Taiheiki

Chapter 9: Carriage
He hurriedly tried to string the crossbow, but before he could, the muntjac had already spotted him and quickly escaped into the reeds. The egret next to it was also startled and flew away quickly, leaving only ripples on the water.

"What the hell!" Wei Cong stopped winding the bowstring in disappointment: "This thing's reaction is too fast! It can see me from such a distance!"

"It doesn't see, it hears and smells!" Wang Shou explained with a smile: "You are getting the upper hand. Besides, your crossbow is not right. You should change it next time!"

Wei Cong looked at his latest creation: a three-layered, reinforced tea-stem, bamboo, and goat-horn laminated crossbow arm, a deer antler roller mechanism, and a polished, hard oak crossbow body coated with tea oil and beeswax. It looked both delicate and deadly. He asked, somewhat unconvinced, "Is this crossbow bad?"

"No, no, your crossbow is a nice thing! But it's not for hunting!" Wang Shou laughed. "For pheasants, hares, deer, wolves, and the like, they don't wear armor, so a weight of thirty to fifty kilograms is enough. Your crossbow must weigh a full hundred and fifty kilograms, right? Winding it is very troublesome. Hand strength alone is not enough; you need the strength of your waist and legs. But if you move like this in the bushes, the deer and birds will all run away. How can you kill them?"

"That's right!" Wei Cong sighed, then became excited again. "But it's not yet done. I'll go back and get a lever winder. It'll save a lot of effort! For a 150-jin crossbow, 50 to 60 jin of strength is enough, and it won't make much noise when winding it!"

"Really? This is the only good thing in the world?" Wang Shou asked in surprise.

"Of course it's real. It's very simple, just a wooden stick with a hook. You'll understand once you see it. It's a simple application of the principle of leverage! It's nothing!" Wei Cong laughed and said, "Oh, it's a pity to miss this muntjac. Let's go to the lake and check the bamboo basket we put down yesterday to see if we can find anything!"

Wang Shou remained silent, watching the man's back with a strange gaze. Cai Youjiao had said he was a student from Luoyang, a son of an aristocratic family. But how could a man born into such a privileged family be so uninhibited, traveling, hunting, and chatting with a lowly soldier from a prefecture like him? Wearing a short coat, he worked alongside the craftsmen, wielding saws, axes, and chisels? How could he generously offer valuables, not as rewards but as tokens of gratitude? This was simply too strange.

"Hey! Wang Shou, why don't you just leave? Come on, catch up!" Wei Cong stopped beside a large clump of reeds and turned around and shouted, "I remember we put the bamboo basket next to that big rock yesterday? How come we can't find it? Come over here and help me look for it!"

"Hey, I'll be right there!" Wang Shou hurriedly followed, looking around. "Isn't it over there? That stone. The lake must have risen, so less of the stone is exposed. Yes, it's this stone. Look, isn't this the mark you left yesterday?"

Wang Shou's words proved correct. Wei Cong quickly found the mark. He rolled up his trousers and waded into the water, the soft mud covering his ankles. He bent down to search for the bamboo basket, water plants and small fish kissing his skin in the water. Soon he found it. He lifted the basket and found three or four crabs swarming inside, their legs and claws tangled together, seemingly forming a single entity.

"Old Wang, look how fat these crabs are! Each one must weigh five or six taels! We are in for a treat tonight!" Wei Cong carefully pinched the belly of a crab with his fingers, raised it above his head, and laughed.

"Really?" Wang Shou was not as excited as Wei Cong. In his opinion, crabs were not a good thing. They were difficult to eat and had little meat. If you were not careful, you would get an upset stomach and get sick. Only the poor families living by the lake took this thing seriously. He didn't know why this Mr. Wei was so happy.

Wei Cong picked up the six or seven bamboo baskets he had put down last night, strung the crabs and fish inside with willow branches, and walked back with them. On the way, Wei Cong said with a smile, "Let's have this crab glutinous rice tonight. I just saw that the crab roe is very thick. It will be delicious when steamed with glutinous rice!"

"You can cook?" Wang Shou asked in surprise.

"Yeah, what's so strange about being able to cook? You can't?"

"This..." Wang Shou laughed dryly. "Doesn't the book say that a gentleman shouldn't be near the kitchen? How could a noble like you, Lord Wei, be making these things?"

"I'm a noble?" Wei Cong stopped and laughed, "How can you tell I'm a noble?"

"A lot!" Wang Shou laughed and said, "First of all, look at you. You are eight feet tall, with fair skin and no calluses on your hands. Your manners, the way you talk to people, and your beautiful handwriting. You know so much, such as threshers and carriages. Oh, and the flint you gave me. It's not something that ordinary people can have! Add all these together, how can you be from an ordinary family!" At this point, Wang Shou lowered his voice, "I heard from Cai Youjiao that you escaped from the capital and offended the eunuchs in the palace. They shouted, 'party' and 'party or something'! Look at my pig brain, I can't remember anything!" At this point, he slapped his forehead in annoyance.

"Party member? Did Cai Youjiao say that I am a party member?" Wei Cong asked.

"Yes, yes!" Wang Shou excitedly slapped his thigh. "That's the word. What does it mean? Are you really a member of that "Laoshi" party?"

"No wonder Cai Buyi treated me like this, it turns out he thought I was a party member!" Wei Cong tried hard to recall the records about the "Party Persecution" in the junior high school history textbook. Unfortunately, all he could remember was that they were a group of upright people, and Tan Sitong's words "I think of Zhang Jian when I look for a place to stay, and I endure death for a moment to wait for Du Gen", and he could not remember anything else.

However, it seems that Cai Buyi is a good person. At least he didn't hand himself over to the government to collect the reward, but instead kept him privately for protection. After thinking for a moment, he replied, "I'm not a member of the party, but you should not mention this matter again in the future. It will not benefit you!"

"I understand!" Wang Shou said with a look of understanding. "Don't worry, my dear. Even though I look like this, I'm a tough guy. I can tell who is a gentleman and who is a villain. I would never do such a shameless thing!"

Wei Cong nodded slightly. Wang Shou's words suddenly triggered an idea in his mind. He asked carefully, "By the way, Old Wang, I want to ask you something. I remember that crossbows are strictly prohibited by the government. Will I get into trouble if I make one privately?"

"Haha!" Wang Shou laughed. "You're worrying for nothing! It's true that the government has banned crossbows, but they ban so many things, how can they enforce them all? These days, what wealthy family doesn't have an armory hidden away? As soon as the autumn harvest is over, everyone brings out their troops, trains them, and teaches them martial arts, just to be prepared for any eventuality! The county magistrates are just pretending not to notice, so how could they possibly have a crossbow like yours?"

"Has it come to this?" Wei Cong was shocked and asked, "The rich families secretly store weapons and armor, and the government just pretends not to see it?" "Yes, there's nothing we can do! The world is not at peace! There's the Qiang rebellion in the northwest, the Xianbei and Wuhuan in the northeast, and the Shanyue and bandits in the south. The county and state soldiers are useless. If the powerful are not allowed to train and defend themselves, the government will not have a single soldier to help in times of emergency." Wang Shou asked curiously, "Anyway, these powerful people train their troops only to gather their clans for self-protection. If you don't let them protect themselves, who will deal with those refugee Shanyue people? You can't be in Luoyang and not even know this, right?"

"So this is what they mean by 'Han's fall due to its own strength'!" Wei Cong muttered to himself upon hearing this. According to Wang Shou, by this point in the Eastern Han Dynasty, powerful landlords everywhere had money, food, soldiers, organization, and prestige. All they needed was an opportunity to launch a full-scale chicken-eating competition. Meanwhile, while the central government of the Eastern Han Dynasty appeared strong on the surface, in reality, the emperor, his relatives, eunuchs, and court officials engaged in intense internal strife, with one faction taking the stage and the other changing the banner, while no one cared about the real political affairs. This greatly eroded the country's prestige and power.

It's no surprise, then, that the Yellow Turban Rebellion, which swept across the country and numbered hundreds of thousands at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was suppressed within a few months after the court announced the restoration of the political rights of those imprisoned within the Party Imprisonment Act, with the three Zhang Jue brothers' bodies and heads separated. Furthermore, after He Jin was killed, Yuan Shao and his followers led their troops into the imperial palace and executed the Ten Eunuchs. The empire immediately collapsed, descending into full-scale civil war, from which it could never recover.

The reason is very simple. When the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out, the literati and officials stood on the side of the imperial court. After the death of He Jin and his brothers, Yuan Shao and others stormed the palace and killed all the eunuchs. In fact, they had cut off the two legs of the Eastern Han Dynasty's power center, the eunuchs and relatives of the emperor. The literati and officials suddenly found that there was no imperial court to tell them what to do anymore, so they each took control of the prefectures and counties. Naturally, the empire could never rise again.

"Damn, this world is too dangerous!" Wei Cong shuddered at the thought. "I originally thought there would be at least another ten or twenty years of peace, and I could slowly grow up. Now it seems that this country is already full of chicken-eating games, and it's just that the full-scale civil war hasn't started yet! If I don't take it seriously, I might die in a corner somewhere!"

"My dear, my dear! Are you okay?" Wang Shou saw Wei Cong suddenly stop and look thoughtful, so he asked carefully.

"It's okay!" Wei Cong sighed, glanced at Wang Shou, and asked, "Old Wang, let me ask you a question. What would you do if the world suddenly became chaotic one day?"

"The world is in chaos?" Wang Shou was stunned when he heard this, then smiled and said, "The court will naturally send troops from the Three Rivers and Five Schools to fight. Why should I worry?"

"What if it can't be pacified?"

"Can't put it down? That's impossible!" Wang Shou said in surprise. "If the Three Rivers and Five Armies aren't enough, we still have the Southern Xiongnu, the Wuhuan cavalry from Hebei, the crossbowmen from Danyang, the elite from Jingchu, and the great horses from Liangzhou. Combined with all of these, what rebellion can't be put down?"

Wei Cong was speechless at Wang Shou's confidence. In a sense, Wang Shou's confidence was justified: the Eastern Han Dynasty had maintained a crushing military advantage over foreign enemies until its demise; the empire was destroyed by his own army. But getting him to understand this might be difficult. Thinking of this, Wei Cong shook his head in frustration. "Forget it, it's getting late. Let's get back!"

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Second home.

"This thresher is actually quite simple, but it is indeed very useful!" Cai Buyi used the thresher for a while and nodded with satisfaction.

"Yes!" the steward laughed. "At first I was a little skeptical, thinking this thing could be used by one person as well as four or five others. But after trying it out, I realized it's true. That Mr. Wei is truly an ingenious thinker, beyond the reach of ordinary people!"

Cai Buyi smiled but remained silent. As he'd said, the mechanism of this manual thresher was actually quite simple. The main part was a large wooden barrel, with two pedals at the bottom driving a crank. Each pedal cranked a thick wooden stick embedded with numerous wooden pegs inside the barrel, which would spin at high speed. The user simply held a rice ear close to the barrel, and the grains would be swept off by the spinning pegs. A hole in the bottom of the barrel was directly covered with a bag, ensuring that all the threshed grain fell into the bag without being missed.

He didn't think it was Wei Cong's original creation. After all, similar manual agricultural machines were already plentiful at the time. Just because Xinye didn't have one didn't mean it wasn't available elsewhere. He believed Wei Cong had seen it somewhere before and had copied it. Furthermore, Wei Cong had built the threshing machine and given it to him, rather than distributing it himself to attract attention. This clearly wasn't the behavior of a troublemaker, which greatly relieved Cai Buyi. However, he didn't need to share his opinion with the steward.

"Where's the carriage?"

"Master, please follow me!" The steward responded and walked towards the backyard.

Compared to the threshing machine, the horse-drawn carriage had a much greater impact on Cai Buzhi. This time, he was certain that it was Wei Cong's original creation. The reason was simple: ancient China also had four-wheeled vehicles, but they were usually ox-drawn carts or rickshaws, not horse-drawn carriages.

Ancient China had never solved the problem of steering four-wheeled vehicles. Oxen-drawn carts were not a problem, as they moved slowly and could be moved bit by bit. However, horse-drawn carriages could not travel normally on the road without solving the steering problem of four-wheeled vehicles. Therefore, the vast majority of carriages in ancient China, especially those carrying people, were two-wheeled.

"Is this carriage usable?" Cai Buyi suppressed his shock and asked the steward.

"Sure!" the steward asked in confusion, "I remember a few days ago, Young Master Wei went out in this carriage, with a maidservant and the driver said it ran fine, but it was shaking a bit!"

Cai Buyi walked up to take a test ride, and it indeed ran normally. As the steward had said, the carriage shook a little, but the vibration was much smaller, and his butt felt much more comfortable.

(End of this chapter)