On a cold spring night in the 17th year of Jian'an's reign, Xun Yu sat under a candle holding the empty food box. Cao Cao's oath before the Guandu battle to "serve the emperor and not be a minister as ordered" is still in his ears, but the seal in front of him to persuade Duke Wei to join him is heart-breaking every word. He coughed up blood and laughed at himself, "I have been a Han all my life, but I will eventually become an accomplice of the Han thieves." The moment he took the poison and closed his eyes, the scene of his first encounter with Cao Cao at Sishui Pass suddenly flashed through - if he had not mistakenly believed that year, would the outcome have been different?
His consciousness fell back to the Luoyang Rebellion in the sixth year of Zhongping. Xun Yu, who had just resigned from Yuan Shao's shogunate, bumped into Liu Bei outside the Suanzao Camp, who was being despised by the princes. The bowl of hot porridge brought to him was filled with warmth, and the sincerity in Liu Bei's eyes as "Queen of King Jing of Zhongshan" hit the bottom of his heart. He leaned forward and kowtowed: "I am willing to run for you."
Since then, the chess game in troubled times has been rewritten. He persuaded Liu Bei to open a warehouse to gather people and organize and train volunteers, and said that Kong Rong borrowed troops to defeat the Black Mountain bandits and help gain a foothold in the plains; he refused Cao Cao's recruitment, joined forces with Sun Yat-sen to fight against Cao, decided on a strategy to capture Yizhou, and defended Han Zuo step by step; finally, he made a northern expedition to the Central Plains, welcomed back the emperor, and raised the Han flag at the top of Luoyang City.
This is the path that Xun Yu spent the rest of his life on. It is a game in which counselors use strategies to leverage destiny. It is also a story of a Han minister's heart in troubled times, trying his best to let the fallen Han man regain a glimmer of hope.
