UNIT: Great Chinese Ballista- the 3 Bowed Ballista: 三弓弩

Powerful Chinese 3 Bow Ballista or San Gong Chuang Nu 三弓床弩, meaning 3 Bowed (or 3 Prod) Ballista. 

Art by: Shuai Zhang

Many already know of the fact that the ancient Chinese invented the crossbow as early as the Spring and Autumn era. However another invention that the ancient Chinese armies put to use for almost 2 millennia was the powerful bed ballistas, which were used from as far back as the Warring States period to medieval Song or the Ming dynasties. 

These are extremely powerful ballistae and takes a large team to operate and fire. Including nearly 30~ 100. During the later Song dynasty the most powerful of these requires more than 100 people to wind up the strings. However the bolts they carried packs a deadly flight and was reported to be above to fly 700 paces or even 1000 paces away. In the Song Dynasty, one step was 1.536 meters, and a thousand steps were 1536 meters. This was one of the highest range achieved by ancient long-range weapons before the advent of cannons.

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