The summer heat was baking the plains of Jingzhou, turning the air thick and heavy.
Inside the newly liberated walls of Wancheng, Wei Kai was working up a serious sweat. His cooking skills were far from professional, but what he lacked in technique, he made up for with pure effort.
The sheep he'd managed to acquire was old and tough enough to qualify for military service. He spent the better part of an hour washing the meat, hacking it into manageable chunks, and tossing them into a large clay pot.
Knowing old mutton carried a strong odor, Wei Kai had shamelessly spent the morning sweet-talking half the neighborhood. After exhausting every favor he could think of, he finally managed to barter for a small handful of dried Sichuan peppercorns.
He guarded those peppercorns like treasure before dropping them into the bubbling stew.
The pot simmered from noon until sunset.
Eventually, the rich aroma of meat and spices drifted through the courtyard.
Wei Kai carefully fished out the softened mutton and transferred it onto a chopping board he'd scrubbed so thoroughly it practically shone. Fresh mallow greens and wild leeks followed.
Then the cleaver got to work.
The heavy blade rose and fell in a steady rhythm, reducing everything into a fragrant mound of finely minced filling.
Freshly steamed wheat buns sat nearby.
With practiced hands, Wei Kai sliced them open, creating small pockets in the soft dough. He packed each bun with generous amounts of mutton, vegetables, and a spoonful of fermented black bean paste. Finally, he ladled a splash of rich broth over the filling.
The bread immediately soaked up the juices.
The result was simple.
But it was glorious.
By the time he finished, a large wicker basket was overflowing with steaming meat sandwiches.
Covering everything with a clean cloth, Wei Kai hoisted the basket onto his shoulder and climbed the western wall.
Up on the battlements, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were leaning against the parapet, quietly watching the distant movements of Cao Ren's retreating army.
Hou Yin stepped forward, pulled back the cloth to check the basket, and nodded with deep satisfaction. He turned toward the command group.
"General Yunchang," he called out, "dinner is ready."
A short while later, the supreme command staff of the Jingzhou vanguard looked considerably less majestic.
A moment later, the entire high command of the Jingzhou vanguard was reduced to a bunch of men standing on a stone wall, greasy fingers gripping hot meat pies, chewing in silence while watching the enemy move across the valley.
Across the valley, Cao Ren's army continued its orderly withdrawal.
The man was a textbook commander.
There were no reckless risks. No desperate counterattacks.
Xu Huang and Yu Jin screened the flanks with disciplined formations while Cao Ren personally supervised the movement of the main army northward.
Zhang Fei devoured his first sandwich in three bites. Wei Kai, showing good political instincts, immediately stepped forward and slipped a second one into the general's big palm.
The speed of the transaction suggested this had happened before.
Zhang Fei accepted without hesitation.
Planting one boot atop an arrow slit, he glared at the distant enemy while chewing aggressively.
"This Cao Zixiao is a complete coward."
His voice emerged slightly muffled by mutton.
"Look at that army. Look at it. And he doesn't even dare come knock on our door."
Hou Yin nearly choked on his own food. For a brief moment, he genuinely worried Cao Ren might hear the insult from several miles away and decide to turn the army around.
Fortunately, Guan Yu stepped in before heaven could test that theory.
"Stop talking nonsense, Third Brother."
His tone remained calm and unhurried.
"Their men are exhausted. Their supply line is broken. Just maintaining order during this retreat is difficult enough."
He glanced toward the withdrawing columns.
"Why would Cao Ren waste soldiers assaulting a fortified city?"
The grain, weapons, armor, and military supplies originally intended to sustain Cao Ren's winter campaign were now sitting comfortably inside Wancheng's warehouses.
That stockpile was worth more than any battlefield victory.
Yide smacked his lips, looking thoroughly unsatisfied. "So we just let them walk away?"
Yunchang carefully finished his third sandwich. He took his time pulling out a cloth to wipe his long, flowing beard, making sure not a single drop of grease was left behind.
We have barely over ten thousand available troops," Guan Yu said. "Holding Wancheng and keeping them from having a base in Nanyang is already a major victory."
Zhang Fei sighed dramatically.
The sigh carried enough disappointment to suggest he had personally expected to conquer half the north before dinner.
The contrast was amusing.
Just yesterday, Guan Yu had been sighing because Cao Cao escaped capture by the narrowest margin.
Today, Zhang Fei was sighing because he couldn't conquer the Central Plains in a single afternoon.
Different problems.
Same expression.
Same family.
Hou Yin looked at the two brothers and suddenly understood why so many men were willing to follow them into impossible battles.
Even after surviving a campaign that should have exhausted any sane commander, these men were still discussing how much more territory they could take.
For them, victory never seemed quite large enough.
---
The sun finally slipped behind the western mountains, staining the horizon crimson and violet.
From atop the walls of Wancheng, Guan Yu watched the distant Cao army bring its march to a halt.
Rather than pushing deeper into the gathering darkness, the enemy immediately began constructing a layered defensive camp. Stakes were driven into the earth.
Barricades went up. Patrol routes were established before the last traces of daylight disappeared.
Impeccable discipline, Yunchang thought.
A midnight raid against a veteran commander in a fortified camp was a recipe for disaster.
His night attack plans died right there.
He studied the board for a long moment, then ordered five hundred of his personal cavalry guards to saddle up.
They trotted out of the main gates.
The slow, heavy grinding of Wancheng's wooden gates triggered an alarm in the Cao scout lines.
Within minutes, light cavalry scouts were riding in tight, cautious circles just outside weapon range, trying to figure out what the garrison was up to.
Guan Yu ignored them.
He kept his mount at a steady walk, staying safely under the cover of his own wall mounted crossbows. He halted his horse, cleared his throat, and let loose a voice that echoed across the clearing.
"An old friend from Hedong is present. Xu Gongming, why not come out and speak with me?"
A moment later, war drums rumbled through the Cao camp.
The heavy wooden barricades parted, and Xu Huang rode out, completely surrounded by thirty elite shock cavalry.
Guan Yu squinted.
The protection detail was absurd.
If not for the familiar shape of Xu Huang's armor and the distinctive feathers attached to his helmet, he might not have recognized the man at all.
"Gongming, is all this really necessary?" Guan Yu asked, a dry, amused smile touching his lips.
Xu Huang kept his hand resting near his weapon. He didn't return the smile. He looked at Guan Yu, then glanced at the Green Dragon Crescent Blade resting casually against Guan Yu's stirrup.
He got straight to the point.
"Yunchang, what wisdom do you have for me today?"
Guan Yu paused. Thanks to the strange light screen that had appeared months ago, revealing fragments of the future, he knew that in another version of history, this childhood friend would eventually use their personal bond to set up a brutal ambush during the Fancheng campaign.
But that was a different lifetime. They served different masters now. There was no real hatred between them.
There was no point discussing politics. Xu Huang defecting? Not gonna happen. Anyone with half a brain knew that. Even if he was tempted, his entire family was sitting in Yecheng with Cao Cao's spies watching their every move.
Guan Yu decided to keep it personal. "How's your waist holding up?"
Xu Huang blinked.
Of all the questions he expected tonight, that wasn't one of them.
His hand moved instinctively toward the injury beneath his armor.
During the brutal fighting at Fancheng, he had personally led a vanguard assault up the ladders, only to meet a sweeping horizontal strike from Guan Yu's blade. The blow had chewed through his armor and left a nasty gash across his side.
He thought about how Guan Yu had vanished from the Fancheng battlefield, slipped past their entire defensive line, and pulled off a high speed siege of Wancheng right under their noses.
Professional frustration washed over him.
"Fortunately," Xu Huang replied, "I'm still hard to kill."
"Good."
"Good."
The conversation died. The two groups of elite guards stared at each other across the gap, faces blank. Our generals are terrible at small talk.
The awkward standoff was shattered by a sudden flare of orange light to the southwest. Distant war cries and the clang of steel drifted over the plain.
Xu Huang whipped his head around, eyes narrowing at the fires.
He turned back to Guan Yu, his face twisted with fury.
"Guan Yunchang, you brilliant, scheming bastard!"
Xu Huang assumed the whole friendly chat was just a cheap distraction to keep him away from a midnight ambush.
He didn't wait for an explanation. He slammed his spurs into his horse and galloped back to his lines, shouting orders.
Guan Yu stood frozen in the field, staring at the dust cloud left by his childhood friend. He wanted to explain that he had no idea what was burning over there. But he just shook his head.
Behind him, the gates of Wancheng slammed open again.
Zhsng Fei came roaring out at the head of a heavy infantry column, fully armored and buzzing with violent energy. He pulled up beside his brother and looked around the empty field with deep disappointment.
"Second Brother, why didn't you trap that bastard Xu Huang while you had the chance?"
Events were moving too fast for nostalgia. Guan Yu raised his blade and signaled his men to form a battle line.
He decided to play along with the confusion.
He ordered his forces to press hard against the perimeters of Xu Huang and Yu Jin's camps, putting heavy psychological pressure on them so they wouldn't dare split their forces to investigate the fire.
The bluff worked perfectly. The Cao camps lit every torch they had. Their soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder behind wooden spikes, braced for an assault that never came.
The standoff lasted less than an hour.
A scout came galloping through the darkness, his horse lathered with sweat. He dismounted before Yunchang, cupped his fists, and delivered his report in a hurried whisper.
The moment he finished, a faint glimmer appeared in the old general's eyes. For perhaps the first time all day, he looked genuinely pleased.
He lifted a hand.
"Withdraw."
The order rippled through the ranks. The Jingzhou soldiers who had been pressing against Xu Huang and Yu Jin's camps immediately began pulling back in neat formation. Shields lowered. Spears turned. Drums beat a slow cadence as the army marched calmly toward Wancheng's gates.
Across the field, Cao soldiers stared in confusion.
"That's it?"
"They're leaving?"
"I thought we were about to die."
"Brother, I already wrote my last words in my head."
"Same."
"Mine was just 'Mom, sorry.'"
"Mine was 'bury me with extra food.'"
The Cao troops let out a collective breath.
Inside Xu Huang's command tent, nobody was relaxing.
Xu Huang sat stiffly over a map table. Something felt wrong. Very wrong.
He had spent years fighting Guan Yu. The man was proud, direct, and terrifyingly decisive. If Guan Yu mobilized troops at night and pressed his camp that aggressively, there should have been a purpose behind it.
But now the enemy was simply leaving.
Xu Huang stared at the map. Then he looked southwest. The direction of the fire.
His face slowly darkened.
"Oh no."
Beside him, several officers exchanged confused glances.
"General?"
Xu Huang jabbed a finger toward the map. "Wancheng has food."
The officers blinked. "So does our camp."
Xu Huang's expression turned uglier. He repeated the words, slower this time. "Wancheng has food. And our army has fifty thousand exhausted men marching north."
The officers went quiet. A horrible realization spread through the tent.
Food. Everything came back to food. The fires to the southwest suddenly looked a lot more dangerous.
Xu Huang stood up. "Scouts." The word exploded from his mouth. "I want scouts everywhere. Southwest. South. West. Every road, every village, every crossroads."
The officers rushed out. Xu Huang remained behind, staring at the map. For the first time all evening, he was no longer worried about Guan Yu.
He was worried about whoever was currently setting the countryside on fire.
Back inside Wancheng, the atmosphere was completely different.
The moment the gates closed, Zhang Fei grabbed the first officer he saw.
"Where's the scout? The one who just came in?"
"He's reporting to General Yunchang, General."
Zhang Fei didn't wait. He stormed toward the command hall.
By the time he got there, the news had already spread.
"Huang Zhong has arrived!"
Zhang Fei froze. Then his face split into a wide grin.
"Hahaha!"
His booming laughter echoed across the courtyard.
"That old tiger finally caught up!"
An officer nodded excitedly. "Not only General Huang Zhong, but Military Advisor Yuanzhi is with him as well. Their forces are only a short distance away."
The news spread through Wancheng like wildfire. Every officer immediately understood what it meant.
The campaign had reached a turning point. Xiangyang had fallen. Fancheng had survived. Huang Zhong had completed his mission. Xu Shu had completed his mission. And now both armies were converging on Wancheng.
Hou Yin looked around at the suddenly animated officers and felt dizzy. Just a few days ago he had been a miserable garrison soldier wondering whether he'd survive another week. Now he was standing in the same city as Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Huang Zhong, and Xu Yuanzhi. Half of Jingzhou's all star lineup was practically holding a strategy meeting in his backyard.
Wei Kai looked equally stunned. "Brother."
"What?"
Wei Kai lowered his voice. "Do you think we're important people now?"
Hou Yin stared at him. "No."
"Oh."
"We just happen to be standing near important people."
Wei Kai thought about it. "Yeah. That sounds about right."
A moment later, Zhang Fei's thunderous voice boomed across the courtyard.
"Prepare wine!"
The entire area fell silent. Several officers looked at each other nervously.
One brave soul finally raised a hand. "General..."
"What?"
"The city was under siege for days."
"So?"
"We don't actually have any wine."
Zhang Fei looked personally betrayed by reality. For a few seconds, he simply stood there, processing this terrible information.
Then he pointed angrily toward the north. "Look at Cao Cao."
Everyone turned. The Cao camps sat in the darkness beyond the walls.
Yide jabbed his finger again. "That old bastard definitely has wine."
Several officers nearly choked. Even Guan Yu, who had just walked in, rubbed his forehead.
The campaign was entering its decisive phase. Xu Yuanzhi and Huang Zhong were marching toward Wancheng. Cao Ren was retreating north with a starving army.
And Zhang Fei's biggest concern at the moment was apparently finding a drink.
Some things never changed.
---
The moment Guan Yu stepped into the main command hall, he was met by the exhausted, dust covered faces of Military Advisor Xu Shu and veteran General Huang Zhong.
Xu Shu looked like he hadn't slept in a week, but his eyes were bright with triumph. He stepped forward and delivered his report.
"Mission accomplished, Yunchang. I held Fancheng against their entire siege train. Furthermore, General Huang Hansheng completely shattered the southern deadlock, executed Yue Jin, and reoccupied Xiangyang!"
Xu Shu smiled, gesturing to the weary troops outside. "We have brought five thousand fresh, veteran reinforcements to back you up."
"Excellent!" Guan Yu said, a massive weight lifting from his chest.
Though he had received brief, fragmented military dispatches over the last few days, hearing the absolute confirmation directly from Xu Shu's mouth felt entirely different.
This was a textbook campaign.
Zhang Fei, true to form, was far more expressive.
He marched over and delivered a booming slap to Huang Zhong's shoulder, offering loud, boisterous praise. The old general, whose bones were already aching from a high speed forced march across two prefectures, looked like he was about to fall apart under the assault.
Before Huang Zhong could complain, Zhang Fei scooped up the slender Xu Shu, spinning the military advisor around like a ragdoll.
"Our Military Advisor is truly a great!" Zhang Fei roared with laughter.
A thoroughly dizzy Xu Shu waved his hands, begging for mercy.
Once his feet hit the floor, he sat down at the tactical table and began laying out the grand strategic reality.
"The Xiangyang-Fancheng campaign is effectively over. The strategic victory is ours."
Guan Yu and Zhang Fei nodded in agreement. The original goals of the campaign were simply to secure the strategic river locks of Xiangyang and Fancheng. Capturing the northern hub of Wancheng was pure bonus territory.
With these three fortresses acting as a unified defensive triangle, they could easily consolidate their grip on the entire Jingzhou region.
In a siege dominated era, the defender held every mathematical advantage.
"During their desperate assaults on Fancheng, the Cao army suffered nearly ten thousand casualties," Xu Shu explained, pointing at the map.
"They still have over forty thousand men under arms, so they are technically a massive force. However, their grain supplies are practically nonexistent, and their men are desperate to get home to the north. They lack the psychological capacity for another major engagement."
Xu Shu tapped the northern roads. "If they try to turn around and force a decisive battle against us, their own men will mutiny before the first drum beats. At this stage, we do not need complex strategies. We just need to ride their heels, harass their rear guards, and scoop up the stragglers as they dissolve."
It was a classic cleanup operation. Both Guan Yu and Zhang Fei had been playing this game since the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
They knew the mechanics of a routing army inside out.
"Xu Shu, Hansheng, please go get some rest," Guan Yu said, noting the dark circles under their eyes.
Zhang Fei pounded his chest. "Leave the heavy lifting to us!"
---
Private Zhao A was sitting on the northern wall, staring into the dark night, and asking himself a very important question.
Was he getting ripped off by the Liu Bei administration?
Think about it.
When this campaign started, he was a specialist marine on a fancy flagship.
Big boat.
Big salary energy.
Then after they broke the naval blockade at Fancheng, they moved him to the Yu River fleet. Suddenly he was pulling oars like a common laborer, transporting grain wagons under enemy fire.
Now Wancheng had fallen, and where was he? Standing on a stone wall with a spear. Guard duty. Like a regular infantry grunt.
Same paycheck. Three different jobs.
Nice, Zhao A thought. Really nice.
On the bright side, aside from that one time he almost got shot while rowing, his assignments hadn't been too deadly.
He was still alive. Still had all his limbs. And he had a front row seat to history. Better than those poor cavalry bastards who had to charge into walls of spears.
But still. Guard duty was boring.
Zhao A watched the mounted troopers trotting through the courtyard below. The way they sat in their saddles looked so... what was that word the literate sergeant used last week? Majestic. Yeah. Majestic.
Maybe I should learn to ride a horse.
He completely forgot that he had grown up in a swamp and didn't even know which end of a pony ate the hay.
His thoughts drifted back to his beloved warships. The big ones. The ones that actually made him feel important.
Too bad the Yu River was a joke compared to the Han River. Narrow. Shallow. The flagship scraped its bottom every time it tried to turn. If someone ambushed them from the bank, they'd be sitting ducks.
No room to maneuver. Zero.
If we could have brought the fleet all the way up here, Zhao A sighed, patrolling this border would be a vacation.
He didn't understand big picture strategy. That was for people with fancy hats and bigger paychecks. But he could tell that General Guan Yu and the high brass were getting busier by the day. And they seemed happier too.
The cavalry units he envied had gone out twice in the last two days. Sweeping operations, they called it. And every single time, they came back safe, dragging lines of Cao soldiers behind them. Dejected. Hands tied. Heads down.
Not a bad job, Zhao A thought. If you ignore the whole "dying" part.
---
Back in the command hall, Guan Yu stood over the map table, his armor still covered in road dust.
"Cao Ren isn't taking a single gamble," he muttered.
He gestured to Xu Shu. "He's taking his entire force directly north. Completely refusing to cross the Yu River. He bypassed Zhi county entirely and swung his columns northeast toward Luyang and Chou counties. The terrain up there is rugged and uneven. A nightmare for our pursuit cavalry."
Xu Shu sighed, staring at the map. He had secretly hoped that Cao Ren would let his pride get the better of him, attempt a high speed crossing of the Yu River, and walk right into a slaughter. But the veteran general was playing a perfect defensive game.
"Look at their leadership," Xu Shu said. "Cao Ren, Cao Cao, Xu Huang, and Yu Jin all sitting in the same tent. Some of the most experienced tactical minds in the empire. If they were winning, they might get arrogant and make a stupid mistake. But they're retreating after a major defeat. Right now, they're checking every single bush for ambushes."
He shook his head with a wry smile. "Too bad for Gan Gui. His big plan for glory just went up in smoke."
Guan Yu smiled. Before the retreat began, they had predicted that the Cao army might try a desperate crossing at Bowang. The young commander Gan Gui had volunteered to hide a fleet of small fire ships in the marshy upper lakes. The plan was to wait until the Cao army was halfway across, release the burning ships downstream to torch their pontoon bridges, and let Guan Yu's cavalry finish the slaughter on the banks.
Now, with Cao Ren taking the safe mountain route, the young officer was probably sitting in his boat somewhere in the swamps, cursing his luck.
"Don't worry about the kid!" Zhang Fei bellowed, waving his hand. "I already took care of it. I sent a personal courier to Cao Cao's camp with a very detailed letter. And I made sure to write Gan Gui's name in giant characters right at the top. The Prime Minister definitely knows who he is now."
Xu Shu blinked. "What on earth did you write in that letter, Yide?"
Zhang Fei offered a calm, innocent smile.
"Oh, nothing major. I just gave the old man a thorough update on his family's future."
---
Deep in the northern hills of Luyang, the surviving elite of the Cao administration had finally established a secure perimeter. The men were exhausted, but the immediate threat of Yunchang's terrifying crescent blade had finally faded. A collective sigh of relief echoed through the tents.
Except inside the imperial command tent.
Prime Minister Cao Cao was currently experiencing a neurological meltdown. He was holding a piece of coarse paper written in Yide's notoriously aggressive, unpolished handwriting, and his face was shifting through various terrifying shades of purple.
"That absolute animal!" Cao Cao screamed, his voice cracking with raw fury. "He dares to place a hereditary curse on my children and grandchildren? He claims my bloodline is genetically predisposed to chronic diabetes and blinding migraines? He says we are all destined to die young, and that the Sima clan will completely exterminate my entire house within three generations?"
Cao Cao slammed his fist onto the table, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"And what is this garbage at the bottom? He claims that in the history books of the future, my legacy will be reduced to a common butcher who slaughtered civilian populations! He says the future barbarian invasions that will tear China apart are entirely my fault because I weakened the northern borders?"
The letter was an absolute masterpiece of psychological terrorism. It completely bypassed classical literary elegance, eschewing formal poetic insults in favor of raw, street level slang, vulgar curses, and highly specific future history spoilers. Terms like "bird brained idiot" and "low life dog" were scattered across the page like confetti.
Years ago, when the brilliant scholar Chen Lin had published a beautifully crafted, highly sophisticated public manifesto denouncing Cao Cao's entire ancestry, Cao Cao had actually laughed it off, claiming the sheer literary brilliance of the essay had cured his headache.
Yide's letter had the exact opposite effect. It was so toxic, crude, and deeply offensive that Cao Cao felt a massive, throbbing spike of pain bloom right behind his eyes. He collapsed into his heavy chair, clutching his temples.
"Cao Dog?" Cao Cao whispered, staring at the offensive characters scrawled on the paper.
He lunged forward, tearing the letter into a thousand tiny shreds and scattering them across the dirt floor. He unleashed a roar that shook the support beams of the tent.
"Zhang Yide! I swear to every god in heaven, I will hunt you down and kill you with my bare hands!"