Welcome to the romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast. This is episode 117. Last time, with a new emperor

on the throne in the Kingdom of Wei and a wily Sima Yi, having been stripped of his

position, Zhuge Liang sensed an opportunity to launch his long-awaited northern expedition,

to conquer the Wei, reunite the empire, and resurrect the glory of the house of Han.

So he handed out assignments to his officers and was just about

to head out when an old general barged in and demanded that he received an assignment as well.

Now this was none other than Zhao Yun, now a senior statesman in the officer corps.

Zhuge Liang tried to talk him out of it.

After I returned from pacifying the south,

General Ma Chao died from illness, he said to Zhao Yun.

And yeah, Ma Chao, one of the greatest warriors in this novel,

got killed off-screen and with barely a mansion.

I always felt that he was a vastly underutilized character.

The novel built him up as this awesome warrior, but, aside from one losing campaign against

Cao Cao and one day-long fight against Zhang Fei, he wasn't really used that much.

Seems like every time we heard about him, after he joined Liu Bei,

he was just being tasked with minding the shop at some key defensive location.

Oh well.

Anyway, Zhuge Liang continued with Zhao Yun.

I regret Ma Chao's death deeply, as though I have lost an arm.

General, you are advanced in age.

If something goes wrong, it would tarnish your heroic lifelong reputation and hurt our kingdom's

...