Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors-Chapter 547 - 278: Siege Weapons_2

The Qi Army soldiers, many of whom had used traditional man-powered trebuchets, were naturally skeptical about this new, massive contraption being built.

However, they soon realized they had been wrong.

For the shape of this new stone-throwing device was completely different from the original trebuchets!

One end held a huge counterweight box filled with heavy rocks, while the other end of the long swinging arm was connected to a set of ropes and pulleys below.

With the combined strength of just a dozen soldiers pulling on the lever, they could lower the long swinging arm using the pulley system, and then other soldiers could work together to roll a massive, three-hundred-pound stone into the net.

"Fire!"

At a command, soldiers hammered away at the pin connecting the lever to the swinging arm; then the counterweight box plummeted down, and the massive three-hundred-pound stone naturally soared high into the sky with the power of leverage!

The huge stone described a perfect parabolic arc in the air, then fell into Yan Jing city.

"Boom!!"

A loud crash reverberated, and the soldiers could even feel the ground beneath their feet trembling.

They could see the stone soaring over the walls, smashing the buildings behind the wall to rubble, and, with undiminished force, rolling and bouncing a great distance on the ground.

From the high watchtower, the scene was even clearer.

The stone flew into the city, not only destroying all buildings in its path but even sinking several feet into the ground before coming to a halt.

The defenses of Yan Jing were already solid, with the protective moat and trenches around the city extending more than a hundred meters in width—well beyond the range of ordinary trebuchets.

For the attackers, if they couldn’t cover the city walls with trebuchets, then their soldiers would have to force their way across the trenches and moat to scale the walls. During this process, the defenders’ wide array of machinery would inflict heavy casualties on the attackers.

Some soldiers wouldn’t even make it to the base of the walls before suffering severe losses.

But with this gigantic trebuchet, the soldiers didn’t have to assault the city at all; they just needed to keep transporting huge stones and hurling them into the city.

General Han Fuyue gazed at Yan Jing from afar and couldn’t help but smile, "By this measure, the city could be captured in another month or so!"

However, players like Li Hongyun and Cui Huowang felt somewhat disappointed after seeing the power of this trebuchet.

"Is this the legendary Huihui Cannon?"

The blueprint they had brought out was the Huihui Cannon used by the Northern Barbarians to take down Xiangyang City back in the day.

In ancient times, the character "砲" was associated with the character for stone and essentially meant a stone-throwing device. The reason why the "cannon" in Chinese chess needs a "screen" to attack is because trebuchets also use the principle of leverage and require a support structure to operate.

Back then, Xiangyang stood alone against the Northern Barbarians for six years, and it was ultimately the appearance of the Huihui Cannon that led to its fall.

In fact, the detailed blueprints of the Huihui Cannon had been lost, but the structure of such counterweight-style trebuchets was not complex. With various remaining blueprints, these players, who had earned the title "Divine Machine," were more than capable of reconstructing it.

Still, the outcome of the reconstruction couldn’t quite satisfy them.

After all, it was just a trebuchet.

Indeed, when the Huihui Cannon took down Xiangyang, its impact was highly vaunted, but in actuality, it was merely the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

Though the stones hurled by the Huihui Cannon were massive and powerful, capable of great destruction in this era, their accuracy was all but dismal. Even after professionals adjusted the range and angle, the hit rate was only about one in five.

While the attacking forces could leisurely continue to hurl giant stones at a specific section of the wall or within the city from outside, transporting the stones themselves was quite cumbersome. To truly bring down a strong city still took a considerable amount of time.

If the defenders of Yan Jing at this point in history were the indigenous guards, they likely wouldn’t last long.

For the Huihui Cannon had made its first appearance on the battlefield not just as a formidable siege weapon, but also with a significant psychological impact.

The morale of the defenders collapsed. Terrorized by the giant stones thrown by the Huihui Cannon, they were living every day in a state of panic. It was only a matter of time before the city would fall.

However, the Jin soldiers, who were influenced by the Demonic Qi, did not suffer from deteriorating morale; they continued to resist fiercely.

In such a situation, the time required to breach the city with the Huihui Cannon increased exponentially.

General Han Fuyue said, "Regardless, this new type of stone-throwing device has significantly advanced the timetable for our conquest of Yan Jing City!"

"Just build a few more of these cannons, and attack several walls of Yan Jing City at the same time, we will always be able to blast a breach."

Li Hongyun shook his head slightly, "There’s no need, General, we have something even better."

General Han Fuyue was even more astonished, "Something better?"

With his level of knowledge, he could not imagine anything more effective for breaching walls than this kind of giant stone-throwing machine.

Li Hongyun and the other ’players’ left the battlefield and busied themselves in their own camp for a while.

Then, several mules and horses dragged heavy cannons onto the battlefield.

"What is this?"

General Han Fuyue curiously looked at this huge object cast in bronze, which he estimated to weigh at least several thousand pounds.

Li Hongyun and the other players directed the soldiers to position the cannon properly, and then proceeded to clean the barrel, load the gunpowder, and cannonballs in a specific order.

"This is the new type of cannon that can replace the stone-throwing machine!"

General Han Fuyue watched the cannon intently, skeptical about how it could replace the stone thrower.

After all, he had already witnessed the formidable power of the Huihui Cannon.

Looking at the dimensions, a Huihui Cannon was over ten meters tall, standing next to it made one feel as if they were looking up at a massive object. It took a lot of effort from many soldiers to pull the lever, lower the swing arm, and the weight boxes filled with so many stones allowed one to easily estimate its weight.

Hence, people of this era could more easily imagine the terrifying power of the Huihui Cannon.

But the cannon in front of them was a different story.

It appeared to be cast in bronze, and its size was also impressive, but how could such a lump of bronze transform into a siege weapon? This was indeed a test of the imagination for the people of the time.

"Ready—Fire!"

At the command, Li Hongyun held a torch and personally lit the cannon’s fuse.

After the hissing sound of the burning fuse, Li Hongyun quickly ran to a safe area and kindly reminded General Han Fuyue to block his ears.

Full of doubts, General Han Fuyue did as advised, and then he heard an earth-shattering boom!

"Boom!!"

This sound was far more terrifying than the noise of the Huihui Cannon’s boulder falling into Yan Jing City!

Amidst the explosion of the gunpowder, the several thousand pound cannon sank into the ground, and the originally stuffed cannonball that looked incredibly heavy flew towards the wall of Yan Jing City!

The Huihui Cannon was already the pinnacle of the stone-throwing machines of the age of cold weapons.

But before the cannon, it paled in comparison.

The trajectory of the stone thrown by the machine was a parabola. As the stone rose, it had to convert kinetic energy into potential energy, and then back into kinetic energy.

During this process, the huge stone had to contend with the loss due to air resistance; the longer the range, the greater the loss of kinetic energy.

Thus, a few hundred meters was already the limit for the Huihui Cannon.

It was the most powerful weapon humans had created under the conditions of cold weapons, using physical properties.

However, the cannon directly converted the energy produced by the explosion of gunpowder into kinetic energy for the cannonball. It not only had a high burning rate but also produced a large amount of high-pressure gas. The flight trajectory of the cannonball was nearly straight, which not only avoided the losses caused by the parabolic trajectory but also significantly increased the range.

Therefore, the reason why no further Huihui Cannon-like superweapons appeared later on wasn’t entirely due to the loss of technology. A more important reason was that in comparison to the cannon, it was utterly outclassed in all aspects and no longer suited to the new battlefield.

After the thunderous noise, all the soldiers of the Qi Army were left with ringing in their ears and even momentary darkness before their eyes.

Then, they all simultaneously looked in the direction of Yan Jing City.

They saw the heavy cannonball howl as it smashed into the city wall of Yan Jing.

Then, it directly blasted a gigantic gap in the wall!