The coordination between Zhao Yun and Zhang Fei was so seamless that an outsider would have assumed they had rehearsed the maneuver countless times. In reality, it was simply what happened when veteran commanders understood exactly what the other was thinking.
Standing atop Linwei's heavily fortified walls, Pang Tong watched the fighting with the detached focus of a man checking off items on a list.
He knew exactly what he was looking at.
The poor bastards getting thrashed in the valley were just the vanguard.
Somewhere beyond the hills, the main body of Cao Cao's army was still advancing and would almost certainly hurry forward once news of the ambush reached them.
For that reason, Pang Tong never committed his full strength.
Most of Linwei's veteran troops remained behind the walls, weapons ready and formations intact. No matter how successful Zhao Yun's charge looked, Pang Tong had no intention of gambling the city's entire defense on one glorious cavalry attack.
Even so, with Pang Tong holding back like he was playing with one hand tied behind his back, the ambush was brutal enough to hand Du Xi a loss that stung like hell. His army was not destroyed, but it had taken exactly the kind of beating every commander hated. The formation had come apart. Officers were shouting themselves hoarse trying to restore order. Soldiers stumbled back through the valley in scattered groups while horses, wounded men, and abandoned equipment turned the battlefield into complete chaos.
Little by little, the dust settled.
The surviving troops regrouped as best they could, dragging the wounded to safety and reforming their battered ranks.
Zhang Ji, the army inspector, rode up beside his commanding officer. He looked at the chaotic retreat, at bodies scattered across the ground, at wounded men groaning in the dirt. Then he looked at Du Xi.
And Du Xi? The guy was actually smiling. A small, relaxed grin, like he had just watched a good play instead of watching his men get trampled into the mud.
That smile was the last straw. Something snapped inside Zhang Ji, and all the anger he had been holding in came boiling over.
"General Du," he snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut through steel. "If commanding an army is just too much trouble for you, by all means, go hand in your resignation to General Xiahou. I am sure he would be thrilled to find someone who actually wants to do the job."
The accusation landed like a slap across the face. The smug grin vanished from Du Xi's features. The aristocrat turned slowly, fixing Zhang Ji with a heavy stare.
Zhang Ji did not flinch. He held the gaze steady, refusing to back down an inch.
In the end, Du Xi decided arguing with a subordinate in the middle of a battlefield was about as useful as teaching a fish to climb a tree. A scholar of his standing did not engage in shouting matches with commoners. It was beneath him. He waved his hand dismissively.
"Halt the retreat," Du Xi ordered smoothly. "Set up a fortified camp right here. We hold this ground and wait for the main army to arrive. Patience, Derong. Patience is the virtue of the wise. The patient general outlasts the impulsive one. The patient scholar outwrites the hasty one. And the patient commander, I assure you, outlives the reckless one."
Zhang Ji let out a frustrated breath, yanked hard on his horse's reins, and rode off to execute the orders, his face twisted in disgust. He did not even bother acknowledging the lecture.
Watching the irritated inspector ride away, Du Xi leaned back in his saddle and slowly stroked his beard as another piece of the puzzle clicked into place.
Ah right, Du Xi mused to himself. Derong comes from a commoner background. No noble blood at all. He cannot see the grand tapestry. He only sees the torn thread in front of him.
That made perfect sense now. To Zhang Ji, every engagement was its own story. A failed ambush was just a failed ambush. Dead soldiers were simply dead soldiers. A retreat was something to be ashamed of. He lacked the ability to see the larger picture, to understand that some defeats were merely the price of victory.
But Du Xi was looking at the whole damn chessboard. As one of the prominent figures within the Yingchuan faction, he had access to reports flowing in from every corner of Cao Cao's domain. Ever since Guan Yu began increasing his military activity in Jingzhou, one conclusion had become increasingly obvious to anyone capable of reading the larger strategic picture.
This whole western mess? Just a giant distraction. Guanzhong was never the real objective.
Liu Bei was deliberately stirring up chaos in the Guanzhong basin for one reason: to drag Cao Cao's attention westward, pull resources away from the true prize. Only by causing massive trouble out here could Liu Bei hope to launch a surprise offensive down south in Jingzhou. It was obvious to anyone who could read a map.
Zhang Ji was furious about losing a minor tactical skirmish. He lacked vision. He could not see the forest for the trees, could not see the chessboard for the pawns.
But Du Xi? When he looked at this battlefield, all he saw was Liu Bei making a colossal strategic mistake.
"That big-eared thief has actually lost his mind," Du Xi muttered under his breath, shaking his head. "Sending his best cavalry units out here to this godforsaken wasteland. He barely controls enough land to feed his own people. The numbers do not lie. Every soldier, every horse, every bag of grain he ships west just makes his southern front in Jingzhou that much weaker."
He scoffed quietly. "Who does he think he is? Does he really believe he is some kind of founding Emperor of the Han? Please."
He chuckled to himself. Liu Bei was bleeding himself dry in the west and did not even realize it. By the time he turned his attention back to Jingzhou, there would be nothing left to defend.
"The advantage is clearly ours," Du Xi concluded, his chest swelling with confidence. No, scratch that. The advantage was all the Prime Minister's.
The vanguard camped out in the dirt for a full twenty-four hours, long enough for everyone to clean up the mess and start wondering when reinforcements would show.
Then the next day, the horizon went dark. The main body of Cao's army rolled in like a storm cloud, black banners stretching as far as the eye could see and tens of thousands of boots thundering across the ground. Leading the charge? None other than Xiahou Yuan himself.
Xiahou Yuan did not waste a second berating Du Xi for the vanguard's messy defeat.
He simply absorbed the surviving troops back into the main column, reorganized his formations, and marched straight to Linwei's walls. He immediately ordered a massive siege operation to commence. Drums hammered, horns blared, and suddenly the whole valley was alive with noise.
Relieved of frontline command, Du Xi finally had a moment to relax. He sat on his horse near the rear of the formation, well away from the screaming and blood, and casually counted the enemy banners lining Linwei's walls, evaluating how many troops were defending the city.
With every new unit he identified, the smile on Du Xi's face grew wider. The smile of a man who had just realized he was winning a game his opponent did not even know they were playing.
What a lineup, Du Xi thought, genuinely impressed. Truly magnificent. Top-tier soldiers, brilliant generals. It is just a shame they are all stuck out here in the middle of nowhere.
In Du Xi's calculated opinion, the entire Guanzhong basin was a scorched, worthless ruin. The provinces of Yongzhou and Liangzhou further west were even worse. Barren. Empty. Useless. Pouring elite troops into this godforsaken place was pure insanity. How many good recruits could Liu Bei even find out here? Strategically stupid.
Even if Liu Bei miraculously conquered the entire western frontier, what then? What would he have gained? A pile of rocks and a lot of empty land.
If he wanted to march east and threaten the capital, he would have to smash through Chang'an's massive fortress, then break through Tong Pass, then conquer Hongnong. It was an endless nightmare of geographical chokepoints and heavily fortified walls. A death march disguised as a campaign.
But the Jingzhou theater down south was an entirely different story.
Jingzhou was the ultimate gateway to the central plains. If an army broke through there, the rich, flat lands of Runan, Yingchuan, and Yuzhou lay completely exposed. Wide open. No mountains to hide behind, no rivers to slow them down. A straight shot to the empire's heart.
Therefore, keeping Liu Bei's best troops pinned down here in this western wasteland was a massive victory for Cao Cao. A victory Du Xi had personally helped secure.
Even if General Xiahou ends up losing this siege, Du Xi thought happily, working through the logic in his head, the trade-off is still totally worth it!
If Xiahou Yuan could have read minds, he would probably have stuffed the aristocrat in a burlap sack and sent him back to Yingchuan via express mail.
Xiahou Yuan himself was currently fully occupied.
He sat on his warhorse, staring up at Linwei's walls, watching his initial probing attacks get repelled by a methodical, perfectly organized defense. Then his eyes locked onto a heavily armored man screaming orders from the top of the battlements.
A wave of rage washed over him, making him feel physically sick.
He thought of his younger brother. Thought of his brother's little girl. Sweet. Innocent. Just out gathering firewood in the woods one day years ago. Ambushed. Kidnapped. Forced to become that bastard's wife. The very same bastard now standing up there like he owned the place.
I want to hack your head from your shoulders, Xiahou Yuan thought, his grip on the reins turning his knuckles white. I want to place your skull on an altar to comfort my dead brother's spirit!
It was the simplest, purest motivation a man could have on a battlefield.
---
Up on the wall, totally unaware he had just become the target of a lifelong grudge, Zhang Fei leaned against a stone pillar and let out another dramatic huff.
"Shame Huang Zhong is not here with us," he griped, loud enough for half the wall to hear. "If the old man was around, we could really give those Cao dogs something to remember. Especially that Xiahou Yuan..."
Sitting nearby on a folding camp stool, Pang Tong glanced up from his scroll just long enough to shoot him a flat look. He held the stare for two full seconds, then went right back to reading, like Zhang Fei had not just interrupted his concentration.
As far as Pang Tong was concerned, commanding the actual mechanics of a siege offered zero room for his specific brand of creative genius. He had already laid out the entire defensive grid before the enemy even arrived. Traps set, kill zones established, logistics flowing smoothly.
His work was done. Now it was just a matter of waiting out the storm. Might as well use the time to catch up on his studies.
But deep down, he was itching to be somewhere else entirely.
Jingzhou, he thought, running a finger down the scroll. That is where the real game is being played.
Weeks ago, he had gotten word from Zhuge Liang. Details of the massive buildup in the south, how Guan Yu was practically vibrating with excitement to finally face down Cao Ren.
Pang Tong had rolled his eyes.
Of course Yunchang is thrilled, he mused, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear. The man thinks every battle is a personal insult.
The situation here in the Guanzhong basin was far too fragile for him to leave.
We just need to hold this line until the situation down south breaks open, Pang Tong thought, turning a page.
He let out a quiet sigh.
From last year straight through to this moment, Guan Yu and Xu Shu had been carrying an impossible burden down there.
---
Hundreds of miles away, inside the fortified command center at Wancheng, Xu Shu stared at the wooden desk in front of him and came to one very simple conclusion.
This was going to be a miserable day.
Three urgent military dispatches sat neatly on the desk, three sealed bamboo tubes, three different frontier cities. All of them had arrived within the same hour, as though the couriers had gotten together beforehand and decided to deliver their bad news as a package deal.
Xu Shu had known this moment was coming. He'd planned for it, lost sleep over it, and mentally rehearsed the possible scenarios more times than he cared to admit. Still, actually seeing those three dispatches sitting in front of him made a dull ache settle behind his eyes.
He picked up a knife, broke the wax seals one after another, and unrolled the reports. Different handwriting, different officers, different levels of panic bleeding through the ink. But the message was exactly the same: Cao's armies had crossed the border. The invasion had begun.
Duyang sat right on the vital highway leading straight to Yingchuan, while Wuyin and Biyang formed a dual shield facing the sprawling plains of Runan. The strategic picture painted by these three reports was blunt, clear, and deeply unpleasant.
The thieves of the Cao faction have finally arrived. And they brought friends.
Across the room, Guan Yu rose from his chair without a word. He simply stood, and somehow the room felt smaller. His heavy boots echoed across the wooden floor as he paced a slow circle around the map table before returning to his seat. His hand settled naturally on the shaft of the Green Dragon Crescent Blade beside him. He still had not said a word. He did not need to.
Xu Shu closed his eyes for a brief moment and rubbed his temples. Panicking would not help anyone, least of all Guan Yu. When he looked up again, his expression was calm.
"Yunchang, please. No need for anxiety," Xu Shu said, his voice level and unhurried. He pointed to a specific location on the map. "Duyang is heavily fortified. Huang Zhong and Guan Ping hold that choke point, and they command our heaviest infantry reserves. The geography favors the defender. Duyang will not fall easily."
He moved his finger across the map, tracing the defensive line. "Feng Xi and Zhang Nan are garrisoning Wuyin and Biyang. Reliable men. Conservative. Boring, even, but boring is what you want in a siege. Those two cities form a tactical pincer. If one gets hit, the other flanks the aggressor. Wuyin has its back against a mountain range, so it cannot be surrounded. They will hold."
Guan Yu stood again, walked slowly to the map table, and leaned his heavy hands on the edge of the wood. He stared down at the drawn lines and city markers like a man reading a letter he'd been expecting for years.
"Issue an order," Guan Yu rumbled, his voice low and final. "Tell Xiang Lang and Liao Li to mobilize their reserves and march toward Biyang. No forced march. Let them preserve their strength and wait for an opening, then strike the flank."
"Understood." Xu Shu grabbed a fresh brush, dipped it in ink, and began drafting.
Out of the three frontline cities, Biyang was the weakest link. It was not a particularly creative decision, everyone knew Biyang was the soft spot in their defensive line. Reinforcing it early was simply common sense.
With the initial shock fading, Xu Shu's analytical mind kicked into gear.
He processed the data, checked the calendar, and a strange inconsistency began to itch at the back of his brain.
The timing was wrong. The attack was too early.
Two days earlier, Wancheng's intelligence network had confirmed that Cao Cao was mobilizing against Hanzhong.
If Cao Cao was operating on standard military logic, he should have waited five or even ten days. Why? Because basic strategy dictated that northern Jingzhou's commanders might panic and reallocate troops, sending reinforcements westward to plug holes in the Guanzhong defenses.
By launching an assault just two days after the news broke, Cao Cao had completely torched his own window of opportunity. Even if Guan Yu had foolishly decided to send troops west, two days was more than enough time to turn those columns around and recall them.
So why the rush?
Has a political crisis erupted inside the Cao court? Xu Shu wondered, tapping his brush against the desk. Or has something shifted in Sun Wu's territory over east?
Ultimately, the exact reason did not matter. The immediate goal of this offensive was obvious: shatter Jingzhou's morale with a sudden shock. Hit hard, hit fast, make them flinch.
But there was a flaw in the plan. A rather embarrassing one.
The soldiers of northern Jingzhou had been sitting on their hands, waiting in high alert for this exact invasion, for over a month. The tension had been agonizing. The waiting had been worse than any battle. Honestly, if the Cao army had not shown up soon, Guan Yu's men might have started collapsing from sheer boredom. You could only sharpen your sword so many times before you started wondering if the enemy was ever coming, or if this was all an elaborate prank.
The waiting was over. The fight was here. And somewhere in the barracks, a very relieved sergeant was probably telling his men to stop polishing their armor and actually put it on.
As Xu Shu stared at his parchment, deep in thought, he heard a sound, sharp, scratchy, a dry brush scraping against heavy paper. He snapped his head up.
Guan Yu was holding a thick brush. He was not writing words. He was drawing three thick black arrows directly onto the master map. The arrows originated from Yingchuan and Runan, all three arrowheads pointing toward the heart of northern Jingzhou like accusatory fingers.
"The board is set," Guan Yu stated, dropping the brush. It clattered against the table. "Now we wait for the second wave."
Xu Shu nodded slowly. "Yes. And we wait to see how the rats in the east decide to move."
He stepped around the desk, walked to the map, and placed his index finger squarely on Jiangxia, Sun Wu territory. Slowly, deliberately, he dragged his finger northwest, tracing a hypothetical attack route that ended directly in northern Jingzhou.
Guan Yu watched the finger move and let out a sharp scoff through his nose. "If Sun Wu actually launches a coordinated offensive," he said, and the word if dripped with contempt, "their primary target will be the four commanderies in southern Jingzhou. Secondary target: Jiangling. Only after they have swallowed both would they even consider marching north."
He crossed his arms, the Green Dragon Blade resting against his shoulder like a casual walking stick. "What possible benefit could they gain from attacking Wancheng?"
---
Far away, standing at the bow of a wooden warship, eastern commander Lu Meng was asking himself that exact same question.
The wind whipped across the deck, snapping his cloak like an angry flag as he stared out at the sprawling river, his face twisted into something unflattering.
He thought the generals serving Cao Cao were idiots, not just regular idiots, but specialized ones. The kind who looked at a strategic map and saw only land, like fish trying to understand clouds. They completely lacked the ability to view warfare from a naval perspective.
First of all, marching an army from Jiangxia to Wancheng would only use rivers for half the journey. After that, his marines would have to disembark and march overland on foot, like peasants. Lu Meng hated marching overland with a deep, personal hatred reserved for a man whose feet had strong opinions.
Furthermore, they were deep in the dry season, and water levels were dangerously low. Even navigating that first half by river was a logistical nightmare, sandbars, hidden rocks, the constant, grinding anxiety of hearing your hull scrape against stone while three thousand men held their breath.
The idea that the eastern navy should force its marines to abandon their ships, trudge hundreds of miles overland through hostile territory just to help Cao Cao surround Guan Yu was laughable. Genuinely funny. Lu Meng would have laughed if he wasn't so annoyed.
No wonder those northern fools had their entire fleet burned to ash at Red Cliffs, Lu Meng thought, spitting over the ship's rail.
The spit hit the water with satisfying force.
They understand nothing about logistics.
Nothing about rivers.
Nothing about how a marine without his ship is just a man in heavy armor walking slowly toward death.
Sailing west against the current from Jiangxia, roughly two hundred miles past the ashes of Red Cliffs, lay the quiet town of Baqiu, the very place where Zhou Yu had died.
Lu Meng stood alone at the ship's bow as the wind died down, the crew keeping their distance. They knew this stretch of river, knew what it cost their commander to pass through here. He stared at the water and allowed himself a brief, dangerous moment of grief.
If Lord Zhou Yu were still alive, Lu Meng thought, his fingers tightening on the wooden rail until his knuckles whitened, I'd be genuinely happy just to be a frontline fighter in his vanguard. No planning, no politics, no arguing with men who think the ocean's just a big puddle. Just a sword, a ship, and his voice telling me where to strike. I'd follow him to hell and thank him for the trip.
But Zhou Yu was dead. The brilliant light that had guided the east was gone, and the world was noticeably dumber for it. Someone had to step up. Someone had to do the ugly, ruthless work needed to secure the Sun clan's future. Someone who understood that wars aren't won by charging forward with pretty banners, but by logistics, timing, knowing exactly when to strike and where the enemy is weakest.
I am Lu Meng, he declared to himself, his eyes hardening like cooling iron. I have earned my Lord Sun Quan's trust and favor. I will secure our future. I am bound by duty.
He released the rail, straightened his cloak, and turned toward the helm. And I will not hesitate. Not for Cao Cao. Not for Yunchang. Not even for the ghost of Zhou Yu watching from whatever heaven takes men like him.
"Helmsman!" Lu Meng called out. "Adjust course two degrees south. And for the love of all that floats, get me a map that wasn't drawn by some landlubber!"