In the age of cold steel and medieval warfare, what was the simplest countermeasure against enemy catapult bombardment during a siege?
—Quite simply, to press oneself as close as possible to the base of the city wall.
Firstly, due to the nature of parabolic trajectories and projectile motion, a catapult's stone missile would either crash directly into the wall or soar far overhead. It was virtually impossible for a projectile to just clear the wall and then immediately plummet downward to strike those huddled at its base.
Secondly, stones hurled by manpower—unlike explosive shells—rarely possessed the force necessary to topple the thick and solid city walls outright.
Of course, if fortune proved truly unkind, and one were struck or even killed while sheltering below the wall, there would be no one to blame but fate.
After all, if your luck is so cursed that even such improbable calamities befall you, who else can you fault?
"…Artillery incoming! Take cover, everyone!"
Thus, the moment the Jin army's catapult barrage commenced, Wang Qiu promptly retrieved three steel helmets from his personal spatial storage, donning them for himself, Guo Jing, and Nobita. He then tumbled headlong to the foot of the wall, his heart pounding as he watched stone after stone sail overhead, clearing the towering walls of Kaifeng, crashing into residential rooftops within the city, blasting gaping holes through beams and tiles, and stirring up blood-curdling screams of anguish.
Missile after missile rained down in unending succession. Even the formidable city walls trembled ever so slightly under the onslaught, and the hearts of those beneath pulsed with dread.
Beneath the azure skies that followed a snowfall, the Jin army's catapults thundered relentlessly, wave upon wave of assault crashing like tidal breakers. Only after a long, harrowing stretch did their bombardment begin to abate.
By sheer luck, though the Jin forces had loaded numerous fireballs—many of them looted weapons once belonging to the Song court—the recent snowfall had left the city structures damp and difficult to ignite. Moreover, as one of the world's largest cities at the time, Kaifeng was reasonably well-equipped with fire suppression measures, allowing the sporadic flames to be quickly extinguished.
(For context, by the 12th century, the once-glorious Rome had long fallen into decay, and Constantinople's population barely reached half a million.)
Nonetheless, the tower above the East Water Gate and the surrounding streets near the city walls suffered grievously, as though pummeled by a meteor storm from the heavens.
Of course, the Song defenders were not entirely passive in the face of such onslaught. As soon as the Jin barrage ceased temporarily, Zhang Shuye returned to the ramparts and ordered retaliatory strikes using the city's giant crossbows and the formidable Shenbi Bows. Guo Jing, along with Wang Qiu and the others, hurried to the battlements to witness the counterattack.
The ramparts, still littered with the mangled remains of the fallen, painted a scene of utter carnage—blood pooled on the ground, mangled limbs and torn flesh strewn across the stones. The towering gate tower was half-collapsed, and the battlements were shattered like gnawed bones, many merlons entirely leveled. Soot and scorch marks marred the walls. Surviving soldiers cowered in corners like quails, their terror-stricken faces betraying minds on the brink of collapse.
Yet the four time travelers who entered this bloody battlefield offered no sighs of pity or lamentation. They simply fixed their anxious gazes on the Song army's next move.
Urged on by the roars and curses of their officers, the shaken but still breathing imperial guards rushed to man the surviving ballistae. Lips pressed into tight lines, they cranked the winches with desperate energy—squeaking gears whining as three mighty bows bent into crescent moons, as though on the verge of snapping. Crews heaved massive wrought-iron bolts—each weighing a hundred pounds—into place.
To the nomadic tribes of the steppe, who often fashioned arrowheads from stone and bone due to a scarcity of metal, such lavish use of iron was unimaginable extravagance.
Nearby, piles of gleaming iron bolts stood stacked like miniature mountains—a testament to a battle waged with sheer wealth and industrial might. In this benighted age, only the Song Dynasty, with its unmatched productivity, could afford such a display of force.
And as the capital of the Song realm, Bianliang (Kaifeng) had, over centuries of imperial investment, become a true fortress—secure as gold and soup walls, as the old saying goes.
Yet despite the city's formidable defenses and superior armaments, it lacked experienced warriors—especially the highly trained specialists required to operate complex war machines. No matter how powerful the weapon, if it remains locked away gathering dust, it may as well not exist.
Thus, though dozens of ballistae fired in concert, the results were dismal. With the Jin catapults positioned at a great distance and the garrison manned mostly by green recruits, over ninety percent of the bolts missed their mark—either falling short or overshooting, striking only a scattering of enemy troops. A few, by sheer luck, found their targets.
A sudden cheer rose from the walls as one ballista bolt struck true, shattering a catapult and crushing the soldiers around it. But such moments were rare—more than eighty bolts loosed, and only two enemy engines destroyed.
Alas, in the era of cold arms, operating such "high-tech" weaponry as the ballista was an art form. Without a keen eye, practiced instinct, and extensive experience, novices had little hope of accuracy. More often than not, whether a shot struck its mark came down to blind chance.
Meanwhile, the Jin army swiftly moved to reload their catapults, undeterred by the Song's feeble counterattack. With reloading such weapons a time-consuming task, the defenders could do little but brace themselves for the next round.
"…This won't do! We must destroy the enemy's long-range weapons—fast!"
Surveying the pale, trembling faces of the Song soldiers, Wang Qiu knew these fragile civilians-turned-soldiers had already reached their limit—like thrusting pampered strawberry conscripts from modern Taiwan into the blood-drenched trenches of World War I.
Though Zhang Shuye and his officers bellowed in rage, kicking and cursing, the reloading efforts remained agonizingly slow.
By contrast, the Jin soldiers outside the city exuded the air of hardened veterans—"men like tigers, horses like dragons, scaling mountains like apes, swimming rivers like otters, and striking with the force of a landslide," as one Song account grimly described them. Compared to such might, China was like a fragile egg.
This, then, was the backdrop of despair against which Wang Qiu saw the perfect stage set for a savior's grand entrance.
"…Nobita-kun! Come quickly—this is your moment to shine!"
After scanning the battlefield with his high-powered binoculars, Wang Qiu reached into his infinite storage and retrieved his only mortar. With keen self-awareness, he pulled over the ever-unfazed Nobita—who, thanks to countless bizarre battles against alien invaders and robot armies, had grown shockingly accustomed to scenes of bloodshed—and said earnestly:
"…They say you're a sharpshooter without peer. Surely your talent extends to heavy weapons. Let me load the shells—you handle the aim and range."
…
What kind of person is Nobita Nobi, the protagonist of the Doraemon series?
…Well, he often scores zero on tests, lacks athletic ability, peeps on girls bathing, gets bullied every other day, weeps constantly, and is hopeless at any extracurricular skill from chess to music to photography. At first glance, he seems utterly useless.
Yet he possesses two remarkable talents: first, a peerless mastery of cat's cradle; and second, an almost supernatural gift for marksmanship.
Give him any long-range weapon, and he can hit his target with near-perfect accuracy.
Thus, upon the snow-brushed ramparts of Bianliang in the winter of Jingkang's intercalary eleventh month, Nobita Nobi once again demonstrated the shooting prowess with which he had defeated alien monsters and robotic legions—achieving, with Wang Qiu's mortar, a flawless hit every time.
"…Bearing two-five-zero degrees. Load high-explosive round… heat the chamber… ready—fire!!"
A resounding clang! echoed as the shell arced skyward in a high parabola, landing with brutal precision beneath a catapult, splintering its beam and toppling it into ruin.
—As soon as he laid hands on a ranged weapon, Nobita Nobi transformed from a zero-score dunce into a master of ballistics.
"…Adjust! Shift muzzle fifteen degrees left, elevate by three… Ready—fire!!"
Guided by Nobita's eerily precise visual estimates, Wang Qiu feverishly cranked the elevation. Another shell soared and struck true, blasting apart a second catapult and scattering Jin engineers in a spray of gore. Yet more surged forward, determined to continue the assault.
"…Again! Use the last coordinates!"
Shell after shell launched from the mortar, shredding the enemy's siege line in a rain of blood and iron. With catapults barely able to shoot two hundred and fifty meters, they were well within range of Wang Qiu's modern weapon.
From the walls, as explosions bloomed across the battlefield, even the demoralized Song soldiers raised cries of triumph.
Meanwhile, Guo Jing was sweating profusely as he frantically spun a tale to the awestruck Zhang Shuye, claiming this divine weapon had been summoned from the heavens.
Unfortunately, for all Nobita's peerless accuracy, Wang Qiu possessed only twenty shells. After ten had been fired, he couldn't bear to expend more. As for the even more precious RPG launcher? He didn't even consider revealing it.
Thus, despite the thrilling results, the total damage inflicted by ten shells on tens of thousands of Jin troops remained negligible.
When the smoking-hot mortar was finally packed away, the exhilarated Nobita turned toward Doraemon and bellowed his signature line:
"…Doraemon! Hurry up and think of something!!"
And Wang Qiu, too, turned with curiosity to the rotund cat robot, hoping for some miraculous gadget.
—Surely many urban youths once dreamed, as Wang Qiu now did, of wielding Doraemon's wondrous tools to dominate their childhood fantasies.
Alas, Doraemon, deeply in debt and short on resources, seemed to be having an off day…
At that moment, he was busy treating the wounded with an auto-medkit. At Nobita's cry, he hastily packed it away and began rummaging through his four-dimensional pocket. The deeper he dug, the darker his expression became:
"…Crap. I used up most of the weapons fighting zombies last time and didn't have time to restock before my credit card got frozen! Let me see—the air cannon and stun gun are both wrecked. The shrink ray's out of power… The only thing remotely weapon-like left is this 100-billion-ton Earth-Destroying Bomb… Shall I try throwing it?"
When Doraemon pulled out a bomb marked with a skull and eyed the battlefield below, Wang Qiu nearly fainted in terror:
"…Don't! Please, Doraemon, don't throw that!! Even if you want to die—I want to live!!"
A hundred billion tons of TNT equivalent? That's five million Hiroshima bombs! Enough to turn the Japanese archipelago into radioactive glass! For a few miles of Jurchen cavalry?
Are you trying to commit suicide? Mass suicide? Planetary suicide?
And yet this monstrous warhead was something Doraemon once used… to kill a mouse. Mice in the 22nd century must be terrifying indeed.
As Doraemon continued pulling out random oddities and scattering them across the ramparts, Wang Qiu finally offered a suggestion:
"…Doraemon, shouldn't you be using the 'Make-Lies-Come-True Mouth' to force the enemy to surrender?"
—The [Make-Lies-Come-True Mouth], one of Doraemon's most absurd tools, renders any spoken lie an immediate truth. Nobita once used it to turn his father into a karate master and a flying superhero…
"…That's not going to work, Wang Qiu-kun," Doraemon sighed. "It only works on one person at a time. If you knew the name of a specific enemy soldier, maybe. But with tens of thousands of attackers down there…"
"…In that case," said Wang Qiu, "perhaps we should use the Voice Solidifier instead…"