Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is episode 121.

Last time, Zhuge Liang had easily brushed aside every foe in his way

as he marched his army north on a campaign

to conquer the kingdom of Wei.

What's more, he got some great news when the former Shu general Meng Da, who had defected

to Wei once upon a time, wrote to him, offering to defect back to Shu, and lead his men in a secret uprising deep inside Wei territory,

which would spell big trouble for Wei.

But just as things were looking good, Zhuge Liang got the disconcerting news that the Wei Emperor,

in this desperate hour, had recalled to service the veteran official Sima Yi,

whom the Emperor had dismissed a while back on suspicions of this loyalty.

Suspitions that, by the way, Zhuge Liang had vigorously fanned in order to get Sima Yi out of the way

before launching his northern expedition.

As we pick up where we left off, we are in the city of Wan Cheng,

where Sima Yi had just received the imperial decree,

ordering him to mobilize the troops in the city

and go rendezvous with his emperor in the key city of Chang'an, where they would

figure out how to repel Zhuge Liang. Shortly after receiving this decree, Sima Yi had a visitor.

This guy was a servant from the household of Shen Yi, the governor of one of the cities

under the jurisdiction of the soon-to-be double defector Meng Da.

This servant told Sima Yi that his master has sent him to deliver top-secret intel

about Meng Da's treasonous plot, and that this was corroborated by Meng Da's confidant and his nephew,

...