Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is episode 94.

Last time, Liu Bei had just made himself the king of Hanzhong.

Cao Cao responded by initiating a scheme to form an alliance

with Sun Quan in the southlands and make a move to take Jing province. When Liu Bei caught wind of this,

he told his brother Guan Yu, who was overseeing the defense of Jing province, to launch a preemptive

strike on the city of Xiangyang.

Oh, and by the way, before we go on, I should note that from here on out,

there will be times when I refer to the three sides of the conflict by the name of the

kingdoms that they eventually become, even though those kingdoms do not officially exist yet at this point

in the novel. So that would be the kingdom of Shu for Liu Bei. I might also call it

Xishu, meaning west shu. We also have the kingdom of Wei, or Bewei, aka North Wei,

for Cao Cao, and then there's the kingdom of Wu or Bewei, aka North Wei, for Cao Cao, and then there's the kingdom of Wu,

or Dongwu, meaning east Wu, for Sun Quan.

Okay, so back to the battle at hand.

Xiangyang was being defended by Cao Cao's kinsman Cao Ren, and Cao Ren decided to go meet Guan Yu head on. When Guan Yu heard that the

enemy was approaching, he drew up a scheme and sent his son Guan Ping and the officer Liao Hua to go

meet Cao Ren. When the two sides ran into each other, Liao Hua rode out to challenge for battle

and one of Cao Ren's officers answered

the call. After a few bouts, Liao Hua turned and fled, and Cao Ren's army gave chase for a few

miles before calling it a day. The next day, Liao Hua and Guan Ping came to challenge for

battle again, and this time two of Cao Ren's officers went out to greet them, and once again, the enemy soon turned and fled, and Cao Ren's officers gave chase again.

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