Page 267 of DATE
During this period of staying behind, nothing happened in Luka. The residents started living their normal peaceful lives, and few cared about the fate of the muddled old city lord. The latter had completely given up resistance in his private garden. After eating, he would slump down and snore, too lazy to bother with anyone anymore.
Taking advantage of this assembly period, Hedy officially named the legion—Diamond.
She had completed the control and decentralization of both large and small mercenary groups. All the leaders were granted seemingly honorable and prestigious military ranks and titles, yet no one noticed that certain things were secretly being reshuffled.
Everyone was happy to see the commissions continually rising, and they themselves appeared respectable and impressive.
However, the leaders of the mercenary groups found their control over the scattered soldiers increasingly being balanced and checked.
It must be said that her previous life’s clever manipulation of interpersonal relations came in as sharply as a blade in this era.
The Diamond Legion was divided into four divisions, each scheduled for regular patrols, handovers, and training drills. Though the number of musket troops was not large, every single one of them was carefully chosen elite.
Only a very few could master the use of the matchlock gun proficiently.
Da Vinci never expected that one day he would stand in front of a group of soldiers, teaching them how to use weapons. Yet, his adaptability was quite timely.
He was tall and eloquent, and his reputation in the army was growing daily.
Luris once again steadied the gun with her shoulder, aiming at a wooden target in the distance.
About a hundred feet away from her, another man fired first—
As soon as he pulled the trigger, accompanied by a deafening explosion, his entire body was pushed back by the recoil of the long gun, stumbling several steps. The heavy wooden stock nearly struck his forehead, and a distant scream could be heard.
The wooden target stood perfectly still, without a trace of gunpowder on it.
... How was Leo able to control the weapon so flawlessly when he fired?
Hedy casually signed her name on the military order and raised her head to observe the situation on the field.
They had originally been working on enhancing the matchlock gun’s explosive power and lethality, but given the current situation, this might not be a good thing.
She squinted slightly, trying to figure out where she had missed something.
The guns of this era did not have grips.
Though she had never experienced war herself, she knew what such things looked like on television.
It seemed that different countries' armies used different kinds of guns, and the shapes of the grips varied as well.
There were quite a few triangular ones—according to basic geometric principles, triangles imply stability.
But there were also vertical grips, which seemed to be quite popular.
Hedy thought for a moment and gestured for Leonardo to come over.
He had been wiping down a cannon, halfway through, but seeing the gesture, he quickly grabbed a cloth and hurried over.
"What is it?"
"I'm not very familiar with mechanical analysis..." She pulled out a discarded manuscript, flipped it over, and sketched a quick diagram. "If we added a grip at the middle or rear part of this long lever-like weapon, would it improve its stability?"
The primary goal was to reduce recoil and stabilize the gun, and secondly, to allow for better control over shooting accuracy.
Da Vinci furrowed his brows, took the pencil, and sat beside her.
He was an outstanding mathematician, having contributed to the design of Milan Cathedral's dome.
