Quick Transmigration: Reversing the Life of a Cannon Fodder Female Supporting Character

The courtyard where wooden parts were made was very close to the back gate of the Marquis's mansion. Cui Yao had the carriage driven in directly, ordered his personal guards to seal off the vicinity, and took all the parts and craftsmen onto the carriage, heading straight for the outskirts of the capital.

She didn't hide what she was going to do from the Lady of the Marquis, nor from the Princess; their situations were almost identical.

In the last two years, I've been playing games to distract myself and avoid thinking about sad things all day.

Cui Yao: "..."

Nobody believes her!!

This time, she took the tightly covered carriage out of the city, and the princess laughed when she heard about it.

"They've made it sound quite mysterious."

Sitting in the carriage leaving the city, Cui Yao held a thick stack of papers in her hand. Granny Cui had gone from being shocked to getting used to it. When they were on the frontier, her master had asked about crossbows and even had someone bring them a real one so she could try shooting a crossbow bolt.

Then they disassembled that intricate crossbow, disassembled it!

At that time, she watched her master explore and examine the parts one by one. Some parts were clearly one piece, but her master still tried to break them open to see.

After dismantling four or five crossbow bolts, the master seemed to lose interest and no longer wanted to look at them.

Then the master started drawing, and while he was drawing, he chased all the servants out. The amount of paper kept increasing. After arriving in the capital, he started making things and found more than a dozen craftsmen to make things in the courtyard every day according to the master's drawings.

There were many blacksmiths working on the estate. The master had visited several times and had given them diagrams.

To this day, Granny Cui still doesn't know what her mistress is up to. She's so busy she barely has time to breathe, and she's even pushed the household management of the Marquis's mansion onto her.

Before leaving, Cui Yao spoke with Lin Shi: "Second sister-in-law, don't rush Cen'er's matter. The longer she stays at home, the more anxious the Zhang family will be. Let's stall them and wait until we discuss the matter with Cen'er before making any decisions. This time, I'm going to a manor in the outskirts of the capital to make something. If it succeeds, many things will be easier to handle."

Although Lin didn't know what her eldest sister-in-law was planning, she couldn't persuade Cen'er, so she agreed and said that it would be fine to delay for a while.

At the manor on the outskirts of Beijing, the crossbow carts had been assembled, and Cui Yao was instructing his personal guards on how to operate them.

"See that little hill? Shoot it."

The guards adjusted the direction. They had tested it countless times in the past few days. Cui Yao had theoretical knowledge and had even drawn detailed breakdown diagrams of the crossbow from the books in her space. However, there were still some deviations in actual operation. But it didn't matter. She had the time and patience to adjust it.

boom!

boom!

boom!

As the giant arrow was fired, a small portion of the distant hilltop was sheared off.

"Good heavens, the adjusted ballista is far too powerful!"

"Is it three hundred zhang?"

"Three hundred and ninety feet!"

"What? What? Doesn't that mean you can shoot the barbarians' heads off from a distance?"

"Where? It could flatten the barbarian camp with arrows."

Many of Cui Yao's personal guards came from the frontier battlefields and had a natural affinity for weapons, especially the powerful crossbows that they helped assemble.

"Princess, is this crossbow intended for use on the frontier battlefield?"

"Of course, it was made to reduce the number of injuries to our soldiers," Cui Yao replied simply and affirmatively.

Then she ordered someone to invite her mother, the eldest princess, to come. Only the eldest princess knew best how to present this to the court, how to get the emperor to witness it in person, and how to claim the greatest honor for herself.

The eldest princess doted on her daughter and arrived that very afternoon.

"Yao'er, what new thing do you want to show your mother? Is the thing you've been working on for a month finished?"

"Yes, let me show you something new." Cui Yao stepped forward, and the old nanny beside the princess tactfully gave up her seat.

"Wow, it's so big!"

"Mother, you watch." She then nodded to her personal guards, "Let's begin."

The eldest princess was already shocked, and it took her a long time to speak: "Is this the repeating crossbow you were talking about?"

"Well, did my daughter do a good job?" Cui Yao raised her head with some pride. Although it was an achievement copied from another timeline, it was ultimately created by her own hands.

"Very well, very well," the eldest princess said repeatedly. "My daughter would be best even if she did nothing at all."

"Mother, how can you praise yourself like that?"

"Hahaha, Yao'er, tell your mother, what do you plan to do with this crossbow cart?" The eldest princess knew that her daughter had summoned her first, so it must be for more than just the border region where the Xiao family was located.

"Mother." Cui Yao helped her walk a few steps away, and the servants wisely did not follow: "The Xiao family has been stationed on the frontier for generations, holding a large army. If the person sitting in the top position is broad-minded, it's fine, but once they become suspicious, the Xiao family will be doomed."

The Xiao family also realized this problem, so they were very careful about the marriages of their children in the past two generations. Apart from themselves, the princess, the other in-laws were all people with some reputation but not very prominent, such as the Wang family and the Zhang family.

She, as a princess, offered herself up; the original owner of this body had taken a liking to Xiao Wujiang, which led to the marriage.

But she wasn't the original owner. Now that I think about it, Xiao Wujiang might have had some feelings for the original owner, but the reason their marriage was possible was largely because the original owner was considered a member of the royal family. If her mother hadn't been the emperor's sister, and she had been just an ordinary girl from the Cui family, Xiao Wujiang would have hesitated no matter how much he liked her.

After hearing her daughter's words, the eldest princess simply glanced at her calmly and said, "Yao'er has become sensible."

Cui Yao blushed. This body was forty years old. This was the age of the times, the age to be a grandmother. How could this be considered mature? This was just late blooming, which also proved how smoothly Princess Fu'an's life had gone!

Princess Mingxin chuckled and patted her daughter's hand: "Mother would have hoped you would never be so worried, but it's good that you've thought of this now."

"When His Majesty was young, he was kind and benevolent, and he was able to tolerate the Xiao family, who held great military power. With your marriage to them, the Xiao family enjoyed twenty years of peace and stability. Now, His Majesty..." The Princess gazed into the distance.

"The current emperor is old and suspicious, while the crown prince is a very tactful person, but unfortunately, he is now also teetering on the brink of collapse."

Cui Yao suddenly remembered that in the original owner's life, the crown prince was deposed, which should be next year. After the crown prince was deposed, he was imprisoned in a small manor near the imperial mausoleum. The emperor did not intend to kill his son, but the crown prince's brothers were all ruthless. They intercepted the grain in the small manor. After two years of imprisonment, when the emperor remembered the crown prince, the crown prince had already starved to death.

The emperor was devastated and remained bedridden for half a year before passing away.

The sixth prince, who was narrow-minded, succeeded to the throne. After that, many powerful families and officials were purged, which can be described as a new emperor bringing a new court.

The Xiao family was considered to have encountered trouble relatively late.

"Your Highness, you will be..."

Although Cui Yao only said half of it, the princess understood.

"Nine times out of ten," it will be scrapped.