Choose Liu Bei at the start, I am the only one who knows the plot of the Three Kingdoms.

Chapter 396 Ma Chao vs. Six-Pearl Bodhisattva, weapons specifically designed to deal with cavalry
It was from that time that Shi Xie truly made up his mind to dominate. It was also at that time that one day he curiously entered the room of utensils, and the scene before him made him vomit right there.

Those so-called vessels had dense holes on their faces and bodies. They were hung in the office, and there were a few drops of black blood dripping on them. Even though it had come to this point, they were not dead yet. They still had their own consciousness and could feel the pain of being eaten by the poison.

This was what Shi Xie found most horrifying. Even though things had already happened, he could still clearly feel the pain, and couldn't die even if he wanted to. At that time, Shi Xie was extremely grateful that he had such a team, and even more grateful that he did not become one of those vessels.

Shi Xie pulled his thoughts back to the past and stopped recalling the past. He turned around and left. He felt itchy all over if he stayed any longer.

The female clan leader looked at Shi Xie who was gradually going away, and a smile appeared at the corner of her mouth under her veil.

"Go and remove the poison."

She waved her hand and asked the people behind her to do it, and returned to the big tent alone. Although she called Shi Xie "Lord", her live broadcast perspective did not appear among Shi Xie's generals, which means that she did not really want to join Shi Xie's army.

As Shi Xie's figure disappeared, the live broadcast footage of the female clan leader also disappeared. The netizens who had just been attracted left Shi Xie's live broadcast room and returned to Gu Rubing.

Although Gu Rubing decided not to take the initiative to attack, he still sent out a large number of soldiers to be on guard. He was not sure whether the scouts in the afternoon had been discovered. If they were discovered, Shi Xie would know that he was now aware of the existence of the trap, so he would not wait for him to fall into his trap. He would definitely take the initiative to attack and find ways to get that strange poison.

Not only the area near the canyon, but also the passage through which Wei Yan and his men had escaped, Gu Rubing had sent heavy troops to guard it to prevent Shi Xie from launching a surprise attack.

During the days when Gu Rubing and Shi Xie were at a truce, other places were not idle. In the western part of Jingzhou, Liu Zhang had already captured Wuling County with an army of more than 100,000 and began to encircle Nanjun in the north, and was almost approaching Xiangyang, the capital of Jingzhou.

After Liu Qi received the news from Gu Rubing, he immediately began to withdraw his troops in Wuling County. However, some of them were too far away and could not be transferred back. Now they had all been captured by Liu Zhang. Liu Qi was ready to abandon all the military towns and county towns and build defenses around Nanjun Xiangyang and the three outer military towns.

After recalling all the troops from Wuling County, Liu Qi currently has a total of 120,000 troops under his command, including 30,000 cavalry, 90,000 infantry. The three military towns surrounding Xiangyang each have 30,000 infantry, and 30,000 cavalry can be deployed at any time in Xiangyang. The four complement each other. If Zhuge Liang were here, he would surely be able to see that this is the result of the combination of the Three Talents Formation and the All Stars Surrounding the Moon Formation, which made Xiangyang an impregnable city.

Compared with the lukewarm war between Liu Zhang and Liu Qi, the war in the northern border area of ​​Xuzhou, Jingzhou, Yuzhou and Yangzhou was truly brutal. As Cao Cao said, he undertook the most difficult task in this operation, which was to prevent Gu Rubing's army, and he did it.

During these few days, Zhang Liao was blocked at the junction of Yangzhou and Xuzhou by Cao Ren and Wen Pin, as well as Le Jin who came to support from the north of Nanyang County; Zhang Fei was blocked in the north of Nanyang County by Xu Chu and the Xiahou brothers; Zhang He was blocked in the north of Yangzhou by Cao Zhen and Cao Xiu; Guan Yu was blocked in the northeast of Sili Prefecture by Dian Wei and two first-class generals including Li Dian; Ma Chao was blocked in the northwest of Sili Prefecture by Liuzhu Bodhisattva, Cao Zhang and Cao Cao's recently acquired young general Deng Ai.

Cao Cao single-handedly faced the simultaneous attack of the five most powerful generals under Gu Rubing. Xu Rong was in Youzhou and was still on his way. It was believed that it would not take long for him to reach this battle line that stretched for thousands of miles.

The most brutal fight was between Ma Chao and Liuzhu Bodhisattva. The Xiliang Iron Cavalry was the best in the world, but they met Liuzhu Bodhisattva who was well versed in horses. Liuzhu Bodhisattva was best at using infantry against cavalry. Not only could he win, but he could also defeat the larger force with the smaller one. He was a rare military genius.

Moreover, with the bonus of Cao Cao's various characteristics, her combat power has far surpassed Xiahou Dun. If she were to fight Xiahou Dun again at this time, I'm afraid Xiahou Dun would not be able to hold on for long.

At this moment, she was facing Ma Chao again in the desert. In the past five days, she and Ma Chao had fought nine times, nearly two battles a day. Several patches of desert were dyed red with blood. The strength of both sides was also decreasing. Ma Chao's cavalry had been reduced from 70,000 at the beginning to less than 40,000 now, with only about 38,000 people, nearly half of which were casualties.

The Six-Pearl Bodhisattva brought 90,000 slave infantry and 30,000 monks, but now only had 40,000 slaves and 25,000 monks left, a total of more than 50,000 casualties. Ma Chao and the Six-Pearl Bodhisattva were also injured. Ma Chao was hit in the shoulder by the Six-Pearl Bodhisattva's rope dart, and the Six-Pearl Bodhisattva had three ribs broken by Ma Chao's spear tail. Neither side gained any advantage over the other.

Today, the two met again in the desert. Ma Chao raised his spear and pointed at the Six-Pearl Bodhisattva.

"You little bitch, why haven't you gone back to warm Cao Cao's bed yet? How was the shot that grandpa threw at you the day before yesterday? How did it taste?"

Ma Chao's words caused the soldiers behind him to burst into laughter, and Pang De added fuel to the fire.

"I heard that Cao Cao likes married women the most. I wonder if you, an old nun, are married? If not, hurry up and find someone to marry. Cao Cao will like you more then."

The Six-Pearl Bodhisattva's skill in cultivating his character was extremely good. Even when faced with such humiliation from Ma Chao and Pang De, he was not angry at all, but smiled instead.

"There is no need to be quick-witted. Being alive and able to speak here is the greatest victory."

As soon as these words were spoken, Ma Chao's smile froze on his face. Wasn't this a clear mockery of Ma Teng? Moreover, Cao Cao was the murderer of Ma Chao's father. Ma Chao stared at the Six-Jeweled Bodhisattva with his eyes almost on fire. The Six-Jeweled Bodhisattva just shrugged indifferently and hooked his finger at Ma Chao.

"Ah! Kill!"

Ma Chao roared angrily, unable to bear it any longer, and launched a charge with his cavalry. The sound of the horses' hooves on the ground was like thunder drums beating, rumbling. The cavalry was like a tide, rushing towards the Six-Jewel Bodhisattva madly, wanting to kill him on the spot.

"Put down the hook!"

The Six-Pearl Bodhisattva shouted loudly. Her voice was a little hoarse, perhaps because she yelled so often. However, her voice was more recognizable after becoming hoarse, so that people could easily hear what she said even on the battlefield.

Following her order, hundreds of giant crossbows were ready to go behind her. What were mounted on the huge crossbows were not bows and arrows, but some sharp half rings similar to iron rings, which were shaped like a horseshoe.

"Ma Chao, try the gift that I prepared for you!" Hundreds of iron hooks flew out, not flying into the air, but flying close to the ground. Ma Chao saw the iron rings and had not yet reacted to what was happening. The next moment, his mount leaped into the air and avoided the iron rings. Pang De also avoided it, but Ma Dai was not so lucky. The four legs of the warhorse under his crotch were neatly cut off by the iron hooks at the connection between the horse's hooves. Fortunately, Pang pulled him up, otherwise he would have been trampled into meat paste by the iron hooves behind him.

"Get out of the way!"

Ma Chao had never seen this kind of weapon. It actually attacked the horse's legs directly, preventing the horse from running. It was similar to the function of a lasso, except that one tripped the horse while this one cut it off directly.

The iron hooks did not stop until they had cut off nearly ten horses. In this attack alone, Ma Chao lost nearly a thousand cavalrymen. If it were not for Li Feisha's quick reaction, Ma Chao would probably have fallen off his horse. Ma Dai had already changed his horse and continued to charge.

"Push it to me!"

Ma Chao squeezed his legs together, and Li Feisha's speed became faster and faster. Pang De followed closely behind. The two of them were ready to approach each other as quickly as possible so that the other party could no longer use the mysterious iron ring. The power was so great that it could cut off dozens of horse legs before stopping. This made the two of them feel alarmed.

Before this, Six-Pearl Bodhisattva also took out their unique golden hook spear in the Western Regions. The spear had a ring on it and was a weapon specially designed to attack the horse's legs. At that time, Ma Chao had already suffered a loss once, but was defeated by Six-Pearl Bodhisattva with the golden hook spear. Before that, it was always Ma Chao who attacked Six-Pearl Bodhisattva and he won every time. But that time alone, Six-Pearl Bodhisattva killed nearly 20,000 of their cavalry.

Now, the other party took out this kind of thing again, how could Ma Chao not be frightened? Seeing the two people approaching, the Six-Pearl Bodhisattva shouted loudly.

"Shoot!"

The slave infantry standing in the front raised their spears. Although they were slaves, their fighting power was not weak. The slaves in the Western Regions were responsible for hard labor, and most of them were very strong. Now with the bonus of Cao Cao, they were even stronger than before.

Seeing that the other party took out that special spear again, Ma Chao could not help but curse, and then was about to kill those soldiers, but was stopped by a flying dart. The dart with a rope was wrapped around Ma Chao's gun. Ma Chao did not try to pull the opponent with brute force. He did try this in the previous fights, but the result was that a dart from the Six-Pearl Bodhisattva pierced his shoulder.

It was then that Ma Chao understood that the bulging circle around the Six-Jewel Bodhisattva's waist was filled with ropes and darts, allowing the Six-Jewel Bodhisattva to always have both ropes and darts in his hands under any circumstances.

Seeing that there was no intention of dragging, Liuzhu Bodhisattva quickly took out a dagger from his waist, tied it to the end of a rope, and threw it towards Ma Chao. Ma Chao was hit by this exact same move last time, so he naturally would not be fooled this time. He casually wrapped the rope dart around his spear, which complemented the dagger tied to the other end.

Ma Chao attacked again, not giving Six-Pearl Bodhisattva a chance to assemble his weapons, and nearly engaged in close combat, but was hit on the spear by Cao Zhang who was behind the Six-Pearl Bodhisattva, preventing Ma Chao from attacking the Six-Pearl Bodhisattva. Pang De also approached and roared.

"Cao Gou, your enemy is me, stop being violent!"

Cao Zhang did not dare to be careless. His actual strength was not as good as Pang De's. It was only because Pang De was constantly harassed by those soldiers that Cao Zhang had the opportunity to take action.

Cao Cao's newest young general Deng Ai fought together with Ma Chao's younger brother. The two men had similar strengths and neither was inferior to the other in the fight.

After they started fighting, the soldiers of both sides also fought together. The slave soldiers had golden hook spears that were specially used to hook horse legs. Their combat effectiveness was particularly high. The moment they engaged the cavalry, almost all the cavalry in front were pulled down. Some of them were able to continue fighting after falling down, but some were caught in the iron hooves after falling down. For a while, they suffered heavy losses. The special weapons made the cavalry in shoes complain bitterly.

However, as the soldiers' golden hook spears fell out of their hands, the role of the cavalry was revealed. When they passed by the enemy's corpses, they would intentionally or unintentionally collect the golden hook spears that they dropped, and then carry them on their backs to prevent them from being picked up and used by the soldiers behind the enemy.

The battle of Liang Province was the most intense. After Liuzhu Bodhisattva and Ma Chao separated again, Liuzhu Bodhisattva smiled evilly and threw several darts at Ma Chao. At the same time, he retreated violently, no longer fighting with Ma Chao, and sounded the horn of withdrawal.

Looking at the Six-Jade Bodhisattva gradually going away, Ma Chao felt very uncomfortable. It was the first time he encountered such a fighting method. When fighting with cavalry, he only attacked the front ones. When the infantry at the back was about to get tired, he would immediately stop fighting and let his own people retreat.

Although a lot of people could be killed during the retreat, it was of little use because the special weapons they used meant that many people survived but their horses were gone. The cavalry could only be used as infantry. Now it was useless to transfer war horses from the pasture as there was no time to tame them. Ma Chao would never and dared not take untamed horses to the battlefield.

"What was the outcome of this battle?"

Ma Chao asked Pang De who was standing beside him. Pang De took a quick look and made a rough estimate.

"We lost about 5,000 cavalry, but only about 2,000 soldiers. The remaining 2,000 horses were killed by the enemy's special weapons."

"Where's the other party?"

"The enemy has about 7,000 men. This time they seized the opportunity better and didn't give us any chances. If this continues, we will be worn down. That little bitch obviously doesn't regard her soldiers as human beings. If they fight like this a few more times, our 70,000 cavalry may only have about 10,000 left."

Pang De expressed his concerns. Although they had killed more enemy troops in the past few days, the people led by Liuzhu Bodhisattva were more like cannon fodder for the monks behind them. Those monks were the most troublesome.

Once again, they killed their way through the camp of slave soldiers, but ran headfirst into the formation of monks, in which they lost nearly 10,000 cavalry. It was in that battle that they first saw the Golden Hook Spear, a weapon specifically designed to deal with horses, which caused them to suffer a great loss. In the end, they only killed more than 5,000 monks of the other side.

(End of this chapter)