On the morning after Che Zhou's (車冑) neck had fallen beneath Guan Yu's (關羽) Green-Dragon Crescent Blade, and Liu Bei's (劉備) single letter had arrived at Xudu (許都), Cao Cao (曹操) raised the first banner of the Eastern Campaign (東征).

Upon the table of Cao Cao's main camp, a map was spread once more. Xun Yu (荀彧) spoke low. "My Lord. Today's grain of the Eastern Campaign must move quickly. The seven hundred thousand great army of Yuan Shao (袁紹) has begun to move southward from the north of the Yellow River (黃河). If the Eastern Campaign does not end swiftly, Yuan Shao's step will strike Cao Cao's back from behind."

Guo Jia (郭嘉) continued low. "My Lord. Yuan Shao's grain is one that delays decision long. If Your Lordship takes Liu Bei before Yuan Shao moves, the grain of later days will grow a grain lighter." Cao Cao nodded low.

Cao Cao moved three hundred thousand of the main army. The nine generals — Xiahou Dun (夏侯惇), Xiahou Yuan (夏侯淵), Cao Ren (曹仁), Cao Hong (曹洪), Li Dian (李典), Yue Jin (樂進), Yu Jin (于禁), Xu Huang (徐晃), and Zhang Liao (張遼) — marched together into the Eastern Campaign. The edict of the Son of Heaven (天子) hung upon the banner of the main army.

Meanwhile, inside Liu Bei's tent at Xuzhou (徐州), Chen Deng (陳登) spoke low. "Lord Liu. I have heard the news of today's Eastern Campaign. Cao Cao's three hundred thousand army moves toward Xuzhou. Today's grain is one that twenty thousand foot soldiers cannot bear (堪當). A grain of outside aid (外援) is needed."

Liu Bei nodded deeply. "Whose outside aid is that?" Chen Deng answered low. "Yuan Shao (袁紹) of Jizhou (冀州). His seven hundred thousand great army already stands north of the Yellow River. Send an envoy to Yuan Shao, and ask for a grain of outside aid."

Liu Bei nodded. Sun Qian (孫乾), as envoy, placed a writing within his bosom and moved a step toward Jizhou. Upon its first line lay: "Lord Yuan Benchu (袁本初), of Jizhou. Liu Bei stands in Xuzhou facing Cao Cao's three hundred thousand great army. I ask a grain of outside aid."

Upon the tower of Xuzhou, Guan Yu looked toward the southeastern horizon. The dust of Cao Cao's three hundred thousand army was rising in the distance, a grain at a time. Guan Yu's two eyes sank a grain deep. "Elder brother. Today's grain is a great grain. Twenty thousand foot soldiers alone cannot block it."

Liu Bei answered low. "Yunchang. Today's grain is one that waits for Jizhou's outside aid. We must buy the time it takes Sun Qian to reach Jizhou."

At Cao Cao's main camp, three evenings into the march, Cheng Yu laid a small map of Xiaopei upon a folding table and said low. "My Lord. If we reach Xiaopei before Liu Bei has finished gathering his soldiers, the grain of this campaign will end within one week." Cao Cao nodded and gave no answer. A commander of three hundred thousand who has been told his campaign may end within one week rarely answers in the same hour. He only watched the map. Its roads were drawn in the grain of an older cartographer's hand, and some of them, Cao Cao knew, had since been widened. The new widths did not appear upon the map. He filed that small fact at the back of his ear and continued the march the next morning before the other generals had finished their breakfast.

At Jizhou, Sun Qian arrived two evenings later than expected. The roads from Xuzhou had been harder than the map suggested. He stood at the gate of Yuan Shao's main tent and handed the writing to the sleeve of a counselor. The counselor's name was Tian Feng (田豐). Tian Feng read the writing under a lamp and did not carry it immediately to Yuan Shao. A counselor who has read an outside-aid letter in a season when his own lord is reputed to delay decision rarely carries it in the same hour. Tian Feng folded the letter inside his sleeve and walked toward Yuan Shao's quarters slowly, giving his mouth time to prepare words that might survive the gate of his lord's ear. The walk took him, by deliberate choice, until past midnight.

In Xudu, Empress Fu, sitting at a window of the palace, heard the first drums of the Eastern Campaign from a great distance, and closed the book she had been reading. The book was an old chronicle of the early Han dynasty's founding; she had been reading the chapter in which a small prince fled a great army and, decades later, returned. She laid the book upon the low table beside her hand. She did not open it again that afternoon. Some chapters are better not read through on the same day that a great army has begun to march. She looked out the window toward the east. The east did not answer; it only showed a line of rising dust where no dust should yet have been visible.

The eighty-second morning of Book 3 was opening, quietly, beneath the first banner of Cao Cao's Eastern Campaign. The three characters Dongjeong-beom (東征帆, the sail of the Eastern Campaign) were planted as a seed: the breath upon which the grain of a single map, the step of three hundred thousand, a writing moving toward Jizhou, and two eyes upon a tower lay at one seat. The neck of Day 81's Jugyeong-nak (冑頸落) had, this morning, been laid beneath Cao Cao's first banner of the Eastern Campaign.

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