Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1157 Generation difference
With a bang, Zhao Yun deflected the iron spear that was stabbing at his throat, and the steel spear in his own hand was also deflected by the opponent's force.

But Zhao Yun immediately shook his wrist, and the steel spear, like a swimming dragon, circled around his shoulder and back half a circle, then suddenly stretched forward from the waist and stabbed at the opponent's face at a faster speed.

This spear was beyond the opponent's expectation. He swept the spear horizontally in a hurry and leaned back with all his strength. With a ding, the iron helmet on his forehead was hit by the tip of Zhao Yun's spear. Fortunately, it was tied tightly and did not fly out, but he had already lost half the battle.

The enemy of Zhao Yun was Ma Chao. Although he had not recovered from his injuries since the last fight with Zhao Yun, his momentum was not inferior at all. Now, with his eyes glaring, he retreated instead of advancing, and swept the iron spear in his hand across at an accelerated speed, vowing to knock Zhao Yun off his horse.

Zhao Yun did not dodge or evade, but instead slashed the tip of his spear downwards, aiming at Ma Chao's throat. Ma Chao had no choice but to raise the end of his spear to neutralize Zhao Yun's killing move, but he could not launch the second half of his move.

The two had already tumbled and rolled for dozens of moves, and had been in danger several times. They had used all their strength to avoid being stabbed by the other party, but both of them had depleted a lot of physical strength. Now they felt that they were running out of strength, so they took the opportunity to distance themselves and recover their breath.

Ma Chao's eyes were red. He pointed his spear at Zhao Yun and said, "Zhao Yun!"

"The hatred of genocide is irreconcilable!"

"I will kill you first, then kill the fierce tiger, and then I will invade Youzhou and kill all your family members!"

Zhao Yun sneered: "Ma Chao, you have the nerve to say that!"

"Not to mention that you brought this upon yourself by slaughtering the families of the Qiang and Hu people first, which led to the annihilation of your clan!"

"You came to Jizhou and massacred countless people. Don't you know how much blood debt you owe?"

"Your father Ma Teng died at the hands of Cao Cao, but you deceived yourself and worshipped Cao Cao as your adoptive father. Do you really think that your father's death had nothing to do with Cao Cao?"

"You are such a ruthless person, you have the nerve to say you are innocent!"

"You are in this situation today because of your wrongdoings. You have brought this upon yourself!"

"I advise you to repent as soon as possible, turn around and seek revenge on Cao Cao for your father's murder, return to Liangzhou and be a good person, otherwise, the only thing waiting for you is death!"

Ma Chao's face turned purple after being scolded by Zhao Yun, but he could not refute. His lips trembled with anger, and he shouted: "Zhao Yun, you are just a country boy from Changshan, but you are so eloquent. If I defeat you now, I will definitely rush into Changshan and exterminate all your people!"

Zhao Yun was furious when he heard this, "What a shameless person! A scum of the warrior class!"

"Since you are so stubborn, I will fight you to the death. This will allow me to avenge the deaths of thousands of people!"

Ma Chao sneered and was about to charge forward again, but Zhao Yun waved his spear and said, "I saw that you still had some martial spirit, so I challenged you to a duel. Now that you are threatening me with the people, don't blame me for being unrighteous!"

As Zhao Yun swung his spear, the soldiers behind him immediately advanced forward, and at the same time the front formation split apart and pushed out several weapons.

Ma Chao took a quick look and was suddenly startled, so he rode his horse back.

No wonder he panicked. If it was an ordinary bow and arrow, he could dodge it with the help of the speed of the horse. But when something appeared behind Zhao Yun, it was extremely different. It was a powerful bow and crossbow modified by the Jizhou Army!
Moreover, this is not a traditional crossbow, but a new type of crossbow cart that has been improved in many ways and caused Ma Chao to suffer a great loss in the last battle!

Ma Chao galloped back. He saw the Xiliang cavalrymen lined up dozens of steps behind him and shouted, "Scatter!"

At this time, more than a dozen crossbow carts in Zhao Yun's formation had been lined up in a row and moved forward, pushing the Xiliang soldiers into the range.

These crossbow carts have extremely strange shapes. They are all placed on four-wheeled carts. Although they are not light in weight, they are equipped with pedals, which can be used as a driving force for moving forward. At their fastest speed, they can reach seven or eight feet per second. Combined with the steering device, it can be said that the disadvantage of inconvenience in movement is greatly eliminated.

Its front end is a semicircular iron cover, which protects the entire crossbow cart tightly, leaving only the firing hole of the crossbow cart at the rear exposed. The thickness of the iron cover is enough to defend against the concentrated shooting of the Xiliang cavalry, making it unable to cause effective damage to the crossbow cart.

As the main body of the crossbow cart, its most critical launching device is a huge wheel. Dozens of crossbow arrows are launched through the mechanism on the wheel. In just a dozen breaths, dozens of crossbow arrows can be fired.

Then, behind the crossbow cart was the soldier in charge of loading arrows. He took out a roll of rolled crossbow arrows from the box and put them into the disc. In a blink of an eye, dozens of crossbow arrows were loaded.

It can be said that before the crossbow arrows are used up, this type of crossbow cart has almost no gaps in firing. The Xiliang cavalry can hardly take the opportunity to counterattack, let alone get close, not to mention that there are more than a dozen such crossbow carts on the field at the same time!

There were also crossbow strings on the crossbow carts in the middle that were damaged or even broken due to high-frequency use, but the soldiers immediately took out spare bowstrings, put them on the slots at both ends, and then tightened them, and they were restored to their original state.

The use of this crossbow cart took into account almost all unexpected situations. This was what Zhao Yun believed was an unprecedented innovation made by Yuan Xi. He remembered that Yuan Xi used a new word to describe it, namely modular production.

Previously, the production of both bows and crossbows involved more than a dozen or even dozens of parts, and each person was responsible for a specific part to improve production efficiency.

This method, which appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period and was formed in the Qin Dynasty, already had the prototype of the later assembly line production, which can be said to be ahead of its time. However, it also had a disadvantage, that is, the parts were still polished by hand, and if mass production was to be carried out, the number of skilled craftsmen and apprentices required was also extremely large, which once became a shortcoming restricting the production of tools in Yuan Xi's territory.

After thinking about it, Yuan Xi proposed his own solution.

First, for a device like a crossbow cart, it should be reasonably disassembled into parts that are easy to produce and assemble.

Second, for the production of parts, we should find ways to research and build special machines for producing parts instead of making them manually.

Although this method is troublesome, it can free up a lot of manpower. At the same time, the quality of machine production is relatively uniform and there will not be very large differences.

The reason for choosing the crossbow cart as a test product is that the components of the crossbow have natural advantages over the bow.

A good bow requires not only a bowstring and a bowarm, but also a delicate assembly of the two. If there is even a slight difference, the effect will be far from perfect.

Moreover, any damage to any component will seriously affect the overall effect. Even if you replace the bowstring or bow arm with a spare one, it is actually equivalent to replacing half of it, which is not much different from buying a new bow.

The crossbow is different. Its material requirements are not as high as those of the bow. Although it has many parts, when one part is damaged, most of the parts can be retained, which is relatively economical.

However, with too many parts and high precision, problems are prone to occur, which involves an engineering balance point. Yuan Xi asked Zhuge Liang to organize bow-making craftsmen to study for quite a long time before they found a ratio that was both economical and convenient.

The material of the crossbow arm is made larger for maximum compatibility. In times of crisis, ordinary wood can also be used as a substitute. The main feature is that the quantity is large and the supply is sufficient.

Although the durability of the crossbow string made of steel wire mixed with tendons or even hemp rope is not high, it is enough to shoot hundreds of arrows under normal conditions, and it is enough in a normal battle.

Moreover, the crossbow strings are twisted by machines, which greatly increases the production speed. They can even be produced on-site in military camps. If used in conjunction with a steam engine, it can fully meet the needs of the military.

The crossbow arrows were also simplified to the maximum extent possible. They were either one-piece cast iron arrows for breaking armor, or wooden arrows cut by machine rollers, which could be mass-produced. Although they were not polished or fine-tuned and were not suitable for making bows and arrows, they were sufficient for making crossbow arrows.

Moreover, even if most of these crossbow chariots are damaged and their parts are used up, the intact parts can be reassembled in a short period of time to form a complete crossbow chariot again.

The most important point, which also amazed generals such as Zhao Yun, is that almost all of these production machines can be transported with the army and can be produced on the spot at the battle site, which greatly alleviates the logistical pressure.

Especially in this kind of long-term war of attrition, the advantages can be brought into full play. The Jin army barracks faced by Cao's army is a mobile production factory!

Zhao Yun watched the crossbow carts firing dense arrows, shooting the panicked Xiliang cavalry off their horses, and suddenly remembered what Yuan Xi had said to him before he left.

The times have changed.

In terms of ideas and thinking, the methods used by Yuan Xi's army in the war had already left Cao's army far behind, especially the Xiliang cavalry who were still using primitive manpower to attack. Zhao Yun even had the illusion that the gap between the two was a thousand years.

The Xiliang soldiers' army was defeated under the dense rain of arrows. Ma Chao saw this and knew that this was not a solution. He immediately prepared to move the central army aside and break through from both wings.

However, Zhao Yun did not give Ma Chao any chance to take advantage. He ordered the crossbow carts to turn and shoot at the attacking Xiliang cavalry.

The Xiliang cavalry also became more ferocious. They charged desperately under the dense arrows. Hundreds of them fell off their horses, but there were still hundreds of them on the verge of breaking through the crossbow defense line.

Zhao Yun waved his hand again, and the soldiers next to the crossbow cart began to push out several other iron carts.

Its chassis is the same as that of a crossbow cart, but it is equipped with a cabinet full of oil. A long iron cylinder extends from the front with flames at the end.

The soldiers behind the iron carriage stepped on the mechanism, and a long flame spurted out, sweeping from left to right, immediately engulfing a dozen Xiliang soldiers in the flames.

The Xiliang soldiers were on fire and fell off their horses screaming. However, a few fearless cavalrymen still rushed over and went around the back of the iron chariot.

Then they were stunned.

There is also an iron cover at the rear of the iron car, which completely protects the entire car!

Seeing Yuan Xi's soldiers surrounding them, they roared with unwillingness and swung their swords at the chariots, causing large sparks, but to no avail, and then they were stabbed to death by iron spears.

What Ma Chao saw from a distance was like falling into an ice cellar. Hadn't chariot formations been eliminated during the Warring States Period? Why did it seem that there was no weakness in these chariots before him?
(End of this chapter)