I, the prince, only want to be deposed.

Chapter 421 A surprise force descends from the sky!
So half an hour later.

"kill!"

Several arrogant kings and their personal soldiers were suddenly killed by the guards around "King Gushi".

The city gates closed quickly and thousands of arrows were fired!

Before a group of Xiongnu cavalrymen who had just entered the city could understand what was happening, hundreds of them had been nailed to the ground by the crossbowmen ambushed on the city walls.

The people of Gu Shi who were hiding in the dark also drew their bows and shot arrows together, and arrows came from all directions.

Accompanied by screams, the number of Hun cavalry quickly decreased.

In the narrow and crowded city, these cavalrymen had no advantages at all, let alone the power to resist. Even if they mounted their horses and wanted to escape, they didn't know where to go. They were just a group of living targets waiting to be killed.

really.

If the Huns are killed, they will die!
In just a moment, the 2,000-man cavalry were all killed or wounded. The remaining hundreds of people had no fighting spirit at all and all cried and begged for surrender.

But after Su Wu and Sima Qian discussed it, they ordered all these hundreds of surrendered soldiers to be killed.

They didn't know how long they would have to hold Jiaohe City, and they couldn't waste the limited supplies in the city on these surrendered soldiers.

Moreover, these surrendered soldiers still need to be guarded and controlled, which will waste limited manpower. Otherwise, if they rebel again, they will continue to cooperate with the Right Riju King outside the city. Only a few hundred people may cause considerable trouble to the Han army in the city. It is better to kill them to eliminate the trouble once and for all.

What's more, when this cavalry entered the city just now.

There are still a few escaped fish staying outside the city. Now these escaped fish have fled after hearing the noise. I believe they will soon pass the news here to King You Rizhu. When King You Rizhu hears the news, he will most likely lead a large army to besiege the city immediately.

What they have to do now is to defend the position with all their strength. How can they be distracted by hundreds of surrendered soldiers?

"Immediately retrieve the usable arrows, cut off the enemy's heads and throw them outside the city to deter the enemy reinforcements!"

"Light up the yellow sky lanterns and spread the word!"

Su Wu and Sima Qian didn't know where Liu Ju and the Han cavalry were, but they would do well to set off sky lanterns as agreed in advance.

A red sky lantern indicates that the plan has failed.

A green sky lantern indicates that the plan was successful.

A yellow sky lantern means that although the plan was successful, it did not achieve the expected results.

More than a dozen sky lanterns are set off at a time to ensure that the information is transmitted correctly.

……

"What did you say?!"

Tiefu, the King of Yourizhu, almost jumped up, thinking he had heard it wrong.

"My king, this is absolutely true!"

The Xiongnu cavalry who had managed to escape said with red eyes,
"After the kings and our troops entered Jiaohe City, the city gates were quickly closed, and loud shouts and screams were heard from inside. It was obvious that we were ambushed."

"Even those of us who were waiting outside the city to deliver the message were shot at by the soldiers on the city wall. Several of us were killed by arrows in time to avoid the arrows. The rest had to flee with me and return to report the message to the king."

Tiefu still didn't dare to believe it easily:

"How could this happen?"

"King Gu Shi sent people to ask for our help, but suddenly ambushed our army. This doesn't make sense, does it?"

"Could it be that... the Gushi Wang has surrendered to the Han Dynasty?"

"Even so, he would never dare to ambush our army. After all, the Kingdom of Gushi is different from other small countries in the Western Regions. It is located north of the Tianshan Mountains and closer to our Xiongnu territory. We can march south to massacre it at any time..."

"Wait a minute! The soldiers in Jiaohe City are shooting arrows at you. How far can the arrows fly and how powerful are they?"

The Xiongnu cavalry quickly replied:

"We were about 200 steps away from the city wall. The arrows could easily penetrate our leather armor, and the arrowheads came out from behind..." "It was the Han's powerful crossbow!"

Tiefu's face was even more shocked. Even though he was in a high position, in this era, only the Han Dynasty's powerful crossbow could have such a strong killing power after shooting from such a long distance.

"The ones who shot you were probably the Han army!"

"Could it be that the Gushi Kingdom has completely surrendered to the Han Dynasty and allowed the Han Dynasty to station troops in the royal city? Or... the Han army took only a few days to capture Jiaohe City. The action was so swift that not even a single piece of news was leaked?!"

Tiefu was really confused. Although this situation was not completely unrelated to his previous expectations, it could be said that it was completely unrelated.

There was no reason for the Gushi Kingdom to suddenly surrender to the Han Dynasty. Their geographical location forced them to sit on the fence no matter how helpless they were. They would never dare to openly become enemies with the Huns, let alone cooperate with the Han Dynasty to ambush the Huns' army.

It was also impossible for the Han army to capture Jiaohe City so easily and quickly.

Jiaohe City is defended by natural barriers. Before the ammunition and food were exhausted, even if there were only a few thousand defenders, the difficulty of attacking it would be no less than the Han Dynasty's pass... Moreover, how could a siege not leave any traces? Such traces of destruction, burning and death would never disappear without months or even years of repair and cover-up. Even if those miscellaneous kings who went to negotiate were blind, they would not fail to see them.

So, what's going on?

But now is obviously not a good time to squat here and ponder. Tiefu only hesitated for a moment and immediately gave a loud order:

"Pass the order down. Forget setting up the tents. Send out the entire army. Station outside Jiaohe City and besiege it!"

……

More than 20 miles away, several conspicuous white sky lanterns rose into the sky.

The cavalry teams of five people scattered within a radius of dozens of miles quickly gathered in a valley agreed in advance. In just a few hours, they were united into a cavalry of more than 7,000 people.

Among them were orthodox cavalry as well as crossbowmen who had been transferred from the garrison at the Tianshan Gap in recent days.

With double stirrups, advance training some days ago, and the horses and spare horses arranged from the Gu Shi Kingdom, the crossbowmen can become crossbow knights.

This kind of cavalry tactics, which can be combined into a whole at any time and can be broken down into small pieces at any time, is the "wave tactics" that the Mongolian cavalry in later generations were best at, and it can also be called the "scattered star tactics of crow soldiers."

Such tactics enabled the Mongol cavalry to always disappear like lightning and reappear as if falling from the sky.

After a certain degree of training, they could even surround a thousand enemy troops with only a hundred cavalrymen, control a battle line of fifty-three kilometers with a thousand cavalrymen, and appear at the weakest line of defense of their enemy with superior forces at any time.

However, the army under Liu Ju is unable to do this now.

After all, any tactic requires constant training and actual combat to eventually form a system. In addition, Liu Ju had never had a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the "wave tactics" in his previous life. He could only do a lot of reverse deduction and drills in his mind based on the information he knew, so as to make up for those tactical details that he did not know.

Fortunately, he is now a full-level human, so it is not too difficult to do this.

Even if there are some minor omissions, they are certainly not a big deal and can be continuously improved during the battle.

In addition, whether it is the Han cavalry or the crossbowmen, these are the elite of the Han army. They are disciplined, well-trained, and can obey orders, which is also a prerequisite for the implementation of all tactics.

If it were the Huns' army, even if Liu Ju had advanced tactics in mind, he would have to train the troops for a year first.

"This tactic is simply amazing. With just a wave of the hand, a surprise force is created that is impossible to defend against!"

Looking at the cavalry army that had gathered in just a few hours, Zhao Po Nu was already looking forward to the outcome of this battle.

Seven thousand Han cavalry faced off against twenty thousand Xiongnu cavalry, although they were at an absolute disadvantage in terms of numbers.

But this was a surprise force that suddenly appeared, and it was much faster and more surprising than the thousand-mile raids that Wei Qing and Huo Qubing had used in the past.

The Huns' attention is now not on Jiaohe City, but on the Han army base in the gap of the Tianshan Mountains.

This surprise force that appeared more than 20 miles away was completely unexpected. They had already lost the initiative before the battle even started. The outcome was uncertain...

After all, he still remembered vividly the scene in which Huo Qubing led only 10,000 cavalrymen in the Battle of Hexi, marched more than a thousand miles in six days, crossed Wudu, attacked Tengpu, waded through Hunu, and raided tens of thousands of Huns' troops.

Seven thousand versus twenty thousand?

Now it seems that it is not at such a disadvantage, and it is even a little stronger.

(End of this chapter)