July. The remnants of the sun in the west are like blood.

With the cool breeze gradually blowing from outside the Yumen Pass, the sunset reflected on the head of Guzang City, making the city wall that was already red with blood and the land near the root of the wall add a strange red, which is bewitching so that the people who are still alive dare not face it.

Dong Zhuo's army, which had been attacking Guzang City for a day without success, was finally impressed by the tenacity of the defenders at the head of the city, and had to stop this suicidal siege operation of exchanging lives for lives, and finally returned to their respective camps for rest like a receding tide.

At night, after preliminary statistics, Dong Zhuo's 30,000 foot soldiers who attacked the city lost 8,000 in one day under Guzang City. According to Li Ru's analysis, Ma Teng's army defending the city couldn't stand it well, and at least 4,000 soldiers were killed.

Eight thousand for four thousand, it seems to be a bit of a loss, but after all, one side is to attack the city, and the other side is to defend the city, and it is not easy for the besieging side to achieve such a result. If the Ma Teng army defending the city is as perverted as the Crouching Tiger Army, and can expand the battle loss ratio to more than one to six, then Dong Zhuo can directly turn around and flee to Di Dao.

Ma Teng's face at the head of the city was pale, and he looked at the corpses of the soldiers who died in the city and under the city, or the enemy, and it was difficult to speak for a long time. Han Sui had already reported his own losses, and on the first day of defending the city, he had lost more than 4,300 veterans.

Can such a high loss not make Ma Teng feel sad? You must know that now in the entire Guzang City, together with the technical guidance troops sent by Zhao Xing and the guards guarding Guo Jia, there are only more than 18,000 people in total, and nearly 30 percent of the losses have been lost in one day.

In the dark night, Ma Teng stood at the head of the city, and there was only one wish left in his heart, that is, he hoped that his eldest son Ma Chao would arrive in Guzang with reinforcements as soon as possible and end this damn war as soon as possible!

In the quiet night, there are inevitably many people like Ma Teng. As the saying goes, "Knowing the son is better than the father", and in turn, knowing the father is also more than the son. At this moment, Ma Chaojun, who had not marched during the entire day, and had not even entered Pu Qicheng, who was close at hand, took advantage of the cover of night to quietly approach the nearest city of Guzang City.

Ma Chao, who grew up in Wuwei since he was a child, is familiar with the terrain and roads around Guzang as if he was playing hide and seek in the palace of the captain of Huqiang, although it is a night march, he is not worried about getting lost at all. In particular, after Ma Chao entered the Crouching Tiger Martial Arts Hall to study and train, he was already able to use the portable military "Sinan Needle" developed by the Crouching Tiger Equipment Institute, a sharp weapon to guide the direction, and with the precise military map, it was like walking in broad daylight.

Marching all the way, Ma Chao secretly admired Zhao Xing again and again in his heart. He originally only thought that Zhao Xing's troops, that is, those who had been trained for a longer time, had a higher desire to fight, and the troops were better equipped, but after a somewhat difficult or even "hard" detour along the way, he completely felt that Zhao Xing's army had completely left other forces behind him for a long distance.

Ma Chao even believes that Zhao Xing's army should not appear in this era, but should appear hundreds of thousands of years in the future. Not to mention the various logistical supplies used to ensure the cavalry troops' long-distance marches, such as: compressed dry food and bean cakes, sleeping bags, windproof lights, personal first-aid kits, assembled field headquarters, combined field cooking utensils, and military doctors accompanying the army to prevent epidemics and diseases......

Large-scale military maps, "Essentials of Marching," "What You Need to Know for Camping," "Field Safety Manual," telescopes, Sinan needles, and other unseen items used to direct operations alone can change the fate of an army. And all these things appeared within Zhao Xing's army, and they were even being created and replaced at an accelerated pace. Ma Chao sometimes even thinks that if he has so many advantages that others don't have, and the generals can't win the battle, they can really take a piece of tofu and kill the ball.

Just as he was thinking about it, the team member who was in charge of going out to reconnoiter the enemy's situation turned back and reported: "Major General Qiqi, ten miles ahead is the city of Zhuci, there are a small number of garrisons in the city, and it belongs to Dong Zhuo's department after investigation. ”

"Bring up the military map!" Ma Chao said calmly. Then, the combat staff officer next to him immediately took out the military map and placed it on a small folding square table.

Ma Chao took advantage of the faint light of the windproof lamp to hold the "two-legged rule" specially used to measure the straight-line distance between the two places on the map, and carefully compared the distance from Guzang City to Jici City, as well as the distance between Guzang City and his foothold at this time.

"This place is about fifty miles away from Guzang, and now is the time of the child. The army marched at a rate of fifteen miles per hour at night, so that it could reach the foot of Guzang before two quarters of the hour. If we take into account that Dong Zhuojun needs to have breakfast and is most likely to attack from midnight to noon, and the suddenness of our army arriving at the battlefield at noon to launch an attack is the highest, then we can now continue to march to Yinshi, rest for an hour and a half fifteen miles away from Guzang City, and then set up camp at midnight and slowly accelerate to the bottom of Guzang City, which is the best state for men and horses to attack......" Ma Chao muttered in his mouth while looking at the map.

Oh my God, what did Ma Chao learn in the Crouching Tiger Martial Arts Hall? How many people can understand the words in this child's mouth? What Ma Chao muttered was the basic operational command terminology of middle-level commanding officers!

Zhao Xing left a shocking sentence in the classroom of the Crouching Tiger Martial Arts Hall - "An army without culture is a stupid army!" Now it seems that Ma Chao has thoroughly comprehended Zhao Xing's words, otherwise he would not have behaved so professionally and calmly.

After calculation and analysis, Ma Chao said to the soldiers around him: "I invite Master Hu to come to discuss the matter!" Not long after, Hu Che'er came to the vicinity of Ma Chao's military camp.

"Master Hu, after my calculation, our side will engage Dong Zhuojun at noon tomorrow, and I plan to enter the battlefield at three o'clock after resting here at Yinshi, and launch a surprise attack on Dong Zhuojun!" Ma Chao told Hu Che'er about his plan.

After Hu Che'er observed the map for a while, he nodded and said, "This arrangement is very good, everything should be deployed according to the plan of the major general!"

Ma Chao saw that Hu Che'er also affirmed his opinion, and couldn't help but feel a little happy and proud in his heart. After all, it is not easy to get Hu Che'er, the uncle of Zhao Xing, who has ten years of combat experience, to nod and say yes.

In fact, Hu Che'er led 10,000 elite troops of the Dingyuan Army on an expedition to Xiliang, and for such an important military operation, it was natural that there were operational staff officers and shadow team members who would analyze the military situation and formulate operational plans at any time along the way. Just when Ma Chao stopped the team to plan, Hu Che'er had already come up with a plan similar to Ma Chao's, but in order not to attack this young man that Zhao Xing focused on cultivating, Hu Che'er pretended not to know.

It's really a critical time, such as the end of the war and the need to control Guzang City, you see who Hu Che'er will be vague with!