Chapter 2: The Mysterious Black Pearl (Three)

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  "Are you messing with me?" The soldier, the small team leader, suddenly stood up. This guy was over 1.9 meters tall and had a very strong physique. As soon as he stood up, his presence was intimidating. He grabbed Zhou Weiqing's collar and his fierce face was right in front of him.

  "Hmm... I mean, I need to think about which corps to choose." Zhou Weiqing said with a forced smile. After all, a good man doesn't take advantage of the situation in front of him, he didn't want to get beaten up. In fact, if he were willing to reveal his identity, probably everyone here would be kneeling down. However, although Zhou Weiqing was a bit sinister and cunning, he had one good point - he absolutely obeyed his father's words. His marshal father had once told him that a true hero doesn't rely on others, but rather sweats and eats on his own efforts. Therefore, although Zhou Weiqing was young and from a noble family, he would never bully people like Princess Difuya did.

  In fact, if Zhou Weiqing really regretted not being a soldier, the squad leader would also be helpless. Who let him be so young? Being scared like this, he couldn't say anything about not being a soldier anymore.

  The little team leader listened to Chu Mu's answer and sat back with satisfaction, tilting his head to look at him: "Hurry up and choose, then fill out the form and take the test. I'll tell you, kid, consider yourself lucky that today is only the first day of recruitment, so the test is relatively relaxed. Otherwise, do you think it's easy to join the army just for food?"

  "Officer, I'd like to ask, if we were on the battlefield, which type of soldier would be at the back and least likely to come into direct contact with the enemy?"

  He had his own ideas, every boy has a heroic dream in his youth, if he said to be a logistics officer or something like that, he really didn't want to. Since he joined the army, he should at least look good. Otherwise, when his old man found out that he was just a quartermaster, wouldn't he be beaten to death? He himself couldn't bear the thought of it. Of course, the main combat troops would have to go onto the battlefield, and Zhou Weiqing naturally hoped to find a relatively safe unit. Safety first, after all. This guy had always believed that fear of death was human nature, nothing more normal than that. He didn't have any concept of "dying for one's country".

  The squad leader's eyes gleamed with a hint of cunning as he said, "That's simple, it must be the archer. Archers are usually at the back row, and even if they need to move forward to shoot arrows, they will retreat to the back before the main forces clash. Unless our army is completely defeated, generally speaking, archers will never come into direct contact with the enemy."

  Upon hearing his words, Zhou Weiqing was overjoyed, "Great, this is great! Ah yes! How come I didn't think of that? Our Sky Bow Empire's most elite troops, Officer Brother, I'll just become an archer then." Archers usually stand in the back row and will be protected by soldiers, he still knew that much.

  The squad leader, seeing his cunning plan succeed, chuckled and sat up straight, picking up the pen: "Name, age."

  "I'm Zhou...” Zhou Weiqing almost directly reported his own name, fortunately he reacted quickly and immediately changed his words: "I am Zhou Xiaopang. I am 16 years old." Since childhood, he has lived in a noble family and is the only child of the family. Although he is only 13 years old, he understands human relationships and worldly affairs much earlier than ordinary boys. Since he decided to join the army, it was clear that he could not be discovered by his father. Therefore, he temporarily gave himself a new name. As for the name Zhou Xiaopang, it was his childhood nickname, which had not been used for nearly ten years, so he didn't worry about his father coming to the army to investigate.

  "Zhou Xiaopang? You're not fat either!" The officer muttered to himself as he made a record, and he didn't suspect Zhou Weiqing's reported age of sixteen at all.

  Soon, after registering, he handed the form to Zhou Weiqing and pointed to a corner of the arena next door: "Go, archer test is over there. As long as you pass the test, you will be an imperial soldier."

  "Thanks, Officer." Zhou Weiqing took the form and thought to himself with a pleased heart, this time it's really not bad, being able to be an archer soldier with minimal danger, this is simply perfect.

  With a burst of excitement, he arrived at the testing grounds with his form in hand. There were only four or five soldiers here, wearing simple black and gray military uniforms, with light leather armor on their upper bodies, special finger guards on their hands, and windproof hats with large brims on their heads. They had longbows on their backs and quivers of feathered arrows under their arms. This was the standard equipment for ordinary archers. There was a hint of elegance to it. At this time, although no one was testing, the several archers all stood straight as pens, and Zhou Weiqing knew his father's strict personality, so he was even more severe with his son. As for commanding the army, it was even more so. Therefore, although the Sky Bow Empire was small, with a total military strength of only tens of thousands, they were quite elite, and in battles against armies of equal size, Zhou Weiqing's father, Zhou Daxi, had never suffered defeat, and was renowned among his peers.

  "A few big brothers, I'm here to test." Zhou Weiqing handed over the form, a soldier took it and looked at him, saying: "Little brother, you have a lot of ideas, congratulations on choosing our promising troop. Here, try pulling it twice." As he spoke, the soldier who had taken the form removed the longbow from his back and handed it to Zhou Weiqing.

  Zhou Weiqing took the longbow and couldn't help but lower his head to examine it carefully. The bow's body was made of high-quality Starwood, with a length of 1.8 meters and an arrow length of 0.9 meters. The front of the bow rack was curved, while the back was flat. The middle section of the bow where the hand gripped was about 4 cm wide, gradually narrowing towards both ends, with angular materials inlaid at the tips.

  This longbow was developed through countless years of war, and the length of the ancient composite bow and crossbow on the vast mainland was generally less than 1.2 meters, with an attack distance of only 200 yards (one yard is equivalent to 0.9 meters), and an effective range of only 100 yards, and the penetration power was also far from sufficient. As time passed, bows and crossbows gradually developed towards large-scale development, especially after the discovery of Xingchen wood, a high-quality wood with strong texture and small weight, longbows began to be widely used. The longbow used by the archers of the Tian Gong Empire has great power, with an ordinary longbow having a maximum range of 400 yards, an effective range of 250 yards, which is twice that of a crossbow. Its shooting speed can reach 10-12 arrows per minute, which is also unmatched by crossbows. In the hands of technically skilled soldiers, the hit rate of longbows is much higher than that of crossbows. Due to its lightness, ease of use, great power, and suitability for scattered shooting and formation shooting, these advantages ultimately led to the elimination of crossbows. It can be said that the longbow is the most effective and widely used single-soldier weapon on the battlefield.

  The high firing rate of the longbow can achieve a "bullet hell" effect, when our soldiers are charging forward, the longbowmen in the back can still shoot arrows with a high parabolic trajectory to attack the enemy's upper body. The weakness of war horses is precisely the attack from above, most war horses do not have armor so once they are injured, they will become difficult to control. And even at the extreme distance of three hundred meters, conical arrows can still penetrate ordinary plate armor.

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  Thank Mu En brother for becoming the fifth master of this book. Also thank all the friends who rewarded, voted and supported Xiao San's book.