Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is episode 38.

Last time, Yuan Shao's war against Cao Cao was going badly.

One of Yuan Shao's advisors, Xu You, switched sides and went over to

Cao Cao. On his advice, Cao Cao staged a night raid on Yuan Shao's provisions and burned the place

to the ground. When he heard this was happening, Yuan Shao, at the behest of another advisor, Guo Tu,

sent two of his top officers,

Zhang He and Gao Lan, to raid Cao Cao's camp, even though those two officers kept telling him that it was a bad idea. Well, they were right. That raid ended poorly, and Zhang He and

Gao Lan barely made it out there alive.

When the advisor Guo Tu heard that the raid on Cao Cao's camp had failed miserably,

he was worried about Zhang He and Gao Lan coming back and holding him responsible,

since he was the one who insisted that they raid Cao Cao's camp instead of going to rescue their provisions.

So he lied to Yuan Shao and told him that those two officers had long wanted to surrender to Cao Cao,

so they must have tanked on purpose.

Yuan Shao was irate and immediately summoned the two back to camp.

But Guo Tu then made sure that they would not return,

by sending his own messenger on ahead to tell them that,

Hey, Yuan Shao wants to kill you.

So now, when Yuan Shao's messenger arrived to relay his command that Zhang He and Galan returned to camp.

They asked him, what does his lordship want?

When the messenger replied that he did not know,

Gao Lan pulled out his sword and killed the poor guy on the spot,

...