The young general of the Tang Dynasty found that these Arab guys not only have bad brains and backward technology, but also very dogmatic, he just told the official in charge of manufacturing equipment, let him build more, but this guy just refused to make more, and refused to do so on the grounds that there was no order from the city lord.

Because he was very confident in the mask he designed, the Datang junior put forward a request to make more before the experiment, but this guy not only did not agree, but also refused to consult the city lord, and even directly asked the Datang junior general to go to the city lord, if the city lord agreed, he would increase the production.

Of course, you can't blame this person's dogma, his current task is also very heavy, not only to build a large number of equipment, but also to repair a lot of siege equipment sent from the city wall, he is also very busy, if the construction of the mask delays the construction of the city defense equipment, he can't afford such a responsibility, and he personally feels that the mask is not very useful, so he is also very refused.

The young general of the Tang Dynasty is also unwilling to be the head of the villain, anyway, the fall of the city and the loss of a large number of people and horses are not his business, he just came to assist, even if he loses the city, he will not have any risk.

It's just out of friendship that he told the generals defending the city about this, as long as it can really reduce the loss of the defending soldiers and horses, the generals in charge of defending the city will definitely support building more, after all, the loss is the soldiers and horses under his command, and there is no reason why he can't go all out to reduce casualties.

It's just that he heard that the city lord has to agree, so he hesitated a little, after all, the city lord has already rested, and disturbing the city lord at this time will definitely make the city lord very unhappy, if he annoys the city lord, it will not be good for him.

"Adjutant General, you lead ten soldiers ......"

If the official in charge of the equipment still refuses to make it, he will ask the lieutenant to go to the lord of the city and tell the lord of the city about the matter, and by the way, also inform the head of the city about the defense.

Although it has entered the middle of the night, the siege strength of the soldiers and horses outside the city has not weakened at all, and there is no sign of weakening, but there is a tendency to strengthen, perhaps because the night better covers the soldiers and horses outside the city, they have become more active, especially the Khorasan crossbowmen, who are even more active, and from time to time the soldiers and horses defending the city are killed by their cold arrows.

Afraid of the sniping of the crossbowmen outside the city, the defenders on the city wall became weaker and weaker, they did not dare to stick their heads out, and besides, they could not see the enemy soldiers in the trenches outside the city, so they did not release arrows, or once after a period of time, they adopted the method of blind shooting, in order to show their existence, so that the soldiers and horses outside the city did not dare to risk advancing too close to the city, and they could avoid the enemy army from risking to attack the city with ladders.

The young general of the Tang Dynasty did not participate in the war, there were only a few dozen soldiers and horses under his command, even if he participated in the battle, it would not play a role, he just came to assist, and by the way came up with ideas or something.

Looking at the passive appearance of the defending soldiers and horses on the city wall, he felt that he should do something, at least to change the current decline and let the defending soldiers and horses have more morale.

"It's infuriating that our soldiers are attacked by crossbowmen as soon as they show their heads, and our soldiers can't see the enemy soldiers in the trenches,"

The general sighed very angrily, looking very helpless, if the enemy army risked attacking the city with a ladder at this moment, how should the soldiers under his command resist?

"Since the Khorasan archers like to release arrows, let's let them put them enough, we can prepare more scarecrows and collect arrows from the enemy, so that we can have more arrows, and we can kill more birds with one stone!"

The Tang junior general said.

"Scarecrow, what's the use?"

The general naturally didn't know the role of the scarecrow, and looked curious.

The young general of Datang said: "The scarecrow is a person made of straw, there is a story in our Datang where the straw boat borrows arrows, are you interested in hearing it?" ”

"The enemy is attacking the city fiercely, now is not the time to listen to the story!"

The general was responsible for commanding the defense of the city, and from time to time he had to care about the situation of the defense of the city.

"It's good to have soldiers in charge of defense, this story is very short, it won't waste too much of your time."

The young general of Datang said.

"Alright! Straw boats borrow arrows, right? I'm listening? Tell me about it! ”

The general said anxiously.

The story of Zhuge Liang's straw boat borrowing arrows from the Tang Dynasty general told the generals of the city defense very concisely, and pointed out that in the battle to defend the city at this moment, it is completely possible to follow this practice and use the scarecrow to obtain the arrow resources of the besieging side, which is conducive to his next battle.

"It's a good idea to use the scarecrow to waste the enemy's arrows! If the enemy runs out of arrows, there will be no way to attack our soldiers, and our soldiers will have more arrows that they can better use against the enemy. ”

The generals admired the scarecrow tactics very much and recognized it very much.

"Where are we going to make scarecrows?"

The Datang junior picked up a broken spear, wrapped a strip of cloth covered with blood stains on it, and then put a helmet made of rattan on it, and then stood next to the female wall, and stretched the helmet and cloth strip to the lookout of the female wall to test the use effect.

"Whoosh......"

The effect is really good, just started the test, an arrow hit the helmet, and the remaining force shot the helmet back a little.

"Look, it's not bad! It was so easy to get an arrow, and besides, it was still intact and completely usable. ”

The Datang junior pulled out the arrow embedded in the cloth strip and handed it to the general.

"This method is really good, and it can be promoted, so that it can not only attract attacks from outside the city, but also better cover our soldiers to fight back."

The general said with great satisfaction.

The spacing between the lookouts of the women's wall is very small, but because of the number of soldiers, it is impossible to deploy a soldier at all the lookouts, so it is too dense, and the casualties will increase a lot accordingly, in order to reduce the casualties, only a few soldiers can be deployed, for example, one soldier can be deployed at the lookout posts at five or six intervals, or three or five soldiers at twenty lookouts, so that they can take turns shooting at the enemy outside the city from different lookouts to better avoid the blows of the enemy's soldiers and horses.

In this way, because the number of defenders exposed from the lookouts is not very large, the target is very conspicuous and easy to attack, but if all the lookouts show a head, it will be too difficult to attack.

For example, ten lookouts in a row, nine lookouts have dummies, and one lookout is a real soldier, but in the case of not very sufficient light, who can distinguish between a real person and a dummy, when the Khorasan crossbowmen attack a dummy, they may be attacked by real soldiers defending the city.

However, the simple dummy made by the Datang junior is definitely inappropriate, and it is necessary to create a more unrecognizable dummy in order to play a better role.

Unlike making masks and armor, the difficulty of making dummies is very low, and you don't need the help of an instrument official at all, just gather a group of ordinary people.

In order to make a dummy as soon as possible, the general sent a few soldiers whose homes were in the city, asked them to return to their homes immediately, mobilized the people nearby, and immediately made a dummy, without the slightest delay, anyway, they were all ordinary people, and the generals were not afraid of offending them, let alone worrying that letting them work would tire them out.

The common people worked very hard, and they soon made a large number of scarecrows and sent them to the city walls.

The scarecrows quickly took effect, and some of them were fixed at the lookouts, and even if they were hit by arrows, they would not take them down, giving the soldiers outside the city the impression that the man was dead and the body was uncarried.

There are also some dummies that are in charge of the soldiers, and as long as they are hit, they will quickly remove them, giving the soldiers outside the city the feeling that they are alive.

After pulling out the arrows, the scarecrows will continue to poke their heads out of the position to attract soldiers from outside the city to attack, so that they can get a large number of arrows step by step, while the soldiers outside the city still touch themselves, thinking that they have shot another enemy soldier.

The number of scarecrows is relatively large, there are 500 at the north gate alone, among them, half of the soldiers defending the city are responsible for serving these scarecrows, each is responsible for two scarecrows, one is fixed at the lookout to continue to attract firepower, while the other is constantly moving, creating an atmosphere of a large number of people on the city wall.

There are less than 500 soldiers left, some are responsible for operating catapults and heavy crossbows, and some are responsible for carrying supplies, only a small number of soldiers use bows and arrows to shoot targets outside the city, as long as they find the target, they will shoot, if they can't find it, they will also shoot at the corresponding super approximate target, so as to create an atmosphere of counterattack, so that the soldiers and horses outside the city know that they have been fighting back, and they will defend the city to the death.

The adjutant went to the official in charge of manufacturing equipment, but it still didn't make sense, so he had no choice but to go to Artik, and he had a bad reputation for disturbing the rest of the city lord.

"The city lord has rested, come back after dawn!"

The lieutenant was actually blocked out of the door.

"It's about the lives of the soldiers, and I must see the city lord."

The deputy general's heart was crossed, and he roared loudly, if he went back like this, he couldn't explain to the main general, so he could only rely on it and not leave.

Because of his bad mood, Artik slept very lightly, so he woke up as soon as there was a loud sound, and after waking up, he was no longer sleepy.

However, when people get old, the need for sleep begins to decline, and it is enough to sleep for a short time a night, there is no need to sleep too long, besides, this is a critical moment in the war, how can you spend all your precious time sleeping.

"Somebody yelling."

Seeing that it was not yet dawn, Artik knew that it was still early in the morning, and his mood was slightly unhappy.

"City Lord, my subordinates have important matters."

Said the adjutant general.

"Say it! What's the matter. ”

The lieutenant recounted the matter and asked Artik to give the order to build more masks and neck guards to reduce the proportion of casualties among the soldiers defending the city.

Naturally, Artik quickly agreed to this approach, and immediately sent an order to the officials in charge of manufacturing siege equipment to immediately expand the manufacture of masks and armor.

However, the thing that made Artik nervous was that the soldiers outside the city were well hidden in the trenches, making it difficult for the soldiers defending the city to carry out an effective attack, which was a very serious matter and had to be solved.

Anyway, I can't sleep, so it's better to go to the city to have a look, Artik himself took his own and went to the north gate with a group of guards, which is the main and most important direction of Ziyad's attack.

"City Lord, why are you here, it's dangerous here."

The Lord will see Artik, slightly more effective than expected.

"I heard that the casualties of the soldiers are worse than during the day, can I not come? What's going on now? ”

Artik asked.

"City lord, the current situation is okay, General Tang invented the scarecrow, which greatly reduced the casualties of our soldiers and soldiers, and also got a lot of arrows."

The Lord will say.

"Scarecrow, with such a good effect?"

Altic said.

"The effect is still good, now the greatest threat to our soldiers is the Khorasan archers in the trenches outside the city, they are the closest to us, but we can't see them, the best archers of the enemy should be hiding in the trenches, and have shot and killed many soldiers of our army."

The Lord will speak.

Artik frowned, "They hide in the dark trenches and can't see them at all?" ”

"City Lord, I really can't see it at all, I guess they have blackened their faces, otherwise, we should at least see a bright spot."

The Lord will speak.

"Is there any way to see them? Is it okay to still have a fireball? ”

Artik asked.

"City Lord, we have tried, but it has almost no effect, the trench is very deep, there are not many who can be thrown into the trench, and besides, the soldiers inside can also use arrows to throw the fireball, there is really no way at all, and our soldiers are easy to be seen by them."

The Lord said with chagrin.

"There should be a way to make them appear in their original form and not see how they attack."

Artik frowned and said, and looked at the Tang junior general next to him.

"Is there any good way for General Tang?"

The Datang junior general said: "We have searchlights in Datang, which can illuminate the outside of the city as much as during the day, but there is no such thing in the city, so it is really not easy to do, but ......"

"But what, tell me quickly!"

Artik asked eagerly.

The Tang Dynasty general said: "Li Shilang once taught us the principle of reflection, using mirror reflection, we can cast light on the required area, we can light the torch on the city wall, and place a reflector above the torch, and shine the light of the torch to the city, so that we may be able to see the situation in the trench." ”

"The principle of reflection, is this possible?"

Artik was a little skeptical.