Chapter Ninety-Three: Purple Shirt Wood and Sea Trade

The biggest difference between the Chinese style and the original version of the English longbow is actually the material, the original version is made of purple wood, which is the best material for making the longbow, its elasticity and hardness meet all the requirements of the longbow, and it also gives full play to all the advantages of the longbow. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

If he could, of course Zhao Xin wanted to use purple shirt wood, only the English longbow made of purple shirt wood was authentic, and the power reached the extreme in all aspects, if he was modified in some Chinese style, maybe the overall power would be stronger.

The longbow has become the era of cold weapons, the weapon with the most thermal weapon characteristics, even if he is paranoid about one aspect, replacing accuracy with coverage, in fact, at the beginning of the birth of thermal weapons, more attention was paid to accuracy, but when it came to the queue to shoot, and then to the first, the era of World War II, the number of bullets or shells consumed by unit casualties has become more and more, and even this number has reached an unimaginable level.

Purple shirt wood this thing, produced in Europe, the era he crossed is the Ming Dynasty, but also from the sea trade, from Europe to get seeds, try to plant, China's climatic conditions, and Europe is somewhat similar, at least some places are very similar, in the changeable environment, to find a suitable place for the production of purple shirt, it should not be difficult.

The era that Zhao Xin traveled through was the Song Dynasty, and the goods of the Song Dynasty, in some archaeological inventions, and even some ancient cultural relics that have been handed down, prove that there was trade between the two sides.

As evidence, this does not mean that the two sides can trade directly, and the direct exchange between the East and the West only developed after the Age of Discovery, after the discovery of the route to the golden country of the Far East in Europe.

Before that, it was only by relying on Marco Polo and some very precious and rare Oriental creations in the past that I knew how rich the East was.

From this point of view, the Northern Song Dynasty is a golden country, it is really not nonsense, in this era, Europe is still immersed in the ignorance and backwardness of the Middle Ages, the East has created a splendid Oriental civilization, beautiful silk, magical tea, porcelain, these Oriental traditional superior products, in the West, can be compared with gold.

A batch, in the Great Song Dynasty, can only be regarded as ordinary, or even some inferior silk, but can be exchanged for the same weight, or even several times the weight of gold, an ordinary silk, according to the common rice weight of 60 grams, about 33 meters long, can reach about 2 kilograms.

Such ordinary silk, in the Northern Song Dynasty, is worth 1 run, because silk and copper coins can be exchanged equally, in the payment of national taxes, silk and copper coins are the same status, but such a value of silk, into silk, exported abroad, possibly to Arabia, can create 10 times the value, to Europe, is more expensive than gold.

That is to say, the consistent copper coin, about 1 tael of silver, can be turned into 2 kilograms of gold in Europe, that is, 4 catties of gold, which is converted into silver, at least 400 taels of silver. The Northern Song Dynasty Jin is sixteen taels, but the two are not much different from the modern two, and they can also be exchanged for the same kind.

400 times the difference, no wonder in the Age of Discovery, European merchants one after another into this voyage, 400 times the difference, enough to make people crazy, this is a far more terrible trade than drugs, this is the fundamental reason why countless Europeans came to China one after another.

Also because of the promotion of wealth, so that Europe from the Age of Discovery, gradually surpassed the rise, become the world's strongest pole, has always been the leading China, but in the Yuan Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty suffered a heavy blow, these two dynasties, science and technology and the development of the country, not progress, but regression, the Yuan Dynasty is good to say, only about 100 years, but the Qing Dynasty more than 300 years.

These three hundred years are the three hundred years of the great development of Europe, countless waterways, countless colonies, and the wealth of all parts of the world have been concentrated in Europe, and a series of disciplines and industries of modern significance have been laid.

The Northern Song Dynasty began to appear, specifically for the maritime trade of the export-oriented workshop, but mainly for the Arab, relative to Europe, Arabia is a big business, and the trade between Europe, only through the Arab turnover, from the sea to the land, and then to the sea, perhaps, is the vast steppe of an ancient Silk Road, no matter which one, contains huge uncertainty, used to trade some precious, important resources are good to say, purple shirt wood forget it.

Longbow is only useful if it is equipped on a large scale, and the introduction of a tree species, from trial planting to success, under the premise that everything goes well, also needs more than ten years, or even decades of training, this is a tree, if you want to become a tree, it will take at least 10 years or more.

In Zhao Xin's view, the longbow is also an alternative type of troops, and if you want to completely solve the problem of nomads, thermal weapons are the only choice.

The Ming Dynasty, with muskets, drove Mongolia out of the Central Plains, in one or two hundred years, the Mongols lost their armor, although they were destroyed by the Jurchens, but the Manchu Eight Banners were not exactly a nomadic army.

They all have heavy cavalry, even heavy cavalry infantry, elite Manchu Eight Banners, their armor, much better than the Ming Dynasty, but at that time, the Ming Dynasty fell into its own crisis, the peasant-born Ming Taizu, expelled the Tartars, established the Ming Dynasty, and made immortal feats, but the congenital weakness could not be made up, the finances of the Ming Dynasty were quite unhealthy from the beginning, just the salt tax, was stolen tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of taels, resulting in a huge deficit in the Ming Dynasty.

Zhang Juzheng's reform, as well as the reuse of eunuchs by Emperor Tianqi, are also forced by money, if the financial situation of the Ming Dynasty is as good as that of the Song Dynasty, with the heavy cavalry and musketeers of the Ming Dynasty, even if the Manchu Eight Banners are ten times stronger, it is not enough to kill, no matter what, the population of the Ming Dynasty is a hundred times higher than that of the Manchu Dynasty, and the consumption cannot be beaten.

The Eight Banners are invincible, it is said that the Eight Banners are powerful, but the other meaning is not, the Eight Banners in the early and middle stages of development, not even 10,000 can not get together, even if it is a large-scale development, in the later period, the entire Manchu Qing Dynasty, there are only more than 800,000 people, which is covered by men, women and children, among which there are a large number of naturalized Han and Mongolians, it can be said unceremoniously, compared with the Ming Dynasty, even in the later period, most of the troops that the Manchu Qing can mobilize are between 100,000 and 200,000.

In the past dynasties, there have never been so few foreign races, and finally replaced the central power, which of course can be said to be the internal and external troubles of the Ming Dynasty, but in hundreds of years, the Ming Dynasty army, which had chased the Mongolian army of millions and fought all the way to the depths of the grassland, degenerated into a level that even hundreds of thousands of foreign troops could not deal with, which has to be said to be sad.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, not to mention the Liao State and the Jin State, or even the later Mongolia, which was not a million, or even a million army, it is said that the Western Xia, which was partial to the United States and caused the greatest damage to the Northern Song Dynasty, also had more than 500,000 armor.

The strongest, not necessarily the best, purple shirt wood is a very suitable material for longbows, but China does not, rather than spending decades of time, across the ocean to find, it is better to find alternatives in China, more than ten years of time, card system and traverser, how can not leapfrog development.

As a substitute for the elm tree, the performance of the elm tree is weaker than the purple shirt wood, Zhao Xin is not the most fierce one, the longbow that can shoot at a range of more than 300 meters, it is enough to make the effective range of about 250 meters, there is no need to pursue 300 meters, this is not sweet potatoes, potatoes, such as strategic food.

In this era, bows and arrows that can reach a range of 200 meters and are equipped on a large scale are not available, or very few, this is a natural advantage, and on the premise that the advantage has been obtained, there is no need to chase a range of 240 meters or 300 meters.

With a range of 60 meters less, for cavalry, for flank attacks, the reaction speed and attack power are a little worse, but the longbow does not act alone, the most important hoplites of the Great Song Dynasty will provide them with stable support, and they will be equipped with a small number of cavalry for harvesting, which is a fixed match.