Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is episode 29.

When we last left off, Cao Cao and Yuan Shao were in a standoff in Hebei,

while in Xu province, Liu Bei had captured

one of the two lowly officers that Cao Cao had sent to attack him, and Zhang Fei had the

other officer, Liu Dai, so scared that he would not come out of his camp to fight. After a few

days of hurling all the insults he could think of to try to spur Liu Dai to

give battle, Zhang Fei had an idea. He sent out word to his men that they were to prepare

for a night raid around 9 o'clock that night. During the day, however, Zhang Fei sat in his

tent and drank, and after a few drinks, he pretended

to be drunk.

He then found some excuse to get ticked off at some unfortunate soldier and gave him a good

whipping.

After the beating, Zhang Fei ordered the soldier to be tied up.

When I set out on my raid tonight, I will kill him as a sacrifice to my banner,

Zhang Fei said. But at the same time, he also secretly instructed the guards to be rather

derelict of their duty. The condemned man, seeing an opening, slipped out and escaped to Liu Dai's

camp, where he spilled the beans about

Zhang Fei's plans for a night raid. Seeing the very real wounds on this informant, Liu Dai believed

him, so he set up an ambush. He left his camp empty and had his soldiers lie in wait outside.

Night came, and Zhang Fei split his forces into three armies.

The army in the middle consisted of only about 30 people,

...