"Advancing by water and land together…" Guan Yu murmured, his voice heavy with a new gravity.
Having studied the naval strategies revealed by the light-screen, he now oversaw the birth of Shu's first professional river fleet. From that vantage, he fully grasped the lethal precision of those four words.
Marching from Yi Province into Jingzhou meant descending with the current—if the infantry and navy struck in unison, the ships could not only ferry supplies but bypass enemy lines and attack deep behind them. Had such a strategy been followed, Lu Xun could never have held out for six months.
Liu Bei stared at the transcription of Lu Xun's report to Sun Quan, his face burning with shame. The maneuver Lu Xun had feared most—the very method that might have secured victory—was precisely the one Liu Bei had abandoned.
He wanted to hide his face beneath the table.
"Brother, why such despair?" Guan Yu said gently. "Our navy already takes form in this life. We will not repeat that calamity."
"Big Brother," Zhang Fei interrupted, unable to resist, "are you like Zilong then? The more troops you command, the worse you fight?"
Both Liu Bei and Zhao Yun froze. Neither could think of a retort. Their faces reddened in perfect unison while Guan Yu gave his younger brother a long, weary stare.
[Voiceover]
Historical sources on Lu Xun's use of the waterways are sparse, but cross-referencing them reveals the truth:
Biography of Huang Quan: "Moving with the current to sever the encirclement; Nan Commandery suffered defeat. The First Sovereign retreated, but the way was cut off."
Biography of Zhu Ran: "He cut off the rear path; Bei was broken and fled."
Lu Ji's Commentary: "Xun likened the Shu army to a long snake—its body too stretched for head and tail to aid one another."
Together, these point to the reality: Lu Xun knew his victory conditions from the start. Once Liu Bei ordered the navy ashore, Lu Xun set his plan in motion. After months of study, he ordered Zhu Ran to sail upstream. As flames rose in the mountain camps, the Wu fleet struck the rear of the Shu line.
The seventy-li chain of camps—once a fortress—became a death trap. Panic spread faster than fire. The stalemate shattered in an instant. Shu-Han collapsed into a rout.
"Truly terrifying," Pang Tong breathed, awe sharpening his voice. "Strategy is the art of shaping advantage into inevitability. Lu Xun never confronted our Lord's elite directly—he chose the ground, dictated the tempo, and seized the initiative. From start to finish, he commanded the momentum. He had already won before battle was joined."
"Why dress it up so fancy?" Zhang Fei huffed. "All it means is—Lu Xun picked where and when to fight. He dealt the cards. How was Big Brother supposed to win?"
The blunt truth hit home. Every general there knew it—if the enemy chose the field, the enemy chose the victory.
"What would you have done?" Liu Bei asked, forcing a small smile.
"Fortify the grain routes, guard against fire, and wait for the autumn rains," Guan Yu proposed. "Their morale would wither with the heat."
"I'd send our toughest men to taunt them daily," Zhang Fei countered. "Break their discipline, then crush them in the chaos."
Zhao Yun, recalling the "Grand Ancestor's" doctrines from the light-screen, spoke calmly: "I would send a light detachment through the mountains to strike their supply lines. Force them to fight where we choose."
Three brothers, three schools of war—endurance, aggression, precision. Wei Yan remained silent, still too junior to speak in such company. Liu Bei's chest swelled with pride; they truly were his pillars.
[Voiceover]
Huang Quan, stationed on the northern bank, saw the collapse unfold. He did not know which Wu general "moved with the current," only that his own retreat was gone.
A proud man, he refused to yield to Wu and instead marched north to surrender to Wei. The Cao forces—who had been idly observing the war for half a year—were stunned. Huang Quan, the very man who secured Hanzhong, had fallen into their laps with ten thousand elite soldiers and full supplies.
The Wei army met its year's quota of victories without lifting a finger.
Shu-Han, however, never condemned him. His son, Huang Chong, remained in Shu service and later died a martyr beside Zhuge Zhan and Zhang Zun during Deng Ai's invasion—father and son, loyal unto death.
"A loyal heart to the end," Liu Bei sighed. "Huang Quan did not fail me. I failed him."
"The Lord placed him there out of trust," Pang Tong said gently. "Once the camps broke, no messenger could have crossed the river. None could reach him."
"The father yielded to save his men," Zhang Fei said gruffly, "and the son died for the throne. Shu-Han breeds men of iron!"
"Huang Quan is a man of deep integrity," Jian Yong added. "Since the screen mentioned him, I made inquiries—he now serves as a Master of Writing in Chengdu."
Liu Bei smiled bitterly. "Another jewel left to gather dust. Liu Zhang had such fortune and never knew it."
[Voiceover]
Lu Xun's flanking maneuver explains why Liu Bei fled to Baidi nearly alone. In an age of swords, an army is rarely annihilated unless its retreat is cut off.
This principle recurs throughout history: Yuan Shao at Guandu, Guan Yu at Xiangfan—the same fatal pattern.
The closest modern parallel is the Inchon Landing during the Korean War. The northern army had overextended, leaving its rear exposed. Allied forces landed by sea—coordinating attacks by land, sea, and air—to strike their center and sever their supply lines.
The result was instant collapse of the northern front. Only the intervention of the "Volunteer Army" prevented total annihilation, reshaping the peninsula's fate.
Pang Tong's mouth fell open. Yet the others remained almost casual—these glimpses of the future no longer startled them.
"It seems," Huang Yueying mused, "this war of the future was fought over a vassal state. Those 'Americans' used a modern version of borrowing a path to attack Guo. But where is this 'Korea'?"
Kongming pondered. "When the Zhou conquered Shang, they enfeoffed a prince as Marquis of Joseon—Korea—in Liaodong. It sits where the plains meet the sea. Emperor Wu of Han founded commanderies there, but after the fall of the Gongsun clan, its fate grew distant."
Jian Yong waved dismissively. "Overthink not. It's simply another Han territory that gained independence in a later age."
The room chuckled, and for a brief moment, the humiliation of "barely escaping with his life" was forgotten.
"The screen is such, Shiyuan," Liu Bei said with a rueful smile. "It shows us fragments of a vast world. Kongming finds it enchanting."
Pang Tong nodded, still dazed. Liu Bei leaned closer. "Tell me, Shiyuan—what do you make of 'mobile territory' in this strange age?"
The others, however, were transfixed by the phrase sea, land, and air coordination.
"The 'air force' must be those metal birds we saw earlier," Zhang Fei guessed. "I thought the people of the future had truly learned to grow wings!"
Guan Yu stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Then sea power… is the final evolution of the navy? The harmony of multiple branches—perhaps that is the ultimate form of warfare."
[Light-Screen Content]
Yet at Yiling, Lu Xun's naval flanking only guaranteed he would not lose. To truly win, he still had to overcome one final obstacle—the sixty-year-old Emperor Zhaolie, Liu Bei.
With fire to sow chaos and ships to cut the retreat, Lu Xun smashed more than forty camps. Generals Zhang Nan, Feng Xi, and the tribal king Shamoke were slain. Du Lu and Liu Ning surrendered in despair.
The situation was irretrievable—yet Liu Bei, ever defiant, resolved to make one last, desperate stand.