“Intention”: War for the Han Frontier sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne

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The world-weary Yuan Shao was met on the road to Yè City by his nephew - the Governor of Bing Province, Gao Gan - and an army of 20,000 men.
“I am here now, worthy lord and uncle!” Gao Gan declared. “Let us get revenge!”
“What I would have given, Nephew, for these men to have been at Cangting,” Yuan Shao bleated as he observed the rows of professional soldiers and horsemen. “What I would give, oh what I would give, to be able to march them back there and wipe that smug smile off of the face of my enemy!”
“Perhaps we should go back, as Cousin Gan suggests, Father,” Yuan Tan said.
“No, son,” Yuan Shao replied. “We’ll need these men for a different task now… restoring the order that will collapse over the coming days as word of my defeat reaches my enemies within.”

Yuan Shao was correct: he was not back in Yè City for more than a day before reports of uprisings across Bing, Yòu, Qing and Ji Provinces started to pour in. Cao Cao, by contrast, returned to Xuchang as an unrivalled champion that expected more victories - both military and psychological - over the coming weeks, and he was quickly proved to be correct as well.

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13

“…Truly unbelievable, gentlemen,” Jing Governor Liu Biao said as he placed the reports from the Cangting region to one side and turned his gaze from his assembled courtiers to his guest of honour, Liu Bei.
“Unbelievable and terrible,” Liu Bei replied. “If Cao has so easily beaten Yuan Shao again and driven him back, then there are no other heroes left in this world but you.”
“And you, I think…!” Liu Biao snickered. “You know full well that you are considered to be a hero, so why act as if it isn’t so…?”
“Bei is resorting to flattery,” General Cai Mao scoffed. “It’s a poor trait in a ‘hero’.”
Liu Biao glared at Cai Mao and said, “Brother-in-law, please show more respect to our guest. He has endured much to be here with us now, and he fights for the preservation of the Han Dynasty, the clan to which we both belong and to which you are, by marriage, now a part of yourself. We have common purpose.”
Cai Mao harrumphed, bowed slightly and replied, “Your word is final, my lord.”
“It is,” Liu Biao retorted. “Now then, Xuande… you will be returning to Xinye soon, so that we are ready for any problems that may arise from Cao Cao’s latest victory.”

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