Finding Cao Cao

The next day Yun and his army moved out of Qiao telling the Inspector of Qiao that they will be doing some military drill near Qiao on the Hill in the northeast and to not disturb them.

They reached the Hill and Hua sees horse marks on the ground when he makes everyone stop and he rides towards his brother's side.

"I found some traces of a horse. It could be Cao Cao or some bandits that stole a horse," says Hua informing his brother about what he found.

"Dian Wei, take ten of your best men and come with me. Pang Tong and Hua, you two follow me as well. Tang Shi make camp on the hill make it visible so everyone can see it," says Yun giving orders to everyone before he rides away with Hua, Dian Wei, and ten of Dian Wei's men.

They follow the tracks and arrive at a burned-out campfire and Yun just makes small movements with his right hand ordering everyone to spread out while he dismounted from Thunder's back.

He gets closer to the campfire and touches the ashes and feels that it was still lukewarm before thinking, 'They should have left just some minutes ago to hunt something to eat or to search for dry wood that they can use to ignite the fire tonight again.'

Yun closed his eyes and puts his hand against the ground before he used Earth Qi and he sends some waves through the ground that nobody felt. Yun could see his men riding on horses looking for Cao Cao using this method before he finds two people not far from one of his men.

"Found you," says Yun before he whistles and Thunder rushes towards him.

Yun grabs the reigns and mounts Thunder in one motion not disrupting Thunder's acceleration as Yun pulled the reigns towards the left to get to their destination.

Yun sees his guard who was bypassing the two people hiding with their horse when the guard turns around hearing Yun approach and says, "My Lord."

"You almost missed them," says Yun as he takes his spear which was hanging from the saddle before he moves the bush away and revealed Cao Cao and Xun Yu hiding behind it.

"It is good that you are still alive Cao Cao. It would have been hard to explain it to your people that you died," says Yun with a grin while looking at Cao Cao and Xun Yu.

"You are quite late," says Cao Cao joking about his late arrival.

"I am not familiar with the terrain around Qiao and I didn't want to run into an ambush which the enemy could have laid around Qiao to get you," says Yun as he looks at the horse which Cao Cao and Xun Yu still had.

It was in a poor state after such a long time. Yun stretches his hand out towards Cao Cao and helps him onto Thunder while the guard helped Xun Yu upon his horse while Yun took the reigns of the horse while telling Thunder to walk slowly toward the camp.

They slowly go towards the camp while Yun shouts using Qi making the others searching for Cao Cao stop and return to camp as well.

Once inside the camp, Yun dismounts off Thunder and helps Cao Cao who was completely ragged from staying in the wilderness.

The others approached them and Tang Shi says, "We made the camp as obvious as possible. I sent a scout to Qiao so he can tell me if it is visible from the distance."

"Well done, old friend. How about you take our guests of honor to my tent and get the cooks to make them something to eat while I wait for the others," says Yun as Thunder was already on his way to his area.

Tang Shi guided Cao Cao and Xun Yu towards Yun's tent which was placed in the middle of the camp the most secure place which Yun hated the most but he had to compromise with it since everyone forces him to stay there for his own safety.

Yun moved Cao Cao's horse towards where they keep the other horses and tells the people looking after the horses to take care of the new horse to make it look healthy again so they can keep the charade later when Cao Cao returns with the army making it look like a victory.

Yun then went for his tent finding Dian Wei and Hua on the way there making Yun ask, "What can I do for you both?"

"Why don't we kill them? It will save us quite some time and trouble in the future," says Hua seriously as Dian Wei nods agreeing with Hua on this.

"It's quite simple," says Yun as he stops walking and turns towards them.

"Cao Cao is of some use at the moment. He is a capable man and his children can't even hold a candle to the talent he has at the moment. He is the Great Prime Minister in times of Peace and the Anti-Hero in times of War. We will serve him at the moment until our time comes to leave him," says Yun seriously as he reminded both of them that reputation is all they have at the moment.

They can't stain their reputation by killing their employer just because he would become a future threat to them. It would also hinder his plan in making Guan Yu join him in the future.

Yun went to his tent. He finds Cao Cao and Xun Yu eating like savages because the food they were eating for the last few weeks was either barely cooked or overcooked since neither of the two could cook.

"I can see that you haven't eaten well the last few weeks. We will need to get you new clothes. I will send someone to Dang or we could just go to the river and clean the clothes. It is your decision," says Yun as Cao Cao stopped eating for a moment to answer Yun.

"We will go to the river since we should clean ourselves as well. We can't just enter Qiao wearing clean clothes when our dirty appearance will reveal the truth of what happened in the east," says Cao Cao before he continues to eat again.

"Good I will make preparations for you two," says Yun as he leaves the tent finding Dian Wei waiting for him.

"After they have eaten tell twenty of your men to take them to the river to the north instead of the south. In the south people of Qiao could see them revealing the truth of why we came to Qiao," says Yun as Dian Wei nods and tells one of his subordinates to do as commanded.

"I know that you have a plan but still," says Dian Wei nervous since Yun has reprimanded them before.

"This is just the beginning Dian Wei. If we want to end this endless war and stabilize the Empire, we need to work with Cao Cao at the moment. He will stabilize the North making it easier for us later on," says Yun as he walked towards where the food is which he was smelling to grab something for himself and Dian Wei.

In the meantime in the city of Tan inside the Xu Province, Tao Qian died from illness, or at least that is the official statement given by Mi Zhu and Mi Fang.

In reality, Tao Qian was poisoned by them to make Liu Bei the new Governor of the Xu Province which Liu Bei faked rejecting the proposition to make himself look benevolent in front of everyone until Lu Bu appeared in the frame dropping it rapidly to obtain the Xu Province and making it his.

Lu Bu got a first glance through this action making Yun's words ring in his ears again which made Lu Bu look frustrated with Liu Bei but he didn't show it on his face.

They joined forces for now since Lu Bu helped them fight Cao Cao back and Lu Bu wanted to see more of Liu Bei before he fell his judgment like Yun already did.

In the meantime at the border of the Yu Province, Cao Cao's army was returning from the Xu Province. They only manage to arrive now because of Gao Shun always stopped their retreat by using skirmishes until some days ago.

"We finally arrived in Yu it is just some days to Qiao," says Cao Ren seriously as he was leading the retreat at the moment.

The Generals were resting at the moment since they finally entered their territory. They were still far away from home but at least they made it to safe territory.

"Dun, you have done a good job in fighting Gao Shun. He could have done more damage to our rear if you weren't there to defend it," says Xiahou Yuan to his cousin as Xiahou Dun wasn't happy at all since they were already taking some steps into Donghai County when the retreat was called.

"If it wasn't for Lu Bu we could have taken Xu in less than two months without a problem," says Xiahou Dun angry with Lu Bu's interference in their campaign of conquering Xu Province.

"It couldn't be helped at least our Lord made it out alive," says Xu Chu before looking at their map and saying, "Our Lord should be around here."

He points in the middle of nowhere between Qiao, Dang, and Xiang before moving his finger a bit more near Qiao before saying, "To be precise he will most like be near Qiao since it is the biggest settlement1 between the three cities."

"Qiao's surroundings are quite safe since the bandits were killed by us when we went on the campaign against Xu," says Cao Ren having confidence in Xu Chu's words since he is from Qiao and knows the area the best of all of them.

"Then what are we waiting for. We should go and find him as soon as possible," says Xiahou Dun as he didn't want to leave Cao Cao alone and defenseless even if Qiao was purged of the bandits when they passed through it to get to the Xu Province.

"We need to let the soldiers rest. They haven't rested properly since we began our retreat," says Cao Ren thinking that their army could fall apart if they force the army to continue marching at this speed without resting.

"Cao Ren is right we shouldn't force them to the breaking point or many will desert our army," says Xiahou Yuan knowing that Xiahou Dun was worried about Cao Cao but everyone in the tent was the same.

"Fine," says Xiahou Dun before leaving the tent making the others sigh in frustration since they were thinking the same.