Three Kingdoms: Mistakenly Becoming Liu Bei's Adoptive Father at the Start

The day Cao Cao withdrew from Chang'an, it was still dark.

The army retreated silently from the north gate, leaving behind only an empty camp and dozens of flags still fluttering in the wind.

When the sun rose, the first group of scouts who had tentatively infiltrated the camp discovered it.

Cao's army had long since fled and their camp was deserted.

The news spread, and the area outside the city was in an uproar.

Zhang Miao, the prefect of Chenliu, was the first to rush into the city gate.

He rode on his horse, whipping away the fleeing soldiers blocking his path, his eyes red, muttering incessantly:

"The Emperor! The Emperor is mine!"

"The Emperor relinquished my position as Governor of Chenliu to Cao Cao; I demand an explanation from that Emperor!"

Following closely behind was Gongsun Zan's White Horse Cavalry.

The two groups clashed at the city gate, neither willing to give way, and swords and spears were drawn, leaving more than a dozen corpses lying on the ground in an instant.

Gongsun Zan's horse hooves trampled over the corpses, splashing up a cloud of blood.

After Liu Dai's death, the remnants of the Yanzhou forces, led by his general Wang Yu, also mingled with the crowd and tried to squeeze in.

Behind them were Kong Zhou's men, Wang Kuang's men, Qiao Mao's former subordinates, Zhang Chao's vanguard...

They surged toward the palace like a swarm of bees, pushing and shoving, trampling over the screams of wounded soldiers.

Zhang Miao rode his horse into the palace, jumped off, and charged into the main hall with his sword in hand.

The Imperial Guards who were guarding the palace gates had long since fled, leaving only a few old eunuchs huddled in a corner, trembling.

Zhang Miao kicked open the palace door and rushed in, only to find the throne empty.

"Where is the Emperor?!" Zhang Miao grabbed a eunuch and held a sword to his neck.

The eunuch trembled and could not speak, only pointing towards the side hall.

Zhang Miao abandoned him and ran towards the side hall.

In the side hall, Liu Xie sat on a low couch with a half-bowl of cold porridge in front of him.

Hearing the sound of hurried footsteps, I looked up and saw Zhang Miao's face contorted with excitement. My hand trembled slightly, and the porridge spilled out.

"Your Majesty, I am Zhang Miao, the Prefect of Chenliu! I have arrived late to rescue Your Majesty!" Zhang Miao stood and bowed, his voice brimming with undisguised joy, deliberately emphasizing the words "Prefect of Chenliu." "Your Majesty has been frightened! I will immediately escort you out of the palace!"

Liu Xie looked at him, forcibly suppressing his trembling hands.

Shouts of battle came from outside the hall.

Gongsun Zan's men have arrived.

Without saying a word, the two groups immediately began fighting in the palace.

They fought from the front of the palace to the back, from the corridors to the imperial garden.

Swords flashed and blood splattered on the palace walls.

Liu Xie was protected in a side hall by Zhang Miao's men. He listened to the sounds of fighting outside, his head lowered, his lips trembling.

Later, Gongsun Zan gained the upper hand, and Zhang Miao protected Liu Xie as they fought and retreated to the inner palace.

Gongsun Zan chased after them, and the two groups continued fighting in the empty hall where the concubines had lived.

They fought until nightfall, and neither could gain the upper hand.

Finally, the two sides reached an agreement: the emperor would take turns "protecting" them.

He returned to Zhang Miao in the first half of the night and to Gongsun Zan in the second half.

Liu Xie was constantly being moved around, like a piece of merchandise.

This continued for three days.

The palace had become a battlefield, with corpses lying inside and outside the palace walls.

No one came to collect the body; it just lay there, slowly rotting in the spring sunshine.

Liu Xie was moved from one palace to another, and handed over from one general to another.

He stopped talking and just followed quietly, eating when it was time to eat and sleeping when it was time to sleep, like a mindless puppet.

On the fourth night, Chang'an City was suddenly shaken.

That was the sound of countless hooves pounding the ground simultaneously, coming from the west, getting closer and louder, like muffled thunder rolling across the ground.

Some people climbed onto the city wall and looked westward.

Under the moonlight, a dark, surging tide was approaching.

Those were not routed soldiers, but a well-organized military formation, and countless flags fluttering in the wind.

"Dong Zhuo! Lü Bu! The Xiliang soldiers are back!"

The shouts had barely begun when the vanguard of the Xiliang cavalry clashed with the routed soldiers outside the city.

Those men didn't even have time to form ranks before they were swallowed up by the cavalry tide.

Lü Bu took the lead.

Red Hare shone like a flowing flame in the moonlight, its halberd sweeping left and right, each swing sending someone screaming and falling to the ground.

He charged into the crowd like a red-hot knife stabbing into butter, leaving a trail of blood and gore in his wake.

Behind them, the armies of Li Jue, Guo Si, Zhang Ji, and Fan Chou launched a flanking maneuver.

The sound of horses' hooves shook the heavens and the shouts of battle reached the sky.

The allied forces of the feudal lords outside the city collapsed instantly.

Some people threw down their weapons and ran away, only to be cut down by cavalrymen chasing after them.

Some people knelt down and begged to surrender, only to be trampled into a bloody pulp by horses' hooves.

Some people wanted to escape into the city, but the city gates had already been blocked.

People in front couldn't squeeze in, and people behind kept pouring in; the city gate had become a slaughterhouse.

Gongsun Zan led his remaining troops in an attempt to break through to the north, but they ran headlong into Li Jue's cavalry.

The two groups of men were locked in a fierce battle, fighting fiercely until the sky darkened.

Gongsun Zan's White Horse Cavalry was indeed elite, but the Xiliang Iron Cavalry was larger and fiercer.

In the end, Gongsun Zan had less than a hundred riders left, covered in blood, who fought their way out and fled north.

Zhang Miao ran even faster.

When he heard shouts of battle outside the city, his first reaction was not to fight, but to run.

This guy abandoned Liu Xie and his soldiers, and slipped away through the south gate with only a few dozen of his confidants.

After running for more than ten miles, he dared to look back in the direction of Chang'an.

Flames soared into the sky, illuminating half the night sky.

Liu Xie was thrown into a side hall of the inner palace.

Outside, the sounds of battle were deafening, doors and windows were shaking, and dust was falling in a tumble.

The young emperor sat on his couch, his face ashen.

There was still half a bowl of cold porridge in front of me, which had already gone bad.

The palace doors were suddenly kicked open.

Lu Bu walked in carrying his halberd, covered in blood, his face showing the excitement of having just killed someone.

He saw Liu Xie, paused for a moment, then grinned.

"Oh, His Majesty is still here."

Liu Xie raised his head and mustered his courage to look at Lü Bu.

Lü Bu walked over and stood before the emperor.

Blood was still dripping from the halberd, falling drop by drop into the cracks between the bricks.

"Get up and come with me," Lu Bu commanded.

This time, Liu Xie stubbornly refused to stand up.

"Whoosh!" Lu Bu made a tiger pouncing on its prey gesture, took a few steps forward, grabbed the little emperor by the collar, and forcibly lifted him up.

Liu Xie gritted his teeth and was dragged out of the side hall by Lü Bu. They walked through the corridors littered with corpses and out of the palace gate.

Outside the palace gate,

Dong Zhuo's army was counting their spoils of war. Cartloads of gold, silver, and silk were being pulled out from the defeated warlords of Guandong and piled up in the middle of the street.

Liu Xie saw a soldier kick aside a corpse, pull a jade pendant from the corpse's arms, and put it into his own pocket.

Liu Xie paused briefly as he passed by the Situ residence.

The mansion gates were wide open, but the mansion was empty.

Wang Yun's fate was unknown; he was neither dead nor alive, nor had he escaped nor been captured.

Lu Bu shoved him, urging, "Hurry up! What are you looking at?"