In the second year after the Sage Cao Che fled south to Jiangdu, also the second year of the Exorcising the Dragon Gang's uprising, the series of battles fought around the gang in the Eastern Territories could be discussed from multiple angles and on multiple levels, both military and political.
But however one discussed them, one had to acknowledge that, thus far, the greatest turning point had been the fall of Yuncheng.
With the arrival of the rainy season in May, Zhang Xuguo's surprise attack succeeded, and Yuncheng abruptly changed hands. This directly cost the Exorcising the Dragon Gang its strategic foothold on the Eastern Front and rapidly developed into the collapse of the Exorcising the Dragon Army's entire main offensive force there. Immediately afterward, the Great Wei court, which had long been sharpening its blades, reached an internal political compromise and launched advances by Qutu Da in the north and Han Yingong in the south to support Zhang Xuguo in the east.
With attacks coming from three sides, an encirclement took shape at once.
In fact, considering that Xingyang to the west already had troops stationed at its formidable pass and lay close to the Eastern Capital, where a great grandmaster presided, that direction was a dead end. It could almost be called a complete encirclement.
Correspondingly, the Exorcising the Dragon Army, now reduced to just two commanderies, had effectively fallen into a kind of military desperation-the field army previously assembled for an offensive had become a routed force overnight, while the remaining twenty thousand were defensive troops scraped together with every last effort. They could handle small skirmishes, but lacked experience in major battles, and their fighting strength was worrying. Added to this, the loss of their strategic foothold had thrown their eastern gates wide open, instantly rendering