carpenter and the Blacksmith to let them offer ideas. They also understand a little bit about these things; three cobblers are equal to one Zhuge Liang, and there are more than three of them.

Everything is based on these three structures. Baifeng drew the blueprints from his memory. The only thing he is sure he drew correctly is the sighting device, because it looks like a straight-handled spoon, only the tip of the spoon has two things sticking up like beast fangs.

For several days in a row, they drew on the ground, and if they felt it wouldn't work, they drew on large wooden boards with charcoal pencils. Once they drew a rough shape, several Carpenters would go to make a wooden Crossbow Mechanism to assemble and test.

After many attempts, they only solved the connection problem but could not achieve firing. The problem lay in the smallest and simplest trigger linkage, so they focused their research on the trigger linkage.

Although they did it over and over again, which was troublesome and exhausting, no one quit. Because from Baifeng's words, they already knew how important this thing was to the tribe, so they all put in twelve times the effort. They had never felt their brains running so fast; after entering the state, it was a very strange feeling.

Finally, the Crossbow Mechanism they made could indeed fire, but a new problem appeared: the problem of how the trigger linkage resets. Later generations abandoned the trigger linkage and used springs instead, allowing the Banjiji to return to its original position after every shot. But what Baifeng and the others made could only fire once after being assembled, and then the trigger linkage would get stuck under the rotating blade and could not go back up.

Everyone felt a bit weary; they were just one step away. Baifeng did not urge them, but let them rest for a while, suggesting they take this time to find good wood and prepare for making the Crossbow.

The Crossbow body can use ordinary wood, but the bow body must use wood with sufficient elasticity. He should also be able to add Iron plates to the Crossbow, but the Baifeng tribe is not yet wealthy to that extent.

Using Iron for the Crossbow Mechanism is best, but the output is still not enough, and it can only be cast; hammering is impossible. Baifeng estimates that making forty or fifty sets of Iron Crossbow Mechanisms will do, and the rest will use wood.

Bronze would also work perfectly, but their tribe has not smelted Bronze, and trading for Bronze with other tribes is not cost-effective; after all, Bronze is a precious metal now.

The woods they can find here suitable for making the Crossbow Mechanism are Beech Wood, Green Steel Wood, and Boxwood; other woods are relatively too soft, and if made into a Crossbow Mechanism, they would easily be ruined.

Once the wood was found, they used saws to fell them directly, then split them into small boards on the spot, and had the tribespeople pull them back with carts. The materials were sufficient, but the Carpenters could already see their own miserable future.

Originally there was only one Carpenter, but later they found a few more who had talent and loved to learn, following along to work. Now these few people are responsible for the production and maintenance of all wooden products in the entire tribe, and occasionally they are called by Baifeng to do this kind of very difficult work.

Perhaps it was because they shifted their brains, but when they returned to the table to study the Crossbow Mechanism again, everyone's thinking opened up a lot, and they could offer some ideas.

First, they added a limit device, which is a stick, so that the trigger linkage would not fall too low. As a result, it would still get stuck when resetting. Then, they simply shaved a bit of an arc onto both the trigger linkage and the rotating blade, and the Crossbow Mechanism could easily reset.

After testing with the wooden Crossbow Mechanism, it could fire continuously and normally. Then, the Iron Crossbow Mechanism also began trial casting, and the other parts of the Crossbow also began to be made. Everyone divided the work among themselves, thinking of making a finished Crossbow as soon as possible.