Once, Marin thought that the natural enemy of the pigeon was human. This was his view brought by later generations. After all, the extinction of birds in later generations had a lot to do with humans. But in fact, in this era, humans had limited ability to kill birds. The most important thing was the guns and bullets.
In later generations, the shotgun bullets used by human hunting rifles were mainly divided into three types: bird bullets, deer bullets and single-head bullets. Among them, bird bullets are the smallest shotguns with a single particle. The bullet of a bird bullet is not an ordinary bullet, but a lump of lead, with a large number. After the shotgun is fired, a scattered surface will be fired, which belongs to the range strike.
Under the cover of a pile of lead, even a small sparrow cannot escape death. Because, at the location of the target, it is a lead array with a net that is as numerous as a net, and it is difficult to dodge.
It is precisely because of the appearance of shotgun that birds suffered a catastrophe. Because no matter how small or flexible the birds are, they are difficult to avoid the range of shotguns.
Because the effect of shooting birds was so good, after the introduction of the convex gun into the Ming Dynasty in the mid-to-late 16th century with the introduction of shotguns, the Ming people simply called it bird guns.
However, that was in the mid-to-late 16th century. Now, the prototype of the shotgun - grape bullet - has not yet appeared, so there are naturally no shotguns that very restrain birds. Therefore, there are still many birds at present, and it is not too dangerous for carrier pigeons to fly over human settlement areas.
What? You say you want to shoot birds with bows and arrows? Don’t joke! Shooting birds in flying with bows and arrows is an absolute sharpshooter. There may be many such people in the ancient northern part of China that focus on bows and arrows, but there are definitely not many in Europe. Moreover, using bows and arrows to shoot birds, most of them are large birds like geese, swans, and small pigeons like carriers, which are difficult to shoot. Those who can shoot flying sparrows are definitely arrow gods.
Because of the emergence of plate armor, the role of bows and arrows on the battlefield has been greatly reduced, and bows and arrows have almost become synonymous with uselessness. Therefore, except for England, which has traditional aspects, few people in other countries have practiced archery. Even if they shoot archery, Europeans generally use crossbows instead of bows. Because it takes a long time to practice archery with bows and is not easy to practice. Using crossbows is very simple to get out of the army. After all, crossbows have aiming devices, which are convenient for ordinary people who do not know how to shoot archery.
But the problem is that the loading of crossbows is much slower than using bows and arrows. If you see a carrier pigeon flying through the sky and then look for a crossbow to load and aim, the carrier pigeon will have already flew far away.
Therefore, it is safer for birds to fly in residential areas in Europe before the emergence of shotguns. On the contrary, it is easy to be eaten by hawks and falcons when passing through the deep mountains and forests.
"In this way, I still have to establish a traditional communication system!" Marin sighed and could only continue to count on the station system and the flying boat. After all, although these two methods are slow, they are much safer than the carrier pigeons that are easily eaten by the hawks...
Marin thought of using condors like Haidongqing to send messages (because the eagle itself is not afraid of being attacked by the falcon), and Suha and his brothers also showed their unique skills in sending messages. But the problem is that Haidongqing is wild and difficult to tame, and they may be able to accept it for the owner and his family. For strangers, try to touch it? You can't catch you to death...
Only Suha and his younger brothers are familiar with each other because they are family. When sending a message, they can untie the note on the eagle's claws. If you don't know anything, you will definitely not be able to do it.
It is precisely because of this that although there are also eagles to transmit messages, they are rarely, and they cannot be popularized. If people want to transmit messages, they can only rely on pigeons. At worst, they can put a few more pigeons at a time. Even if they encounter a falcon in bad luck, they will be eaten at a time, and the other few can still escape. As long as one of them brings the information, it will be considered as completing the task.
This depressed situation made Marin so depressed that he wanted to invent the radio. However, after thinking about it, he had no choice but to find that there was no knowledge of radio in his mind.
In the physics book in junior high school, the principle of radio was introduced, but the introduction was extremely simple, and it deliberately did not mention how to manufacture it. Why? It was just because there was radio control in later generations. Therefore, the relevant technology was not disclosed. If it was not disclosed, Marin naturally could not obtain the technology to manufacture radios, so he could only stare at him.
Fortunately, pigeons are not difficult to raise. At most, keep more pigeons. Be mentally prepared to be eaten by a few of them by the falcons in the middle. There are always pigeons that can deliver information alive...
But this is not a solution. As far as Marin knows, it is probably because pigeons are delicious and falcons especially like to eat pigeons. In later generations, many falcons sneaked into pigeon cages on the roof and snatched pigeons, just like weasels running to a chicken coop to steal chickens.
Although there are many birds, falcons just love to eat pigeons, which is extremely harmful to the delivery of letters by carrier pigeons. Therefore, if you want to ensure the safety of the air, you must kill the falcons...
To this end, Marin issued an order to form a hunting team. He did nothing else and patroled the pigeon flight routes and hunted hawks and falcons.
Marin hesitated for a long time about what weapons the falconers should use, but decided to let the hunters use bows and arrows. Because the wingspan of the falcon can reach about one meter, the bows and arrows can also be damaged.
Moreover, Marin can organize hunters with powerful archery skills to hunt hawks and falcons in an organized manner. If you bring a telescope, it will be even more convenient.
Besides, Marin was not trying to exterminate the falcon, which was unrealistic. What he wanted was actually the safety and smooth operation of the pigeon route.
Therefore, his falcon troops will only operate on the pigeon route and will not go anywhere else to find trouble for the hawks. Cleaning the hawks on the pigeon route can also make the pigeons much safer.
In fact, the best weapon for fighting a falcon is a shotgun. No matter how flexible you fly or how fast you are, the shotgun will pass by in a scattered area and the hit rate is extremely high.
However, Marin was worried that after the shotgun was promoted, others would think of grape bullets, which were used to harm themselves by artillery, so he did not launch a shotgun. Moreover, the size of a hawk is enough for bows and arrows.
Even Marin planned to let the Falcon troops poison the dead pigeons, hang the toxin-injected pigeons on the branches and sway, so that the falcons can eat them. After eating, the falcons will naturally die.
...
Under Marin's attention, a group of old hunters who are good at using bows and arrows to hunt birds were selected. Marin equipped them with horses and bows and arrows, allowing them to patrol the pigeon route and hunt hawks. Kill one and reward one gold coin, which is 60 Finney, which is equivalent to an ordinary person's salary per month. Of course, it is limited to hawks on the pigeon flight route, and hawks in other places are not counted.
There must be a brave man under heavy rewards. Sure enough, after Marin issued the reward criteria, the hunters of the Falcon troops screamed and looked for hawks and falcons to shoot. As long as they heard that there were hawks and falcons nearby the pigeon route, these people would rush over to hunt and kill them. Even the hawks and falcons' nests were not spared, because Marin also rewarded the act of destroying the hawks and falcons' nests.
Chapter completed!