Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is episode 119.

Last time, Zhuge Liang's northern campaign had gotten off to a strong start.

First, he routed and captured the

Prince Consort of the Kingdom of Wei, Xia Houmao. In the process, he captured two counties. He ran

into a little bit of difficulty at a third county, Tian Shui, where a clever young officer named

Jiang Wei had foiled one of his schemes.

But no matter, Zhuge Liang just needed to dig a little deeper into his bag of tricks,

and next thing you know, Jiang Wei was a man without a home,

as the city he was defending fell to Zhuge Liang,

who also burned Jiang Wei's bridges with his home base of Tianshui by

having somebody dress up like Jiang Wei to lead a night attack on Tianshui, making everybody

there think that he had switched sides.

But as we rejoin our narrative, Jiang Wei was still in the dark about that last part.

Having been defeated at the city of Yicheng,

where his mother lived, Jiang Wei was fleeing alone toward his home base of Tianshui.

When he got there, he cried out to the guards to let him in. They quickly reported this to the

governor of the city, Ma Zun. That Jiang Wei is here to trick us into opening the gates again, Ma Zun said,

last night's raid by the imposter Jiang Wei still fresh on his mind.

So instead of being welcomed in, Jiang Wei was greeted with a shower of arrows that forced

him to turn back. But as he did so,

he saw that the pursuing Shu forces were drawing closer. So now he turned and fled to our

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