At the same time, more than 300 bed crossbows were launched together, and the sound of bowstrings was endless, shooting towards the city, suppressing the enemy, the power of the bed crossbow was too great, even the copper shield could not resist, the Western Turkic army could only hide behind the city wall, not daring to show its head, the Tang army rushed to the city wall very smoothly, and began to build a cloud ladder.

When the Tang army began to build a ladder, the bed crossbow stopped firing to prevent accidental injury to its own people, and the archers in the rear pressed it and shot arrows at the head of the city, and the Western Turkic army immediately began to counterattack, throwing stones and rolling logs under the city wall, shooting arrows and firing back.

"Destroy the houses that were not burned by the fire, get a quarantine area out, and prevent the fire from spreading!"

"Quickly lead people to save people, bring them all to the foot of the city wall, and warn them not to run around and shout to disturb the morale of the army, otherwise they will be killed on the spot!"

"The battle on the eastern city wall is urgent, send two thousand people to reinforcements quickly!"

……

Yang Fan walked quickly around the city, giving orders while walking, his expression was deep and calm, although the fire in the city was panicking at the moment, but Yang Fan was indeed a talent, and he was not panicked, because he knew that although the fire in the city caused panic among the people, it had little impact on the army, what he had to do was to stabilize the morale of the army, at this time, the morale of the army was more important than anything else.

"General Yang! The granary is on fire! A soldier rushed up to the city in a hurry, panting to report to Yang Fan.

Yang Fan frowned, turned his head to look in the direction of the granary, where the fire was indeed very big, so he said: "Take two thousand people to fight the fire, be sure to save the grain!" ”

"Yes!"

The situation is not optimistic, the grain in the granary is their dependence on the royal court, if all the grain is burned, then the royal court will be self-defeating.

The Tang army's offensive became more and more fierce, and Yang Fan had already given the soldiers boiling water and fire oil, and many of the ladders were blazing with fire, and it was impossible to climb at all. The Tang army in the rear brought thousands of cloud ladders. Yang Fan had to admit that today's battle was the most difficult and humiliating battle he had ever fought, obviously there were only 60,000 Tang troops, but he felt like there were more than 100,000 troops, and the pressure was great.

The Tang army attacked hard, and the Western Turkic army defended it very hard, and the Tang army in the rear retreated the catapult for a distance, and continued to throw oil and fireballs, the fire had begun to spread to the city wall, and the army on the city head was smoked and sweated.

"Damn! How much of this black oil do they have! Yang Fan gritted his teeth and groaned, this black oil burned too terrible, the reason why this battle was fought so hard was because the fire disturbed his army's morale and demoralized.

Yang Fan glanced at the army and shouted: "Soldiers, this is our royal court, if you lose, you will become corpses!" Your family will be enslaved! You have nowhere to go back! You can only kill all the Tang troops back! Kill! ”

Yang Fan's encouragement really worked, and the morale of the Western Turkic army suddenly improved a lot, and the Western Turk soldiers roared and fought with the Tang army, and many of the originally injured Western Turkic soldiers did not care about the pain at all, and ran to the city wall again to push away the ladder, or threw stones and rolling logs to prevent the Tang army from landing the city. Originally, nearly 100 Tang troops had rushed to the head of the city, but some were killed and retreated.

The battle has lasted for two hours, and there are corpses all over the city, and it is a little slippery to walk, because the ground is full of blood, and under the city wall, the corpses of the Tang army have been piled up nearly three feet high, and this battle is too tragic.

Fan Lihua had been looking at the city coldly, and from time to time there were heralds to report the battle damage to her, the casualties had exceeded 20,000, and less than half of their 60,000 troops remained.

Fan Lihua finally couldn't accept such a battle damage report, and suddenly raised her hand and said, "Mingjin, collect the troops!" ”

......The gong sounded, and the Tang army retreated one after another and withdrew its troops.

And the Western Turkic army at the head of the city all collapsed to the ground, there was a feeling of the aftermath of the catastrophe, repelled the Tang army, they didn't even have the strength to cheer and celebrate, the Tang army ...... It's so fierce.

After collecting the troops and returning to the camp, Fan Lihua sent someone to count the battle damage, and then she went back to the tooth tent, after a long time, someone painted the battle damage into a book and sent it to her, opened it and saw that there were 25,000 dead and wounded, there was not much oil left, and the crossbow bolts of the bed crossbow were almost exhausted.

Looking at the battle loss list, Fan Lihua frowned tightly, the losses in this battle are too great, although the Western Turks are estimated to have lost nearly 20,000 people this time, but the Western Turks are defending the city, they are attacking the city, and the difference in strength is not big, and if it goes on like this, they will definitely lose.

As soon as she thought of this, Fan Lihua couldn't help but reach into her arms and took out a letter, on which were written in charcoal with four large scribbled characters - "Tricks".

In order to let Fan Lihua win the victory of the expedition to the west, Li Hao really helped her, supporting her telescopes, craftsmen, gunpowder, and oil, and specially applied to Li Shimin for a crossbow team and a bed crossbow, not only that, but he also gave a letter to Fan Lihua.

That night, Li Hao came to Fan Lihua's mansion alone, secretly saw Fan Lihua, handed her the letter, and told her that this was a clever plan, if you really can't conquer the royal court of the Western Turks, you can try this method, but the success rate of this trick is not 100%, let her use it carefully.

Now that Fan Lihua had no other way, she hesitated for a moment, then tore open the envelope and took out the thick paper inside.

There were a total of seven pieces of paper in the envelope, six of which were drawings, and one was stationery, she first unfolded the drawings and looked at them, and found that there was a strange thing drawn on the drawings, which seemed to be a big ball, floating in the air, and there was a big basket hanging under the big ball, and there was a hole under the big ball, and there was a fire burning in the basket, and the flames and hot gas of the fire went straight into the big ball, and in the basket, there seemed to be two people standing, and in the upper right corner of the drawing, there were three big words written - "hot air balloon".

The remaining five drawings draw the specific steps of making a hot air balloon, it doesn't seem to be very complicated, Fan Lihua can roughly understand it, but she doesn't understand, the drawings say that this thing can fly, and it can also carry people to the sky, why can this kind of thing fly?

With doubts in her heart, Fan Lihua opened the letterhead, and there were dense pencil words written on the letterhead, which was quite good-looking, Li Hao still looked good when he wrote with pencil and charcoal, but his brush words were tsk......

After reading the content of the letter, Fan Lihua finally understood Li Hao's clever plan, which was actually to use a hot air balloon to transport troops into the city and carry out a surprise attack.

But according to Li Hao, there are many problems with this method, this kind of raid must be selected at night, not to be discovered by the enemy, otherwise they will fly in the sky is someone else's target, and the weather choice is very important, it must be a dark night, the kind without moonlight, and then there must be wind, otherwise the hot air balloon can not float over the city, and there is a fire in the hot air balloon, how not to let the enemy notice this fire, otherwise it will definitely be discovered, as for making the hot air balloon, Li Hao asked him to find Lu Qing of the craftsman team.

Lv Qing is Li Hao's student, the ancestors of the three generations are skilled craftsmen, Lv Qing learned a lot of physics knowledge from Li Hao, and inherited his father's craftsmanship, now only in his early twenties, he has applied a lot of physics knowledge to practice, become an excellent craftsman, Li Hao recruited him, to cultivate, this time let him bring hundreds of craftsmen to help Fan Lihua attack the Western Turks.

After Fan Lihua finished reading, she put away the letter paper and immediately sent someone to pass on Lu Qing, and soon, Lu Qing came to the tooth tent and saluted Fan Lihua, Fan Lihua asked: "Lu Qing, do you know something called a hot air balloon?" ”

Lu Qing shook his head when he heard this: "This villain has heard the teacher say it, and the villain has also conceived it, but he has never seen it. ”

Fan Lihua handed the six drawings to Lu Qing and said, "Look at this, this is a hot air balloon, right?" ”

Lu Qing took it in his hand, looked at it one by one, showed a happy look, and nodded: "Back to the boss, this is indeed a hot air balloon, and it also tells how to make a hot air balloon." ”

Fan Lihua asked suspiciously: "This hot air balloon ...... Can you really fly? Can you fly with people? ”

"Yes, it really flies." Lu Qingdao, "Chief Manager, in fact, this thing is the same as Kong Ming lantern, Kong Ming lantern is ...... I don't know if the chief manager has seen it. ”

"I haven't seen it." Fan Lihua shook her head and said, "I've only heard that there is such a magical thing in the world." ”

Lu Qing smiled slightly, and said: "The teacher said that there are many unthinkable things in this world, and the ignorant people don't understand it, so they explain it with the theory of ghosts and gods. ”

Fan Lihua didn't have the heart to ask what physics was at the moment, she was more anxious about the war, so she asked: "How big can this hot air balloon be, and how many people can it carry at one time?" ”

Lu Qingdao: "As long as the materials are sufficient, you can naturally make as much as you want, but the bigger it is, the more troublesome it is, and it is quite difficult to manipulate, and fuel is also a problem, so the villain suggested that it is most suitable to carry six people at the same time." ”

"Okay, just make it this big." Fan Lihua asked, "How long does it take to make five hundred?" ”

Lu Qing said apologetically: "Chief Administrator, the thick cloth that King Qiongnan asked us to bring...... It's only enough to make three hundred. ”

"It turns out that he asked me to bring so much thick cloth for this." Fan Lihua was moved when she heard this, she went to the west by herself, Li Hao actually prepared her enough, could she not be moved, so she said, "Then make three hundred, how long will it take?" ”

Lu Qing replied: "It will take about fifteen days." ”

Fan Lihua thought for a while and asked, "Then what if you make a thousand more Kong Ming lanterns?" ”

Lu Qing asked: "How big is the Kong Ming lantern to be made by the chief manager?" ”

Fan Lihua said: "One person is more than one person tall, eight to nine feet." ”

Lu Qing thought for a while and replied: "Kong Ming lanterns are actually very simple to make, a thousand, can be completed in three to four days, and there is no need for thick cloth, and it has no effect on making hot air balloons." ”

Fan Lihua was overjoyed when she heard this, and said, "Okay! This governor has given you the power to dispatch an army of 5,000 troops from today to supervise the construction of Kong Ming lanterns and hot air balloons. ”

"Yes!" Lu Qing was excited to receive the order.