For instance, a bow with a draw weight of forty or fifty pounds could hardly be drawn by women or children, but after converting them into crossbows, they could use the strength of their legs to draw the string and latch it onto the trigger.
Then when they aimed the crossbow, they wouldn't need to expend arm strength, and simply pulling down the metal trigger would launch the arrow.
So with the crossbows, they could hunt big game and defend the village.
With iron arrowheads, they could even scare away tigers and black bears.
Ma Lin attempted to use a single piece of wood to craft a crossbow.
It was much larger than a regular bow and quite clumsy.
The front bow was about two meters long, and the central wooden shaft was one and a half meters in length.
The shaft had grooves for arrows and an iron block functioned as a trigger.
Ma Lin couldn't draw it full with just his arms.
He had to use his legs, leveraging his waist to string it.
It had incredible power.
