The Three Kingdoms: I asked you to save Guan Yu, not to destroy Sun Quan.

Its daybreak.

Having been exhausted from a night of tossing and turning, Wu Jun, sporting dark circles under his eyes and fuming with morning grumpiness, set off.

Filled with resentment, Wu Jun didn't need any prompting; he charged forward with all his might, wishing he could sprout wings and fly to the Han army to fight them to the death and avenge the humiliation of being disturbed the night before.

Unexpectedly, not far along, Wu Jun, who was at the front, suddenly lost his footing and let out a shrill scream.

The screams were even louder than the wild boar's howls the night before, startling Zhang Cheng, who immediately ran over and asked, "What happened?"

As he looked down, he saw a deep pit at Wu Jun's feet, filled with bamboo skewers. Two of the skewers had already pierced through the instep of the screaming soldier, leaving his right foot bleeding profusely.

Zhang Cheng's face instantly turned as black as the bottom of a pot. He looked ahead and gritted his teeth, cursing, "That damned Guan Xing is playing dirty tricks on me again! The army should stop and rest. Zhang Ming, immediately lead your men to clear the traps and open up a path as soon as possible."

It's obvious to anyone with a brain that Guan Xing was behind this, but what else could he do but stop and clean up?

Zhang Ming accepted the order and left. You Yong rushed over and said, "General, clearing the traps is taking too long. We have very little food left, and we can't afford to waste time like this."

Zhang Cheng asked helplessly, "Do you have a better idea?"

Seeing You Yong shake his head, he retorted irritably, "What are you talking about if you don't have it?"

"But you're right. Guan Xing is just taking advantage of our lack of supplies and trying to use traps to slow down our march. That damned Guan Anguo, why does he like to play dirty tricks so much?"

After a brief bout of impotent rage, Zhang Cheng began personally supervising the army to clear the traps. After two hours of work, they had only cleared less than ten miles of them, which made him increasingly anxious.

But what happened next was even more sinister. As the army was clearing the traps, several Han soldiers suddenly rushed towards them, fired several arrows at the Wu soldiers who were clearing the traps, and then turned and ran.

Two Wu soldiers were shot down, and the rest of the Wu soldiers were so angry that they quickly gave chase. However, after running only a few steps, one of them stepped into a pit, which frightened the other Wu soldiers so much that they stopped immediately.

Looking up, they saw that the Han soldiers in front of them were hopping around like fleas, easily avoiding the traps and running out of the Wu army's range.

Wu's army was too large and had too much baggage, so it couldn't be as agile as the Han army. They could only watch the Han army leave and then continue clearing the traps.

As a result, the Han army returned not long after the initial clearing.

With traps and the obstruction of the Han army, the Wu army only traveled twenty li in a day, but the amount of food consumed did not decrease, which made Zhang Cheng anxious.

While the Wu army rested late at night, the Han army did not sleep. Instead, they thoughtfully used wild boars to provide the Wu army with a wake-up call service.

This time, they even tied a sack full of snakes to the wild boar's tail. As the wild boar rushed to the camp gate, the sack was pulled open, and the venomous snakes crawled out and bit several Wu soldiers.

At daybreak, Wu's army set off again to clear the traps while dealing with the occasional harassment from the Han army.

Seeing the army's marching speed, which was slower than a snail's pace, You Yong said anxiously, "General, this won't do. Why don't we turn back and attack Shan County?"

Zhang Cheng smiled wryly and said, "Going back now would mean taking so many detours, and how can you be sure there aren't any similar traps on the road to Shan County?"

"There is only one way out now: to grit our teeth and charge to the walls of Zhuji and fight the Han army to the death."

Yesterday's attack on Shan County was fine, but going back today would be too costly and a waste of resources.

Zhang Cheng had no choice but to continue. Today was a little better than yesterday; he had walked thirty li.

They were only ten miles away from reaching the city of Zhuji, but unfortunately it was getting dark, and the Wu army hadn't slept well for two nights and were truly exhausted, so they had to set up camp to rest.

After finishing his work, Zhang Cheng summoned his generals and instructed them: "Zhuji is right in front of us. Guan Xing is very likely to launch a night attack tonight. All units must strengthen their defenses and must not give the Han army any opportunity to take advantage of us."

Strengthening vigilance is a light-hearted way of putting it.

These past two days, Wu Jun has been harassed at night and has to work during the day. They're all so tired that they can fall asleep while walking. How can we strengthen our defenses?

As night deepened, the wild boars began howling again, continuing from midnight until 1-3 AM.

The howling stopped just after the hour of Chou (1-3 AM), but the Han army arrived.

Guan Xing led eight hundred men, carefully selected from Gan Xun's troops, to the Wu army camp in secret. As for Meng Jun, he had been exhausted for two days and was resting today.

Guan Xing, hiding in the grass, surveyed the Wu army's camp and said, "The Wu army has been harassed for so long, they must be sleeping very soundly tonight. Lao Gan, I'll be in charge of harassing them when we go in. You find the Wu army's supplies as quickly as possible and burn them."

To strike a snake, you must strike its vital spot. Wu's vital spot right now is its food supplies. If they are burned, Zhang Cheng will be completely cut off from supplies.

Gan Xun nodded emphatically and said, "General, rest assured, I will definitely find the grain for you."

As Guan Xing waited, the time came to the fourth quarter of the Yin hour, which is four o'clock in the morning.

"attack……"

Guan Xing waved his hand and charged towards Wu's camp first, with his soldiers carrying bamboo rafts and following closely behind.

Upon reaching the outside of the camp, the soldiers in the front ranks unleashed a barrage of arrows, shooting down all the Wu soldiers who were dozing on the watchtower. Then, the soldiers carrying the bamboo rafts quickly stepped forward and attached the rafts to the deer antlers.

The antlers are triangular wooden walls made of three logs, only about one meter high. Bamboo rafts can easily be placed on them to form a slope.

The remaining bamboo rafts were thrown behind the deer antlers to serve as flooring. This was unnecessary because Guan Xing was afraid that Zhang Cheng would also dig a trap for him. If he jumped in, he would end up in a deep pit full of bamboo sticks, which would be tragic.

Just like the story of Baiyi Crossing the River, it's normal for people who have done bad things to fear that the same bad things will happen to them.

The Han army jumped into the camp on bamboo rafts and headed straight for the center of the camp under the leadership of Guan Xing.

Ganxun then took out a tinderbox, lit the torch he was carrying, and rushed in another direction. As he passed by tents, he set them on fire before heading to the next location.

Wu Jun's command tent.

Worried about a night attack by the Han army, Zhang Cheng didn't sleep all night. By the time of Yin (3-5 AM), he was so tired that he couldn't stay awake any longer. He sat down at his desk and dozed off. But he hadn't been asleep for long when he heard shouts of battle. Startled, he jumped up, grabbed his weapon, rushed out of the command tent, called to his personal guards, and shouted loudly, "Everyone, come to my side and follow me to meet the Han army!"

Unfortunately, there was no response.

The guards were exhausted too, and since they weren't leaders, they couldn't possibly have the same worries as Zhang Cheng. They slept like the dead.

The guard had only intended to take a nap, but he fell into a deep sleep as soon as he closed his eyes, his eyelids completely out of his control.

The result was that Wu Jun reacted very slowly; the Han army had already rushed in, but they hadn't gotten up yet, or their bodies had gotten up but their souls were still on their way.

Guan Xing witnessed two Wu soldiers collapse to the ground as if drunk as soon as they left their tent. Afraid that the smell of blood would upset them, he ignored them and continued his charge toward the commander's tent.

As I said before, the commander's tent is definitely the most central and luxurious one. Don't overthink it, just charge!

When Guan Xing arrived at the commander's tent, Zhang Cheng was already waiting outside, but he was surrounded by only about a hundred men.

"What else is there to say? Let's do it!" Guan Xing decisively ordered, "First and second garrisons, flank them from both sides. The rest of you, follow me and charge!"

After saying that, he rushed towards Zhang Cheng first, and said excitedly, "General Zhang, you're not running even at a time like this, you're quite confident."

Zhang Cheng felt frustrated upon hearing this. It wasn't that he didn't want to run, but that he couldn't. If he ran, the morale of his army would collapse, and then the army would suffer a crushing defeat.

On the contrary, if he holds on, the other Wu soldiers will gradually wake up and rush to besiege Guan Xing.

He knew that Wu Jun was exhausted, so he had to hold on and buy time for Wu Jun soldiers to wake up and arrive.

Seeing Guan Xing rushing towards him, Zhang Cheng charged forward without hesitation, shouting, "It's too early to talk about victory now, Guan Anguo, I've been waiting for you for a long time."