Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is episode 146.

Last time, Jiang Wei had launched another incursion into Wei territory.

Oh, and by the way, I counted, and this is the

fifth time in the last seven episodes, where I began an episode with some variation of, last time,

Jiang Wei had launched another invasion of the north. So yeah, the guys defending the Wei

borders were probably getting as tired of this as you are. So yeah, the guys defending the Wei borders were probably getting as tired of this as you are.

So anyway, to repel Jiang Wei this time, one of Deng Ai strategists, a man named Wang Guan,

pretended to defect to Jiang Wei.

But Jiang Wei was not fooled at all, and he took in Wang Guan with the intention of turning

Wang Guan scheme against him. He sent Wang Guan to escort his provisions to Qi Mountain.

Meanwhile, Jiang Wei scrapped his original plan of marching through Shia Gorge. Instead, he sent

some men to hide along the road to watch for spies from

Wang Guan. Sure enough, within a few days, they captured the messenger that Wang Guan has sent

to Deng Ai. Jiang Wei interrogated the guy and got the letter. It said that Wang Guan was going

to be transporting provisions to the main Shu camp on August 20th,

and that Deng Ai should meet him in the Tan Valley.

Intel in hand, Jiang Wei executed the messenger, and then wrote a separate letter that said basically the same thing,

except instead of a rendezvous on August 20th, he told Deng Ai to lead his

army to Tuan Valley on August 15. While that fake message was on its way to Deng Ai, Jiang Wei went

about setting the trap. He had his men empty a few hundred of his provision carts and filled

them with fire starters and

...