Ten Days to Burn the Heart: Three Kingdoms

In 219 AD, Guan Yu launches a northern campaign and shakes the land of China. Meanwhile, far from the main battlefield in Nanyang Commandery, the garrison commander Hou Yin, unable to endure Cao Cao’s oppressive labor service, joins forces with Guan Yu and launches a rebellion. Cao Cao sends the famed general Cao Ren to suppress it. The only vital link between the Nanyang front and Guan Yu’s rear is Qingni Pass.

A shadow war of espionage and psychological warfare erupts around this small pass, involving Cao Ren, Guan Yu, Hou Yuan, the Nanyang gentry, and factions within the Cao Wei regime.

One isolated pass, three forces (Cao, Liu, and the rebels), and spies from four sides (with Eastern Wu and the local Nanyang elites joining the fray). Everyone is a chess piece, and everyone wants to be the player. Here, the idealist Hou Yin’s naivety leads to destruction; loyalists among Cao Ren’s officers are torn between military orders and conscience; strategists make careful calculations amid struggles for their families’ survival and political battles; and ordinary people summon astonishing ingenuity and courage to survive the currents of their age. The outcome directly affects the supply route and reinforcements for Guan Yu’s northern campaign, making this the second hidden thread of the Battle of Xiangyang and Fancheng. Every heartbeat here reaches the pulse of the Martial Sage thousands of miles away.