Before we could build the weapons of the future, we had to fix our material bottlenecks. The local LLM dug through the prepper and chemistry databases to solve our zinc and copper shortages.
I directed the mining teams away from depleted surface deposits to deeper veins of sphalerite (zinc sulfide). The Alchemists mastered the "retort distillation" process, roasting the ore with charcoal in sealed earthenware vessels to condense pure zinc vapor. Battery production stabilized. To save precious copper for telegraph lines and generators, the Hand Cannon team switched to using high-grade, low-carbon wrought iron for structural parts. We optimized our smelting using waterwheel-driven blast furnaces to achieve higher temperatures, producing cleaner steel than anything available in Christendom.
The "Horseless Wagon" project initially hit a massive wall. The engineers looked at my Honda CB Verza and wanted to clone its internal combustion engine. I had to shut that down quickly. The precision tolerances, spark plugs, fuel injection, and refined petroleum required for a 150cc four-stroke engine were centuries out of reach for a 15th-century forge. Instead, I pivoted the team to High-Pressure Steam Power.
While an internal combustion engine requires microscopic precision, a steam engine can be cast using the same techniques the metallurgists used for casting massive bronze castle bells. We designed a heavy, double-acting steam piston engine, fueled by burning local coal or high-density charcoal. The waterwheel-driven gears were used to construct heavy iron chain drives to transfer power from the steam piston to massive, iron-shod wooden wheels.
High-Pressure Steam Power is chosen because it provide power and gives a vibe of absolute monstrosity breathing smokes and spit out fires, as I suggest to the team to deploy flamethrowers on the sides of the vehicle.
Now assembling the Leviathan (1484-1485), for two years, the House of Wisdom was a cacophony of hammering, hissing steam, and grinding gears. We built the prototype inside a heavily guarded, enclosed courtyard in the lower complex of the Alhambra. For the chassis and armor, we built a massive frame of cured oak, reinforced with iron brackets. Over this, we bolted overlapping, angled sheets of hammered wrought iron. The sloped armor was designed specifically to deflect Castilian crossbow bolts and the heavy stone balls of enemy bombards. The Hand Cannon team succeeded brilliantly. Instead of the crude, unpredictable medieval handgonnes of the era, they used Wikipedia's mechanical engineering schematics that’s been transcribed into books and manual to construct a bored, cast-bronze breech-loading cannon. By using a breech-loader, the crew could reload from safely inside the armored cabin rather than exposing themselves to enemy fire.
The same man I talked before, Tariq, still fascinated by the properties of electricity, hooked a miniature Axial Flux Generator directly to the steam engine's spinning flywheel. He ran wires to the front of the wagon, creating a crude but incredibly bright Carbon Arc Searchlight. This allowed the wagon to operate at night, blinding enemy forces before a single shot was fired.
We built three of these horseless wagon.
Then there is The Battle of Loja in 1486, the Castilian army under King Ferdinand marched on the vital frontier city of Loja. In real history, this was a brutal siege where the Christian forces utilized heavy artillery to breach the walls. In our timeline, we brought the anvil to the hammer.
The strategy is to stay alert, the telegraph network alerted us to the exact trajectory of Ferdinand’s vanguard. The Emir personally rode out with the elite Granadan cavalry, but they held the line while the Armored Wagon, which the scribes officially named Al-Burraq (The Lightning Mount), rattled onto the battlefield at a staggering 5 miles per hour, thick black smoke billowing from its iron stack.
The Castilian heavy cavalry charged, thinking it was a clumsy siege tower. Tariq threw the switch on the carbon arc light, bathing the night battlefield in a terrifying, unnatural white glare. The enemy horses panicked instantly.
Then, Al-Burraq’s breech-loading cannon opened fire. Because our refined black powder was consistently granulated (the corning process), the cannon had twice the range and velocity of the Castilian artillery. We tore through their front ranks while sitting safely behind sloped iron armor that their bolts merely scratched.
The aftermath was a decisive victory in our part. The vanguard of Castile broke and fled in absolute terror, spreading rumors across Spain of an iron monster that breathed fire, threw lightning from its eyes, and fought without horses. Loja was saved, Ferdinand’s campaign was utterly derailed, and the Emirate of Granada firmly established its technological supremacy over the Iberian peninsula.
What I proposed to the Emir next is horseless wagon logistics (electric powered wagon) and more personalized hand cannon that similar to a musket.