Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors-Chapter 546 - 278: Siege Weapons

"Oh?"

General Han Fuyue peered at the blueprint Li Hongyun handed over, lit by the dim light inside the tent.

"Is this... a trebuchet?"

General Han Fuyue could vaguely make out the object on the blueprint, but his tone lacked considerable excitement.

Because, in this era, a trebuchet was nothing uncommon.

As early as during the Liang Dynasty, large trebuchets had appeared, requiring 150 to 250 people to pull the sling, launching stones weighing about 140 to 200 pounds with a range of 70 to 80 meters. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

In the routine siege battles, trebuchets were relatively common siege weapons.

For instance, the Jin forces, during the Jingping rebellion to capture the capital of the Qi Dynasty, had craftsmen construct hundreds of large trebuchets around the capital before the formal siege, fiercely bombarding the city walls.

However, the effectiveness of such trebuchets in battle was not very impressive.

It had at least three shortcomings: one, the range was too short, two, the destructive power was inadequate, and three, it required a significant amount of manpower and was quite troublesome.

Because the trebuchets of this era were mostly man-powered, not counterweight trebuchets.

Launching the stones required a considerable number of gunners to drag the sling.

This type of trebuchet also utilized the principle of leverage, the long end was used to place stones in a net, while the short end was tied with dozens of slings.

During use, it required everyone to pull the sling together to launch the stone from the net.

Clearly, this method demanded high acumen from the operating soldiers.

Dozens, even up to a hundred or two hundred soldiers, had to coordinate their actions uniformly, without anyone slacking off, and the movements needed to be coordinated. Also, the power that humans could exert in a burst was relatively limited, so both the force and the range of the stones thrown by such trebuchets were somewhat lacking.

As General Han Fuyue was preparing to attack Yan Jing, such man-powered trebuchets were also naturally prepared.

Thus, seeing these blueprints from the Ministry of Industry officials, his first reaction was not one of surprise.

Li Hongyun gave a slight smile and reminded, "General Han, take a closer look at the dimensions of this trebuchet."

General Han Fuyue looked closely and then sharply inhaled.

Because it was clearly written on the blueprint that the dimensions of the trebuchet, whether the area of the base or the length of the top lever, were several times larger than that of typical large trebuchets!

Comparing it to the largest trebuchet to date from the Liang Dynasty, which launched stones weighing about 140 to 200 pounds with a range of 70 to 80 meters.

However, this trebuchet on the blueprint was launching giant stones weighing up to 600 pounds, with a range reaching 250 paces — nearly 400 meters!

The weight was three times that of the original trebuchets, and the range exceeded it by more than four times.

What was more important was that the blueprint didn’t show the need for a large number of soldiers to operate the sling, but rather it had been changed to a huge counterweight box. After loading a large number of stones into the counterweight, before launching, the projectile segment could be pulled down using a pulley system, allowing the counterweight end to rise and store energy, and then utilizing the gravity of the counterweight end to launch the stone.

Compared to dozens of people pulling the sling together to launch the stones, such a mechanical structure was obviously more sophisticated.

General Han Fuyue couldn’t help but brighten up, "Good stuff!"

He could tell that this trebuchet was a significant improvement over the original version.

He couldn’t help but wonder why, given that this structure wasn’t particularly complex, no one had ever studied it before?

Why, in the hundreds of years since trebuchets had appeared, had no one thought of replacing man-powered trebuchets with counterweight trebuchets?

Regardless, the emergence of such a powerful weapon on the battlefield now added many variables to the prolonged siege of Yan Jing.

General Han Fuyue immediately decided, "Good, immediately issue orders to construct this new type of trebuchet!"

...

On the battlefield outside Yan Jing, the Qi Army became busy.

A large number of soldiers began transporting giant timber from the rear, which was then laid out according to the blueprint at a location more than 200 meters from Yan Jing.

First was a layer of the bottommost logs, laid in the already compacted ground, and then various structures were constructed layer by layer, gradually forming a super-giant trebuchet.

Meanwhile, the soldiers, whether busy or at rest, curiously sized up this massive object.

"This trebuchet is surely too big, isn’t it! A range of over 100 paces, can it really reach the city walls?"

"The largest trebuchets before couldn’t do that either."

"The moats and trenches around Yan Jing were dug by the Jin people nearly 70 to 80 paces away, ordinary trebuchets can’t throw that far anymore. This trebuchet is even further away by over 100 paces..."

"Seeing how much bigger this is compared to the usual trebuchets, it should be able to reach, right?"

"But for such a huge object, how many soldiers will need to pull together on the sling to operate it?"

The soldiers were clearly unsure whether this new type of trebuchet could indeed unleash its intended power.

At this stage, the trebuchet had not yet revealed its full form, so many soldiers still thought it was the traditional man-powered trebuchet.

The reason man-powered trebuchets had developed to a range of 70 to 80 meters with a 200-pound projectile and then stagnated was because they had basically reached their limit.

It required dozens of people to pull the sling to operate, which had already reached a certain threshold. If one hundred or two hundred people were to pull the sling together, due to the certain space occupied by personnel and the difficulty in command increasing with more people, the operational difficulty would also greatly increase, making it not worth the effort.