"Xiaozhi really called it. The two generals couldn't hold themselves back for even a moment." Liu Bei chuckled softly.
Fa Zheng replied, "Not just Generals Huang and Zhao—the officers and soldiers in the camp have long been itching for a fight. Letting them out of the pass a day early now is no different from unleashing starving tigers down the mountain to hunt."
"Order the scouts to report any news from the front at all times. Let's return to our quarters and rest." With that, Liu Bei turned away.
"Yes." Fa Zheng cupped his hands in acknowledgment.
Yangping Pass lay six hundred li from Chencang. Several dozen li to the south stood the strategically perilous Dasan Pass; under normal marching conditions, the journey would take fifteen to twenty days.
Everything south of Hechi was under Zhang Fei's control. Free of any worries, Huang Zhong and Zhao Yun's two forces marched fifty li a day and reached the battered city of Hechi in around ten days.
Fu Rong and Zhang Nan had arrived several days earlier. Following Fa Zheng's instructions, they deliberately felled trees at the foot of the mountains near Dasan Pass, building siege equipment right under the defenders' noses and giving off the impression that they intended to attack Dasan Pass and seize Chencang.
In truth, Zhang Fei had received Zhuge Liang's letter several months earlier and had used Hechi as a base to oversee the construction of siege equipment, waiting only for Liu Bei's main army to arrive and put it to use.
Though Dasan Pass was treacherous terrain, it lacked the broad, open landscape of Yangping Pass. Its usual garrison numbered only a little over three thousand, and both its supplies and its confidence came from Chencang to the rear.
Chencang Road ran northeast from Wudu, while