In the middle of the river fortress. The three brothers of the Ma family gathered together again, naturally not to celebrate the victory of the Nameless Canyon, but to discuss the plan of action for a showdown with the Wusun army.

At present, a full 130,000 troops have been gathered on the north and south sides of the Jiaohe fortress, including 60,000 Wusun people and 70,000 troops of the Xiliang Army and the Yanqi Che Division. That is to say, there are not only 30,000 Xiliang troops, 20,000 coalition troops, but also 20,000 reserve troops available for Ma Chao's mobilization.

Although the 20,000 reservists are only used to make up the numbers and prestige, they can also come in handy at critical times, such as watching prisoners and transporting prisoners, or acting as bait or something.

Ma Chao and Tian Yu agreed that the situation of battlefield confrontation between the warring parties should end as soon as possible, but how to fight this battle is particular. Although it is impossible to recreate the kind of ambush battle with zero casualties in the nameless canyon again, it does not mean that Ma Chao will put the main force into the battlefield to fight the Wusun people, and finally win a victory of killing 1,000 enemies and losing 800 himself.

From the mouths of the more than 20,000 Wusun captives captured, everyone has roughly understood the battle plan of the Wusun people to outflank them in the north and south, so General Tian Yu made a plan to create the illusion of continuous withdrawal of troops, and lured General Zuo to lead the army to attack the extremely well-defended Jiaohe fortress.

Tian Yu's plan to lure the enemy was actually not clever, but it was just to let people reduce the smoke column of the troops south of the Jiaohe fortress every day to make fires for cooking, and let everyone use the alcohol stoves carried by the army to heat food and boil water for drinking. At the same time, all the thousands of Han soldiers who originally held the Jiaohe fortress were replaced by Cheshi soldiers.

General Wusun Zuo, who had been confronting the Han army north of the Jiaohe Fortress, suddenly found that the scene of the neighing horses in the fortress gradually began to cool down, and the smoke column of the soldiers lighting fires and cooking in the sky above the fortress was also less than a day, and when the fine work sent out to reconnoiter near the fortress at night, he also found that the soldiers stationed here had been replaced by chariot masters.

When General Zuo and General Right each led their troops to battle, they made a comprehensive plan of action, and now looking at the changes that happened in this fortress, General Zuo speculated that the Han army in the fortress may have been dug up because of the old nest, and now they are hurriedly returning to Yuanqu City for rescue, and this is the best time to launch a north-south attack.

As a result, General Zuo immediately ordered the Wusun people to launch a fierce attack on the Jiaohe fortress.

Long before the Jiaohe Fortress fell into the hands of the Han army, it was the royal capital of the former Cheshi Kingdom, and it was a three-dimensional defensive earth city. At that time, Zhao Xing personally instructed the three brothers of the Ma family to use the strategy of "throwing bricks and attracting jade" to deceive the former car master out of the city, so that he took the city with the least casualties.

In order to guard against the Wusun people in the north, after the Han army entered Jiaohe City, the defense system of the entire city was immediately strengthened and transformed, and many large-scale defense weapons and a large number of arrows transported from the Yumen Pass made the defense ability of Jiaohe City extremely terrifying.

The operational staff officers in the Pingxi Army once conducted a comprehensive assessment of Jiaohe City's defense capabilities, and the result came up with a statistic that shocked Zhao Xingdu. With 5,000 soldiers stationed in Jiaohe City, if the logistics supply and weapons and equipment are sufficient, then it can block the siege of 400,000 troops for more than a year without losing it!

Therefore, when the unknown Wusun people thought that they could easily take the demoralized Jiaohe Fortress with their own strength, they were destined to withstand the crazy counterattack of the rain of arrows in the fortress. If it weren't for the fear that the use of a "swarm of bees", a big killing weapon that the Wusun people had never seen before, would scare General Zuo away at the beginning, then the soldiers involved in the defense of the Jiaohe fortress might only be enough for 2,000 people.

The advantage of the Wusun people is the cavalry on horseback, and it is a crazy and tragic thing for them to attack the "turtle fortress" as if they were wearing a large steel helmet. In three consecutive days of fierce attacks, the number of Che Division soldiers participating in the defense of the fortress was reduced from 5,000 to 2,000, but this was not caused by the Wusun people, but Tian Yu deliberately let the 3,000 Che Division soldiers evacuate the fortress.

After paying the heavy price of nearly 10,000 casualties among Wusun soldiers, General Zuo seemed to have seen the hope of capturing the Jiaohe fortress, and he commanded his soldiers to launch the twelfth round of charges towards the fortress with red eyes. However, the Wusun people were still blocked from their way south by the seemingly precarious fortress, and after paying thousands of corpses, they still did not rush to the river city.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, General Zuo finally gritted his teeth and gave the order to stop the attack, and very unwillingly, he withdrew his troops to the camp that had defended the Han army in the past, like a wounded hungry wolf, ready to carefully lick the wounds all over his body.

Ma Chao and Tian Yu, who had been in a dark castle in Jiaohe City, saw the Wusun people slowly withdrawing, glanced at each other, and then issued an order for the whole army to attack.

The 50,000 regular troops originally stationed not far south of Jiaohe City have always belonged to waiting for work. When they received the advance order, they began to arrange their weapons and armor, stuffed their quivers with feathered arrows, and put their horses in their saddles and pedals. As Ma Chao's order to "attack all of them" was issued, a group of cavalry passed through Jiaohe City in a compact and orderly manner, and chased after the retreating Wusun people.

At this time, the Wusun people were exhausted because of the fierce battle for four consecutive days, and the casualties of more than 10,000 people made them demoralized.

General Zuo had some ability, and immediately organized the troops behind the palace to form a defensive formation, while the rest of the troops quickly moved westward, intending to break away from the siege of the Han army. For the 10,000 Wusun people who stayed behind to block the Han army, their final fate was inevitable, but in order to keep the main force of this army, General Zuo still resolutely adopted the method of gecko tail cutting.

It's a pity that Ma Chao and Tian Yu didn't plan to let go of these Wusun people, so the Xiliang Army sent 5,000 heavy cavalry at the beginning, and quickly wiped out the 10,000 Wusun people who were responsible for blocking the attack like a knife cutting tofu.

When General Zuo watched a rolling black torrent crush over him, his heart was nothing but fear or fear. Before this, General Zuo had never seen such a cavalry unit covered in black steel armor and holding a spear in his hand.

After the black torrent engulfed the Wusun cavalry behind the palace for the first time, the light cavalry closely behind them overtook the two wings at a faster speed, tightly biting the main force of Wusun that had not escaped far.

At this time, the Wusun people had no fighting spirit, and only thought about running for their lives frantically, and they were unable to organize an effective interception counterattack. The Wusun cavalry, with nearly 40,000 men, were like panicked rabbits, fleeing for their lives on the open grassland, while the Han cavalry chasing behind them kept harvesting human lives.