The morale of the Shatuo army was no longer high in the morning, and a siege battle caused them to return with heavy casualties, which greatly damaged the morale of the Shatuo army.

Inside the big tent, Shatuo Jinhai was pacing back and forth with a heavy heart, and he was summing up the lessons of today's battle.

First of all, he didn't take into account the heavy crossbow of the Tang army, so that the trebuchet was unguarded and directly exposed to the opponent's crossbow arrows, which was reminded by the craftsman Hui, but he was troublesome and ignored it, and now it seems that he really didn't think it through.

The second is that he was too anxious to attack and withdrew the trebuchet too early, so he should have let the trebuchet carry out a saturation attack on Zhangye City, or let the trebuchet cover the attack of the soldiers, and if he could suppress the opponent's bow and crossbow shots, the casualties of the soldiers of the Shatuo Army would not be so heavy.

He made too many mistakes, in the final analysis, he despised Tang Jun and Guo Song, Zhu Xie Jinhai had a painful remorse, how could he believe that the morale of the Tang Army was low, how could he believe this kind of nonsense, he had already suffered losses in the hands of Guo Song, but he had not learned a lesson at all.

"Dashuai, are we going to fight or withdraw?" Several captains on the side asked in a deep voice.

"Are you willing to withdraw your troops like this?" Zhu Xie Jinhai asked coldly.

Several captains lowered their heads, in fact, they all didn't want to fight, but since the commander said so, they would definitely not give up.

Lieshan Aru plucked up his courage and said: "Unless we find a way to deal with the Tang Army's bow and arrow, if we continue to fight like today, our casualties will be even worse." ”

"I have found a way to deal with the bow and arrow of the Tang army, and I will implement it immediately, but the army must be on guard at night to prevent the enemy from sneaking attack, and we will attack the city again tomorrow!"

Zhu Xie Jinhai made up his mind at this moment, he must catch Guo Song and cut him with a thousand knives with his own hands.

.........

At night, the Shatuo army camp was still brightly lit, and the Hui craftsmen began to get busy again, they had to repair the damaged trebuchet, and at the same time build the trebuchet's defensive weapon - wooden baffle, which was a defensive tool used by the nomads to deal with the bed crossbow of the Central Plains army, which was actually a large shield, about one zhang high and three zhang wide, with brackets on both sides.

Shatuojun is very rough, directly nailed with logs, although it is rough, but the effect is good, can block the heavy crossbow arrows shot by the Tang army.

Although they succeeded in creating a baffle to defend against the Tang Army's crossbow arrows, the craftsmen also brought another bad news to Zhu Xie Jinhai, the giant trebuchet found a crack in the casting rod, and they did not have a spare throwing rod, which meant that the super trebuchet that only fired a boulder had been completely damaged.

Zhu Xie Jinhai's face was pale, and he looked at the throwing rod that was broken in two on the ground with hatred, just now the craftsmen did a pressure test, and the result was completely broken.

"Can you continue to use it if it's tied up and sturdy?"

The leader of the craftsman said with a difficult face: "Once broken, it can no longer be used, and the binding is useless, but it will affect the safety of the projection soldiers." ”

"A bunch of useless fools!"

Zhu Xie Jinhai scolded stupidly, then turned around and returned to the big tent.

At the same time, 2,000 patrolmen were deployed around the Shatuo camp, which was very well guarded, and no one wanted to get close to the camp.

Guo Song stood at the head of the city with his hands in his hands, staring at the brightly lit camp three miles away, his eyes kept flickering, as if he was thinking about a plan to break the enemy.

"Dudu, Shatuo should be a big tribe, right?" Yao Jin asked in a low voice on the side.

Guo Song smiled and said: "It is a relatively large tribe, claiming to have 200,000 armorers, I guess they have a maximum of 100,000 troops, and the nomads are all soldiers, 100,000 armorers means that it has 100,000 young and strong men, and it is estimated that the entire Shatuo has a population of more than 500,000!" ”

"Then why don't they send a little more troops? 30,000 people want to seize Zhangye, which is a bit too confident. ”

Guo Song said lightly: "The Shatuo people are not only our enemies, the Gelulu people are ready to move in the north, and the intention to go south is becoming more and more obvious, if it were not for the fact that they were pinned down by the Hui people, the war for Yiwu would have broken out long ago, and the Shatuo people were also aware of this crisis, so they decided to seize the Hexi Corridor as their retreat, you must not think that they are working for the Hui people." ”

Yao Jin nodded, "It turns out that this is the reason why I was taught in a humble position!" ”

Guo Song sneered again and said: "In fact, the Hui people really made a strategic mistake, they should let the Shatuo people attack the Qarluq from the south, and the Qarluq people from the north and south, and the Qarluq people can only retreat westward, the Hui people reoccupy the north of Jinshan, and the Shatuo people get south of Jinshan, an excellent plan is not chosen, but choose to confront the Tang Dynasty, how unwise!" ”

"Someone must have thought of that, right?"

"Some people may think that maybe the Hui people think that they can deal with the Qarluqs and don't want the Shatuo people to get a piece of the pie, there are various reasons, but in my opinion, it is indeed a huge mistake that they did not choose to flank the Qarluqs from the north and south."

Speaking of this, Guo Song patted Yao Jin's arm, "Rest early!" There will be a big battle tomorrow. ”

"Governor, please rest early, too!"

Guo Song smiled, he was really a little tired today, turned around and walked quickly down the city.

.........

The next morning, more than 20,000 Shatuo soldiers lined up neatly on the grassland, and behind them were huge trebuchets and nest carts, most of which were repaired and rough baffles built after a night of emergency repairs.

Zhu Xie Jinhai rode a horse and galloped, brandishing his sword and shouting: "Today we will fight the enemy again, what we want is victory, what we want is to plant the Shatuo banner on the head of Zhangye City, we will never flee north with our tails between our legs, we would rather die on the battlefield, Shatuo warriors, we must not be defeated in the hands of the Han people, our strong, we are brave, we are the king of the grassland, we will never give up!" ”

More than 20,000 people raised their spears, and the excited shouts resounded through the sky, only to hear Zhu Xie Jinhai shouting: "The women in the city, gold, silver, all kinds of goods, everything is yours!" ”

The mood of the Shatuo soldiers was mobilized again, and everyone was in high blood, eager to cut off the enemy's head with a knife, and the morale that had been somewhat low was once again aroused.

Zhu Xie Jin waved his sword, "The trebuchet pressed on it and smashed everything into powder!" ”

Thirty-five trebuchets rumbled towards the city under the pull of the strong ox, and this time the Shatuo army learned their lesson and placed a huge baffle in front of each trebuchet, which was like a huge shield to protect the soldiers and trebuchets from the Tang army's heavy crossbows.

The trebuchet quickly returned to its position yesterday, the baffle was also placed in front, and thousands of soldiers began to quickly adjust their casting rods.

The appearance of the baffle is indeed a bit difficult for the Tang Army's heavy crossbow soldiers at the head of the city, the heavy crossbow is almost always an oblique throw, not a direct shot from the empowerment, the baffle just blocks the manipulating soldiers below, and although the projectile can hit the trebuchet, but it must be shot right on the belt at the front end, it depends on luck.

However, the appearance of the baffle was expected by Guo Song, in the battle of Raoyang in the Anshi Rebellion, the trebuchet was used to the extreme, leaving a lot of classic examples, how to crack the baffle has a good way.

The trebuchet of the Shatuo has a range of about 350 paces, but it fires from the back, so it will be placed at 320 paces, just enough to hit the head of the city.

The range of the Tang army's trebuchet is also about three hundred and fifty steps, but because it is placed in the city, its actual range against the enemy outside the city is about three hundred steps, and it is still twenty or thirty steps away from hitting the enemy's trebuchet.

"Launch!"

Captain Shatuo shouted, and more than thirty slings 'Bang!' Bang! 'The ground was launched.

More than 30 boulders smashed the city head, the city wall shook, and the soldiers lay down to dodge.

At this moment, the Tang Army's forty trebuchets also began to launch, the boulders they used were more special, not boulders mined in the mountains, but huge pebbles found from the Zhangye River or the Gobi Desert, each weighing hundreds of catties, washed by the water flow for hundreds of millions of years, became round and smooth, such pebbles will not stop after landing, but will be driven by inertia to continue to roll forward hundreds of steps, no matter how strong the baffle can not withstand their impact, trebuchets can not withstand their impact.

One of the Lang generals shouted, "Projection! ”

More than forty trebuchets were launched at the same time, and more than forty huge pebbles were thrown high into small black dots, whistling out of the city.