Great Song Super Scholar

Chapter 670 New Ballista
The first question is about agriculture, and the second question is about work, but they are all general knowledge questions, and Fu Bi understands these contents very well.

Fu Bi handed the questions to everyone and asked, "You all should know the answers to these two questions! Who will tell them?"

A group of officials looked at each other, many people's faces were flushed, and no one could answer. Fu Bi was startled, "Don't you all know?"

An official raised his hand and said, "I know how fine linen gowns are made, but I really don't know how to make cotton cloth."

Another official said: "Our family used to grow wheat. I know the yield of wheat per mu. I heard from my father that it is about 200 catties. I don't know anything else."

"Haven't you worked in the fields yourself?"

The official shook his head, "I started studying at the age of five until I passed the imperial examination at the age of 24. My family didn't let me get involved in farm affairs."

Fu Bi asked again: "How many of you are from the countryside?"

More than half of the dozens of officials raised their hands, and Fu Bi was a little annoyed, "Could it be that you are all like him and have never touched farm work?"

Everyone was silent, which was considered to have acknowledged Fu Bi's conclusion.

Fu Bi snorted, took up a pen and wrote down the answers. The reason he knew the answers to these two questions was because he had been a county magistrate and cared about the suffering of farmers. In addition, he had visited a textile workshop a few years ago and knew how to use cotton wool. The weaving process of cloth includes cotton ginning, thread drawing, spinning, and weaving, which are not the same as linen weaving.

Although cotton cloth is very popular now, and almost everyone wears it, not many people know how to weave it. It is completely understandable that the second question is not answered, but if the first question cannot be answered, then Too much.

Not long after, hundreds of papers were collected, with various answers, but none of them were completely correct. Almost half of the Tai students handed in blank papers.

Fu Bi let out a long sigh, "That's all!"

He shook his head, turned and left Taixue.

When returning, Fu Bi and Fan Ning were in a carriage.

The two sat down, and Fu Bicai said earnestly: "Before you set up an engineering college, this was actually a big concession from the imperial court. Why are you still not satisfied? I don't even know if you will continue to divert students from county-level schools. What should I say about you, how many people's interests have been affected by your changes, are you not afraid that thousands of local old scholars will poke your back? Why did Wang Anshi go to you and give you the leadership, you ! Still too young."

Fan Ning smiled, "Wang Anshi did not intend to give me the leading power. This is the condition for me to support him. This matter must be decided by me. This is related to the eternal life of the Han nation. A hundred years later, I suddenly discovered that the barbarians in the West had already gone far ahead of us, and as for some rotten Confucians who wanted to scold me, let them scold me, sacrificing the future of the nation for the benefit of some rotten Confucians, I couldn’t do that.”

"But you already have an engineering school, isn't that enough?"

Fan Ning shook his head, "Most of the students in the engineering college are young craftsmen, what they learn is how to make good utensils, not to create, and many of them are even illiterate, which is a pity.

And our scholars are the smartest and most creative group. They will record the accidental discoveries of many craftsmen, study them, and thoroughly understand the principles inside. Accumulated from generation to generation, one day they will create With their own plowing machines, one person can cultivate hundreds of hectares of fields. They will build flying machines that fly from the capital to Luzon in an hour. They will invent the most powerful firearms in the world. Launched from Bianliang, it can directly blow up Shangjing in Liao Kingdom. "

Fu Bi was dumbfounded when he heard this, "Will these appear?"

"It will definitely appear, maybe our generation will not see it, but it will definitely appear in the future."

Fu Bi gave a long sigh, "You have a vision that ordinary people don't have. Maybe you are right. Although I voted against the education reform law, since it must be implemented, I also hope that it will be successful, just like you said. , Hundreds of years later, my descendants will also be able to sit on flying machines and travel in the sky."

The uproarious teaching reform law finally came to an end, and Zhao Xu also specifically sought out Wang Anshi. All reform plans were temporarily frozen, and the entire court had to focus on dealing with the threat of the Liao Kingdom.

Zhao Xu immediately decreed that Fan Ning would also serve as the privy envoy and be fully responsible for the war preparations of the Liao Kingdom.

Time has gradually arrived in December. This morning, Fan Ning came to inspect the Firearms Bureau. The Firearms Bureau is located outside Beicheng. All in small hills.

In fact, the most powerful iron fire thunder in the Song Dynasty has been manufactured in Kunzhou. No one in the Beijing Firearms Bureau understands its structure, formula and production process. This is the order of the late emperor Song Renzong. However, as long as firearms are made in the capital, the Liao Kingdom will soon learn how to use them. Under the temptation of the Liao Kingdom, few people can resist.

The various firearms of the Song Army also appeared in the Liao Kingdom not long after they were launched, which is very telling. However, the Tiehuolei has been born for more than ten years, but the Liao Kingdom has never been able to manufacture it. This shows Song Renzong's decision-making Still very wise.

Fan Ning came to the Firearms Bureau today because the Military Weapons Supervising and Crossbow Academy invented a powerful ballista, which can shoot a weight of [-] catties to [-] paces, which is equivalent to a medium-sized trebuchet.

The ballista was first used to eject stones, so it was called stone cannon, also known as thunderbolt cannon. It was not renamed artillery until the Song Dynasty used firearms in large quantities. It is not the same thing as the artillery of later generations, it is just a kind of ballista.

Compared with the trebuchet, the biggest advantage of the ballista is that it occupies a small area and shoots accurately, but its weakness is also obvious. The range is only about a hundred steps. Compared with the trebuchet with a range of three or four hundred steps, its power is much smaller, and It is not necessary to be precise when defending the city. In addition, many large cities have wide heads and can be equipped with trebuchets, so the ballista gradually lost its effect.

However, after the advent of the iron fire thunder, the accuracy of projection is relatively high, especially for large ship water battles, a powerful firearm with high shooting accuracy is needed. Whether it is iron fire mine or fire oil tank, it must be accurately projected to the opponent. On a ship, and it needs to be projected from a long distance, the ballista is very suitable, but its range is too short, so the development of a long-range ballista is of great significance for warships and even city defense.

On the testing ground of the Firearms Bureau, a strangely shaped ballista was placed on the grass. This ballista was about a foot long. Its principle was a large crossbow, which used the slowly accumulated elastic force to eject stones.

The special feature of this ballista is that there is an iron winch on each side, and three people at each station pull the iron winch to wind up. The secret of the improvement of this ballista is that it uses a high-elastic rubber belt instead of the principle ribbon. Greatly increased, and the shooting range has also doubled, generally between 150 steps and [-] steps,

A soldier put a 150-jin iron fire mine in his shooting pocket. With a loud noise, Tie Huo Lei was shot out and precisely hit a large wooden board [-] steps away.

The surrounding officials all looked at Fan Ning, Fan Ning nodded and said: "The shooting range has indeed increased, but I still have a small question, for example, the opponent's plank is a ship, I hit it, and you all saw it, It didn't shoot through the hull, but fell into the sea, unless it was very accurate and waterproof, it exploded at the moment of falling into the water, and the air and water waves overturned the ship, but do you think it is easy to achieve?"

The officials of the Nuyuan Academy were obviously prepared, and an official stepped forward and said: "There are two options, one option is what Xianggong said, try to explode before falling into the water, the impact of the explosion can still severely damage the opponent, but this requires the Firearms Bureau Another solution is to install sharp spikes on the casing of the iron fire mine, like thorns, so that it can be nailed to the ship's board when it hits the ship's board."

Fan Ning turned around and asked, "Is there such an iron fire thunder?"

An official from the Firearms Bureau nodded, "Yes!"

He immediately sent someone to fetch a special iron fire mine. It really had three one-foot-long iron spikes on it, which were very sharp. The official said to Fan Ning, "This is called a spike mine. It was originally used to deal with city gates. Nailed on the city gate, it can also deal with the ships of the Liao Kingdom."

Fan Ning nodded and said with a smile: "The ships of the Liao Kingdom don't need this kind of spike mine. Ordinary iron fire mines can penetrate it. I just consider using it in naval battles in the future."

Fan Ning thought for a while and said to the officials of the Ballista Academy: "The ballista is generally not placed on the deck, but in the cabin. I suggest adding a pipe in front of the ballista, and the pipe extends outside the cabin. Is it feasible to shoot the thunder directly through the tube?"

Several officials thought for a while and said, "It shouldn't be a big problem!"

"In addition, there are safeguards. If the ballista fails to eject, or the ejection fails, there must be a way to quickly send the burning iron fire mine to the sea, and it must not blow up one's own ship."

"This. Let's go back and think about it!"

Several officials had big heads, and they immediately thought of spare ejection, but it was possible, but they had to think about it carefully.

"Sir, it may take a month or two."

"I just need to install the ballista on thirty ships by May next year, and I don't care about the rest."

(End of this chapter)