Dynasty Warriors: Ambition and Temperance

Chapter 4 of my Dynasty Warriors story, enjoy.

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Wolfgirl2013: Thanks :)

Now onto the story.

Disclaimer: Dynasty Warriors and its characters belong to Koei.


Battle of Bowangpo

Cao-Cao carefully observed the battlefield before him. He had raised his army and was now leading them to attack Jing Province. His first target in regards to this was Liu Bei who had led his army out to meet Cao-Cao, forming up and meeting Cao-Cao's army at Bowangpo.

'Their formation is strong...Liu Bei seems to have improved.' He reflected. 'I wonder how much of that is due to his new allies.'

He knew Liu Bei's army had grown, and he likely had sought someone to replace Xu Shu, who was refusing to participate in this battle.

Cao-Cao shook his head. 'It makes sense. He still feels loyalty to Liu Bei and is conflicted.'

So instead he focused on the battlefield before him; he was commanding the main forces, with most of his officers. Cao Ren meanwhile commanded the vanguard and had led them towards Liu Bei's forces, Xiahou Dun, Yue Jin and Li Dian each commanded a force under Cao Ren and as Cao-Cao carefully observed, they began to advance in three stages, each heading for one of the three passes within the hills and valleys that Liu Bei's army had taken their position behind, with three forces each guarding the passes.

Cao Ren carefully observed the layout before him.

"The enemy have planned this carefully." He remarked "We cannot attack them in anyway except directly..."

Xiahou Dun sighed. "Then that's just what we'll have to do...Li Dian, Yue Jin, let's go, I'll take the northern route, Li Dian, take the central and Yue Jin the south."

Yue Jin bowed. "At once my lord."

"I'm not sure..." Li Dian muttered. "I've got a bad feeling abut this."

Xiahou Dun immediately replied. "You heard Lord Cao Ren, we have no choice."

So, they advanced, ready to try and attack. Xiahou Dun reached his target first and glowered when he noted just who was leading the defending force here.

"Guan Yu, I might have guessed!"

The man observed him and raised his weapon. "Xiahou Dun, I might have expected I would find you here."

Xiahou Dun could not pass this opportunity up and so, he charged forwards, Guan Yu quickly blocked the attack and then spoke.

"Just as Master Zhuge Liang predicted...NOW!"

Xiahou Dun barely had time to register what was said before Guan Ping led the ambush unit and soon had Xiahou Dun's forces surrounded. It took no time at all for a battle to turn into a rout and for Xiahou Dun to suddenly find the forces he was leading, the pride of Cao-Cao's army, an army they expected to be numerically and strategically superior, decimated. He realized that this had to be what Li Dian had worried about. Now he wondered if the others were in similar trouble.

That indeed turned out to be the case, Yue Jin had charged towards his target, only to encounter Zhao Yun awaiting him, with a trap, in this case, a rock slide.

"What, oh...I really fell into this one." He muttered.

Zhao Yun charged in then, clashing with Yue Jin. "Excellent, Lord Zhuge Liang saw it all, now to finish this!"

Yue Jin grimaced as he tried desperately to fight of Zhao Yun, his forces had been split those not crushed by the rocks were cut off by them. Meanwhile Li Dian had encountered Zhang Fei, shortly before a fire attack was launched, forcing him into a tight corner. Witnessing all this, Cao Ren was shocked.

"This cannot be; for them to have so many traps...they must have a new strategist, for them to succeed like this..." He glowered. "Enough, we must rescue our people, hurry!"

With that he led his forces and, seeing this, Cao-Cao immediately reacted.

"Send reinforcements at once; Zhang Liao, Xu Huang, go and aid Cao Ren, we must rescue our forces and bring them back together!"

They both bowed and charged out. Cao-Cao couldn't deny it, this was beyond anything he had expected from Liu Bei.

To his relief the rescue was successful; soon his army returned and regrouped, although they had lost a good number of their vanguard.

"My Lord, I apologize; I failed to realize the traps they had set and..." Cao Ren began.

Cao-Cao shook his head. "No Cao Ren, we all did...For them to accomplish this however, what happened?"

Cao Ren replied. "I gathered what information I could, it seems this plan was the work of a man named, Zhuge Liang."

Cao-Cao narrowed his eyes at that.

"Zhuge Liang...that name seems familiar..." He muttered

"The Sleeping Dragon…a most dangerous man."

They turned to see the man who had spoken, it was a new member of Cao-Cao's army, a man who had been recruited for his obvious talents, he was named Sima Yi.

"Do you know this man?" Cao-Cao inquired.

Sima Yi nodded. "Yes, a most devious strategist..."

He began explaining what he knew about Zhuge Liang and Cao-Cao was shocked to hear that they were up against such a man. However when a messenger arrived, Cao-Cao soon began smiling.

"I see...alright, let us pull for now, regroup, recover and prepare for our next move." He announced. "I now have a way to defeat Liu Bei...without needing to fight him...and claim Jing in one move."

There were murmurs from the officers, all of them curious, wondering what Cao-Cao meant, how he felt so certain.

Cao explained casually. "Liu Biao is dead."


End of chapter, hope you enjoyed it, read and review please.