If you say which of the most powerful weapons of long-range destruction in ancient times is, I think many people will think of crossbows. The era of cold weapons can also be said to be the era of cavalry, since the emergence of cavalry, infantry has almost become a "nest waste" without the ability to fight back.
But not all slave and feudal countries could afford to raise horses and form a strong cavalry force, so people began to need a powerful weapon of destruction for infantry, and the crossbow appeared.
The Later Tang lost the area to breed warhorses, leading the Song Dynasty into an embarrassing situation where no horses were available, and was generally soon annexed by the Liao and Jin states with Jin ge iron horses. But the Song Dynasty vigorously improved the crossbow and made a huge bed crossbow, which finally allowed the entire dynasty to exist under the iron hoof for 319 years, which is a great miracle.
The crossbow is not only a weapon that can effectively restrain the cavalry, it is also a very lethal weapon, and charles I, the most courageous and warlike king of the Plantagenet Dynasty, was shot by the crossbow and died.
The most outstanding military commander of the European Middle Ages was killed by the crossbow in this way, so that the emperors who boarded the aircraft later had a deep fear of the crossbow, and even wanted to use the reason of cruelty to make the crossbow disappear into the history of human weapons. Next, let's see what the charm of the crossbow is.
First, it starts with the bow, and it is stronger than the bow
Although the crossbow is highly lethal, the structural design is actually very simple. It is generally divided into three parts: bow, machine and arm. The bow in front of the arm is generally made of multi-layer bamboo or wood chip glue, which looks like a flat burden, so some people call this a crossbow burden. The crossbow machine is behind the arm, similar to a box shape, the machine has a hook with a string, the hook is also equipped with a lookout mountain similar to the scope function, and the crossbow machine is under the plate machine, which was called "hanging knife" in ancient times.
When using it, the arrow is generally placed on the arrow path, the string is pulled back and hung on the hook, and the plate machine is pressed after aiming. From here, we can see that the use of crossbows requires almost no skill, and even does not require much training to operate and apply on the battlefield. But the cavalry is different, the cavalry needs a lot of training, and a strong war horse, from this point of view, you know why the crossbow was popular in ancient times.
The advantage of the crossbow is not only this, although the crossbow is improved by the bow, it is much more lethal than the bow on the battlefield. The first is that it has a longer loading time than the bow, but the force it fires out is dozens of times greater than that of the bow, so its range is very long.
An ordinary soldier can shoot a distance of 600 meters at will under proper maneuvering. Many semi-automatic rifles in modern times may not have this range, and there are many extra-large bed crossbows in ancient times, and the range of such crossbows is even more amazing, reaching a distance of more than one kilometer.
The second advantage is naturally its "Wangshan" sight, which is not as good as the modern four-fold mirror and eight-fold mirror, but it is also the crystallization of the ancient working people, which was enough in that era. It can increase the probability of a soldier aiming at a target, capture the timing of shooting, and improve the soldier's hit rate.
And the more practical point of the crossbow than the bow is that after the crossbow is improved, it can generally fire several or even dozens of arrows in a row, and the combat effectiveness goes up at once. At critical moments, it is even possible to turn the tide of the entire war.
However, the crossbow also has the disadvantage, that is, it is relatively bulky and not as light as the bow. The more lethal the crossbow, the heavier it is, and sometimes even needs to be made into a ballista, so the ancient car soldiers were generally used with bows and crossbows. In this way, it can also be regarded as offensive and defensive, and the bow can be used when lightly armed, and it is necessary to attack, break through, set up ambushes, or match crossbows.
Second, the ancient version of the artillery is unstoppable
Next, let's look at the history of the development of the crossbow, the bow is said to have been made by the Yellow Emperor, and by the time it developed into a crossbow, the real reformers are no longer available, but not later than the Shang Dynasty or the Zhou Dynasty. By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was already a common weapon and was widely used in the military.
However, this weapon that can kill people beyond a hundred steps has been in the process of continuous improvement, at the beginning it was a crossbow that needed to be opened with extremely strong strength, and the earliest crossbow that can be found on the mainland at present is the copper crossbow in the middle of the Warring States period.
And in this period there were also crossbow cars, crossbows because they were too bulky to be placed on the car, even 12 stone crossbows, each crossbow can fire seven arrows, there are large arrows and small arrows, generally can shoot to a distance of seven hundred steps away, destroying the city wall is a trivial matter.
After arriving in the Qin Dynasty, the crossbow already had a strong practicality, and Qin also began to pay attention to the rapid development, and the crossbow dug out of a certain Qin figurine pit had reached hundreds of traces, with three different forms. There are crossbow machines that are ordinary crossbows made of bronze, and there are also forbidden crossbows with wooden strips added to the crossbow arm mountain to make the tension stronger and the range longer. There is also the largest crossbow to date, and the arrows alone are already two or two times heavier, twice as heavy as the other arrows.
In the Han Dynasty, because the Xiongnu had been coveting the Central Plains, the crossbow was further developed during the long-term war between the two armies. The ancient scope of Wangshan began to appear on the battlefield at this time, and even the waist crossbow appeared, which could be pulled open by one person. After improvement, it has become a crossbow that can be pulled apart by one person and can shoot five arrows in a row at the same time, which can be described as a magic weapon for battlefield victory.
At this time, there was also a large yellow crossbow, when the strength of the crossbow was calculated by stone, one stone crossbow was equivalent to 30 kilograms of strength, and ten crossbows were large yellow crossbows, and the range could reach about 400 meters. The strength of 300 kilograms makes people retreat as soon as they hear it, and legend has it that Li Guang has a record of killing enemies with a large yellow crossbow, which is really a god!
In the Three Kingdoms period, it was necessary to mention Zhuge Liang's improved Zhuge Lian crossbow. Zhuge Lian's crossbow, also known as the Yuan Rong crossbow, can fire ten arrows at a time, which is even if it is the existence of open hanging on the battlefield, and the configuration of a semi-automatic rifle is appropriate. However, this crossbow also has a disadvantage, that is, the size and weight are still too large, can not be used as a single weapon, can only be used as a defensive city.
Next, I have to mention the Song Dynasty, in order to cope with the cavalry of the Liao and Jin, the Song Dynasty has taken pains to improve the crossbow. The first is the Divine Arm Crossbow invented by Song Shenzong, which is nearly three feet three feet and has a range of more than three hundred steps. And it is said that the power is more powerful than the Great Yellow Crossbow of the Han Dynasty, and elm can also shoot through half a pole.
The Song Dynasty also appeared three-bow bed crossbow, which is said to be able to fire more than a dozen arrows at a time, can reach the range of a thousand steps, and is the largest range weapon in the era of cold weapons. The disadvantage is that it is not easy to pull the string, and it generally takes about seventy-five to a hundred people to pull it with a rope.
Although the crossbow was the main standard weapon during the Song Dynasty, it has declined since the Ming Dynasty. Mainly because firearms began to be used on the battlefield, the crossbow was not strong enough. During the Qing Dynasty, many crossbows can also be seen, but they are all in the folk, or when hunters are hunting.
In modern times, crossbows were occasionally used in the war on terror, and it was more than enough to penetrate trees up to 15 centimeters thick. And we can often see this kind of crossbow in film and television dramas, such as the American drama "The Walking Dead", in the end of the zombie setting, there are also protagonists who use crossbows, who are nicknamed crossbow brothers. It can be seen that thousands of years of wisdom crystallization will still be useful no matter what era it is.
Third, the border is stable and the crossbow body is maintained
There are too many battles for crossbows, so let's take a few. During the Three Kingdoms period, Yuan Shao's general Qi Yi led 800 dead soldiers to single out Gongsun Zhan's cavalry. These eight hundred dead men fought against Gongsun Zhan's 10,000 light cavalry, including his main force, and at first glance the numbers really had no chance of winning. But Qi Yi won the battle, using thousands of crossbows in a row, and where the arrow rain fell, no one survived.
As long as the crossbow is used correctly, unexpected effects can be achieved, and there are countless battles in history in which less is won. For example, during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Li Guang's grandson Li Ling received the task of leading five thousand troops directly into the hinterland of the Xiongnu, and when he heard this number, he thought it was a mission that must die.
However, the crossbow came to turn the tide again, the number of Xiongnu was more than sixteen times that of Li Ling's troops, and finally Li Ling persisted for ten days, killing tens of thousands of Xiongnu before being unfortunately captured.
The reason for the capture was also funny, and the army ran out of arrows. That is to say, if there were arrows, they could hold on until the Huns were all killed. In this battle, Li Ling's army fired more than half a million arrows, a number that could only be breathtaking.
By the time of the Song Dynasty, the legend of the crossbow was even more. When the eunuch Li Xian was fighting in Western Xia, ten thousand arrows were fired at the beginning, and the Western Xia people directly collapsed into an army, and before the battle was fought, they won.
Not only the Western Xia and Jin, but also the Liao State, they invaded the south with the strength of the country, and sent Xiao Taorin, the most courageous and warlike general of the Liao State, to chase the heart of the Central Plains without dying. As a result, the Song Dynasty put up a three-bow bed crossbow, and Xiao Tao Rin sacrificed to the heavens on the spot. The alliance between the two countries was signed, and no one in the great Song frontier dared to re-offend within a hundred years, which was the power of the crossbow.
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