Chapter 1529 It Will Shake the Stone Wall
【The Rise of Rurik】 【】
As if it had suddenly entered early spring, the Ross soldiers stationed at the Trier camp were surprised by the current atmosphere.
Because there is an integral stone road in the city, even though it has been severely worn, the large-scale snowmelt did not make the whole city wet, while outside the city it was just a puddle.
The withered reeds by the river are half as tall as a man, and they have been blown dry by the wind. Such dead grass is very suitable for feeding horses.
The farmland in Bincheng that was abandoned on a large scale due to urban destruction is still covered with a thin layer of snow, and the snow is still shrinking at a speed visible to the naked eye. A snowfall that lasted for nearly a week made the soldiers from the north think that winter life would start immediately. Now they packed up the cold-proof clothes they had prepared and replaced them with lighter autumn clothes. They only wrapped themselves in thick clothes and went to bed at night.
The snow as far as the eye can see is melting rapidly, and the areas around the city have temporarily become soft everywhere. Those who boldly set foot on the wasteland must endure the leather boots being soaked with water, and must stop frequently to clean up the sticky mud, otherwise the walk will become It was extremely troublesome.
The environment is temporarily bad, and a large number of soldiers need to continue to rest after experiencing battles and grabbing food.
Thousands of warriors were on vacation in the Trier city camp, and no one knew exactly when the king would issue new orders.
Perhaps, in December, it will be time for the king to take action against Metz in the south.
Perhaps, the king still wants to continue waiting.
At least everyone has a knot in their hearts about capturing the city of Metz. In the summer, part of the first round of the expeditionary force launched a joint attack with the brothers of the Nassau Army. As a result, the siege failed. Although no casualties were suffered, the city of Metz on the river was protected by a stronger city wall. Panshi and the defenders also suffered no casualties.
The brothers returned with the shame of "unsuccessful". As for the king's personal expedition this time, the number of troops was several times greater than that of the summer operation.
Is it possible to shake a fortified city simply by relying on numbers?
Even the Nassau army was not ignorant of some siege techniques. The fat man Black Fox led his troops across the Saar River Basin and looted a lot, which proved that although he was a businessman, he did have the talent for combat command. King Rus really had a keen eye for talents. During the assault on the Salabrücken Bridge, the Nassau army relied on a battering ram to break through the enemy's castle and complete a great victory.
The Black Fox repeated his old tricks in Metz. However, he placed the big tree on the carriage, and the warrior raised his shield above his head, and used it to storm the gate of Metz, but it ended in failure. Because there is a wooden door covered with iron sheets in the entrance, there must also be an iron bar net lowered by a winch system.
Metz is worthy of being an important Frankish town. Even if the siege vehicles rush hard, the iron bar net is obviously dented and cannot be broken. The more dented it is, the more futile it becomes to continue to hit it.
A large number of soldiers shot arrows at the defenders outside the city to suppress the defenders' counterattack.
The Metz defenders were men temporarily selected by the archbishop from among the city's refugees. Because grease was very precious, they could not use hot oil arson tactics to destroy the siege vehicles. In the end, they had to release rockets or smash them with rocks.
The battle turned into a sense of novices pecking each other.
After wasting a lot of energy, the failed siege charge was pulled back. Faced with the hopeless dilemma of siege, the summer offensive had to end in a hasty manner amidst the vicious taunts of the defenders. The coalition forces set fire to the siege vehicles on the riverside, and vented their anger on the villages near Metz. If they had the ability, they would destroy the farmland.
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【The Rise of Rurik】 【】
Finally, I took a batch of loot and floated all the way back to the base camp of Nassau-Koblenz along the Moselle River.
Many details about the summer offensive have been very clear from word of mouth among the soldiers. Since most of the soldiers in the Nassau Army who participated in the summer offensive are now stationed in Trier, they have their own perceptions of what happened in the summer. Many details about Metz that were gossiped about were gradually summarized into very familiar information.
A group of Nassau warriors were essentially Swedes and Russians who immigrated to distant places with the Fox family, and most of them were purely Danish. Although their nobles are not legally included in the Ross system, for practical reasons, the Nassau Army soldiers can freely enter and leave the Ross capital.
They knew that Fort New Rose was using an adhesive made from lime sand. With this adhesive, the irregular rocks brought from afar were piled up and the adhesive was applied to the gaps. The wall quickly became extremely stable. The entire Harvest Square in the capital was paved with a layer of this kind of thing, as if everyone was stepping on a huge monolithic stone slab. The incredible flatness gave people an unreal feeling.
Ross's rough cement mortar technology once caused a series of failures due to forced construction in winter. After many failures, people found out through experience that it should be constructed during the sowing season with little rain at the end of April. With the increasing demand for building materials in the capital city and several other large settlements, the supporting cement industry is also booming.
The nearly hewn granite stones, sand made from slag, burnt lime powder, and clay bricks continuously flooded the capital from the northern mines, which prompted the double- and even three-story buildings of New Roseburg to be built in the most important Nirvana. Wa Street rises one after another along the avenue.
But the walls of Metz gave the warriors who besieged it a special feel. All the stones seemed to be very similar in size, at least the stones were chiseled squarely. There seems to be no adhesive filling between all the stones, and the stones are stacked completely by gravity to form a high wall.
The fact is that when the city wall of New Roseburg was gradually adjusted from a giant wooden wall to a stone wall, the sheer gravity of the stones was enough to build a strong wall.
Although earthquake disasters are inevitable throughout Western and Eastern Europe, severe earthquakes are extremely rare. The most serious severe earthquake in the Neva Estuary area occurred in 1904. At that time, a magnitude 7 earthquake caused the collapse of a number of buildings and loss of life in the capital of Tsarist Russia. This incident was considered The failure of the war in 1905 was also a bad omen for the collapse of the aristocratic rule of Tsarist Russia.
In the thousand years before this great earthquake, there had never been such a severe earthquake in the entire region.
Earthquakes, in this era in Northern Europe, were considered the wrath of the gods, and had a certain connection with the legendary Ragnarok - the human world Midgard on the World Tree was slowly collapsing, as evidenced by the earthquakes.
In the Eastern European world, it is believed that the souls in the underground netherworld are restless, and there may be evil spirits emerging from certain holes in the ground to murder the world.
It is considered an extremely negative event. Because it is so rare, people always ignore its existence in daily life, and people also ignore its catastrophic impact when building houses.
It is entirely because of Liuli Ke's requirements that cement mortar must be used as an adhesive when building stone walls. The Russians therefore directly bypassed the era of building large walls due to gravity, making the newly built city walls too strong. If you want to destroy such a city wall, you can directly bombard it with howitzers and high-explosive bombs, or use a counterweight trebuchet to smash it with hundreds of kilograms of boulders, but it will be difficult to shake its foundation.
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【The Rise of Rurik】 【】
When it comes to building city walls, the Rus are already on par with Rome in the past, and are basically at the same technical level as the Eastern Roman Empire of this era. Because of the towering and thick Theodosian city wall, they used granite, cement, and mud on a large scale. Ash.
Only the cities built by the Roman Empire could use cement. The barbarian countries that stood on the ruins of Rome, even if they carried out a certain revival, were far from reaching the glory created by the former owners of this land in terms of urban construction.
The city of Metz was rebuilt on the basis of the old Roman city, and Trier was also rebuilt around the Roman royal palace and the cathedral.
The north gate of Trier, the Nicholas Gate, was burnt black. It is a pure Roman-era building, so you can see the traces of cement mortar in the gaps between the stones. It is the only one that is still standing after being severely damaged in this way.
But other parts of the city wall are in bad shape. They are purely gravity stacked stones.
Because the preparation of cement requires some special skills, in addition to the material problem. Rome relied on sea transportation to transport natural volcanic mud to various places. The closer the city was to the coast, the more it could be used to make cement. However, in inland areas, due to material constraints and high transportation costs, even the Romans had to deal with their new settlements. Points to reduce building materials.
Since the main city wall of Metz is built by gravity, there is a high probability that no cement mortar is used in most areas, so it has a lot of weak points. If the trebuchet is constantly bombarded with stone bombs, the effect may not be good at first. , as long as the bombardment continues, when the gravity structure of the stone wall is shaken, there will always be some gaps that will collapse.
Rurik was waiting, and the soldiers were also waiting with interest.
Therefore, while the Ross coalition was fighting a fierce battle with more than 10,000 Frankish troops from Luxembourg at the mouth of the Sauer River, in the Koblenz camp, the construction of heavy weapons was in full swing as always.
The new heavy weapon is an enlarged version of the "Bull Trebuchet". Its production has been doubled in proportion, and the most critical torque unit has been enlarged twice.
However, due to material limitations, even if the number of strands of the hemp rope as the core of the torsion unit is increased, it does not mean that the efficiency is increased proportionally. Hemp rope is not the best torsion material, but it is the most cost-effective material that Ross Army can find now.
Rurik has three technical requirements for it: first, it can be disassembled and assembled relatively quickly, secondly, it can move relatively quickly, and thirdly, it can throw a hundred-pound stone at least a hundred meters away.
This is already a very conservative requirement. After all, the "Heavy Ass Trebuchet" of the Roman Empire can throw 130 kilograms of stone projectiles 200 meters away.
Two hundred meters, a person outside this distance is already a black spot, and it is also the safe distance between the two armies under normal circumstances.
Even at the end of 843, the Frankish army did not have field long-range weapons that could hit stones and arrows 200 meters away.
The entire Koblenz camp continues to be under construction, and the plan is to build at least five "cow trebuchets".
The craftsmen accompanying the army were ordered to build it. When a new heavy weapon was completed, it would be packed and transported to Changzhuan and transported to the new camp in Trier.
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【The Rise of Rurik】 【】
At first, Rurik felt that building it with the craftsmen he had trained was not a big problem. It was just a matter of scaling up the existing heavy weapons. Only after putting it into practice did he realize that the construction period had to be extended due to some surmountable problems.
Fortunately, the war situation has become like this, and the coalition's plan to attack Metz has been forced to slow down, giving the craftsmen an opportunity to improve their technology.
The snowfall that lasted for a week had limited impact on the construction period of heavy weapons. The craftsmen gathered around the wooden shed and continued to work. Another group of hired local villagers also hid in the wooden shed to use chisels and hammers to build the project. Stones brought from Trier were chiseled into nearly spherical stone projectiles.
Finally, the first "cow trebuchet" was built.
The King was no longer in the Koblenz camp, so when it began its first experiment, only the soldiers stationed there and the villagers watching the excitement watched. Rurik was unable to witness its "amazing first battle."
The largest wheel system from the two torsion slingshots forms the torsion core of the "cow trebuchet". A piece of hard, sun-dried oak is inserted into the huge rope strand, which is the throwing arm. There are ropes and iron hooks at the ends of the wooden arms, and the ropes are tied into a huge leather bag. A stone weighing two hundred Roman pounds can even be placed in it. It is natural to place the stone bullets Rurik requested.
The combination of the wooden arm and the rope will create a good edge-beating effect, thus amplifying the kinetic energy efficiency of the torsion unit.
In the end, the powerful force will bring the wooden arm to hit the blocking wooden beam hard. Its powerful force may not break the wooden beam, so the craftsman fixed an extremely thick leather pad on the wooden beam as a buffer.
Considering that it must be easy to move according to the king's requirements, six wheels were placed on the base. Each wooden wheel is fixed with a bronze bearing, which has a hard contact with the metal material. The wear resistance of the bronze material is poor. The advantage is that it can be quickly cast and molded. As for the need for anti-wear, a large amount of grease is applied to the bearing gaps. This problem is both Can be greatly relieved.
Ultimately, the wheels are needed to deploy the Cow Trebuchet in key locations, and once deployed, the wheels must be completely removed. Not only that, in order to resist the powerful force, when an attack is launched, some sandbags need to be piled on the base of the hardwood frame to offset the "kick".
In Koblenz after the snow, the craftsmen aimed the first newly built building at a temporary wooden shed, which was a hundred and fifty steps away, with an attitude of apprehension and expectation. A hundred meters away.
Onlookers gathered to watch the show, so much so that there were children riding on the treetops in some nearby trees to watch the show.
They all talked about it. A large number of Coblenz locals had only seen the power of the Russian torsion slingshots in the war two years ago. The javelins they fired negated the charge of the Frankish cavalry.
As for the power of the large "bull trebuchet", they didn't know, let alone such a large "cow trebuchet".
The craftsman personally went to work and used a carbon steel crowbar to pull the winch bit by bit, thereby slowly pulling the torque arm down.
The huge rope strands were already stretched straight, and all the ropes were soaked in wooden barrels filled with seal oil for two full seconds. The ropes were fully soaked before being fixed on the torsion unit by the craftsman, and the craftsman's hands were naturally full of oil.
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【The Rise of Rurik】 【】
Now, the torque unit is even tighter. No one can imagine how much power it has accumulated. Just from the craftsman struggling to pull the lever, you can feel the extraordinary power.
So much so that people were worried that the rope would suddenly break, or the entire heavy weapon's frame would break.
Eventually the wooden arm reached its designed position.
The first stone bullet was picked up by a strong man with all his strength. Looking at it moving around with its face flushed from holding back, it seemed that the stone bullet was of considerable weight.
As soon as it came up, the craftsmen tried to hit a big stone with a weight of 200 Roman pounds. As for whether it could really hit a target 150 years away, who knows.
The iron hook is hung into the tenon, and the whole unit is tightened. The craftsman only needs to gently pull the rope...
Suddenly, the torsion arm slammed into the gear lever, and the entire trebuchet shook violently. The craftsmen present saw with their own eyes that even the earth bags covering the frame were shaken off.
It was clear that in the blink of an eye, a stone weighing as much as a woman was thrown out. Unfortunately, amidst the whines of thousands of onlookers, the target not far away did not move at all...
How is this going? When the people who hurried to check came back to report, they reported to the craftsmen a surprising and then ecstatic result: the stone flew past the target's head, landed at least 180 steps away, and then landed on the ground again. Roll over, leaving a straight line about five inches long.
If this is reality, it has exceeded the technical requirements of the king.
So the craftsman adjusted the downward folding angle of the torque arm and successfully defeated the target after five attempts.
The wooden shed that served as the target also collapsed under the witness of thousands of people. For the sake of realism, the wooden shed could be built into a wall with stones. Although it is not known whether it can destroy the thick city walls, it is more than enough to destroy a residential house with one bullet.
It can throw a stone of 200 Roman pounds to a distance of 180 steps, and a stone bullet of 100 Roman pounds to 300 steps. The technical requirements required by the King have actually reached the standard, and even exceeded it.
The majority of villagers just looked at Tu Yile, and they didn't know what this heavy weapon could do besides smashing houses.
The onlookers were nervous, because many of them were Götaland warriors. Although they participated in this war as the Ross Army, they mainly followed the Blue Fox, Count of Gothenburg. Before being absorbed by Rus, the Yotalan people had a battle conflict with Rus, and suffered losses from the famous "Bull Trebuchet" in the battle. It was through the bad luck experience that they realized the horror of the new weapons - they were If it hits the stone, it will probably be crushed into minced meat.
The experiment was a great success, so now new problems faced the craftsmen.
That is how to quickly deliver it to the Trier camp to the king. Whether to transport the first one first, or wait until all five are built and transport them together, or send someone to send a letter to inform "Mother" first. The stunning performance of the first round of testing of "Ox Trebuchet".
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