The full moon shone over Guanzhong as though the heavens had decided the battlefield deserved one clean look before history claimed it.
Then a great roar burst forth from the heart of Chang'an, tearing through the freezing dark and shattering loud enough to wake every soul still pretending to sleep.
"CHANG'AN IS RESTORED! THE THREE QIN ARE AT PEACE!"
Liu Bei shouted with all his might. But one voice, even at the top of its power, could only carry so far from those lofty walls.
Good thing Zhang Fei existed.
HE SWELLED HIS great chest and let loose a bellow that would've made siege drums question their career choices. Zhang Fei solved the problem the only way Zhang Fei ever solved anything, of course, by yelling harder. Down below, thousands of victorious soldiers raised their torches and took up the shout.
"CHANG'AN IS RESTORED! THE THREE QIN ARE AT PEACE!"
The words rolled down the stone ramparts, swept through the ancient streets, and rode the combined strength of ten thousand voices out across the wide dark plain.
Fire crowned the ramparts. Streams of torchlight poured through the open gates. Under that blazing glow, Chang'an wore its old glory again, proudly pretending the broken masonry, collapsed roofs, and scorch marks had all taken the evening off. For one shining moment, the light was so bright it made the battered city appear whole again.
Nobody complained. After everything they endured, this was close enough.
Ten thousand voices thundered as one. The cheers rolled outward until even the distant hills gave them back, because mountains, unlike politicians, actually returned what people shouted at them. The dead plains of Guanzhong seemed to breathe again, awakened by the sheer burning passion of an army's triumph.
Liu Bei slapped both hands over his ears as Zhang Fei's roar blasted across the walls. The man wasn't projecting his voice anymore. He was committing violence against the concept of hearing. Even so, watching that triumphant cry roll across Chang'an brought a bright smile to his face.
The smile lasted exactly three seconds.
His brain lurched back to work. He grabbed Zhuge Liang by the wrist and pulled him toward the stairs.
"We don't have a moment to lose, Kongming. We need to seize Tong Pass before....."
Zhuge Liang laughed, planted his feet, and gently reeled his lord back in.
"Take Tong Pass now that Chang'an has fallen?"
Liu Bei froze.
"...You already know."
"I usually do."
Liu Bei stared at him for a long second before smacking his own thigh.
"Kongming, one of these days you're going to predict what I'm thinking before I think it."
"I've been doing that for years, my lord."
Liu Bei opened his mouth, realized he had no comeback, and gave up.
Still smiling, Zhuge Liang flicked open his feather fan.
"The moment Chang'an surrendered this afternoon, Zhao Yun and Huo Jun departed with one thousand heavy cavalry, two thousand Qiang riders, and one thousand mounted crossbowmen. If nothing unexpected has happened, they're already on their way to Tong Pass."
That explained a lot. When Zhu Ling escorted the captured Xiahou Yuan into the city, the place felt strangely empty despite the victory. Zhuge Liang hadn't forgotten the defenses. He'd stolen them.
Every spare soldier already dispatched. Some secured the surrounding passes. Others watched the prisoners. The mobile reserve marched the instant Chang'an surrendered. There weren't even enough hands left to scrub the blood from the walls.
Liu Bei blinked.
"...Tong Pass isn't exactly famous for opening its gates to strangers."
Zhuge Liang pointed his fan toward the darkness beyond the city.
"It will today. Zhao Yun carries a surrender letter written by Mister Zhong Yao himself."
Liu Bei's worries disappeared so fast they probably deserved a military commendation. He burst into laughter.
"Mister Zhong Yao truly puts the people above everything else. A man worthy of every ounce of respect."
That was exactly why Liu Bei forced the army through the brutal night march. Strike before Wei recovered. Secure Guanzhong before anyone could organize a proper response. He even dragged Xiahou Yuan all the way here, fully intending to exchange the famous general for Chang'an or Tong Pass if negotiations became necessary.
Instead, Zhong Yao handed him a better outcome than he'd dared hope for.
Zhuge Liang didn't join the laughter. He rested both hands on the cold parapet and looked out across Chang'an, where thousands of torches painted the city in restless gold.
"Taking Chang'an is only the beginning," he said. "The Three Qin hold thousands of miles of incredibly fertile land. This city deserves better than surviving as a monument to yesterday."
Unlike Jingzhou, this land faced no constant threat from the backstabbing Jiangdong rats. Nor was it split apart by endless twisting rivers. Unlike Yizhou, it was not sealed off from the world behind walls of impassable peaks.
Eight hundred li of open country stretched before them, rich enough to feed an empire and broad enough to reshape one. They only needed hands to make them flourish again. Millions still called these lands home. They had simply been waiting for someone capable of giving them a future their children could inherit.
A great burning ambition rose within Zhuge Liang's chest. He stretched his hand out into the night and slowly closed his fingers, as if taking hold of the very future itself.
Conquering Guanzhong took a campaign. Turning it into the heart of an empire would take the rest of his life.
---
While Chang'an drowned itself in celebration, Bowang carried on exactly as it always did.
Nobody threw banquets. Nobody drank themselves senseless. The mud remained faithfully ankle-deep, the wind remained obnoxiously cold, and everyone still had work to do.
Zhao A sat on a rickety wooden stool, sucking in a sharp breath as Xu Shu sprinkled medicinal powder into the sword cut on his arm. The stuff stung bad enough that he briefly considered whether bleeding to death might've been the better option.
"Stay still," Xu Shu said.
"I am staying still."
"You flinched."
"That was my arm. I didn't do anything."
Xu Shu snorted, dipped a clean strip of cloth into the pot of boiled water, and wrapped the wound with practiced hands before tying the knot tight.
He opened his mouth, ready to give the speech every injured soldier had heard at least twenty times.
Zhao A beat him to it.
"I know. Eat. Sleep. Don't pick at the bandage. And then get back out there and chop down more Cao soldiers."
Xu Shu raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't going to say that last part."
"You were thinking it."
"Maybe."
"See? I'm learning."
Xu Shu shook his head, smiling despite himself. "Learning would mean actually doing it."
"One step at a time, Military Advisor."
Xu Shu watched the young soldier disappear out of the medical tent before wandering over to a wooden basin filled with steaming water. He lowered both hands into it and sighed in relief.
Medicinal herbs smelled wonderful. Touching them all day did not.
Long before winter even considered packing its bags, he and Guan Yu wrote a lengthy letter and sent it racing west toward Yizhou.
Its contents could be summed up in a single sentence. March without hesitation, my lord. We'll keep Jingzhou standing.
That promise didn't come from blind confidence.
Xu Shu buried himself beneath piles of intelligence reports until his neck practically disappeared. Between his own deductions and the collective scheming of Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, and Fa Zheng, they sketched out Cao Cao's most likely responses well before Liu Bei ever crossed into Hanzhong.
Anyone with half a strategic brain could guess where Liu Bei intended to go next. Guanzhong.
The old prophecy certainly made it sound dramatic, but prophecies had a bad habit of skipping the boring details. Guanzhong wasn't some untouched treasure waiting for a new owner. Dong Zhuo looted it. Li Jue and Guo Si looted whatever Dong Zhuo missed. By the time everyone finished looting each other, there wasn't much left worth stealing.
Northern Jingzhou was another matter entirely.
It linked the south to the Central Plains. Its rivers carried supplies faster than any road, and its farmland could keep armies marching year after year. More importantly, anyone who controlled it possessed a straight road toward Cao Cao's doorstep.
Cao Cao had absolutely no interest in letting history repeat itself after the beating Guan Yu handed him the previous year.
Liu Bei's advisers all arrived at the same answer.
Cao Cao could live with losing Guanzhong.
Northern Jingzhou?
Not a chance.
Guanzhong had prestige. Northern Jingzhou had value. Rivers. Farmland. Supply routes. A straight road into the Central Plains. One bruised ego could be ignored. Losing all of that could not.
Judging from the army now marching south, Cao Cao clearly agreed.
That left Guan Yu and Xu Shu with a wonderfully uncomplicated assignment. Hold northern Jingzhou. At all costs.
Two weeks now, Duyang and Wuyin refused to budge. The twin fortresses sat across Cao Cao's advance like a pair of iron wedges hammered into the road, choking his supply lines and forcing every push toward Guanzhong to grind to a halt.
Behind them, Guan Yu waited at Bowang with the mobile reserve, ready to ride wherever the line bent first. If either fortress looked ready to crack, his heavy cavalry would arrive before Cao Cao could celebrate.
Xu Shu assumed their greatest strengths would be Guan Yu's elite cavalry and the newly issued repeating crossbows.
Neither claimed the title.
Two weeks of freezing trench warfare forced Xu Shu to reconsider what truly mattered on campaign. He found himself wanting to write Zhuge Liang another letter every few days for no reason other than to praise the humble coal briquette, a fact he would never have believed had someone told him a month earlier.
The briquettes demanded a little more patience before they caught fire, but they burned for hours afterward and packed so neatly into supply wagons that even the quartermasters had noticeably fewer reasons to curse the heavens. That steady supply of fuel meant the camps always had boiling water, warm fires, and dry clothes waiting at the end of another miserable day spent knee-deep in frozen mud, luxuries that sounded thoroughly unimpressive until one tried living without them.
Soldiers with warm meals, dry uniforms, and hot water to wash away the day's filth slept better, complained less, and woke ready to fight again, which bordered on the miraculous because convincing soldiers to complain less had previously ranked somewhere between teaching fish to climb trees and persuading Zhang Fei to lower his voice.
Even Guan Yu, a man who treated compliments the way dragons treated gold, acknowledged the change in the army's spirit.
Coal wasn't the only change. Wrapped leg bindings spared infantry countless blisters during long marches. Sealed jars of preserved fruit put something sweet into a soldier's mouth long after winter stripped the countryside bare. Hot sugar water and spiced cinnamon broth chased the chill from a man's bones faster than another layer of clothing ever could.
Ultimately, the mighty crossbows and thunderous cavalry charges took second place to simple superior logistics.
Xu Shu knew these small blessings mattered even more to the men trapped cut off inside Duyang and Wuyin.
These seemingly unimportant details turned the whole course of the campaign. Xu Shu and Guan Yu found themselves looking at war itself with fresh eyes. After two weeks, logistics no longer sounded like the least glamorous part of war. It looked suspiciously like the most important.
As the steaming water slowly cooled, Xu Shu drew his hands out reluctantly.
His quarters held a small glowing coal stove. A clean cloth towel hung nearby. He dried his hands thoroughly and allowed himself a moment of deep satisfaction. He murmured softly to himself.
"The good general cultivates virtue and observes order and discipline. Thus he holds the keys to victory. Sun Tzu truly nailed it with that one."
The wooden door swung open and Guan Yu stepped inside. He wore none of Xu Shu's relaxed mood.
The famed red-faced general still stood fully clad in heavy plate armor. Through the open doorway, Xu Shu caught sight of Wei Yan standing guard outside, gripping his great halberd and radiating menace.
Guan Yu wasted no words.
"The enemy offensive is losing strength."
Xu Shu shook off his calm instantly. His mind snapped straight to the only logical cause.
"Does this mean good news from Guanzhong?"
Guan Yu lifted one eyebrow ever so slightly.
"A courier arrived from Hanzhong. Xiahou Yuan's entire army shattered in the Wei River valley. More than ten thousand taken prisoner."
Xu Shu's brow smoothed at once. He accepted the sealed letter Guan Yu handed him and scanned it quickly.
He recognized Zhuge Liang's precise brushwork immediately.
The dispatch traveled securely through the southern mountains of Fangling and Shangyong, so there was no risk of interception. Free to speak plainly, Zhuge Liang laid out the full picture.
Xiahou Yuan's command ceased to exist. Zhao Yun and Ma Chao ranged freely across the plains. The blockade along the Baoxie plank road broke. Zhuge Liang himself marched upon Chang'an.
"He writes that Chang'an will fall within five days," Xu Shu said.
He tapped the paper lightly with one finger and laughed.
"You know Kongming is famously cautious in his estimates, Yunchang. If he says five days, it likely fell in three."
Guan Yu stroked his long beard. A faint satisfied smile touched his lips. He had already read the letter and traced the far-reaching consequences.
With Xiahou Yuan gone, Tong Pass could not hold regardless of its fame. Once the pass fell, the road east into Hongnong lay wide open. Cao Cao would be forced to strip troops from Jingzhou to patch the ruin in his western flank.
"Within ten days, the pressure along our northern border will vanish," Guan Yu said with a short chuckle.
The so-called crisis was just a grinding stalemate.
Cao Cao held greater numbers, yet he lost the advantage of surprise. Guan Ping and Huang Zhong held every choke point fast. No matter how hard the Cao forces pushed, they could not break through.
Even should a handful of elite troops slip past Duyang and Wuyin, Guan Yu's heavy reserve at Bowang waited to crush them. Several clashes already ended the same way. Every Cao thrust had been beaten back.
The enemy could not push south, and Guan Yu chose not to push north. And so they stood locked fast.
But the moment Cao Cao began pulling legions westward, this front would fall still.
"There is nothing more to discuss here," Xu Shu said, shaking his head. He glanced down at the map spread across his table. "Whatever comes next won't happen in the north. The pivot is about to shift to southern Jingzhou."
Xu Shu figured Guanzhong for all its strategic value remained an economic wasteland. Even drawing upon the full resources of Hanzhong, rebuilding would take years. Liu Bei could not launch a sustained eastern invasion through Tong Pass any time soon.
With the west secured and the north held fast, one great uncertainty remained. It lay far to the south.
Xu Shu already weighed the possibilities. How did Cao Cao see the warlords of Jiangdong?
Jiangdong was said to overflow with brilliant talent. Their naval power remained unmatched beneath heaven. The great fire at Red Cliffs scarred Cao Cao forever. The brutal struggle for Nan Commandery drove Cao Ren fleeing for his life. These were undeniable facts.
Yes, the great Zhou Yu passed. But surely Jiangdong had not become utterly useless merely for losing one commander? That thought alone kept Cao Cao waiting in the north for the mighty Jiangdong fleet to sail up and crush Guan Yu.
Guan Yu and Xu Shu knew the bitter truth. Jiangdong without Zhou Yu was a very different and far weaker power.
Lu Su had been stripped of military authority. Command of the vital Jiangxia garrison passed to a man named Lu Meng. Once just a rough fighter under Zhou Yu who could barely read a dispatch. Now he was supposed to command fleets?
Xu Shu deeply doubted it.
If Cao Cao wished to sit in his trenches waiting for some Jiangdong miracle, Xu Shu was perfectly happy to let him wait.
Because he and Guan Yu already laid out a ruthless reply.
Zhao A, fresh from healing his sword wound, was going to love this new plan. He was heading straight back aboard the great river galleons.
Fighting in the northern mud had its moments. Getting stabbed wasn't exactly his idea of fun. Worse, since his injury, the Cao army had all but stopped attacking. Life in the Bowang barracks grew deadly dull.
The boredom was at an end. Guan Yu issued a secret order. The fleet would assemble and sail south. Zhao A was back in the game.
There was one catch. Guan Yu himself remained in the north to hold the line. Command of this strike fell instead to young Gan Gui.
If Guan Yu led like a wise old uncle, Gan Gui led like a man who believed subtlety was invented by cowards.
"Listen up, you bastards!" Gan Gui roared from the flagship's deck, one boot planted on the rail as though gravity were merely a polite suggestion. "We're sailing these beauties straight to Sun Quan's doorstep, and before the bastard realizes what's happening, we'll be shooting him right in that smug face!"