If you travel back to the ancient warriors, what weapon would you choose to attack the city? The first siege weapon we think of may be a ladder or a trebuchet, both of which we can often see in film and television dramas.
Today we will talk about these two common ancient engineering weapons.
The first, the ladder, is one of the most common tools in ancient siege warfare, and it is the most direct tool that can climb to the city wall.
Because in the age of weapons, you can only climb the city wall through the ladder, so basically the battle situation is locked.
The prototype of the ladder first appeared in the Xia, Shang and Zhou periods, but at that time, it was not called a ladder, but a hook ape.
In the later Spring and Autumn Period, the master craftsman Lu Ban improved the Gouyuan, and at this time began to call it Yunti.
According to records, the ladder in the Warring States period was composed of three parts, that is, the bottom of the ladder was equipped with wheels, which could be moved, and the stand-in could be.
Up and down, the groove at the top of the ladder can be erected on the edge of the city wall, but it is obvious that the ladder in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods still has defects, so the ladders of the Tang Dynasty have made great changes on the ladders of the Spring and Autumn Warring States period.
The wheel under the ladder is no longer a single wheel, but a roulette wheel composed of six wheels, and the substitute is fixed to the wheel at a fixed angle, increasing the stability of the double.
In addition, an attachment is also provided on the ladder, that is, a pair of rudders are installed at the top of the ladder.
When climbing the city wall, the ladder can be moved up and down freely along the city wall, so that there is no need for soldiers to carry the ladder on their shoulders, which reduces labor costs and avoids excessive casualties of soldiers when using ladder projects.
In the Song Dynasty, the structure of the ladder had a new change, and the ladder body of the Song Dynasty ladder was equipped with a shaft lift in the position of almost the middle.
It can be folded by the reel, while also wrapping the bottom of the ladder in raw cowhide to form a barrier, effectively avoiding soldiers from being attacked by each other's arrows when they use the ladder to approach the city wall.
After the improvement of the Song Dynasty, the ladder also derived many forms of ladders, such as flying body, bamboo, flying cry, Nie Tou flying cry and so on.
After the Ming Dynasty, the cloud ladder gradually disappeared. The most important role on the battlefield is that the ladder has no way to block the attack of the fire, and can even be used as a good fire point.
Speaking of this, some people may wonder why the soldiers guarding the city will let the siege soldiers put the ladder on the city wall.
Why not opt for the ladder? Isn't it possible to push away in film and television dramas?
It seems easy for us to think of, as if it can be solved with the touch of a finger, but in fact, if the besieging soldiers can push the ladder under the city walls, it must mean that the besieging soldiers are already there.
Dodging the rain of arrows from the defenders, and being able to carry the ladder above the wall must be very weighty.
In fact, it is said that pushing away can be pushed away.
Moreover, not only is the top of the ladder car itself hooked to the edge of the city wall by a hook, but also the ladder car also has engineering weapons such as shields, hooks, claws, etc., which is definitely not as easy as in the film and television drama.
So what role does the ladder have in addition to being able to work?
Huainan Zibing said: The cloud ladder can stand on the cloud, so the city of the flute can be used to climb high and look far away and reconnoiter the enemy when needed, which is another use of the cloud ladder.
The second, the trebuchet. Legend has it that the trebuchet was born in the Zhou Dynasty, when it was called a throwing car.
But in fact, the earliest appearance of the trebuchet should be the Warring States period, because the prototype of the throwing car should come from the act of throwing stones from the head of the primitive person, so what.
Later trebuchets belong to human trebuchets.
It is recorded in the witty di taibai penis that the whole stone thrower is made of wood, and a rotating shaft is placed above the gun mount, and there is a lever called burning fixed on the shaft, if only one lever is called a single hand, multiple levers are called how much to burn, the heavier and farther the live bullets that can be thrown.
When the trebuchet throws the stone egg, it will first be aimed by one person, and then multiple people will pull the gun cable at the same time, when one end of the lever falls, the spoon at the other end will be correspondingly quickly thrown, and the real bullet will be thrown by the inertia of the lever, and the maximum range can reach hundreds of steps.
As Fan Li said in the Art of War, it weighs twelve pounds at any time, and three hundred steps are taken to stimulate it, which is a relatively rudimentary trebuchet at the beginning.
The Battle of Guandu was a throwing car used by Cao Cao, which could be freely moved to become a thunderbolt car.
But even so, the maneuverability of the throwing car at that time was still very poor, and the installation was not fast enough.
So on the basis of the thunderbolt car was modified, the bolt can not only move and rotate horizontally, but also throw live ammunition in different directions, which is the whirlwind cannon. So is that the real power of the trebuchet?
Of course not, the shell of the trebuchet is not necessarily a stone, it can also be an incendiary bomb, it can also be a poisonous smoke bomb, etc. The real power of the projectile depends on what the shell is to decide.
The ladder in the engineering weapon is a short-range weapon, and the trebuchet is a long-range weapon, and the distance and proximity can also be regarded as complementary in the project.