Miao Kui naturally lost, and he was convinced. Whether it's a swarm of bees operated by a single person or a hornet's nest launched by a double person, at a distance of 100 to 150 paces, except for the hit rate, all other statistics are far beyond the ability of the Forbidden Army archers. No matter how far away it is, the Forbidden Army archers are even less of an opponent, and even the hit rate will be exceeded.

In fact, after the first wave of hornet's nest volleys, Miao Kui knew that he had lost, and he didn't need to look at the hit rate at all. One-on-one archery competitions can be won by accuracy, but in large-scale battles, there is no need to consider any accuracy, as long as the arrow can be fired to the predetermined range, the important thing is the rate of fire and the weight of the arrow.

There is no need to talk about the rate of fire of the hornet's nest, and between breaths, thirty-two heavy arrows like short guns all rushed out, and they couldn't stop if they wanted to, and even the most well-trained archers could only sigh at the smoke.

The power can not be compared, the light arrow used by the forbidden army with one stone and five buckets of hard bow weighs two taels or three dollars, and the heavy arrow is only three taels, but a swarm of bee light arrows is more than two taels, and the whole arrow weighs more than eight taels, that is, more than half a catty.

If two arrows of different weights are fired at the same distance, the power will not be the same. If it is replaced by a giant heavy arrow weighing more than two catties in a hornet's nest, even if the arrows are made into obtuse angles, it will also be blocked by people and killed by Buddhas.

According to the theory of the horse, there is no need to use sharp arrows to break the armor of arrows of this weight, it relies on its own energy obtained by acceleration, as long as the material is hard enough, do not replace the arrows with steel rods, it will still poke a hole in the armor, and the damage is not less than that of sharp arrows.

In fact, it is true, all targets shot by the hornet's nest heavy arrows are basically no need to be treated, in addition to the wounds of the arrow, the broken bamboo, armor, leather armor, and clothing will all become the accomplices of the arrow, and the human tissue and bones are as soft as tofu in front of them.

Of course, a swarm of bees and a hornet's nest also have a disadvantage, that is, the cost is high. The arrows shot by this thing are 100% disposable, at most they can recover steel arrows and iron arrow feathers, and the rest of the arrows are difficult to find. Even if it is complete, it cannot be recharged, and it is still considered a waste product.

In this way, it is equivalent to shooting out one less one, and if you add the terrifying rate of fire and the hit rate of the pit father, you don't dare to count the consumption after a battle, it will make the commanders of the armies and the privy envoys far away in the capital cry blind.

"No, no, Commander Miao's words are wrong...... Money is not the most expensive, talent is. You come and see these artisans, how much are they worth each? Do you want to exchange ten hornet's nests with you? ”

Regarding the defect raised by Miao Kui, Hong Tao grinned and began to pat his chest again. In the eyes of others, this is a big shortcoming, and it is in vain to be able to use it if it is powerful. But in his own eyes, it's not a big disadvantage, except for a bit of logistical pressure, everything else is nothing.

Cost? There are so many gold-absorbing monsters such as flower paste, perfume, white wax and treasure painting, honeycomb charcoal, and cast iron furnaces, what is the cost? When it comes to life-threatening issues, Hong Tao never puts cost first. In his words, the problem that money can solve is not a problem.

In fact, even without the subsidies of those gold-sucking monsters, the cost of such primitive rockets would not be too high, because they were not forged by traditional artificial methods.

What a hundred steel, just to sound tall, now it has been changed to directly from the open hearth to produce molten steel, and then after the craftsmen judge by experience, the steel of different hardness is classified and preserved, and the real steel used to make arrows under the forging hammer is far from good steel.

What is good steel, the colt said a few kinds, and the name is very strange. For example, carbon tool steel, carbon spring steel, martensitic steel. But the horse also said that due to the lack of some raw materials, it is not possible to produce these special steels in large quantities at present, and it will take a while.

This made the craftsmen's eyes red and their heads white. Why is it going to take a while, teach everyone first, what is missing, as long as Da Song has it, you have to get it if you sell your daughter-in-law and children.

In view of the thirst for knowledge of the majority of craftsmen, Hong Tao is as good as a stream, and he really shows a small hand to everyone. The effect, just look at the two armors dedicated to the emperor, they are really not ordinary steel armor, but quasi-composite steel armor that has been carburized and hardened on the surface.

Why is it called quasi-composite steel armor, because in essence, the armor is still steel, but the outer layer has a relatively high carbon content, high hardness and poor toughness; The carbon content of the inner layer is relatively low, and the hardness is low and the toughness is strong. The two layers of materials with different carbon content complement each other, learning from each other's strengths and weaknesses, which greatly improves the defense of the armor.

The specific method is to use pig iron casting, splicing out a one-meter square carburizing box, the bottom of the stove with refractory bricks, from the coke heating to about 600 degrees, and then the workpiece that needs heat treatment and the charcoal particles mixed with soda ash are stacked layer by layer, continue to heat up to about 900 degrees, keep warm for three hours or an hour and a half to take out and quench.

At this time, it is necessary to use another process in the metal heat treatment profession, salt bath! If there is no salt bath, only air cooling or water quenching is used, and such a thin workpiece will produce an oxide layer on both sides, affecting the average thickness, and there will be micro-cracks and air holes if it is not even.

It is best to quench with a salt solution melted at high temperature, and the crystalline layer formed by the cooling of sodium chloride protects the surface of the workpiece from oxidation, and at the same time cools down according to a certain time to obtain a perfect surface carburizing and hardening workpiece.

It's easy to say, but in fact, the surface carburizing and hardening process has quite high technical requirements, and if you want to understand the principle, you must go through professional learning.

It is difficult to understand terms such as austenite, eutectic temperature, pereutectic structure, eutectic structure, sub-eutectic structure, salt bath quenching and so on based on the accumulation of practical experience. Therefore, it seems to be more magical than blast furnace ironmaking, open-hearth steelmaking, and coke oven coking, which is unanimously attributed by craftsmen to the horse's pressure on the bottom of the box, and mortals cannot achieve it even if they try.

Because none of them can play this process well, even the horses themselves have gone through dozens of failures to find roughly the same temperature and time. After being operated by the craftsmen, they still can't understand it, the amount of information is too large, and they still need to get used to it.

It is precisely because of this heat treatment process that the thickness of the steel armor is further reduced to one millimeter, coupled with the special shape of the armor and the design of those stiffeners on the surface, not only does not reduce the defensive power, but also strengthens it.

Hong Tao is quite satisfied with this set of craftsmanship, but he still has a lot of dissatisfaction with this armor. One is that no one knows the movable joint craftsmanship of European full-body armor, not to mention how sophisticated that thing is, but the craftsmen of the Song Dynasty have never pondered it, and it is definitely too late to think about it now.

So the plate armor suit, which was supposed to be full-body protection, was made into a half-plate armor and half-chain mail hybrid, and the appearance was a bit nondescript.

The second is that the surface carburizing and hardening process cannot be mass-produced at present, and no one will, even if they don't do anything for a day and just stare at the carburizing box, at most more than ten pieces of steel armor will be processed.

Attention, it's more than a dozen pieces, not more than ten sets, let's save it, let's make up four or five sets of armor at most, and I don't have a helmet yet. In fact, Hong Tao can not achieve 100% success, if you are lucky, you can have 70%, and if you are lucky, you can have 50%.

The reason for this situation is not a technical problem, the concentration of charcoal particles and soda ash at this time is uneven, and there is no chemical reagent to accurately define the composition of the raw materials, and the success rate of 50% can be considered qualified.

As the craftsmen gradually become familiar with this craft, the success rate will gradually increase, but far from quenching the thirst, how long will it take? It may be as little as half a year or as much as a year.

This kind of thing can't be forced, there is no shortcut, Hong Tao can't get into their brains to engrave, learning the craft is based on understanding and hard work, mastering new technology must be tempered by time, not in a hurry.

If these two problems are not solved, won't the new armor be useless! This is not true, light, beautiful, and defensive armor is a sample prepared for the emperor, in fact, the production process is such a complex finished product, not to mention one piece for each soldier, and it is difficult to achieve one for each officer above the command.