In 204 AD, in September of the ninth year of Jian'an in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cao Cao defeated Shen Pei, who was guarding Yecheng, and then occupied the entire Wei County. Soon, Gao Rou, who was entrenched in the northern part of Zhongshan Kingdom, Wang Ling officially surrendered to Cao Cao under the persuasion of Wang Ling's friend Sima Lang. Later, Gao Gan, the governor of Bingzhou, finally surrendered to Cao Cao with his subordinate Gao Rou.

At this point, Cao Cao not only occupied most of the western territory of Jizhou, but also the six counties of Bingzhou were all in his own hands.

At this time, Cao Cao had completely penetrated his power into Hebei, and the general trend seemed irreversible.

In Gao Rou, Cao Cao was very happy after the news of Wang Ling's surrender reached Yecheng. Guo Jia, who was standing beside him, saw Cao Cao holding Wang Ling's handwritten letter in his hand and expressed his thoughts in one sentence:

"Gao Rou, who had originally been in a confrontation with Yuan Xi who went deep into Zhongshan Kingdom, has now officially turned against us. Is it because of the reason why Cao Gong is happy?"

Cao Cao put down the letter and smiled and said, "What Fengxiao said is not bad. Now, while Yuan Xi has no time to react, I will immediately order Gao Rou and Wang Ling to bite him tightly, and then send Yuan Tan, who has occupied Hejian, to send troops to cut off his return. In this way..."

Cao Hong, who was standing aside, seemed very excited to hear the conversation between Cao Cao and Guo Jia. He clapped and cheered:

"Yes, in this way, we don't have to work so hard to attack Youzhou in the north, and we can eliminate Yuan Xi in one fell swoop!"

In contrast to Cao Hong's reaction, Cao Pi had different opinions on this:

"Father, Yuan Tan has been plundering several counties in eastern Jizhou during the period when we besieged Yecheng. His anti-intention is already very obvious. It is probably unrealistic to ask him to help us siege Yuan Xi at this time."

After hearing Cao Pi say this, Cao Cao and Guo Jia looked at each other and laughed at each other...

At the same time, in Yuan Xi's military tent near the suburbs of Peking, Sima Yi was lying in front of the case while the army was starting. Suddenly, he heard something outside the tent, and noticed something strange, pretending to be silent and continued to lower his head to write.

Sima Yi, holding a pen in his right hand, secretly reached his left hand under the table, holding his short sword hidden under the table, holding his breath until the man secretly lifted the curtain and walked in and stood behind him.

At this time, Sima Yi decisively pulled out the sword, turned around and swung it towards the shadow behind him...

However, things did not go so smoothly. The person standing behind Sima Yi only hit Sima Yi's wrist holding the sword with his right hand, which made Sima Yi's left hand feel sore and the sword in his hand fell to the ground.

When Sima Yi saw the face of the visitor clearly, he did not rush to bending over and picking up the sword to fight the visitor to death. Instead, he looked at the man in surprise: "What are you doing? This is Yuan Xi's military camp."

The reason why Sima Yi spoke so well to the visitor was that this person was not someone else, but Wang Ling.

After confirming that no one was following around, Wang Ling inserted the sword in his hand back into the sheath and said to Sima Yi very seriously:

"We have surrendered to Cao Cao. Yesterday, Cao Cao sent an envoy to send a secret letter, asking us to quickly send troops to trap Yuan Xi before he returned to Youzhou, so that he could not escape unsuccessfully. Gao Rou and I discussed it. If you stay here alone, if the war starts, you may be implicated innocently, so I came here alone late at night to bring you back secretly."

After learning about Wang Ling's purpose, Sima Yi was quite grateful. He put down the pen in his hand and stood up:

"Thank you, two brothers, for thinking about it. Since you took the risk, I happened to have something to ask for.

Let me tell you, Sima Yi held up the bamboo slips he had just written and blew them gently. The remaining wet ink on them quickly dried up. Sima Yi rolled the bamboo slips and handed them to Wang Ling with both hands:

"This is my own handwritten. Since you have surrendered to the court, the road to Hebei will not be blocked. So please hand over this letter to Sima Lang, the brother of Chenggao City, and tell him that everything is fine."

When he heard Sima Yi mention that his brother was Sima Lang, Wang Ling couldn't help laughing after taking the bamboo slips:

"When I heard you claim your surname is Sima before, I was wondering why it was such a coincidence. I didn't expect you to be Boda's younger brother."

Sima Yi felt strange: "How could you know the name of your brother?"

Wang Ling said: "He and I have always met each other. We have been in the same school before, and since then we have kept communicating with letters."

"It turns out that it was my old friend, and Zhongda was disrespectful."

When Sima Yi learned that Wang Ling and Sima Lang were old friends, he bowed to Wang Ling.

At this time, Wang Ling had no time to explain in detail to Sima Yi. He quickly took Sima Yi's hand and wanted to take him away: "Let's leave this for yourself. Your brother Sima Lang is now the county magistrate of Tangyang County."

"What? Brother is now in Jizhou?"

When he heard that Sima Lang had now served in Jizhou, Sima Yi understood his intention to do so:

Although he let himself go north alone to find Zhang Zhang Chunhua, Sima Lang still couldn't feel at ease with him.

Wang Ling pressed the bamboo slips on Sima Yi's chest: "Now is not the time to talk about this. Please wait for the details and ask him about it yourself after you arrive in Tangyang. Now you must leave here with me."

Faced with Wang Ling's constant urging, Sima Yi stood there but was still moving for a while. Wang Ling was very surprised by his abnormal and dull reaction: "What do you mean? Do you want to get involved in this war?"

Sima Yi looked solemn. He broke free from Wang Ling's hand and turned around and sat back to his original position:

"I finally found the person I'm looking for, and I have basically won Yuan Xi's trust. Now I'm not worried about her safety when I go back. Brother Tai doesn't have to worry about me. I've experienced a lot of wars and I have a way to do it alone."

Through Sima Yi's accurate judgment of the situation and strategic dispatch, Wang Ling also found that he was definitely not a thing in the pool, but the war was ruthless. Especially when he learned that he was the younger brother of his friend Sima Lang, Wang Ling did not intend to let him take risks, so he still planned to persuade him to leave: "You have thought about it, if you have something at least, I can't explain it to your elder brother."

Sima Yi smiled, raised his right hand and put it on Wang Ling's shoulder and patted it gently:

"I haven't finished what I want to do yet. Tell my brother that I will go back after finishing my work."

Seeing that Sima Yi's attitude was so firm, Wang Ling couldn't force it too much. Just as he was hesitating, he suddenly noticed that there seemed to be someone else outside the tent, so he rushed out of the tent, and the person who had never wanted to hide outside the tent and eavesdropped turned out to be a woman.

In case Wang Ling quickly subdued him and covered him with his mouth, he forcibly brought the woman into Sima Yi's tent.

Sima Yi was shocked when he saw the woman's appearance, but he was not in a hurry to reveal his identity due to his indifference.

Because this eavesdropping woman is nothing else, she is Zhang Zhang Chunhua.

In order to prevent himself and Sima Yi from protecting himself and Sima Yi, Wang Ling placed his hand on the hilt of his waist to kill and silence him. Seeing this, Sima Yi quickly stopped him: "Brother Wang, wait!"

"Since you want to stay here, leaving her life alone will only tell you what I know and you will not do you or me."

Just as Wang Ling and Sima Yi were talking, Zhang Chunhua took the opportunity to bite Wang Ling's right hand tightly. Wang Ling subconsciously let go of her hand in severe pain. Zhang Chunhua also fell to the ground due to the unbalanced body. She stared at Sima Yi and Wang Ling coldly:

"Brother Yuan Xi valued you so much, but the sir actually had a secret relationship with such a thief!"

In a rage, Wang Ling didn't care about so much, waved the sword in his hand and stabbed Zhang Chunhua who was sitting on the ground...

Zhang Chunhua quickly closed her eyes because of fear, grinned and turned her face. She never thought that there was no pain in every part of her body for a long time. When she tried to slowly open her eyes, she was surprised to find that the tip of Wang Ling's sword was actually very close to her chest.

However, looking along the blade, what prevented the sword from stabbing him was Sima Yi's right hand...

Blood flowed down the blade and dripped onto the ground. Zhang Chunhua looked at the person who was completely unfamiliar in front of him, and used his flesh and blood to resist the sharp and ruthless blade for his sake.

Seeing Sima Yi's right hand injured, Wang Ling quickly withdrew his sword: "Are you crazy? Is it because of this little girl..."

As soon as they finished speaking, the sound of patrol guards came from outside the tent. They heard the sound in Sima Yi's tent and came outside the tent to ask: "Mr. Sima, is there anything wrong?"

Sima Yi did not care about his bloody right hand and calmly replied: "It's okay, the general doesn't have to care."

The patrol soldier was about to leave, but he didn't expect that he would alarm Yuan Shang not far away. He seemed to hear the voices of two people in the tent. He was already worried about Sima Yi's stopping him and ambushing Wang Ling. Gao Rou happened to find a chance to deal with him, so he quickly walked towards Sima Yi's tent: "I'm afraid that Sima Yi will be held hostage by a spy, so he hurried in and search!"

When Sima Yi heard Yuan Shang's voice, he felt something was wrong. He quickly helped Zhang Chunhua who was lying on the ground and persuaded her in very short and concise words: "I will explain it after details, please believe me now..."

For some reason, when Zhang Chunhua saw Sima Yi's extremely clear eyes, he actually couldn't refuse him...

When Yuan Shang rudely pulled open the curtain, he wanted to catch Sima Yi and found out:

There were no one else in the tent except Sima Yi and Zhang Chunhua who were sitting opposite the seats.

Seeing Yuan Shang so aggressively, Sima Yi did not get up and sat on the spot and looked up at him as usual:

"What happened to the third young master here late at night?"

Yuan Shang did not hurry to answer Sima Yi, but kept looking for clues that would appear in the tent. However, he searched for a long time but still couldn't find what he thought of. Although Zhang Chunhua, who was sitting opposite Sima Yi, tried his best to restrain his emotions, her eyes were still not far from Sima Yi's right hand hidden in her sleeves, and the blood stained the sleeves red, and fell to the ground drop by drop.

Sima Yi saw Yuan Shang's purpose, calmly picked up the bamboo slip with his right hand and lowered his head to read:

"Have you found what you were looking for?"

Yuan Shang, who had nothing to gain, had to give up, turned down and looked at Zhang Chunhua sitting opposite Sima Yi, and asked coldly:

"What are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

Zhang Chunhua looked at Sima Yi's eyes, bit his lip slightly, and looked at Yuan Shang and replied: "I just encountered some confusion when I was studying in the account. I thought that Brother Yuan Xi had said that Mr. Sima was knowledgeable, so I came to ask for advice."

After looking at the bamboo slips in Sima Yi's hand, Yuan Shang didn't know how to say anything else, so he flipped his sleeves and took the people away.

After confirming that Yuan Shang was away, Sima Yi put down the bamboo slips in his hand, walked to the tent with caution, looked out slightly for a while, and whispered to the tent: "Okay, it's safe."

At this time, the cloth book on one side of the tent suddenly slid down. It turned out that Wang Ling was standing in front of Yuan Xi, and just used the principle of the same color of the cloth book to hide himself. Yuan Xi was actually deceived by Sima Yi's simple trick.

Seeing that the danger had been eliminated, Wang Ling finally breathed a sigh of relief and said to Sima Yi:

"This Yuan Shang is hostile to you, and it is not good for you to stay here. Are you sure you don't want to leave with me?"

Sima Yi looked at Zhang Chunhua who was sitting in front of the desk and stared at him with a gentle smile:

"This Yuan Shang is just an ambitious and brainless mediocre person. I won't take him seriously at all."

Considering that it is not suitable to stay here for a long time, and Sima Yi insisted on staying, Wang Ling had to give up taking Sima Yi away.

Before leaving, Wang Ling glanced at Zhang Chunhua sitting opposite Sima Yi and wanted to say something, but he swallowed it back and lifted the curtain himself and secretly left Yuan Xi's military camp while there was no one in the night.

After Wang Ling left, Sima Yi stood up and rolled the bamboo slips in his hand and put them back on the bamboo rack filled with books. He didn't care at all that his hands were still bleeding. After a long time he realized that there was no sound behind him, he turned around and looked down at Zhang Chunhua who was also staring at him: "What? Haven't you figured out whether you should report me to General Yuan Xi?"

"No need, Brother Yuan Xi said that you have a close relationship with Gao Rou and Wang Ling, and it is reasonable that they will save you out of friendship."

Zhang Chunhua's words surprised Sima Yi. He did not expect that Zhang Chunhua, who was in the hairpin, would be so clear-headed this year.

Sima Yi was wondering what she had experienced in the years since she was not with Zhang Chunhua, which made her become like this.

Looking at him who was in deep thought, Zhang Chunhua hesitated for a while and slowly stood up, pulled out a silk scarf from his sleeve and walked towards Sima Yi.

From Zhang Chunhua's action of pulling out the scarf, Sima Yi noticed that there was a pain in his right hand. Almost as he felt the pain, Zhang Chunhua gently stretched out his right hand and raised Sima Yi's wrist, and then bandaged his injured palm with the scarf. The movement was so gentle that Sima Yi forgot about the pain again.

After carefully bandaging, Zhang Chunhua put down Sima Yi's hand lightly and slowly, for fear that the wound would be hit again.

After everything was understood, she turned around and walked towards the door of the tent without saying anything, leaving Sima Yi standing there alone.

Sima Yi, who had been standing there in a daze for a long time, thought of the urgency of the situation as soon as he woke up. He quickly walked out of the tent and headed straight for Yuan Xi's central army tent, and told him the news that Cao Cao's secret orders to Wang Ling and Gao Rou attacked Yuan Xi within two days.

Yuan Xi was shocked after hearing this: "It's so fast to start. If Mr. Zhongda hadn't told me, he would have succeeded."

Just as Sima Yi was about to suggest that Yuan Xi immediately set off the camp at night, Yuan Shang's voice came in from outside the tent:
To be continued...