Ming Dynasty: I am truly not the Emperor of Longevity

Four days later, at the Lu residence, in the back garden.

An arrow flew from the bowstring, traveled thirty paces, and landed firmly in the bullseye of the circular target.

At this point, there were already more than ten arrows on the target.

However, most of them were still some distance from the bullseye; this was the first one to hit the bullseye.

Lu Chen drew another arrow from the quiver behind him, carefully recalling the state of mind when he shot the arrow that hit the bullseye.

A few seconds later, Lu Chen raised the short bow again, and while nocking the arrow, he used his mental power to fine-tune the angle between the arrow, the bow arm, and the bowstring.

Of course, the most important thing is to focus your mental energy on the bowstring so that you can keep the bow fully drawn without relying on your arm strength.

As Lu Chen released his fingers from the bowstring, the mental energy he had been applying to the bowstring vanished instantly.

The arrow struck the bullseye again!

Just yesterday, Lu Chen had his men compete in a martial arts contest at the training ground of the Hundred Households Office.

Of course, the real purpose was to observe them up close and use my mental powers to perceive details such as their movements and the way they exerted force.

Lu Chen had his own reasons for ultimately selecting four events for the competition: archery, hidden weapons, swordsmanship, and unarmed combat.

In actual combat, ranged attacks are certainly much safer than close combat, especially when it is necessary to conceal one's psychic powers from subordinates.

If he could maintain some distance from his opponent when facing them, Lu Chen would prefer to use long-range projectile weapons.

For medium to long distances, the best choice is the bow and arrow.

When Lu Chen arrived at the shooting range yesterday, he learned that the Embroidered Uniform Guard had two different types of standard bows: one was a short bow about 1.3 or 1.4 meters long, and the other was a long bow about 1.7 meters long, also called the Kaiyuan bow.

Short bows are usually paired with light arrows, and their effective killing range against unarmored targets is only about fifty meters. The advantage is that they do not require much arm strength, and only fifty or sixty pounds of pulling force is needed to draw them fully.

The Kaiyuan Bow is a powerful bow used in battle, with an effective range of over 100 meters, and when paired with heavy arrows, it can penetrate iron armor.

However, it requires much more arm strength than a short bow, and requires a pulling force of over 100 kilograms to draw it fully.

Lu Chen tried both types of bows. Even without using his mental power, he could draw the short bow fully with just his arm strength. He could also maintain the fully drawn bow entirely with his mental power without having to exert continuous force with his arm.

However, the Kaiyuan Bow cannot do that. Without using his mental power, Lu Chen struggles to even draw it halfway, let alone fully.

Only with the aid of mental power can such a powerful bow be drawn to its full potential.

Moreover, it is impossible to maintain the fully drawn bow solely by mental power; the arms must also exert continuous force at the same time to achieve this, making it only slightly easier than drawing a short bow fully using only arm strength.

Apart from Gao Ruopu, who took the Venetian glass to Yanshen Town, the other fifty-four subordinates each shot at targets with two different bows in front of Lu Chen.

The short-handled bow was used to shoot at a close target at about 30 paces, or about 45 meters, while the Kaiyuan bow was used to shoot at a distant target at 50 paces.

In this competition, each person had to shoot ten arrows. Lu Chen was also able to use his mental power to examine up to 540 bow-drawing and archery movements at close range, and he could clearly perceive the details of everyone's bow-drawing, aiming, and muscle exertion.

He has a thorough understanding of all the essentials of archery.

Lu Chen believed that as long as he practiced diligently using these methods, he would definitely be no worse than his subordinates.

The mansion that Commander Gao gave to Lu Chen was, after all, the villa of a military officer, and there was originally a small shooting range of thirty paces in the back garden.

The day after the martial arts competition, Lu Chen gave his men a day off and didn't go to the Hundred Household Office himself. Instead, he spent the day digesting his gains in his backyard.

The first skill I practiced was archery.

After repeatedly trying out two different types of bows, Lu Chen finally decided to practice with the short bow first.

Even with the aid of telekinesis, one can only use the Kaiyuan Bow as a short-handled bow at most, gaining limited advantages.

But the short-handled bow is different; you can maintain a fully drawn bow state using only your mental power!

This also means that you can fully unleash the power of your arms!

What is the biggest difference between ancient bows and arrows and modern composite bows?

Ancient bows were all traditional single-piece bows. Regardless of the material, they relied entirely on arm strength to draw them and maintain a fully drawn state through continuous force.

The force required to maintain a fully drawn bow is exactly the same as the force required to draw the bow.

Not only does it require much more physical exertion, but it is also easy to make mistakes during the aiming process due to various muscle exertion problems.

Therefore, excellent archers in ancient times all needed to undergo long-term training.

Moreover, due to the high physical exertion involved, the number of times an archer can fire arrows consecutively is very limited.

Short bows, being light bows, are a bit better; many people can shoot dozens of arrows with them.

However, heavy war bows like the Kaiyuan Bow wouldn't work. Lu Chen asked several of his subordinates who had won the archery competition.

Even for them, firing about ten arrows from a fully drawn bow would exhaust them, and they would be unable to draw the bow fully again until their strength recovered.

Modern compound bows are completely different!

With the help of the pulley structure, especially the eccentric wheel, the archer only needs to exert full force at the moment of drawing the bow, and only 20% of the force is needed to maintain the fully drawn bow.

This amount of force is very easy for an archer, with very low physical burden, allowing them to aim with ease even when the bow is fully drawn.

Because the right hand is not taut, it is less likely to tremble when releasing the arrow by loosening the fingers.

Furthermore, modern compound bows also have professional sights, making it easy for archers to aim in a straight line.

This is why many archery enthusiasts can master modern compound bows in a very short time and achieve outstanding results at distances of tens of meters.

The same people, if you let them use a traditional single bow, would immediately revert to their original state.

Although Lu Chen did not know the specific manufacturing process of modern composite bows, he understood the principles and believed that with his guidance, the skilled craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty would be able to recreate modern composite bows.

However, just like his previous choice of crystal glass instead of a truly groundbreaking product, Lu Chen was unwilling to see a weapon as powerful as the modern composite bow appear in this dimension until he could truly control the situation.

However, just because others don't have modern compound bows doesn't mean Lu Chen doesn't have them either!

With the aid of telekinesis, Lu Chen can keep the short bow fully drawn without relying on arm strength at all!

It requires less effort than the average person using a modern compound bow!

Moreover, although the power of telekinesis is similar to that of a single hand, it is much more stable than relying on the strength of the arm through muscles, and can achieve zero errors.

At the same time, Lu Chen can also use his telekinesis to sense whether the bow arm and bowstring are drawn at the wrong angle, whether the arrow is in a straight line with the target, and even make fine adjustments.

It is entirely possible to achieve the same effect as modern composite bow sights on ancient single-piece bows that lack sights.

A few minutes later, Lu Chen emptied another bag of arrows.

At this moment, the target thirty paces away was already densely covered with arrows, the closer to the center, the denser they were.

The entire bullseye area was completely filled with more than ten arrows!