Iron makingo-Chapter 11 The rise of cavalry (3)

When cavalry is the bodyguard of the chariot, it can be said that cavalry can be saved with the chariot. Then, in actual combat, people discovered other excellent military attributes of cavalry. Cavalry can not only provide the chariot with the ability to support the battlefield, but also can quickly weave through the horses. This attribute has brought new changes to the war.

Another outstanding military attribute of cavalry on the battlefield is flexibility! Light infantry is flexible, but not flexible. Chariots are flexible, but not flexible! Therefore, cavalry is born to be an amazing soldier in the art of war-a partial division.

Before talking about the flexibility and mobility of cavalry, we should clarify three concepts (bow and arrow in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, metallurgical technology, and the third climax of building a city in the pre-Qin period) to explain why the flexibility and mobility of cavalry were highly respected in the Warring States Period. The article will certainly be very long, but if these three concepts are made clear, readers will naturally understand why cavalry developed suddenly in the Warring States period!

1963 a small stone trowel made of flint was found in the late Paleolithic site of Zhiyu, Shuoxian County, Shanxi Province, with a length of only 2.8 cm. 1973-1974, Xia Chuan Paleolithic Site in Qinshui, Shanxi Province, found 10 more than 3-4 cm long hammering stone arrows, 24- 16000 years ago.

All these indicate that the ancestors of China used bows and arrows 20,000-30,000 years ago, and the reliable evidence of using bows and arrows in Europe is the wooden stake with a notch at the end found in Stemmer near Hamburg, Germany, about 9,000 years ago.

Why didn't you claim that China was the first country to use bows and arrows? Because the stone arrows we found can't prove whether they are used for bows and arrows or other throwing weapons. To put it more bluntly, it is the first time for us to use bows and arrows. We all know that this is a bit imprecise, so the gunman doesn't want to work quietly!

But none of this prevents us from feeling that bows and arrows have a long history for human beings. As Engels said in The Origin of Family, Private Ownership and State, "Bows and arrows are the decisive weapons of ignorance, just as iron is the weapon of barbarism and firearms are the weapons of civilization." ?

After understanding the origin of bows and arrows, we will skip some, save time and go directly to the topics related to bows and arrows in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Bows and arrows are very conducive to fighting on horseback, and crossbows are suitable for infantry fighting, so cavalry can't do without bows and arrows, because cavalry fight with bows and arrows, and when talking about cavalry fighting, we should also consider whether infantry has crossbow phalanx, because crossbows are a magic weapon used by infantry to restrain cavalry!

China people may not be the first people to make compound bows in the world, but they first summarized the technology of compound bows. Kao Gong Ji, written in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, completely recorded the manufacturing technology of compound bow and arrow at that time, and was the earliest summary document of compound bow technology in the world.

Literacy sticker:

Integral bow refers to a bow with a single data structure, such as the English longbow and the Nepalese bamboo bow. The advantages of single bow are low manufacturing cost, short manufacturing cycle and strong environmental adaptability. But the drawback of this kind of bow lies in its mechanical efficiency. If the bow is too small, it will lack strength, and if the tension of Gonta is too high, it can't be controlled.

Reinforcing bow, also known as composite bow and laminated bow, refers to a bow made of the same or similar layers of materials, or a bow made by splicing several sections, usually bonded with glue.

Compound bow means that the structure of the bow arm consists of animal tendon angle and animal glue. In China, the compound bow is generally called the angle bow. The advantage of compound bow lies in its high mechanical efficiency, which is much more delicate than that of single bow under the same tension. Moreover, compound bow is mostly recurve bow, which has low vibration and stable archery. However, the disadvantages are high manufacturing cost, long manufacturing cycle, poor adaptability to the environment, and easy to open the glue when hot flashes occur.

The above three classifications originated from Peter Rivers, an Englishman in 1877, and are now widely adopted by bow and arrow history researchers.

The article "Flower King Gong Ji * Bow Man" tells the concept of bow making in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty like this: "The materials are exquisite, the craftsmanship is exquisite, and the production is timely."

"Beautiful materials": that is, the six materials for making bows are excellent, and the six materials for making bows are: stem, horn, tendon, glue, silk and paint.

Dry refers to the wood or bamboo that constitutes the main bone of the bow arm. Zhemu is the first-class material, beech is the second-class material, Sang Mu (there is an old word that can't be typed, so it is replaced by a box) is the third-class, orange wood is the fourth-class, papaya (definitely not what we eat now) is the fifth-class, Mu Jing is the sixth-class, and bamboo is the seventh-class.

Horn, that is, the horn of an animal, is generally made of ox horn and buffalo horn (so it is called horn bow), and the horn is used in the north.

Tendon, that is, the tendon of animals, is widely used in beef tendon and elk tendon.

Glue, that is, glue made of animal skin, tendon or fish fat, is the best. Other glue materials include cow glue, deer glue, horse glue, rat glue and rhinoceros glue. After a lot of practice, people find that fish glue has the best effect when making bows, so fish glue is the only glue, followed by cow glue, and other glue is rarely used (mainly because fish glue is easy to get and there are many raw materials).

Silk, silk, China ancestors used silk in bow-making technology, which is a pioneering work. As a unique product in ancient China, silk was added to the bow, which doomed the compound bow of China to be different from that of other civilizations! I can't help it. Who told you not to raise silkworms? )

Paint, that is, raw paint, also needs painters to make chariots. Painting the bow body can effectively prolong the service life of the working body, and at the same time, it is moisture-proof and wear-resistant, and the bow body is beautiful.

When the materials are ready, we will begin to be "skilled". How can the production process of the awesome compound bow that affects the war form of later generations be perfunctory! Skills and time are almost the same.

It is very practical to analyze the principle of drying in winter and prepare the blank of the main bone of the arch arm. Arch bones need to be made when the wood is dry and solid in winter, so arch bones are the most durable.

Spring liquid angle, spring disposal angle, angle need to be cut into different shapes of angle pieces, and finally they should be attached to the arch bone, so that the arch bone can exert stronger power under the action of angle pieces, not in the spring!

Treating tendons in summer is to get rid of the tendons of animals in summer. After textual research, the method of treating tendons is to dry raw tendons in the sun or air, then wet them with water and hit them with a mallet until the hemp fibers are torn.

Combine three materials in autumn, that is, the main arch bone, corner cutting piece and vertebral rib in autumn. Why do you want to exercise in autumn? Due to the crisp autumn air, the material is dry without losing toughness, which is very suitable for production. If the object is too brittle in winter, it is easy to damage the material, and the moisture in spring and summer is heavy, which is not conducive to the stability of glue. The combination of three materials is generally divided into three steps. First, the arches overlap. The bow body of compound bow is mostly composed of several arch bones, which need to be baked and bent with glue; Second, stick the horn, that is, first roast the horn with fire, and then stick it on the inside of the arch bone. When sticking, you need to tie it tightly with a rope, and then loosen the rope when the glue is dry; The third is to lay the reinforcement, which is dipped in glue and bonded to the outside of the arch. The three materials are very dependent on glue, and glue is rich in raw materials, simple to make and good in bonding effect.

After the cold body is laid, it is still in the driest winter after the combination of the three materials. Correct the bow shape, correct the deviation and straighten the bow shape. This process is generally completed by fire baking and mold matching.

You really can't make a horse face in winter (three drops of water make a horse face). After the paint surface is completely dry in winter, it is the earliest beauty to decorate the paint surface! Lacquer is not produced in the north of the Great Wall, and the bows of nomadic people are not decorated with lacquer. The ancients called this kind of bow without lacquer decoration a plain arc, the earliest "plain face"!

Spring quilt string, put on bowstring after spring, the silk mentioned above is mainly used for bowstring making. After adding silk to the bowstring, it is moisture-proof and flexible, and the bow and arrow have a longer range.

The whole process of making composite bow takes at least three years! But it's just a bow for three years. That's too inefficient! The ancients in China have applied the assembly line to bow making. Archers make bows in large quantities every time, and then each has its own division of labor and assembly line processing. Three years later, the whole batch of bows was finished!

From then on, in the following two thousand years, the manufacturing process of China compound bow generally followed this manufacturing procedure, and there was no fundamental change. In terms of manufacturing technology, the humidity of China compound bow is strictly controlled! Every link needs to be dried! However, the bow and arrow making technology of other civilizations is not. For example, the Mongolian bow in Genghis Khan's period was not afraid of humid environment in both the liquid angle and the drinking body. In the liquid corner, the whole corner piece is immersed in the liquid to be soaked.

Archaeological discovery of the Eastern Zhou Bow;

195 1 year, a bow was unearthed from the Chu Tomb of Warring States in Wulipai, Changsha, Hunan, with a total length of140cm, a width of 4.5cm, a thickness of 5cm and a chord length of 80cm. The Chu cultural relics exhibition held by Beijing History Museum 1953 also includes the collection of Hunan Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee. The remaining half of the bow arm is 84.9 cm long and the chord length is 70 cm. In addition, in 197 1 and 1978, two batches of wooden reinforcing bows were unearthed in Hunan and Hubei in succession. These bows are generally 1 12- 130 cm long and 2.5-3 cm wide, and the chord length is unknown.

According to these archaeological discoveries and literature records, we can draw a conclusion that the ancient bow-making technology was quite mature in the Warring States period, and it was able to manufacture reinforced bows with simple structure in large quantities, while the production cycle of complex and precise composite bows was long, which could not meet the requirements of mass production of cavalry equipment. The bow is slightly weak, but the cost is low and the production cycle is short. Obviously, it is easy to equip cavalry units!

Bow and arrow shooting:

There are many kinds of bow and arrow shooting methods, but there are several ways to hook strings by fingers, among which there are two most important ones, one is Mediterranean shooting method, and the other is Mongolian shooting method (also called China shooting method). Mediterranean shooting uses the index finger and middle finger to pull the string, while Mongolian shooting uses the thumb and index finger to pull the string. Mediterranean shooting requires finger protection, while Mongolian shooting requires finger pulling. The earliest existing fingers were unearthed in the tombs of men and women in Yin ruins, which proves that Mongolian shooting method was used in China as early as the late Shang Dynasty.

Bow and arrow range:

According to some scholars' tests, we have reason to believe that during the Warring States period, the effective killing range of China's compound bow was about140-190m. The English longbow is a single bow. After recycling and a lot of tests, the maximum killing range is 200 meters. Very few excellent shooters can increase the killing range to 230 meters! The shooting distance of the South Korean modern archway is 145m, which is basically consistent with the ancient China hundred-step standard (in ancient China, one step refers to one step for the left and right feet). The nine-segment standard of the archway is that 45 arrows hit the target more than 39 arrows, which shows that the ancient hundred-step shooting record of the enemy is credible! But in the production of ancient arrows in China, it can't be compared with modern bows and arrows, so the effective killing distance is 200m at most. If you want to exceed 200 meters, you need both a good bow and a suitable arrow.

Effective killing and range are two different things, and the farthest distance that the range can shoot is harmless! Bows and arrows kill the enemy by effective lethality!

After talking about the knowledge of bows and arrows, we will find that when the cavalry takes this mass-produced bow with the effective lethality of100-130m, they quickly attack the enemy's left and right wings and harass the enemy. The enemy is only being abused unilaterally! Want to fight back, in addition to sending cavalry to expel, infantry can't catch up with the cavalry. Infantry run 100 meters with weapons, and the fastest time is 15 seconds. You can't be a bolt, 100 meters can enter 10 seconds! 15 seconds is excellent! And 15 second is enough to shoot the bow and arrow three times in a row, once every five seconds! A mature archer can shoot five arrows quickly in 15 seconds while ensuring the hit rate. Feel free to search online for videos of modern people shooting arrows with restored ancient bows, and some experts will definitely subvert your three views! ) Infantry must attack with deadly arrows at least 3 times to reach the position of cavalry archery! The cavalry only needs to drive the horse to move a few steps, and the infantry will meet the arrow again! On the basis of no new reinforcements, the infantry in charge of pursuit can only shoot and have no defense! This is the terrible thing about cavalry with bows and arrows in their hands!

Chariots can use the enclosure on the chariot to defend against arrows, but once the horse is shot by an arrow, the consequences will be unimaginable. In the face of cavalry archery attacks, chariots are more vulnerable than infantry! Because the horse target is too big! Compared with cavalry, chariots are too heavy. Although the chariot may not be slower than the cavalry when sprinting, the cavalry can get rid of the chariot with only one turn, so the chariot is still abused when it meets the cavalry! Worse than infantry!

Such a good thing can be abused by infantry fighting vehicles. No commander will give up this opportunity. He must let his cavalry harass each other severely! In order to restrain this almost BUG tactic, the enemy can only follow suit and train his own cavalry to prevent his wings from being harassed by cavalry. (Why bother with wings? Because the strength of the two wings is weak, defeating any one of the two wings can go around the back of the enemy's main force, which is strategic victory! Once the wings are broken, the main force will not retreat, waiting for the main force to be surrounded! )

This also improves the utilization rate and appearance time of cavalry in disguise, and it is very rare for cavalry to rise or not!

There is actually a lot of information about crossbows, but as I said before, the main users of crossbows are infantry. Besides cavalry. Make sure the bow is clear first. Some related information about crossbows will be supplemented in a related field in the later chapters! Readers, if you think it's good, you must pay attention to it: soybean milk cavalry! Show you the history of primitive cavalry)