Chapter 7: Protagonistic Mortality
After the coalition breaks up, everybody pretends Dong Zhuo isn't a monster anymore and begin to plot against one another instead.
For reasons. There's no clear justification here. Honestly there probably wasn't one; these are basically warlords we're talking about here at this point.
Yuan Shao is eyeing up a province called Jizhou, because that's where he's buying his grain from, and he figures it makes good business sense to own it himself and cut out the middleman. So he comes up with a plan that can't backfire whatsoever: He sends a letter to Gongsun Zan, asking him to use his army to help him take Jizhou, the pretense being the two of them can split it 50/50. Buuut, he correctly predicts that the governor of Jizhou will see Gongsun Zan's troops marching in and go, "Welp, we can't defend against that, maybe we throw in with Yuan Shao for protection, he's a good fellow."
Yuan Shao is not, in fact, a good fellow; and when he's handed the keys to the city, he ousts the governor and takes Jizhou for himself. So now Yuan Shao has exactly what he wanted, with absolutely no downsides!
...Oh, except Gongsun Zan is actually pissed because, you know, he was promised half a province for mobilizing his troops. Forgot about that bit.
Anyway, Gongsun Zan himself challenges Yuan Shao's army, but is chased back to his line after fleeing a duel. Yuan Shao's general presses the advantage, and things aren't looking so good for Gongsun Zan... When suddenly, an unknown general rides to Gongsun Zan's aid and fends off the attacker!
This is Zhao Yun. We'll be seeing a lot of him in the future. He rides a white horse and is great with a spear and he's basically a dreamboat.
Reinforced, Gongsun Zan tries to attack again the next day, but Yuan Shao's tactics are better, and Zan's army gets ridden down again until they reach the rearguard where Zhao Yun is. Zhao Yun turns the tables and gives them the advantage for a while, but eventually he too is pushed back, and things are once again looking bad for Gongsun Zan... when he gets saved out of the blue A SECOND TIME by Liu Bei and his crew showing up.
But from there on things are pretty much stalemated for a month until Dong Zhuo steps in and orders both sides to back down. Liu Bei cries about this because he's started crushing hard on Zhao Yun, but with the fighting over they have to go their separate ways. For... some reason.
And now for something completely different:
Yuan Shu hears about his brother Shao taking Jizhou and figures, great, now he can give me some horses.
Yuan Shao doesn't give him horses.
Yuan Shu says, damn. Well, okay, I also need grain, maybe my neighbor Liu Biao will give me some grain.
Liu Biao doesn't give him grain.
So Yuan Shu starts to get whiny because he doesn't like not getting his way. Seeing no alternative, he hits up Sun Jian—who, you might remember, got his ass kicked by Hua Zhong specifically because Yuan Shu denied his army grain two chapters ago—and says, "Heeeey, so, Liu Biao and Yuan Shao are bad people we should do something about. I'll keep Yuan Shao busy if you take out Liu Biao."
Sun Jian actually agrees to this, because despite not liking Yuan Shu for the grain thing, Liu Biao pissed him off more recently—at the end of the last chapter, actually—and he wants revenge.
He attacks Liu Biao and is actually doing pretty well, because he's a better commander and his forces are stronger. But a pole in Sun Jian's camp that holds up a banner reading "commanding general" snaps and the banner falls, and everyone's tells him, "Yep, that's a bad omen. Better to go home." Sun Jian does not listen to this.
ALWAYS LISTEN TO THESE THINGS.
Because Liu Biao sends out a general that night, with orders to A) set up an ambush if Sun Jian follows him, or B) get a message to Yuan Shao and ask for reinforcements if Sun Jian leaves him alone.
(No word, by the way, on whether Yuan Shu is actually keeping Shao distracted right now; but I have to believe he's a villainous snake who's just watching from the sidelines not doing anything.)
Sun Jian naturally chooses to chase after this guy, runs into the aforementioned ambush, and is shot with arrows and crushed with rocks. Aaaaand that's Sun Jian dead.
Wait, that wasn't supposed to happen, was it? *checks notes* Yeah, he uh, he was hyped up to be pretty important, but here we are. Huh.
Well, his oldest son, Sun Ce, takes over, figures there's not a lot he can do here, and goes home to build up his strength and pull good people into his court. This is actually going to be a good decision, but we're going to leave him to it and see how he's getting on later.