"State Prefecture."
Zhang Xin looked down at Li Li, his tone as flat as cold steel. "Take Han De and get out of my sight."
Did Han Fu seriously think he could still play Governor after trying to stab Qing Province in the back? Dream on.
"Understood," Li Li muttered, his shoulders slumping. He had played his cards, and Zhang Xin had just ripped them up. The negotiation was dead.
"General of Chariots and Cavalry—" Han De opened his mouth, desperate to salvage his future, but Li Li violently yanked his sleeve, giving the young man a sharp, warning head shake.
There was no point in wasting breath. The kid's naive leverage meant nothing to the warlord sitting above them.
"We shall take our leave," Li Li bowed stiffly, dragging a fiercely reluctant Han De out of the grand hall.
The moment the doors clicked shut, Zhang Xin stepped out to the POW camp to reassure his newly acquired, highly enthusiastic fanbase that he wasn't going anywhere. Once that was settled, he marched back to his office and slammed a massive leather map onto the table.
The breakup between Yuan and Han was a certified reality. If it were a trap, Han Fu would have dangling the entire province of Hebei as bait to lure him into a false surrender, rather than offering stingy territory deals and trinkets.
Which meant only one thing: Yuan Shao was currently looking at his tiny, besieged camp and panicking. He was going to bolt.
"Now, where is Big-Headed Yuan going to run?" Zhang Xin murmured, tracing his finger across the ink lines.
Realistically, Yuan Shao only had two escape hatches.
**Path A: The Northern Route.** He could flee north through Julu, Anping, and Hejian, running straight into You Province to beg the famously gentle Liu Yu for political asylum.
* **The Pro:** There were dozens of intersecting mountain passes. Zhang Xin only had Zhang Liao's ten thousand Military Farms up north—not nearly enough bodies to plug every hole.
* **The Con:** Liu Yu's chief advisor, Wei You, absolutely hated Yuan Shao's guts. If Yuan Shao showed up on their doorstep empty-handed, Wei You would likely present his head on a platter to Zhang Xin as a peace offering. Yuan Shao was a lot of things, but he wasn't a gambler. He wouldn't risk his neck on Liu Yu's hospitality.
**Path B: The Southern Route.** This was the high-probability play. Even though Xun You was sitting in Liyang with thirty thousand fresh troops, Yuan Shao could bypass the main roads entirely. He could hug the rugged, southwest foot of the Black Mountain range.
---
> ### The Escape Vector
>
>
> The southwest paths of Black Mountain were a maze of dense foliage and narrow tracks—perfect for slipping a small, elite entourage past a massive army blockading the main highways.
```
[Ye City]
│
▼ (Southwest Mountain Paths)
[Black Mountain Foothills] ──► [Henan Border] ──► [Mengjin Crossing] ──► [Luoyang] ──► [Nanyang (Yuan Shu)]
```
Once he cleared those paths, he'd hit Henan territory, cross the Yellow River at the Mengjin ford, and enter the ruins of Luoyang. Since Luoyang was currently a scorched, desolate no-man's-land, he could openly march through Gu Pass and head straight into Nanyang to crash with his cousin, Yuan Shu.
"Yang Feng and his boys should have cleared the Baixing pass by now, right?" Zhang Xin muttered.
He immediately grabbed a brush, scribbling a high-priority directive to Xun You in Liyang: *Deploy Yang Feng's mountaineers as guides. Ambush every single goat path at the foot of Black Mountain.*
Just in case Yuan Shao actually was crazy enough to try the northern route to Liu Yu, Zhang Xin called in his generals, ordering them to split up and lead one thousand elite cavalry each to stake out the northern and northeastern crossroads of Ye City.
This time, the proud peacock of the Yuan clan wasn't getting away.
---
### Outside Ye City: The Meat Grinder
The horizon bled red under the setting sun as the sounds of slaughter reached a crescendo. Han Fu's forces were throwing wave after wave of bodies against the barricades of Yuan Shao's camp.
Up on the central watchtower, Yuan Shao and Chunyu Qiong were sweating through their armor, flags frantically waving as they directed the defensive formations. Down in the mud, Yuan Shao's son Yuan Tan and his nephew Gao Gan were covered in blood, spears in hand, fighting on the front lines to keep morale from completely shattering.
Yuan Shao was severely outnumbered, but his core nucleus consisted of hardened veterans from the campaigns of Mengjin, Pingyuan, and Nangpi. Compared to the terrified peasants Han Fu had hastily dragged out of their wheat fields, these guys were killing machines.
Furthermore, Chunyu Qiong wasn't a complete fraud. He was a former member of the elite West Garden Eight Colonels. He might get thoroughly clapped if he went up against legendary tactical monsters like Zhang Xin or Dong Zhuo, but dealing with Han Fu's amateur general, Geng Wu? It was a walk in the park.
General Geng Wu hurled his men at the camp for an entire day, leaving thousands of corpses in the dirt, but the wooden palisades held firm. As darkness finally blanketed the battlefield, Han Fu, exhausted and discouraged, ordered a temporary retreat.
The Yuan army finally got a moment to breathe. The second the fighting stopped, Yuan Shao practically sprinted to find his chief strategist, Pang Ji.
"Yuan Tu! What do we do? Look at me, I'm vibrating!" Yuan Shao cried, his face pale and haggard.
Yes, they had held the line today. Han Fu's tactical skills were a joke. But the real nightmare—Zhang Xin—was looming in the shadow of Wei County like a grim reaper. They couldn't stay in Ye City any longer.
Pang Ji looked at his trembling lord and let out a heavy sigh, unrolling a map onto a wooden crate. "Lord, the writing is on the wall. We have to execute a hard breakout tonight."
"Where?! Where do we go?" Yuan Shao asked, his voice cracking. "Zhang Xin's scouts are everywhere, and Han Fu is waiting outside like a jilted ex! How do we move?"
Pang Ji's finger traced a thin, jagged line across the parchment. "West of Ye City lies Black Mountain. We avoid the highways, take the hidden mountain tracks, and slip into Henan."
He dragged his finger further south, pointing directly at the riverbank. "Once we hit Henan, we push the horses to their absolute limits, cross the river at Mengjin, and occupy the ruins of Luoyang. There are no garrisoned forces there. From Luoyang, we clear Gu Pass and ride straight into Nanyang to seek refuge with your cousin, Yuan Shu."
The moment the name *Yuan Shu* left Pang Ji's mouth, Yuan Shao's face twisted into an expression that suggested he had just swallowed a live toad.
The thought of his arrogant, legitimate cousin—the self-proclaimed "Ghost of the Road"—looking down his nose and calling him a "maidservant's son" made Yuan Shao's stomach violently churn.
"No! Absolutely not!" Yuan Shao shook his head so hard his hair ornaments rattled. "If the grand plan involves me begging Yuan Shu for a handout, Yuan Tu, you might as well just run me through with your sword right here!"
"My Lord, think of the bigger picture!" Pang Ji urged, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Zhang Xin has completely locked down Hebei. We cannot defeat him here. Not right now."
Yuan Shao stopped shaking, the cold reality chilling his blood.
"Think about it," Pang Ji pressed, lowering his voice. "Yuan Shu's tactical talent compared to yours is like a pathetic firefly trying to compete with the full moon. Once we safely arrive in the Central Plains, we don't stay with him. We head straight to our family's ancestral home in Runan. The Yuan name still commands absolute reverence there."
Pang Ji's eyes gleamed with ambition. "Yu Province is the heart of the realm. Once we rebuild our legions using Runan's immense wealth, we can march north to snatch Yan Province from Sun Jian, or strike south to absorb Jing Province. The inspectors to the east—Tao Qian in Xu Province and Chen Wen in Yang Province—are weak, soft administrators. You can crush them in your sleep."
He leaned in closer. "In Ji Province, you are a majestic dragon trapped in a shallow, muddy pond. Returning to the south is how you soar back into the heavens!"
Yuan Shao's chest swelled. The bruised ego was rapidly healing under the soothing balm of Pang Ji's flattery.
"Lord," Pang Ji delivered the final strike, "whatever squabbles you and Yuan Shu have, at the end of the day, you both share the blood of the grand Yuan clan. When the world is falling apart, who else can he turn to?"
Yuan Shao blinked. *Huh. He's right.*
The Hebei dream was dead; Zhang Xin's roots were too deep. But the south? If he couldn't beat a freak of nature like Zhang Xin, he could certainly bully elderly bureaucrats like Tao Qian and Chen Wen.
"Your words are like a divine revelation, Yuan Tu," Yuan Shao said, his confidence returning. Then, a sudden doubt crept in. "But wait... aren't the million Black Mountain bandits essentially Zhang Xin's lackeys now? If we march through their mountains, aren't we walking straight into a meat grinder?"
"Do not worry, Lord," Pang Ji smirked. "A million bandits require wide, open highways to move their supplies. They cannot guard the hidden, narrow goat tracks. We will be moving light, fast, and invisible."
"Hidden tracks?" Yuan Shao frowned, looking out toward the camp where twenty thousand men were currently bandaging their wounds. "Then... what happens to our army?"
A look of brutal, icy pragmatism settled over Pang Ji's face. "We leave them."
"Abandon them? All of them?" Yuan Shao's eyes went wide.
Pang Ji nodded without a shred of hesitation. "Twenty thousand men marching into the mountains makes too much noise. Zhang Xin will spot them instantly. He holds a massive cavalry advantage; if his iron riders hunt us down in the open plains, an army that large will just slow us down and get us slaughtered."
He placed a hand on Yuan Shao's arm. "Against Zhang Xin, even if we had two hundred thousand men, victory isn't guaranteed. It is far wiser to leave them as a distraction. We take a hundred of our most elite personal guards and vanish into the night. Once we touch down in Runan, its massive population will allow us to raise a hundred thousand fresh troops within months."
"Brilliant. We do it your way," Yuan Shao barked, his eyes hardening. "When do we pull the plug?"
"Right now," Pang Ji said.
"Now?!" Yuan Shao was startled. "It's pitch black!"
"We are in a literal race against time, Lord," Pang Ji explained, urgency dripping from his voice. "We've been trading blows with Han Fu for twenty-four hours. Zhang Xin isn't stupid; he definitely knows by now. With his intellect, he has already deduced our only play is a breakout through Black Mountain."
Yuan Shao panicked. "If he knows, then why the hell are we walking into his trap, Yuan Tu?!"
"Because we have a narrow window of bureaucratic lag," Pang Ji smiled, pointing at the map. "Look. Ye City is 160 li from Wei County. Wei County is another 160 li from Liyang. From the moment Zhang Xin got the news to the moment his couriers ride to Liyang to order an ambush, it's a 320-li communication loop. That takes at least a day and a half."
Pang Ji's eyes snapped up to lock with Yuan Shao's. "Factor in the time it takes for the Liyang garrison to pack up, march out, and set up their net... we have exactly a half-day head start. If we wait until sunrise, we die. If we slip out tonight under the cover of darkness, our elite group can clear the Henan border in just two hours and completely vanish into the wilderness."
Yuan Shao looked out the window. The sky was ink-black. The mountain trails were treacherous, but darkness was their best shield.
"Guards! Bring me my inner circle!" Yuan Shao roared.
Minutes later, Chunyu Qiong, Yuan Tan, Gao Gan, and a few core loyalists filed into the tent. Yuan Shao didn't sugarcoat it; he laid out the mass abandonment plan exactly as Pang Ji had stated.
Predictably, the generals gasped. Leave twenty thousand loyal soldiers behind to be slaughtered or captured?
Pang Ji didn't let them argue. He gave them a simple, brutal choice: *Do you want to die here for 'honor,' or do you want to live to see the south?*
The collective consensus was reached within seconds: *Yeah, Zhang Xin is terrifying. Let's get the hell out of here.*
Under Chunyu Qiong's silent, professional supervision, the high-ranking officers abandoned their heavy baggage. Yuan Shao, escorted by a hundred elite guards, climbed into his personal, quietly cushioned small donkey cart.
Chunyu Qiong and the remaining commanders mounted their warhorses. Every single horse hoof was wrapped in thick cloth to muffle the sound, and the mounts were gagged with wooden bits to prevent any sudden neighing. They crept out of the rear camp gates, completely ignoring the thousands of ordinary soldiers sleeping soundly in their tents.
"Faster, keep moving..." Chunyu Qiong hissed under his breath.
Guided by the dim, flickering light of a few covered torches, the tiny caravan ghosted into the gaping maw of the Black Mountain trails.
A few Han Army scouts hiding in the brush spotted the movement. However, seeing a highly armed, lethal unit of a hundred elite riders moving away from the main theater and deep into the mountain ridges, they chose pragmatism over suicide. They didn't engage. Instead, one scout wheeled his horse around to sprint back to base, while the others kept a quiet distance, tracking the vanishing torches until the night swallowed them whole.
---
### Ye City: The Weight of the Crown
Meanwhile, Li Li had been riding like a madman all day, finally collapsing into the State Prefecture palace alongside a thoroughly traumatized Han De.
"Governor..." Li Li stumbled into the chamber, his knees buckling as he bowed to Han Fu.
The poor administrator looked like a ghost. His robes were coated in thick road dust, his hair was a wild nest, and his body was violently shivering from sheer physical exhaustion. Riding three hundred li in a single day without a second of sleep had pushed his middle-aged body to the absolute limit.
"Save your breath, rest!" Han Fu scrambled down from his dais, visibly anxious as he helped his loyal minister into a chair. "Tell me... how did it go? Did he accept my heir?"
Li Li swallowed hard, his voice trembling as he recounted the entire terrifying display at Zhang Xin's POW camp—the absolute discipline, the roaring hatred of the common soldiers, and Zhang Xin's chilling declaration about "the will of the people."
Han Fu listened, the color slowly draining from his face until he sat in stunned, absolute silence. A long, agonizing minute passed before he let out a hollow, defeated sigh.
"Alas..." Han Fu let out a bitter, self-deprecating chuckle. "I honestly believed that during my tenure as Governor of Ji Province, I governed with a clean conscience. Everything I did was for the glory of the Han Dynasty and the stability of the state..."
He looked down at his trembling hands. "I never realized... that the very people I swore to protect loathed me this much."
Li Li opened his mouth to offer comfort, but closed it. To be completely fair, Han Fu wasn't a monster. Before the disastrous decision to invade Qing Province, he had been a perfectly decent, mild-mannered governor. But in a brutal era of warlords and predators, decency without strength was a death sentence.
"Forget it... it's over," Han Fu whispered, shaking his head. He gestured to a nearby scribe. "Go. Summon Ju Shou, Min Chun, and the rest of the ministers. We need an emergency council."
Turning back, he gently helped Li Li to a comfortable seat, continuously muttering to himself, "I should have never listened to Yuan Shao's silver tongue... I ruined everything..."
Within short order, Ju Shou and the top tier of the Ji Province administration filed into the gloomy hall, bowing in unison. "We pay our respects to the Lord."
"Take your seats, everyone," Han Fu said, his voice completely devoid of its usual aristocratic pomp. He nodded toward Li Li. "Tell them what you saw."
For the second time, Li Li painted the vivid, terrifying picture of Zhang Xin's absolute grip over the populace. When he finished, a heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room. The ministers quietly stared at Han Fu, waiting for the inevitable hammer to drop.
"I have ruled Hebei for years, yet I have failed to show true mercy to the common folk," Han Fu spoke slowly, every word weighing a ton. "Ever since Dong Zhuo tore the capital apart, our people have known nothing but blood and sorrow for two years. The fields are barren, and corpses litter the wilderness. Now, the General of Chariots and Cavalry has raised his banners to purge the wicked and bring order—all because of my failures. How can I continue to sit on this high seat with a clear conscience?"
Han Fu took a deep, shuddering breath, looking each of his loyal ministers in the eye.
"I intend to formally surrender Ji Province to Zhang Xin to preserve the lives of our people. What say you all?"
The moment the words left his mouth, Han Fu felt an incredible, weightless wave of relief wash over him. *That monster Zhang Xin? Whoever wants to fight him can go right ahead. I'm punching my clock and leaving!*
The hall remained silent for a long moment. Many of the ministers internally rejoiced; surrendering was logically the only way to keep their heads attached and save the province from being burned to ashes. Yet, seeing their mild-mannered lord completely broken brought a pang of genuine sorrow. Han Fu had been a kind master. Unlike the cutthroat warlords outside, he treated his staff with genuine respect. In a time of peace, he would have been remembered as a great, benevolent scholar-statesman.
But this was 2026's historical equivalent of a meat grinder.
Ju Shou was the first to break the silence. His expression was a complex mix of sorrow and relief as he stepped forward and bowed low. "The Lord is wise. This is the correct path."
Seeing the second-in-command give the green light, Min Chun, Li Li, and General Geng Wu quickly fell into line, bowing deeply.
"The Lord is wise."
"The hearts of our people have already crossed the river to his side. Resistance is futile."
Han Fu smiled bitterly, seeing that not a single soul among his loyalists was willing to stand up and say, *'No, let's fight to the death.'* They were all ready to clock out.
"Very well. Prepare an official diplomatic envoy to meet with the General of Chariots and Cavalry to discuss the terms of abdication. Who among you is willing to go—"
The doors burst open as an breathless military clerk sprinted into the hall.
"Report! Lord! Our scouts at the perimeter just spotted a small, heavily armed cavalry unit of about a hundred men secretly abandoning Yuan Shao's camp. They are moving at high speed toward the Black Mountain tracks!"
"Yuan Shao is running away!" Ju Shou's razor-sharp mind instantly connected the dots. He slammed his fist into his palm. "The peacock has abandoned his flock! He must be hiding inside that hundred-man vanguard right now!"
"What?!" Panic flashed across Han Fu's face. "Then... should we send our forces to hunt him down?"
Capturing or killing Yuan Shao was the ultimate bargaining chip he had promised Zhang Xin. If the chief instigator escaped, what if Zhang Xin flew into a rage and took it out on Han Fu's family?
"We must pursue him immediately!" Ju Shou nodded fiercely. "Furthermore, Yuan Shao's twenty thousand troops outside our walls are currently a snake without a head. They have no idea their master has left them! Lord, order an all-out assault on the leaderless camp right now—it will collapse like a house of cards!"
"Excellent!" Han Fu turned his desperate eyes to his top military commander. "Wen Wei, I leave the vanguard to you. Destroy that camp!"
"Consider it done, Lord!" General Geng Wu saluted fiercely, turning on his heel to mobilize the legions.
Once the general departed, Han Fu turned back to Ju Shou, his eyes wide with anxious vulnerability. "Ju Shou... tell me the truth. Can we actually catch that snake?"
Ju Shou stared out into the dark night, a cold smile touching his lips. "He's traveling with a donkey cart in the treacherous mountains, Lord. We *will* catch him."
---