Huang Zhong sat on his warhorse, breathing steady. All around him, the earth was still soaked red with the blood of half a dozen Cao cavalrymen. Guys who'd stubbornly refused to believe they were already beaten.
The hundred riders who'd charged in with Yue Jin pulled their horses to a stop. They looked at the Jingzhou infantry forming a neat shield wall behind the old general. Then they looked at their comrades' mangled bodies.
Finally, their eyes landed on their vanguard commander, broken, bleeding, lying on the ground.
They exchanged glances. Silently, each of them did the math on their chances.
"Brother... what do we do now?"
"You're asking me?"
"Damn. How is that old man so strong?"
"He killed the General in one exchange."
"What are we supposed to do, avenge him?"
"You go first."
"..."
"..."
A moment later, the entire group dismounted and dropped to their knees.
One particularly sharp-eyed cavalryman hurried forward, picked up the discarded heavy lance, and respectfully returned it to Huang Zhong.
The surrounding riders stared.
"Damn."
"That was fast."
"Look at him."
"That fellow was born to survive troubled times."
"Are you sure he's a cavalryman and not a court official?"
Huang Zhong didn't say a word. He took the weapon, sitting tall and imposing in the saddle.
With cold detachment, he watched his infantry surge forward, shouting aggressively for the rest of Cao's forces to drop their weapons.
"I repeat: surrender and you live, resist and you die."
The situation was even worse for the cavalry trapped higher up the valley.
Giant boulders sealed off the front. Their own men blocked the rear. The Jingzhou infantry were closing in from both sides.
They were stuck. Thoroughly, completely stuck.
"Brother, I suddenly understand something."
"What?"
"Our chances of winning are not very high."
"...Not very high?"
"Fine. Zero."
"Now you're getting it."
"Should we surrender?"
"I surrendered in my heart ten breaths ago."
"Then why are you still on your horse?"
"Because I don't want to be the first one off."
A moment later, someone threw down his weapon.
Then another.
Then another.
After a long hesitation, a handful scrambled forward to surrender. The rest followed.
Meanwhile, inside Xiangyang, the defenders were rapidly losing their minds. Their commanding officer had charged out and died. The chain of command had evaporated.
"If that old monster wins, do you think he marches back to siege Fancheng?" a guard whispered, gripping his spear tightly.
Another soldier scoffed bitterly. "Marching south just means more sieges. Yicheng, Dangyang, Linju. They all need to be cracked. Though I guess taking Jiangling is completely off the table now."
"So if the old general loses..."
The conversation trailed off. It was a dangerous topic. Even among brothers in arms, there was always a rat looking to score promotion points by reporting defeatist talk.
The group lost their appetite for gambling. They dusted off their armor and prepared to head back to the barracks.
Suddenly, a loud commotion erupted from the lower levels. One soldier leaned over the parapet, straining his ears. His eyebrows shot up.
"General Yue is dead? Sliced in half by that old man... wait, by General Huang?"
The men stared at each other. A strange, unspoken understanding passed between them.
They weren't tactical masterminds, but sitting on a wall watching sieges every day gave them an instinct for the flow of war. They knew the Xiangfan server was escalating out of control.
Just a few hundred yards away, Fancheng had been under relentless, round the clock assault for three straight days.
The corpses at the base of that wall were stacked like cordwood.
Nobody wanted to join that meat grinder. Yue Jin's death was their golden ticket out of this nightmare.
Liu Bei was famous for his benevolence. General Guan Yu was famous for his rigid code of honor.
Surrendering guaranteed survival.
Right now, anyone trying to stop them from claiming that survival was the real enemy.
Morale in Xiangyang flatlined. The garrison's stamina bar hit zero.
Down in the valley, Huang Zhong was startled by a sudden, chaotic roar of slaughter echoing from inside Xiangyang. Fortunately, the violent spike in audio faded just as quickly as it began.
When the screaming stopped, the city gates creaked open. The Cao soldiers, men who had witnessed the terror of the giant dreadnoughts and the mountain of corpses at Fancheng, began trickling out.
They threw their weapons in the dirt and begged Huang Zhong for their lives.
Outside the city walls, Huang Zhong processed the surrenders efficiently.
Taking Xiangyang had been his personal side quest. He'd volunteered for this. He'd spent over a decade grinding away in this exact region.
He knew every blind spot, every structural weakness, every logistical bottleneck of that fortress.
Phase one: park heavy dreadnoughts and elite marines on their doorstep. That gave him total map control and scared Yue Jin into staying behind his walls.
Phase two: seize the high ground and lock down the valley chokepoint. The moment that happened, the battle for Xiangyang was mathematically over.
Xu Shu had provided the playbook for the middle phases.
He'd correctly diagnosed Yue Jin's aggressive playstyle. He knew that if Huang Zhong dangled himself as bait, Yue Jin would ignore all defensive logic and dive the backline.
Leading a vanguard charge is always a high-stakes gamble. This time, Yue Jin walked right into the trap.
As for the trenches and spike traps dug under cover of darkness? Just simple environmental hazards. Barely worth mentioning.
Huang Zhong gripped his lance and gazed northward. General Guan Yu and Xu Shu were locked in brutal, bloody combat up there. Right now, he couldn't provide support fire.
Killing Yue Jin had decapitated Xiangyang's command structure, but the remaining garrison was still a huge, unpredictable variable. He had to stay and secure the perimeter. He couldn't abandon his post.
He shook his head and shifted his gaze westward. Roughly sixty miles to the Shandu dam, he estimated.
---
Across the river, on the walls of Fancheng, Xu Shu was running on fumes.
He and Zhao Lei had screamed themselves hoarse hours ago. His pristine white scholar's robe was now a filthy, hardened crust of mud, sweat, and dried blood.
Xu Shu's only real regret was looking down at his sword and seeing several nasty chips in the blade from hacking through cheap armor.
Despite his physical stamina gauge flashing red, his mind was still wired.
Back in Xuchang, he had felt himself slowly rotting away. He had tried tending gardens. He had tried burying himself in books and philosophy.
None of it helped.
A bird locked in a cage was still a bird locked in a cage.
Now, standing in the blood and mud, Xu Shu felt alive.
A man born into chaos should carve out peace with three feet of cold steel. This was the only way to play the game.
He opened the small leather pouch at his waist, broke off a piece of crystallized cane sugar, and tucked it beneath his tongue.
Sweetness spread through his mouth.
The effect was not as strong as it had been on the first night, but it was enough to keep the weariness at bay.
A Cao soldier crested the ladder. Xu Shu casually backhanded the man's blade away with his chipped sword.
A Jingzhou spearman next to him instantly capitalized on the opening, thrusting his spear through the attacker's throat and kicking the body off the wall.
Xu Shu winced at another micro dent in his sword, but he raised the weapon and slammed the flat of the blade against an iron shield.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The rhythmic metallic crash signaled to the entire perimeter that the commander was still standing.
The defenders' morale ticked up slightly.
The men didn't have the energy to cheer back. At this point, every scrap of strength mattered.
Xu Shu leaned on his sword, calculating the map state. As long as Yue Jin took the bait and moved, Fancheng would survive.
He just wondered how General Huang was handling his end of the raid.
---
Beneath the walls of Wancheng, Zhang Fei and his two hundred master craftsmen had successfully completed two siege towers.
Making full use of their height advantage, ranks of heavy crossbowmen unleashed volley after volley upon the defenders.
Bolts rained down from above.
The Cao soldiers could scarcely raise their heads.
Watching the storm of missiles sweep across the battlements, Cao Cao felt a knot tightening in his chest.
But then, Cao Cao noticed a shift in the enemy formation.
The archers were still raining hell from the wooden towers, but the rear guard of the Liu Bei army was packing up. A massive detachment was reforming and marching directly north.
Cao Cao's eyes lit up.
"Zilian saves me once again."
Cao Cao didn't even need to run the tactical calculus. He knew exactly what that troop movement meant.
The garrisons to the east and west had already been emptied. No reinforcements remained nearby.
The only force still capable of influencing the battle was the army marching south from Yecheng.
And if Guan Yu was leading troops northward now, then there was only one explanation.
He was moving to intercept Cao Hong.
For two days, Cao Cao had heard nothing from Yue Jin.
Those two days had felt longer than two years.
Now, the momentum was swinging back. The thrill of the gamble was intoxicating.
The danger remained.
But so did hope.
Just hold.
Just hold the line. Cao Cao repeated the mantra in his head. Just turtle up and survive.
To counter the siege towers, he immediately ordered Xu Chu to strip every usable piece of timber from the city.
The southern walls needed larger protective screens.
Thicker shields.
Anything capable of stopping a crossbow bolt.
Appearance no longer mattered.
If it could save lives, it would be nailed to the battlements.
And with Guan Yu drawing away a substantial portion of Liu Bei's army, Zhang Fei's remaining siege force suddenly looked far less overwhelming than before.
---
Marching beside his father, Guan Ping kept his excitement hidden behind a calm expression as he studied the latest scout reports.
"Enemy forces have been sighted northeast of Luyang. Approximately three thousand cavalry. Most likely the vanguard."
"Who commands them?" Guan Yu asked without turning his head.
"Unknown."
The intelligence network in Jingzhou was excellent, but this far north their reach inevitably weakened.
Guan Yu merely nodded and continued forward.
Some sixty li north of Wancheng lay Xie County.
Cross the Yu River there, and one reached Bowang.
As he looked ahead, a trace of nostalgia surfaced in Guan Yu's heart.
Many years had passed.
Yet once again, they found themselves facing Cao Cao's army on the same ground.
"Father, do you believe they will attempt a crossing here?" Guan Ping asked.
Wancheng stood on the western bank of the Yu River.
The reinforcements from Cao Cao's side were approaching from the east.
If they wished to support the city, they would inevitably have to cross the river.
The question was where.
Guan Yu raised a hand and pointed north.
"Everything north of Bowang is marshland."
"The ground is soft. Supply wagons move slowly. Cavalry cannot maneuver properly. An army crossing there would cripple itself before ever reaching the battlefield."
Then he pointed south.
"South of Bowang lies Wancheng itself."
"If they cross there, they place the river at their backs while facing our army in front. Once trapped, retreat becomes impossible."
Guan Ping nodded slowly.
"So Bowang is their only choice."
"Exactly."
Guan Yu's eyes remained fixed ahead.
"If they intend to reinforce Wancheng, they must come through Bowang."
"They will try to draw our attention there, create an opening, and force a crossing before we can fully react."
Guan Ping considered the matter and found no flaw in the reasoning.
Long before the campaign had begun, Xu Shu had already discussed this possibility with Guan Yu.
Back in Jiangling, the two men had spent hours studying maps, tracing roads, rivers, and supply routes.
Every likely route of advance had been examined.
Every likely crossing point had been considered.
By now, the geography of the battlefield held few surprises.
The only missing data points were the identity of the enemy commander, the actual combat rating of his troops, and the status of their southern front.
Was Xu Shu safe? Had Xiangyang fallen?
---
Back down south, the spontaneous mutiny within Xiangyang had drastically accelerated Huang Zhong's timeline. Faced with thousands of Cao soldiers who had lost the will to fight, he processed the prisoners with record speed.
He hastily constructed several temporary holding camps, splitting the prisoners to prevent any organized rebellion. He handed the warden duties over to Ma Liang. Then, without skipping a beat, he rallied a thousand fresh troops and marched west into the gathering twilight.
Huang Zhong didn't need a map for this zone. He could navigate this terrain blindfolded.
Twenty miles west sat Longzhong. Pushing further west, the geography tightened violently. Mountains rose on the left. A rushing river on the right.
Perched perfectly above this geographical bottleneck was the abandoned county of Shandu. If Huang Zhong and Xu Shu had read the board correctly...
Bingo.
Shandu, previously emptied of civilians due to agricultural resettlement, was swarming with activity. A huge detachment of Cao engineers was frantically hauling dirt and stone, raising the height of an earthen dam.
They had cut a small spillway on the northern face of the dam. Huang Zhong remembered the topography. There was a natural basin down that slope. The Cao forces were intentionally diverting the river to fill the basin.
No more theory crafting required.
Huang Zhong drew his saber. His face was a mask of cold fury. He signaled his men, and the Jingzhou veterans surged out of the tree line.
---
Night had swallowed the valley whole, yet Fancheng remained trapped beneath a sea of torchlight.
The siege had become a waking nightmare.
Both sides were running on fumes. Men fought on pure stubbornness alone.
Cao Ren had personally led several assaults up the ladders, trying again and again to break the stalemate. Yet Fancheng's towering walls and relentless rain of crossbow bolts kept throwing him back. Every attack ended the same way.
The Jingzhou defenders refused to yield.
After helping repel yet another assault, Zhao Lei finished winding the mechanism of his heavy crossbow.
He stepped to the battlements and glanced beyond the wall.
Then he stopped.
For a moment, his exhausted mind failed to process what he was seeing.
His throat was raw from days of shouting commands. He tried to raise the alarm.
Only a hoarse rasp escaped his lips.
"Water..."
Xu Shu immediately looked up.
Following Zhao Lei's gaze, he peered into the darkness beyond the torchlit battlefield.
At first he thought it was a trick of the night.
Then he saw it moving.
A vast black shadow was spreading across the western plain.
Silent. Relentless.
When it finally reached the outer edge of the torchlight, countless ripples caught the flames and reflected them back in shattered fragments of gold.
Xu Shu's pupils contracted.
It was water.
An immense wall of black water was rolling toward the battlefield.
He let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
Huang Zhong actually pulled it off.
---
Meanwhile, further west, Huang Zhong stood on higher ground overlooking the now breached dam.
The engineers who had been raising the earthen wall were gone. Some had been cut down. The rest had fled into the night.
He watched the black water surge down the slope, swallowing everything in its path. The basin below had already overflowed. Now the river was finding its new course, straight toward the lowlands around Fancheng.
Huang Zhong gripped his saber and said nothing.
He had done his part. The rest was up to the river.
---
Back at Fancheng, Xu Shu's mind was already racing ahead.
The water would hit the Cao camp first. Their siege lines, their supplies, their reserves, all of it sitting on low ground. They wouldn't have time to move anything heavy.
He turned to Zhao Lei.
"Get everyone off the lower walls. Now."
Zhao Lei didn't ask questions. He just nodded and started barking orders.
Xu Shu looked back at the approaching flood.
For the first time in three days, he allowed himself a small, exhausted smile.
The board had been set. The pieces had moved. And now the game was entering its final phase.
---
"Water?" Cao Ren barked, freezing mid stride. He had just returned to his command tent, praying for five minutes of sleep.
The scout's report shattered that dream.
Cao Ren was sleep deprived and furious. "Cai Mao, you bastard!"
But the anger faded into cold realization. Cai Mao was a naval expert. He was in charge of the river blockade. He would never make a rookie mistake like this. There was only one logical explanation for a flood.
Shandu had fallen.
Cao Ren's mind reeled. "Most of Liu Bei's forces were tied down at Xiangyang and Fancheng. Where had they found the men to spare?
"Who the hell took Shandu?"
Whether he understood the mechanics behind it or not, Cao Ren understood the final result. The siege of Fancheng was dead.
The sky was clear. No rain in sight. If this had been two days earlier, he would have whipped his men and forced them to fight through the mud. But the stamina bars were broken. Morale was shattered. Right now, even a minor terrain debuff was enough to wipe the raid.
This localized flood was the final nail in the coffin.
The Cao siege lines rapidly dissolved as troops scrambled for higher ground.
Up on the walls, Xu Shu didn't waste a single second celebrating. He grabbed Zhao Lei by the shoulder, dragged him into the keep, and collapsed into the first deep sleep he'd enjoyed in days.
The next morning, Xu Shu walked back out onto the battlements. He felt completely revitalized. His health and stamina were fully restored. He leaned over the stone wall and admired the sprawling, muddy wasteland below.
"What a beautiful swamp," Xu Shu murmured, a wide grin spreading across his face.
The water released from the upstream dam wasn't a tidal wave. It barely reached the ankles. But that shallow water was enough to turn the entire battlefield into a sticky, impassable bog, destroying the enemy's siege logistics and morale.
Xu Shu laughed softly to himself.
"It seems Yue Jin, the fearless vanguard, was no match for the Jingzhou veteran after all."