The logistics troops supervised by Li Su will definitely not be robbed by the Qiangs in Hexi.

After all, the communication conditions in this era are so poor and the news is blocked. The Qiang people in the Qilian Mountains originally occupied a river valley to live their own lives and rarely crossed snow-capped mountains.

King Shao Ge and King Kewu were defeated, and even died because of provoking the Han army. This bad news may not be able to reach other Qiang barbarian kings within a month. Therefore, their behavior of being instigated by Jia Xu and being greedy for money and causing trouble would only be repeated, and then, until a tribe was destroyed within two hundred miles and became a negative teaching material, which could completely shock them.

Fortunately, such bloody destruction and lessons are not required to be solved by Li Su himself every time. It is enough to have Wang Ping, and Ma Dai will still rely on him in the future.

During the last few hundred miles before arriving at Jiuquan, Li Su was only attacked by two groups, and the scale was not as large as that of King Shao Ge and King Kewu that joined forces to attack, and they were all easily repelled. There is nothing much to say about the specific slaughter process, after all, the enemy is not a soldier of war.

There are only two flashes that are slightly worth saying:

One of them was when I continued west from Zhaowu, passing through the border of Jiuquan County, and was in Biaoshi County.

During this attack, the local Qiang barbarian king seemed to have learned some lessons from the failure of his previous colleagues, thinking that the reason why his previous colleagues failed was to leave too much time for the Han army to prepare for the formation of a car. So after they put together, they felt that the whereabouts of the front troops were more secretive and caught off guard when attacking, and that they might win.

Moreover, their number of troops was smaller than that of King Shaoge and King Kewu. They were not capable of fighting hard, but they were naturally prone to concealment after a few people. After a conclusion, they decided so.

Unfortunately, when this self-refined version of the carjacking combat plan was about to be implemented, Wang Ping decisively took advantage of the local weak water that was relatively shallow and could swim with carriages and horses. He immediately drove the convoy into the weak water, crossed the river to the other side and formed a formation again.

After all, when he was fighting against the Shaoge tribe and the Kowu tribe, Wang Ping had not shown this move yet. The Qiang tribe had no idea that the Han army's convoy could be used easily and flexibly on both land and land.

As a result, Wang Ping was naturally given more time to form a formation and defend. The Qiang clan coalition was defeated again, and thousands of people were killed on the spot, and more wounded people were wailing everywhere. Considering that the army did not have enough wounded medicine and had difficulty in logistics, it was almost winter and could not afford to delay, he ended the pain by finishing all the seriously injured Qiang clan thieves.

As for the other attack, it was between Huishui County and Lewan County, which was already close to Jiuquan. Because there was a fork here, Li Su's troops did not completely follow the river in order to take a shortcut, so they encountered enemies on a grassland where there was no river terrain to use.

The reason why the local Qiang tribe did not give up is that they learned lessons from their failed colleagues two days ago and got new good news: after two large-scale bloody battles in the previous few days, Li Su's transportation team lost a lot of weapons and materials!

Zhuge's crossbow arrows should have been almost shot like Li Ling's attack on the Huns during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han! The batch of infantry anti-cavalry pyramid guns transported by Li Su were almost broken after assassinating thousands of Qiang cavalry cavalry! This can be estimated from the transportation volume of the Han army!

Therefore, those who go to fight Li Su now can gain glory similar to the last blow of Li Ling when the Xiongnu Chanyu finished the final blow! Li Su is now a strong man on the outside and the middle, and most afraid of being the Qiang people knowing that his arrow is about to be shot!

Even some sources of Qiang people have a slight silence, saying that due to insufficient consumable weapons in Li Su's army, the period was scattered. Just like in Li Ling's army more than two hundred years ago, there was also a traitor who had almost shot the arrows out of the way!

Based on these favorable factors, many tribes in Huishui, Lewan and Jiuquan counties felt that they were OK and had a big gamble.

Unfortunately, how could Li Su be seen through like Li Ling? Even though his convoy did not stop and log to produce, just re-carry the broken wooden handles that he had collected after every battle in the convoy, there were millions of crossbow arrows.

The only thing that made Li Su a little dissatisfied is that although the current lathe has good processing efficiency in stable condition and is very good to put in the factory, it is very unstable and not portable when working on the caravan.

Li Su finally made up his mind: "After playing Xiliang this year, I asked Aliang to come and ask him to improve the lathe and make a portable model, and change the foot pedal to a hand-cranked type.

Even if it is a little tiring to use and a slower processing speed, the key is that the machine itself should be light and suitable for portable use anytime and anywhere. Isn’t it perfect to use different equipment in different production environments?”

Not to mention these later words, the final result is that the thorny Qiang tribes in the three counties of Jiuquan have been in trouble for eight lifetimes. They are clearly rushing into the good news that "Li Su's arrows are gone", but in the end, thousands of people are shot and killed.

After Li Su arrived in Jiuquan safely, he hid in the city and took charge of Ma Chao and Wang Ping remotely, and learned about the local people's conditions to comfort the local area. He only gave some programmatic opinions on the war and no longer took risks.

Wang Ping took the main convoy to rest in Jiuquan. Considering that he could not log and replenish wood in the future, he left all the lathes for making arrows and guns in Jiuquan. He logged in the local area for a few days to supplement the wood and processed a large number of guns and arrow consumables. Then he set off again and chased Guo Si with Ma Chao.

Later, during the process of Wang Ping leading the baggage troops, he was occasionally robbed by the Qiang in Hexi, which was not well-informed. However, because the most unscrupulous tribes were all afraid of being fished by Li Su's pits and fishing, and bloody slaughtering, all the harassment was easily cracked by Wang Ping one by one.

Wang Ping originally lacked the experience of leading an army to escort thousands of miles, but after fighting three battles with Li Su, his experience value soared. When he saw the Qiang and Hu, he recalled in his heart how the right general commanded the command when facing such a situation, and all of them were as dangerous as the barbarians.

After the autumn and early winter of this year, more than 30,000 Qiang soldiers died on Li Su's direct command of fishing. The results of the other Wang Ping and others were combined, killing at least 50,000. Since then, Li Su is called the Crouching Tiger, and he can stop the children from crying at night.

...

When Guo Si's troops fled from Jiuquan at the end of August and arrived at the Juyan Sea in the depths of the desert thousands of miles away, it was already early September. When Ma Chao was chasing him again, he swept away all the Qiang and Hu along the way. It was already mid-September when he caught up.

After all, Ma Chao is not at home, so he has to be on guard all the time and has to make time to deal with the secondary threats on the way. If there is insufficient supplies, he has to wait for Wang Ping to supplement it.

In the cold years, "there is snow in August", and the Xihai County where Juyanhai is located is a thousand miles northward, so it is even colder.

Fortunately, 195 was not a particularly cold year, and there was no snow in August. However, starting from the sixth day of September, it had been snowing in Jiuquan County for several consecutive days, and the northern section of Ruoshui was completely snowing continuously.

Even if the snow volume is so small that it is almost stopped for a few days in the middle, the temperature will definitely remain below minus five degrees Celsius, so any snow will not melt. Just wait for the next wave of heavy snow to stack and get thicker.

The Ruoshui River was completely cut off, and occasionally some sections of the river still had accumulated water, which was frozen into ice. Wang Ping's convoy had at least the last four hundred miles, and he was moving forward without being able to take advantage of the benefits of the Ruoshui Water Transportation.

Fortunately, Li Su thought about it before the war and had also thought about various treatment plans for Wang Ping and Ma Chao. They tried it and dismantled some of the wheels of the car first. They directly used the belly of the car to drag the horse on the snow. If the bottom was not flat enough, they would put some wooden boards to fix it.

The result was actually quite good. The caravan was changed to a sled, and was pulled by horses on the slightly snowy Gobi Desert.

As for the ox that Li Su used to pull a cart in the Battle of Jincheng, this time he had abandoned it as early as when he set out from Guzang. All the oxes were left in Jincheng County as plowing oxes. Because oxes were more cold-resistant than horses in Qiang land, they were not suitable for winter in the northern Gobi Desert.

This is also one of the reasons why Li Su told Ma Chao that he could only use 10,000 cavalry troops to ensure supply: the cattle were not included in the capacity building, and the full amount was based on horses, so the scale of the combat troops should be saved.

...

Of course, Guo Si and Jia Xu could think of this kind of problem that Li Su and Ma Chao could think of. Before Jiuquan and Guo Si separated, Jia Xu also did his homework and explained all the things he should pay attention to.

Therefore, Guo Si also knows very well what circumstances are Ma Chao likely to pursue him, and under what circumstances, Ma Chao will have no chance if he comes late.

In early September, Guo Si had just arrived in Haixi County for the first four or five days. He was still a little nervous and alert. He asked his last elite cavalry every day, as well as thousands of Qiang and Hu reinforcements he had collected and bribed along the way, and the second-line troops who had previously retreated with extra horses.

Anyway, they all gathered nearly 24,000 people, of which 1500 elite soldiers were preparing to fight for their survival this winter.

However, after a few days of alert, on the tenth day of September, there was no trace of Ma Chao chasing, and the snow was getting thicker and thicker. Except for the Juyanhai Lake and the grass warehouse in Xihai County, horses could not find grass to eat in other places.

The cities of Xihai County have almost no city walls, and at most only earth walls as high as the walls of private houses. Because this place is too remote and poor, there is a deserted and uninhabited area of ​​seven or eight hundred miles to the east, and it takes more than a thousand miles to reach Hami, Xinjiang in later generations. Today, the Western Regions Changshi Mansion Yiwu County (nominally belongs to the Western Regions Changshi Mansion, but in fact it has lost control since the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty)

Therefore, Xihai County only has a thousand miles south of the river to Jiuquan, and there are water plants to come. There is no need to build a city wall to prevent others from attacking.

In such a harsh environment, Guo Si's ambitions are exhausted every day, but his sense of security has increased a little. He feels that he can live here for a winter this year.

"Ma Chao's troops have no grass to eat. Even if there is grass to eat, how can he chase and fight in such a cold day? They rely on those broken sheepskin coats, and they fought from mid-autumn to winter. There was no time to collect winter clothes in between. I caught all the livestock that can be plundered by the people in Jiuquan, Zhangye, and plundered all the sheepskins. I am afraid that Ma Chao will freeze to death halfway through the journey when he comes."

After Guo Si was paralyzed, he gradually comforted himself like this.

...

On September 12, Ma Chao's scout discovered Juyanhai for the first time in the Gobi snowfield, at about minus fifteen degrees Celsius.

All the cavalry wore a new style of clothing that appeared in the Han Dynasty for the first time this year - cotton jacket.

To be precise, it was the first time that it appeared on the earth. Although the origin of cotton, the country of Poison, had been growing cotton for a long time, Ah San lived in the tropical region. They used cotton just to spin and weave cloth, and never thought of making cotton jackets as fillers.

These cotton jackets were prepared for the upcoming cold season of the Gobi Snow Fields. Anyway, the people of the people don’t need to rush to wear cotton cloth. Therefore, in early April this year, the cotton that Li Su and Guoyuan planted in the local farming area has now become cotton jackets of Ma Chao cavalry and Wang Ping’s baggage team.

The effect of cotton jackets to protect themselves from cold is better than pure sheepskin. Therefore, the suddenness of Ma Chao's pursuit this time is definitely beyond the imagination of other generals who know the soldiers in the Mobei environment, and has touched the blind spots of Jia Xu and Guo Si's knowledge of expedition logistics.

After hearing that after discovering Juyanhai, Guo Siying, Xihai County City and other targets, Ma Chao, who had been struggling for half a month and was rushing thousands of miles, finally became excited.

"Brothers! The front is Juyanhai! The cavalry general Huo Qubing and the eagle attacked Sima Zhao Ponu and killed King Jiqi! Huo Qubing was just hiding in the scorching heat and chasing Xun Yue to succeed. Today, we are attacking on the snowy night, which is not something that predecessors dare not think about. Guo Si will not be prepared! The entire army follows me to rush to Guo Si's camp!"

All 10,000 cavalry led by Ma Chao were replaced with super long cavalry spears. Just like in the Battle of Gushui, each of them had two long and three shorts behind them, and then launched a sudden charge at dawn on the snowy night.

Guo Si never expected Ma Chao to appear suddenly. When he put on his armor and left the camp, Ma Chao's iron hooves of ten thousand iron cavalry had already trampled on and kicked the camp, killing Guo Si's army into chaos.

"Impossible! This is impossible! Why didn't Ma Chao be frozen to death halfway? It's still a night of marching and attacking at night in such a cold day? Don't panic! Shangshu Jia calculated that Ma Chao's soldiers were only three or four thousand at most! Stay stable! He is definitely not our opponent!"

Guo Si still had the last trace of hope hidden in despair, that is, he still believed that Jia Xu calculated for him that "Ma Chao's logistics efficiency determines that the size of Ma Chao's army cannot exceed at most."

If his and Ma Chao's troops were indeed five to one, six to one, even if they were attacked, even if they were killed or injured at the beginning, and their morale was bleak, they would still have a chance!

After all, there are 15,000 people here, all of the Xiliang dead soldiers who have been in the army for many years after Dong Zhuo's time, and have seen the blood of life and death!

With the determination to fight to the death, Guo Si boarded the horse and organized a cavalry to retaliate. Both sides had no fancy cavalry head-on. Thousands of Guo Si's cavalry were beaten down because they were not prepared in time or had too short cavalry. They just woke up and had poor martial arts.

One thousand people, two thousand people, and three thousand people. The elite Xiliang dead soldiers who died in battle gradually dyed all the snow on the beach on Juyan Beach red, and the sky gradually became brighter, and the Xiliang dead soldiers were gradually out of service.

What made them even more desperate was that with the clear vision, they could clearly see that the size of Ma Chao's army was also everywhere, stretching for ten miles by the Juyan Sea. This was not what Guo Si did when he stabilized his morale. He emphasized that "the enemy is only three or four thousand" by killing more than a dozen escapees in the battle!

Moreover, the enemies are not hungry at all, they are not afraid of the cold, and there are still many more.

How else to fight?

Even though these Western Liang deceased soldiers had a history of killing for more than seven or eight years, their morale collapsed when the situation was so unfavorable.

What's more, the sky gradually brightened, which made Ma Chao find his target. The personal corps around Guo Si were fighting less and less, and finally Ma Chao found the flag formation. Ma Chao personally took the iron cavalry of the Ma family guards beside him, forming a wedge formation, and waving a spear and rushing towards Guo Si himself again.

Guo Si knew that his life and death was at this moment today, and he had nowhere to escape - there was a thousand-mile desert on the east, west and north, and the Juyan beach was the last step.

"Kill! Ma Chao, you bully people too much!" Since Guzang, you have been chasing them for two thousand miles. Isn't this called bullying too much? What does bullying too much?

Guo Si used his sword to get angry and tried his best to fight him. He was as powerful as a crazy tiger. He no longer felt that he was still a noble general of cavalry. He seemed to be just aiming at the fierce and stubborn fighting style of "kill someone enough to match Ma Chao's life", and the fighting style of exchanging life without stopping or fighting.

The two of them exchanged more than twenty moves in a intensive and powerful way, fighting for life, and danger was everywhere.

Ma Chao's martial arts skills are obviously much higher than Guo Si, and he is young and strong, but he is forced to use it a little bit by Guo Si's life-changing style.

After thirty rounds, Ma Chao was afraid that the night would be long and dreams would be too long, so he gritted his teeth and decided to take a dangerous move. He intercepted his right hand and penetrated his shoulder and arm hard to stab him. At the same time, he seemed to be ignoring Guo Si's deathly slashing him in the waist.

But just as Guo Si's knife was about to be cut, Ma Chao's spear tip had stabbed Guo Si between the chest and shoulder in half a second, and at the same time, he pulled out the sword from his waist with his left hand, struggling to block Guo Si's powerful and heavy sword.

"Crack--" The sword broke into two pieces, but at least it eliminated Guo Si's strength of fighting for life was at least 60% or 70% of the force. The remaining force slashed on Ma Chao's forged steel breastplate, and it could no longer break the armor. It made Ma Chao feel that his ribs were hit by a heavy hammer and almost vomited a mouthful of blood. But he held back his internal injuries and stirred his right arm hard, stirring the lung leaves on one side of Guo Si to pieces.

Guo Si lost his energy and his strength finally disappeared, and his eyes fell from his horse without any energy.

"The traitor Guo Si has been killed!" Ma Chao rubbed his chest and ribs, spat in his mouth and vomited blood, and screamed like a mad demon, letting the soldiers roar and rush to kill together.

The news of Guo Si's death quickly spread throughout the army. The dead soldiers in Xiliang became more and more collapsed and were finally completely destroyed.

——
Chapter completed!