Just as Huang Zhong was deep in thought, another scout arrived to report that the enemy commander was Yang Qiu, General Who Suppresses Bandits.
"Yang Qiu?" Huang Zhong thought. Isn't that the fellow Wei Yan drove off? Now every stray cat and dog dares provoke me?
Huang Zhong had intended to withdraw as Zhao Yun had arranged, but Yang Qiu's appearance struck directly at his sore spot. He reined in his horse, raised his blade, and shouted at the officers and men behind him, "Though Zhang He has fled, Yang Qiu has come to deliver himself to death. I ask you all: are you tired?"
"No!" the two thousand cavalrymen shouted as one.
"Good. Then come with me and kill to our hearts' content." Huang Zhong's words brimmed with boldness, and Zhao Yun's instructions were thrown completely to the wind.
Zhang He had already fallen back to defend Yinpan County. The urgent reports requesting provisions that he had sent put Cao Zhen in a dilemma. If he dispatched grain to the front, the soldiers in the rear would go hungry; if he withheld reinforcements of food, he feared the army's morale at the front would crumble. Should the supply route toward the muddy waters be cut off in the future, Anding would completely lose its provisions from Beidi Commandery.
Zhao Yun, backed by Guanzhong, had no shortage of grain. This "underhanded move" left Cao Zhen with no solution. In the end, he could only send Yang Qiu to assist in battle, thinking that as a local familiar with the terrain, he might perhaps resolve this crisis. Moreover, Yang Qiu was the Marquis of Linjing. If Anding fell to the Han Army, the fief he actually held, Linjing, would cease to exist. Cao Zhen was certain that for his own interests,