He was smarter than Zhuge Liang, the straw man was better at borrowing arrows, and the strategic scheme behind it was flawless

In the famous Suiyang Defense War in history, Zhang Tour resisted the crazy attack of hundreds of thousands of enemy troops with thousands of soldiers, and defended for several months, and his bravery and fearlessness and arduous spirit can be called Zhang Tour's version of "Eight Hundred".

In fact, before this Suiyang defense battle, Zhang Tour also had a little-known Yongqiu defensive battle, where he played his wisdom and bravery.

Zhang Tour (708–757), a native of Hedong, Puzhou (present-day Yongji, Shanxi). At the end of the Tang Kaiyuan Dynasty, he served as a jinshi in the middle of the year, and successively served as the prince of Tongshi Sheren, Qinghe County Order, and Zhenyuan County Order. Obviously, Zhang Tour belonged to the sequence of civilian officials, if it were not for the Anshi rebellion, he would have become an excellent politician with family and country feelings, but the war made him take up arms, lead his subordinates to defend the city against the enemy, and become a general with both wisdom and courage.

In the winter of the fourteenth year (755) of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang's Tianbao, when the Anshi Rebellion broke out, Zhang Zhu was serving as a county commander in Zhenyuan County. The ferocious offensive of the rebels frightened some of the taishou and county orders into disarray, and one by one they looked down at the wind. Zhang Tour's Zhenyuan County was under the jurisdiction of Yu Commandery (谯郡, in modern Bo County, Anhui), and his Taishou surrendered to the rebels and wanted to force Zhang Tour to surrender together. Of course, Zhang Tour, who was full of righteousness, did not do it, and he raised an army against the rebels, and there were more than a thousand people in response.

Not only Zhang Tour, but also The Son of Shan Father (shan county, Shandong) and the son of Shi Xuan of Langzhou were also resolute and unyielding, leading the officers and men to resist the rebels. He also rendezvoused with Zhang At Yongqiu (雍丘, in modern Qixian County, Henan), where Ling Huchao had already surrendered with his subordinates. Jia Ben, Zhang Tour, and others invaded Yongqiu, causing Fox Tide to flee without abandoning the city

In February of the first year of Emperor Suzong of Tang 's reign ( 756 ) , Ling Huchao led his subordinates and rebels to a total of 15,000 men , with the intention of retaking Yongqiu , and the officers jia ben and Zhang Zhu of Yongqiu city had a total of only 3,000 men. But they were fearless, and while doing a good job of defense, they actively attacked against the arrogance of the rebels.

In the attack, due to the disparity in strength, Jia Ben's soldiers were defeated and martyred. The soldiers elected Inspector Zhang as the commander to command this unit. Since then, they have fought bravely and repeatedly repelled the rebel sieges, accumulating nearly 10,000 casualties, while officers and soldiers have also killed and wounded nearly 1,000 people. The fox tide had no choice but to retreat.

In March, Ling Huchao, together with more than 40,000 rebels from the three roads, swarmed to the city again in an attempt to capture Yongqiu City in one fell swoop. At this time, there were still about 2,000 defenders left in Yongqiu City, and in the face of the rebel army of 40,000 troops, the soldiers and civilians in the city were a little panicked. Zhang Tour encouraged everyone and said: "The enemy knows that the city is virtual and real, and there is a light heart. Now unexpected, but shocked and collapsed, multiplied, bound to fold. After hearing this, the generals were deeply encouraged and their morale soared.

Therefore, Zhang Patrol rearranged his troops, sent a thousand people to be responsible for defending the city, personally led a thousand people, divided into several squads, and suddenly came out of the city. Zhang patrolled the first soldier and rushed straight to the rebel formation. Because Zhang Tour's attack was very sudden, the rebels were frightened and confused, and there was a great chaos, and in the panic, the rebels retreated for several miles.

In this way, in the many subsequent offensive and defensive battles, Zhang Tour had courage and strategy, and used his troops wisely, and successively introduced clever strategies such as wisely seizing grain and grass, borrowing arrows from straw people, and cleverly earning wood, and maneuvered with the rebels, defending Yongqiu City, and dealing a heavy blow to the rebels.

Yongqiu has been besieged for a long time, and the food in the city is becoming more and more strained. As the saying goes, "the soldiers and horses have not moved, and the grain and grass have gone first." This was a problem that Zhang Tour had to think about, and only by solving the grain problem could we better hold Yongqiu City.

One day, suddenly someone came to report that there were hundreds of rebel grain ships outside the city, which had just docked by the river and had not yet been unloaded. Zhang Patrol immediately went up to the city tower to observe the situation, and he found that the grain carrier was parked by the river north of the city, and he suddenly had an idea. That night, Zhang Patrol concentrated his army to the south of the city, as if he were going to fight a decisive battle against the rebels. After Receiving the report, Ling Fox Chao did not know what the plan was, so he transferred his army to the south of the city to resist the officers.

After Zhang Patrol saw that all the rebels had been transferred to the south of the city, he sent more than a hundred warriors who had been arranged in advance to quietly touch the riverside, easily killed dozens of unsuspecting boat guards, and at once snatched more than a thousand grain from the rebel grain carriers, enough for the officers and men defending the city to eat for a while.

Zhang Patrol, fearing that the rebels would react, pounced on him, but when he could not resist, he ordered a fire to burn all the remaining grain. Zhang Zhuzhi seized the enemy's food, so that fox tide learned that he was deceived, and he was furious and ordered an all-out attack.

In the following days, in the face of the crazy attack of the rebels, the Yongqiu defenders defended with all their strength, constantly firing arrows at the rebels, but the stored arrows were quickly used up. If the rebels attack again, how to defend the city, Yongqiu City is in danger.

Zhang Patrol was very anxious, in a hurry, zhang Tour came up with a countermeasure. In the evening, Zhang Ordered the soldiers to tie the scarecrows dressed in black beforehand with ropes, stagger them and hang them on the city wall, as if someone had climbed down from the city wall. Their every move was seen by the rebels outside the city. The rebels vaguely saw hundreds of soldiers dressed in black climbing down the wall along the ropes. The sentry immediately reported the order fox tide. Ling Huchao concluded that Zhang Patrol had sent soldiers to sneak attack, so he ordered the soldiers to shoot arrows at the head of the city and shoot the officers.

For a time, the rebels scrambled to shoot arrows, and continued to shoot all night, until dawn, when the rebels found that the walls of the city were all straw men. At this time, the straw man's body was densely packed with arrows. Zhang Patrol ordered the straw man to be immediately pulled up the city wall, and the arrows were drawn to count, hundreds of thousands, which solved the problem of the lack of arrows in the defense of the city in one fell swoop.

This was not the end of it, and for the next few days, as on the first night, there were many straw men on the walls every night. Here, the soldiers who made fox tide laughed, thinking that Zhang Patrol had repeated the trick and wanted to trick them into shooting arrows. So the rebels did not shoot a single arrow. Slowly, the rebels became accustomed to Zhang Patrol's Night Grass People and stopped being defensive.

Zhang Patrol saw that the time was ripe, and in one night, he selected five hundred warriors and put them down in the city. The rebel soldiers thought that the straw man hanging from the city this time ignored it and continued to sleep. After these five hundred warriors swept down the city, they took advantage of the enemy's defenselessness and suddenly killed the camp of Ling Fox Tide. When the rebels saw that someone was coming, they were in chaos, did not distinguish between the enemy and the enemy, and trampled on each other.

By the time Ling Fox Chao ordered the gathering of men and horses again, it was already chaotic, and it was difficult to organize resistance in the rush, and he was killed by the officers and soldiers and scattered to escape. Ling Fox Tide rode his horse until more than a dozen miles away to stabilize his position, and the rebels suffered heavy losses this time. The straw man borrowed the arrow and was originally a ecstasy array, which was really a double eagle with one stone. Zhang Also skillfully used a plot to seize a large amount of wood from the rebels, providing a guarantee for the defense of the city.

Soon, Ling Fox Tide gathered his soldiers and horses again and besieged the city again. In November of the first year of Zhide (756), ling fox tide could not be attacked for a long time, and the rebel troops were somewhat impatient, Zhang Patrol took the opportunity to lead the army again, and the rebels fled in defeat. After that, there was a tragic story of Zhang Patrol's death guard of Suiyang.

The story of Zhang Tour's wit and courage to guard Yongqiu was recorded in the Zizhi Tongjian.