Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is episode 64.

Last time, Zhou Yu had defeated Cao Ren's forces and was just about to celebrate by walking into his newly captured

city of Nanjun, when, lo and behold, Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang beat him to the punch

and captured the city while he was busy defeating the enemy. Not only that, Zhuge Liang also

took the opportunity to capture two other key locations,

Jing province and Xiangyang, without much effort.

Zhou Yu was incensed, but before he could get around to launching an attack against Liu Bei,

he was ordered by his master, Sun Quan, to return home and send reinforcements to help Sun Quan with his siege on the

city of Hefei, which was under Cao Cao's control.

We'll leave Dong Wu's campaign for now and turn our attention to Liu Bei, who was riding

high after capturing three strongholds in Jing province.

It had been a long, long time since he had tasted so much success.

But he was not about to rest on his laurels.

Instead, he started to talk with his staff about their next step.

One of Liu Bei's old acquaintances now came in to offer some advice.

It was Yi Ji, the guy who twice saved Liu Bei from plots to kill him when he was seeking refuge in Jing province.

Liu Bei was quite happy to see Yi Ji and showed him a great deal of deference,

offering him a seat as they talked.

My lord, if you wish to know what your grand plan for Jing province should be,

why not seek out talented men and ask them, Yi Ji said,

Where might I find such men?

...