Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Chapter 12: Big Yellow Crossbow

When it comes to making spare hunting gear, there are varying degrees of difficulty.

Slingshots are relatively easy to make. Just choose some hard but flexible wood and combine it with tendons or car tires to make one.

But it is unrealistic to expect a slingshot to shoot large prey. At most, it can only shoot small weasels, mice, birds, rabbits, pheasants, etc., and at most foxes. Anything above that is basically a waste of effort.

It is a cooperative equipment.

The crossbow is the weapon that really has the potential to take on the heavy responsibility.

When Yu Qiutang was a forest ranger in his previous life, there was an old man in the forest farm who was very good at tinkering with some traditional weapons. What he was most proud of was the Shenbi bow from the Song Dynasty, which he spent several years to restore.

He also tried to restore Zhuge Liannu and the Han Dynasty's Dahuang Crossbow, with good results.

Among them, the Zhuge Crossbow can fire seven arrows at a time. Although it is not as powerful as the ten arrows recorded in historical records, it is also incredibly powerful.

The Dahuang Crossbow is a crossbow that recovers four stones. It requires three people to string it during trial use.

When he had nothing to do, Yu Qiutang followed the old man to make crossbows, and slowly mastered all of his skills. Although he was not as skilled as the old man, he had reached 70% to 80% of the level, so there was no problem.

He was going to make a slingshot, a big crossbow.

The former is responsible for dealing with small animals, while the large yellow crossbow is prepared for large beasts. If his strength can reach twice that of an ordinary person with the bonus of rebirth attributes, he may try to pull a crossbow of about three stones.

If the crossbow could be modified to fire continuously, not to mention ten shots, even if it could fire three arrows instantly, it would basically be able to deal with anything except wild boars and bears.

Except for tigers.

There were tigers in the Qinling Mountains, which belonged to the South China tiger branch. However, due to severe hunting and ecological destruction, the South China tiger population known as the Qinling tiger disappeared completely.

That is to say, since around 1980, no wild South China tigers have been seen in this forest.

An adult male tiger needs to eat 100 deer and other prey every year. If this cycle is to be maintained, at least 500 deer are needed. The radiation territory of a male tiger is about kilometers.

In other words, for a tiger to appear, there must be at least 500 prey such as deer living for a long time in the mountains and forests within a radius of kilometers.

This is undoubtedly difficult.

Even Changbai Mountain, which is sparsely populated and retains a more primitive ecology, once lost traces of wild Siberian tigers. It was not until around 2000 that a female tiger named October returned from Russia and brought new hope, causing Siberian tigers to begin to reproduce again in my country.

In the mountains and forests, tigers have no natural enemies, and humans are actually very small in front of tigers.

If it weren't for the siege, it would be difficult for a single person to hunt a tiger.

Because tigers are close to perfect among land carnivores.

It has strength, stamina, and speed. It can pounce, bite, and lock throats. It can climb trees and dive into water. It has good jumping ability and great endurance.

When a human sees a tiger, the tiger has often already stared at the human a hundred times.

The reason why they are unlikely to actively attack humans is not because they are afraid of them, but because humans are not on their menu.

Yu Qiutang came to the foot of the mountain, but did not follow the path that people usually take to go up the mountain. Instead, he continued to walk to the side and came to a place where only children often played. Here he had the wood he needed to make slingshots and crossbows, the sour jujube wood. The sour jujube is a wild shrub commonly found in the mountains or ditches of the northwest. The so-called sour jujube is a small red fruit shaped like a cherry. When it is tender, it tastes a bit like jujube. When it is ripe, the flesh disappears completely, leaving only a thin layer of dry skin.

The jujube trees growing along the ditches of the Loess Plateau are more like herbaceous plants, shaped like grown wolfberry branches, but the jujubes in the mountains can often grow larger because of their suitable growing conditions.

If you encounter a cliff that is rarely visited by people, the diameter can even grow to more than ten centimeters, but it takes a long time, often ten years.

In nature, the slower a tree grows, the denser its material will be, making it more effective for making furniture or tools.

Things like bows and crossbows require very strong pulling force, so the crossbow arm must be able to withstand the pulling force. It cannot be pulled arbitrarily, otherwise the crossbow arm will be broken. Not only will the crossbow fail to function, it may also hurt people.

If there is no jujube wood, you can use birch, yellow pear wood or willow wood instead.

But Yu Qiutang is located at the foot of the Qinling Mountains, where the most abundant thing is jujube wood, so naturally the best species was chosen.

He used an axe to cut a path through the thorns and came to the area where the wild jujubes were densely grown. Standing halfway up the mountain, he looked around and saw that the entire hillside was covered with lush and green wild jujube forests.

He chose sour dates that had just ripened and were bright red, looking very much like red beans. Thinking of his two young children at home, he picked up a lot of big and plump ones along the way and went back to give them a snack. The extra ones could be used to make porridge.

Along the way, he found several jujube trees that looked good, but when he got closer, he found that they were about the same thickness, but there were too many fruits on the trees.

The crossbow arm must be smooth and very strong. Any knots may affect the trajectory of the crossbow arrow, and the entire crossbow may be broken because the knot is too brittle.

A good crossbow consists of a crossbow trigger, crossbow arm, crossbow bow and crossbow arrow. The core of these is the crossbow trigger, while the crossbow arm and crossbow bow are the basis for ensuring stability.

He didn't make it for fun, but to deal with prey with strong attack power, so he must be cautious.

Under his strict requirements, he selected from around five o'clock until around six o'clock, a full hour, but still couldn't find a suitable piece of wood for the crossbow arm. He did find three natural tree branches for the slingshot, which he collected all so that he could make one for his nephew later, and keep the rest as backup.

"Hey~"

A mountain breeze blew towards me.

Wearing only a vest, he suddenly felt cold.

The jujube tree grows in the shade. At this time, the sun is pressed on the other side of the mountain. Although it is summer, the temperature here is not high. He roughly estimated that he could search for another half an hour at most. If he still hasn't harvested anything, he can only go down the mountain temporarily.

Even on the outskirts of the mountains, wild animals often roam around. Especially during the autumn harvest season, hares and voles often come out in groups to steal food, and jackals or raccoon dogs that feed on them will naturally follow closely behind.

Although jackals and raccoon dogs are small in size, they are very smart and united. They move in groups, especially at night when human vision is weak, so encountering them is very dangerous.

Yu Qiutang was thinking when he suddenly felt a gust of wind behind his head, followed by the sound of flapping wings.

He hurriedly squatted down and hugged his head, trying to curl up his body into a ball to protect his head.

Judging from the sound of its wings, it was obviously a bird of prey.

There are many kinds of birds of prey in the Qinling Mountains, including various falcons, eagles, and hawks. They are all ferocious hunters. Although humans are larger than them, once they are regarded as targets of attack, it is difficult to resist when they go crazy, especially during the first charge, and they often have to protect their heads.

(End of this chapter)