The high morale of the Shatuo Army in the morning was no longer in the camp. A siege battle caused them to fail and suffered heavy casualties, which greatly damaged the morale of the Shatuo Army.
In the big tent, Shatuo Jinhai paced back and forth with a heavy heart, summarizing the lessons learned from today's battle.
First of all, he did not take into account the heavy crossbows of the Tang army, leaving the trebuchet unprotected and directly exposed to the opponent's crossbow arrows. The Huihe craftsmen once reminded him of this, but he ignored it because it was troublesome. Now it seems that he did not think carefully.
.
Secondly, he was too impatient to attack and withdrew the trebuchet prematurely. He should have allowed the trebuchet to carry out a saturation attack on Zhangye City, or let the trebuchet cover the soldiers' attack. If he could suppress the opponent's crossbow shooting, the Shatuo Army soldiers would not suffer casualties.
It would be so disastrous.
He made too many mistakes. In the final analysis, he underestimated the Tang army and Guo Song. Zhu Xie Jinhai felt heartbroken and regretful. How could he believe that the morale of the Tang army was low? How could he believe such nonsense? He was already in
Guo Song suffered losses at his hands, but he didn't learn any lessons.
"Commander, should we fight or retreat?" several captains standing by asked in a deep voice.
"Are you willing to withdraw the troops like this?" Zhu Xie Jinhai asked coldly.
Several captains of ten thousand men lowered their heads. In fact, they didn't want to fight, but since the commander said this, they would definitely not give up.
Lieshan Alu mustered up his courage and said: "Unless we find a way to deal with the Tang army's bows and arrows, if we continue to fight like today, our casualties will be even more severe."
"I have found a way to deal with the Tang army's bows and arrows. I will implement it immediately, but the army must be on guard at night to prevent the enemy from sneak attacks. We will attack the city again tomorrow!"
Zhu Xie Jinhai made up his mind at this moment. He must catch Guo Song and kill him with his own hands.
.........
At night, the lights in the Shatuo Army camp were still bright, and the Uighur craftsmen began to be busy again. They had to repair the damaged trebuchet, and at the same time, they also built the trebuchet's defensive weapons-wooden baffles, which were used by nomads.
A defensive tool used to deal with the crossbows of the Central Plains army is actually a large shield, about one foot high and three feet wide, with brackets on both sides.
The Shatuo Army was very rough, made directly from logs nailed together. Although it was relatively rough, it had a good effect and could block the heavy crossbow arrows fired by the Tang Army.
Whatever you gain, you must lose. Although they successfully created a baffle to defend against the Tang Army's crossbows, the craftsmen also brought another bad news to Zhu Xie Jinhai. Cracks were found on the throwing rod of the giant trebuchet. They did not
The spare throwing rod means that the super trebuchet, which only fired one boulder, has been completely damaged.
Zhu Xie Jinhai's face was livid, and he looked at the throwing pole broken in two on the ground with hatred. The craftsmen had just done a pressure test, and the result was that it was completely broken.
"Tie it up firmly, can you continue to use it?"
The leading craftsman looked troubled and said: "Once broken, it cannot be used again, and binding it is useless. On the contrary, it will affect the safety of the projectile soldiers."
"A bunch of useless idiots!"
Zhu Xie Jinhai cursed angrily, then turned around and returned to the big tent.
At the same time, two thousand patrol posts were deployed around the Shatuo camp, and the defense was very tight. No one could get close to the camp.
Guo Song stood on the top of the city with his hands behind his hands, staring at the brightly lit camp three miles away. His eyes kept flickering, as if he was thinking of ways to defeat the enemy.
"Captain, Shatuo should be a big tribe, right?" Yao Jin asked in a low voice from the side.
Guo Song smiled and said: "It is a relatively large tribe. It is said to have 200,000 armored soldiers. I guess they have at most 100,000 troops. And all the nomads are soldiers. 100,000 armored soldiers means that it has 100,000 young men."
Man, it is estimated that the entire Shatuo has a population of more than half a million!"
"Then why don't they send more troops? Thirty thousand people want to capture Zhangye. This is a bit too confident."
Guo Song said calmly: "The Shatuo people are not the only enemy of ours. The Geluolu people are ready to move in the north, and their intention to go south is becoming more and more obvious. If it were not for being restrained by the Uighurs, the war for Yiwu would have broken out long ago.
The Shatuo people are also aware of this crisis, so they decided to seize the Hexi Corridor as their escape route. You must not think that they are working hard for the Uighurs."
Yao Jin nodded, "So it's for this reason that I have to accept a lesson from my humble position!"
Guo Song sneered again and said: "Actually, the Uighurs really made a strategic mistake. They should have let the Shatuo people attack the Geluolu people from the south and attack the Geluolu people from the north and south. The Geluolu people could only retreat westward.
, the Uighurs reoccupied the north of Jinshan Mountain, and the Shatuo people gained the south of Jinshan Mountain. It was so unwise to ignore an excellent plan and choose to fight against the Tang Dynasty!"
"Someone should have thought of this, right?"
"Some people may think that maybe the Uighurs think they can deal with the Geluolu people and don't want the Shatuo people to take a share of the pie. There are various reasons, but in my opinion, they did not choose to attack the Geluolu people from the north and the south.
It was indeed a huge mistake.”
Speaking of this, Guo Song patted Yao Jin's arm and said, "Go to rest early! There will be a big battle tomorrow."
"Captain, please rest early!"
Guo Song smiled. He was really tired today, so he turned around and hurried down to the city.
.........
The next morning, more than 20,000 Shatuo soldiers lined up neatly on the grassland. Behind them were huge trebuchets and nest carts. After a night of emergency repairs, most of the trebuchets were repaired and rough baffles were built.
Zhu Xiejinhai galloped on horseback, waved his sword and shouted: "Today we will fight the enemy again. What we want is victory. What we want is to put the Shatuo flag on the top of Zhangye City. It is definitely not with our tail between our legs."
To flee north, we would rather die on the battlefield. Warriors of Shatuo, we must not be defeated at the hands of the Han. Our strength and bravery make us the king of the grassland, and we will never give up!"
More than 20,000 people raised their spears high, and excited shouts resounded through the sky. Zhu Xie Jinhai could only be heard shouting: "The women in the city, gold, silver, all kinds of property, everything is yours!"
The emotions of the Shatuo soldiers were once again aroused. Everyone's blood was racing and they wanted to chop off the enemy's head with a knife. The morale that was originally a little low became excited again.
Zhu Xie's golden sea sword waved, "The trebuchet will press forward and smash everything into powder!"
Thirty-five trebuchets roared towards the city under the pull of the strong bulls. This time the Shatuo Army learned their lesson and put a huge baffle in front of each trebuchet, which was like a huge shield.
, to protect soldiers and trebuchets from being killed by the Tang army's heavy crossbows.
The trebuchet quickly returned to its previous position, the baffle was placed in front, and thousands of soldiers began to quickly adjust the throwing pole.
The appearance of the baffle is indeed a bit difficult for the Tang Army's heavy crossbow soldiers on the city wall. The heavy crossbows are almost always thrown at an angle, rather than directly. The baffle just blocks the manipulating soldiers below, and although the projectile can hit the trebuchet
, but it depends on luck to hit the belt at the front.
However, the emergence of the baffle was expected by Guo Song. In the Battle of Raoyang during the Anshi Rebellion, the trebuchet was used to the extreme, leaving many classic battle examples. There are good ways to crack the baffle.
The Shatuo people's trebuchet has a range of about 350 steps, but it shoots upwards, so it will be placed at 320 steps, just enough to hit the city head.
The range of the Tang Army's trebuchet is also about 350 steps, but because it is placed inside the city, its actual range against the enemy troops outside the city is about 300 steps. It is still 20 to 30 steps away from hitting the enemy's trebuchet.
This is of course not a coincidence, but a safe distance deliberately left by the Shatuo army. They were as close as possible to the city wall, but they could not be hit by the boulders thrown by the enemy's trebuchets.
"emission!"
Captain Shatuo shouted, and more than thirty catapults were launched with a "Bang! Bang!"
Big rocks flew into the air and shot toward the city head. More than 30 big rocks smashed into the city head, causing rubble to fly everywhere. The city wall shook, and the soldiers fell down to avoid it.
At this moment, the forty trebuchets of the Tang Army also began to launch. The big stones they used were quite special. They were not huge stones mined from the mountains, but giant pebbles found in the Zhangye River or the Gobi Desert. Each one weighed up to
Hundreds of kilograms, washed by water for hundreds of millions of years, have become round and smooth. Such pebbles will not stop after falling to the ground, but will continue to roll forward hundreds of steps driven by inertia. No matter how strong the baffle is, they cannot withstand them.
The trebuchets were also unable to withstand their impact.
One of the generals yelled, "Project!"
More than forty trebuchets were launched at the same time, throwing more than forty giant cobblestones high into the sky, turning them into small black dots, whizzing towards the outside of the city.