Post by Cao Zhi on Nov 4, 2009 8:08:13 GMT
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Wei Wei's story
Inventing is the Life!
~Wei Wei's story
Inventing is the Life!
Chapter 1: He's not better than me!
Wei Wei, a vassal of Cao Zhi had been sent back to Xu Chang from Xiang Ping, due to the fact that Cao Cao, Cao Zhi's father had called an official withdrawl of at least one liutenent from each officer. Wei Wei thought it was a stupid motion, and that Liu Han (Cao Zhi's other liutenent) just wanted her to get away from Zhi, which infuriated Wei Wei. Once arriving in Xu Chang, instead of going straight to the Imperial Palace, she ignored it and went home. Wei Wei's home was modest, it didn't have too much, but it didn't have too little, which pleased Wei Wei. But this house was nothing compared to the magnificent structure behind it.
Wei Wei was an inventor (an ambitious one), and she had to have to workshop to be able to invent things. And she did. A very good one, which she had saved up for, for years. She of course, had help from Zhi - it would have taken her a lifetime to pay the money to build this heavenly building. She had designed AND built her workshop all by herself - it had taken her a year to finish it. Well... She didn't build it by herself, in fact, she didn't even build it. She hired about a hundred workers with the leftover gold Zhi had given her, and made them build it. It took them a long month to finally build it.
Entering the pure white structure, and observing the blackened floors and walls, the dust all over the blacksmith items, the drawing tables and things reminded her that she hadn't entered this "garden shed" in months. It saddened her, inventing was her life - and her life with Cao Zhi, the prince of Wei had interrupted her. She had been summoned many times while inventing new things just to participate in battles - which she vehemented. Just being in here was nostalgic, each table, each chair even each stain had a story. Here she had invented the weapons that had made Wei so successful, but now they were outdated weapons, Zhuge Liang of Shu, and whoever the stratagist was for Wu had made weapons which dwarfed her own. She wouldn't let them outdo her. Once she had admired Zhuge Liang; he was her hero, making all of these fancy contraptions which facinated her to no end. He inspired her to take up this route of technology. She had hung up a supposed portrait of him in her workshop. It was in such a position that it was staring at her. Wei Wei glared back at it. She felt it was mocking her, saying that she would never be as good as it was, which Wei Wei wouldn't accept. She would be as good as anyone. Ignoring it, she sat down on a drawing table and started to work. But something was burning. In the back of her head, she felt a stare at her - a mocking one. She surged up and faced the portrait.
"YOU THINK YOU'RE SO GOOD?"
She screamed at the top of her voice - starting to sound a bit haggish.
"STOP MOCKING ME!"
The portrait, of course didn't reply. Wei Wei screeched and tore the portrait off of the wall and threw it into the garden where the rats started to feast on it. She lit a fire and threw it on the portrait, utterly demolishing it, and scorching the rats on it, like they were in a kebab.
"Who's better now?"
She asked hysterically, and laughing at it hysterically. She slumped down onto a chair feeling half satisfied at the deed she had done. Then a feeling resonated inside of the young Wei inventor; that wasn't the real Zhuge Liang. It was a portrait, a portrayl of him that couldn't do anything to her. Portraits couldn't look at people, or mock people. The only thing that the portrait did was burn. It had been her mind who had done something, something that was ruining her life.
"What am I doing slumping in this chair and being useless? I am a proud inventor of the Wei empire! I need to invent and and I need to work."
Sitting down quietly and blowing away the dust, some of which got into her eyes and mouth, making her cough. After her little episode, she rummaged her draws looking for some drawing paper and an ink pot and brush. It took her about 10 minutes to realise that she kept ink on the desk next to the right wall. Trudging towards the desk, she suddenly had some sort of premonition of Cao Zhi sitting on the chair smiling at her a bit... Oddly. He started to speak but his voice was blurred, and Wei Wei could only pick up a little of it.
"... Wei Wei... I.... Marry... Me... Love... Children.."
Wei Wei cupped her hand over her mouth and squealed like a hyperactive fangirl. She screamed that yes, yes she would marry him, and just when she was about to hug him - he disappeared - which thoroughly disappointed Wei Wei. Snatching the ink pot moodily, she ran back to the table and started to draw. A multi firing catapault, shields which would function as weapons, pots which would be able to set enemies on fire - they all shot into her brain at once, and she needed time to comprehend them all...
Chapter 2: Ideas, Design and Construction
[/u][/center]Wei Wei was scribbling frantically. She had thought of a new idea for a weapon already and a second new weapon to use, and she was working hard to design it properly. The design she was working on at the moment was a catapault which would be able to fire 8 stones! It would be slightly hard to operate, and would be expensive to produce, but it would be devestating if used well.
She had sketched up the design by half an hour, sure that this design would work well. This catapult would have to be heavier than a regular catapault, or it would topple over horribly, and the money they had spent developing it would be down the drain. The catapault itself would have to be made of a medium weighted metal, which would be able to hold it down on the ground. It would also have several thin stone cylinders attached to it by chains, which would be dug into the ground firmly and hold the catapault onto the ground too.
However she needed to check her store cupboard to see if she even had the cylinder, and the weapons storage to see if she had an Onager to test her new design on, minus the metal. First she needed to check if she had the cylinders which were most definitely the more important. She walked out of the blackened interior, to the white exterior, and walked to the right - to see a small, shabby looking hut which was dwarfed by the workshop. She was relieved it was still there, and outside, to her surprise, were the orders of materials that arrived in January, March, April, June and August, stacked neatly outside. Among those were the stone cylinders which came with January, March and June's order. She left them outside, knowing that she had some spares inside the shed. To her dismay, she didn't and she was thanful that she had the stone cylinders from the order to use - but unfortunately that was only four stone cylinders, when she needed six. Oh well, she wasn't complaining. She lifted up the cylinders, with a bit of trouble and deposited them in front of the workshop and headed to the other side to the weapons storage. (yeah, she has too many things lol, but let's just say Cao Zhi bought it for her =D)
Inside there were many different types of weapons, usually just one of the item inside. From swords to pikes, ladders to catapaults, onage-
"WAIT. WHERE IS MY ONAGER?"
She asked the dusty air, no reply. Feeling quite flustered, Wei Wei instead tugged out an old, splintered catapult, ready to modify it in any way necessary to reach her dream. Running inside of the workshop and grabbing the blueprints, tools and other necessary equipment, Wei Wei walked leisurely into the garden and looked at the catapult. Firstly she would need to attach the chain and stone cylinder. She first made sure the chain was the right length for the stone cylinders and using a sharp chisel type thing, she punched a whole into it by hammering the chisel. She then proceeded to do the same with the catapault, however doing it softer so that the fragile catapault wouldn't break.
She then attached the light black chain onto the catapault each of the four sides specifically, tied it up tightly so the chain wouldn't become loose and began to attach the four slightly heavy cylinders, which she had chiseled into some sharp stakes. Once that tedious task was completed, she made a small hole so the stone cylinder would be able to be fitted neatly inside of the hole. Since those tasks had been completed, she now had to turn her eyes to the task ahead; attaching the extra hurlers. She was considering taking away two of those hurlers - 8 seemed too extreme a thing.
In the end she did take away the extra hurlers, so she had 6 planned. The catapault she had at the moment was only capable of firing one catapault at a time, usually every 4-5 minutes, which wasn't very productive. Wei Wei would need to add two more hurlers onto the original post, and reinforce it so that the wood wouldn't break from the weight. In addition to this, she needed to replicate this stick so that she could add the other three hurlers. The confused inventor decided to start with the extra pole. Finding a plank of wood on the other side of her forge, she dragged it across the grass, which immediately went back into place after being pressed down.
Carefully measuring the length of the plank of wood to the one on the catapault, she needed to trim some off with her saw. Wei Wei looked into the sky to see if it was late - which it was. She needed to hurry. She started to rush things, and made a few errors, which were soon rectified. She trimmed bits of wood off, made the size more appropriate, and reinforced the pole with a sheet of metal at the base of it. The pole was now perfect, now she needed to attach the hurlers, which would be a hard task. Carefully detaching one from it's hurler, she rushed inside of her blacksmith place; dreading what was to come out (she wasn't skilled at textiles, or anything like that).
An hour or so later - which seemed like a decade or two - she emerged, looking like an angel who had just met Jesus. In her hand were 5 delicate replicas of the hurler, which needed to be attached to the first pole, and the second pole (which had been put onto the catapault). Putting the first hurler where it belonged - it hit her, where would the others go? They couldn't go on the same pole, or they would all bang into each other and totally destroy the catapault. Realising her mistake, and feeling a bit idiotic for making it - she punched a hole through both of the poles using her tools and slid a new, short pole in smoothly, and made sure it was secure.
Once that fairly easy task was out of the way, Wei Wei binded the other hurlers onto the catapault. Her masterpiece was finished, now to test it. Driving the stone stakes into the ground, she looked for something slightly heavy she could launch. Running inside of her large forge, she looked for some of her old possesions. She found the tools she had used for the last few years; they were outdated. She needed new ones, so she came to the conclusion to use the old tools as her test subjects.
Carrying the tools outside with some trouble, she placed each of them into one of the hurlers, while the poles were poised to strike. Once all of them were in, she pulled a lever which threw the poles upwards towards the heavens. The only restraint were the joints attached to them. The tools however, flew right out to Xu Chang's market place! Wei Wei let out a quiet chuckle... Just out of nowhere, tools would be falling out of the sky attacking the civillians, Wei Wei was amused at the amount of chaos she would cause.
"Well, this project is a success!"
She yelled loudly into the sky. Making sure that the blueprints were kept safely, she began development on her second invention
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Wei Wei's second invention was a pot. A pot that when broken would release a vicious fire. The design was quite simple, and this would be achieved much faster than the catapault.
Wei Wei would take half of a pot and fill that with oil, then she would seal it up with clay and take the other half of the pot and put it back on (making sure it was seale of course). Inside of the top part of the pot would be hay stuffed into it. She would then set the hay on fire, and either throw it or launch it in a catapault, once it impacted the target, the target would burst into flame because the oil and fire would mix.
The theory worked, and Wei Wei was sure that when put into practice, it would work fantastically. Sprinting inside of her now almost dust free workshop, she looked around for a medium sized pot to use. She rummaged through cupboards, emptied drawers and flattened her paper boxes looking for one. After searching for one and being an unsuccessful loser, she checked the last cupboard where she kept her lamp oil, and as if the Heavens themselves wanted her to make this, the oil was stored in several medium sized pots.
Since the pot was full to the brim with oil, she looked for a place where she could deposit the extra oil and a few minutes later, she found an empty oil pot where she dumped half of the oil stored inside. Now that the extra oil was out, she proceeded to cut the pot in half with a very sharp blade, which was far from blunt. Even though the blade was sharp, it took her a while to get through the whole pot and it was a rough cut, some of the oil even spilt out onto her hands and robes.
When that part was done, Wei Wei needed to cover up the top with some clay. Gathering the clay from her old time, she dampened it, and started to give it some form. It was hard, because she hadn't used clay in a long time, and she didn't have the special machine to form it properly. Although all in all she finished with a nice top. She fitted the clay plate neatly on top of the pot (which had also been wetted). She fitted the top on, and left it outside to dry.
Because she didn't have anything else to do, she needed to get engineers and the other constructors to make these inventions and more every day. Striding out of her garden into her house, and out of her house onto the road, and out of the road into the Development workshop.
"Listen up, maggots!"
She attracted the attention (the bad kind) of some tough looking guys by saying the work "maggots". She was slightly intimidated, but she pressed on, puffing up her chest and raising her voice to catch the attention of everyone in the room.
"I am Wei Wei, the advisor of internal matters for the Minister of Development, and your superior."
She bellowed, working hard to still sound tough and dangerous Half of the people inside of the big black building groaned. They were going be ordered around a lot, by a woman no less.
"I need 30 strong able men to construct my new inventions daily."
She said, starting to grin a little when no one volunteered. She picked out 30 of the most intelligent, and strong looking ones.
"Right, you all, follow me, NOW."
She ordered with a demanding overtone. Most of the men rolled their eyes and started to follow. Some expressed their discontent by not following Wei Wei, but after a scary glare from her, even they followed her. She led them across the street, as if they were a procession constantly saying, "March, march, march march march!" Some of the commoners walking past started to boo at them because their "procession" sucked.
Once reaching Wei Wei's house, she led them into the garden and started to explain what their task was.
"Okay, so I've chosen you because you seem to be the most able workers and the smartest. I'll show you how to make these wonderful inventions, and you'll follow suit."
Using hand gestures and a mini speech, Wei Wei demonstrated how to make the catapault. Most of the workers looked amazed at the simple technology used, others were picking their noses and trying to eat a butterfly.
"Okay, so you start with a regular catapault - or an onager, and you need about 4-6 stone cylinders to make them, like these stone stakes, they used to be cylinders. You'll need chains like this, as well as extra planks of wood. Firstly, you'll need to punch some holes through the catapault or onager and the stone cylinders so that the chain can be tied around both. You need to make sure that the chain is the right length so that the stone stake will be able to be driven into the ground. Once that is done, you'll get your chain and tie in a knot... Like this... And do the same for the stone stake. Next you'll need to drive two holes into the pole, so that the stakes will be able to be stored into it. Next, you'll need to heat up your stone cylinder on the edges, like so on this metal bar, then you need to get your chisel, and get the edges like so, make sure they're sharp so that they may be driven into the ground. Next we're going to have to attach the the second pole, and the extra ones for the extra hurlers. Okay, so you need to make the pole like so... Then you need to attach the other poles onto it, and make sure that the hurlers are well made and are attached properly. With that the catapault is completed, and it should be ready to go."
Half of the men who were incompetant fools looked extremely puzzled at the end of the presentation, which made Wei Wei sigh. She didn't have time for brainless fools, although they were her only chance of making these inventions work - and she was willing to take the risk with them if necessary. The others were facinated and in awe of this amazing weaponry. They were inspired to build it, they needed to.
"I expect at least five of these every week or fortnight."
The men saluted and just as they were leaving Wei Wei yelled:
"STOP. I didn't say I was finished, you'll be producing this pot also. Now this one is a lot less complicated, so even the half witted ones will be able to do it."
Once again using hand gestures and showing how to do it, she explained, this time making it a lot more vague, because this invention was simple.
"Okay, we start with a regular pot, yes? Now we will slice the pot in half using this special sword which is VERY sharp, and fill the bottom half with a bit of oil. About half of the bottom will be enough - we don't want to waste too many resources. Next you need to form a flat dish of clay, and make sure it's fixed onto the top of the bottom half. Next you need to put the top half on (make sure it's fixed onto it), and leave it over night to dry. That's it."
She paused for a minute, then added.
"I expect at least 10 of these done a week. Go away and do these tasks."
She said and handing the blueprints to one of the sane individuals of the group. The group of 30 left grumbling comments like; "What a jerk.", "She gives too much work", and my personal favourite, "Stupid Poet.".
Wei Wei, however, was very pleased with herself, she slipped into bed knowing that she would be doing the Wei name proud and fell asleep just like that. It had been a hectic day, she deserved the rest.
Next morning, she woke up fresh and rejuvinated. She rushed downstairs to find the pot, bathed in the morning sun light had dried. Because there was already hay messily stuffed into it, she needed to find a fire. Eventually, she decided to make one and she set the hay alight, and then sending the pot hurtling towards a garden wall. The pot broke, as expected, but it also let out the oil and the fire, which mixed setting a good portion of the wall on fire. It was a success. An amazing sucess.
"Hah, I'm such a genius."
