Abstract: To enhance the joint flood control capability of reservoirs, this paper describes the basic structure of a universal reservoirs-river flood control system for river basin, and develops a universal model for jointly optimizing the flood control of reservoirs to ensure the safety of the reservoirs and lower reaches. We analyze the composition and reservoir outflows' response characteristics of the inflows at flood control points, and develop an effective calculation method for the joint optimization using a dynamic programming - progressive optimal algorithm (DP-POA) nesting algorithm. In a case study of a catastrophic flood occurred in the Hanbei River basin, the calculations show that through optimization, the flood peaks at three flood control points in the basin are reduced by 24.32%, 12.05% and 9.34%, respectively, relative to regular operation. The effective reduction is a fruit of the pre-discharge and staggered peak shift strategies adopted in the optimized joint operation of the reservoirs in this basin, thus demonstrating the usefulness of our universal model.