Chapter 107: The Wei-Shu Collab
Cao Shuang, very confident that nobody is going to oust him anytime soon, accompanies Cao Feng to the tombs outside of the city, and then leads a royal hunt. This is the opportunity Sima Yi has been waiting for.
First, he rounds up some generals that are still loyal to him and blocks off the gates of the city. Then, he pushes into the imperial palace, where he's able to replace Cao Shuang's military leaders with his own guys.
During the chaos, a couple of Cao Shuang's cronies slip out and warn him what's going down. But before he can respond, Sima Yi has already mobilized the army and moved them to the bridges, blocking Cao Shuang on the wrong side of the river.
Knowing that Cao Shuang doesn't have many options at this point, Sima Yi writes him a letter saying, no worries buddy, I just don't want you to have so much control over the military is all this is about. Just give it up and we're cool.
Cao Shuang is paralyzed with indecision for a bit; but eventually he decides, I can trust Sima Yi, the worst that will happen is he'll force me into early retirement and that will be that. So he gives himself up. Sima Yi then has him and his clan executed, as you do in these situations.
And now Sima Yi has control over the Wei emperor. Problem for him is, you don't really make friends with what's left of the Cao family pulling a stunt like that. Plus, Cao Cao was a cousin of the Xiahou clan, and there's a lot of them in the government too.
There's one Xiahou who's administering a city near the Shu border, and Sima Yi realizes that's not the kind of guy he needs conspiring against him. So he calls the guy to the capital to have a "chat".
This guy's uncle, Xiahou Ba (who's actually the son of Xiahou Yuan, and participated in the battles against Zhuge Liang) sees the writing on the wall, and he starts a revolt. But before things get too bad, Xiahou Ba is chased off by Guo Huai, a military advisor stationed in the area who's still loyal to Sima Yi. So Xiahou Ba decides to defect to Shu... which was kind of the whole thing that Sima Yi was trying to avoid, but you know.
Jiang Wei welcomes Xiahou Ba into Shu because they have similar...ish... goals. Overthrow Sima Wei in favor of Cao Wei, overthrow Wei in favor of Shu-Han... well, I guess you just start by overthrowing Wei and figure things out from there.
Together, the two plan an attack.
Jiang Wei orders two forts be built at the front and stationed with some advance troops, while he meets with the Qiang tribes in the northwest to form an alliance. However, the Qiang troops never arrive and it makes Jiang Wei late to the battle. Guo Huai uses the extra time to besiege the two forts and cut off their water supply; it gets so bad that at one point they're melting fresh snow to have enough to cook their rice in.
One of the fort leaders breaks through the blockade to meet with Jiang Wei, who decides to lead the army around and attack Wei's city, believing that Wei will have to lift the siege and pull back. Unfortunately, since Guo Huai is aware of the officer's escape, he guesses Jiang Wei's plan and traps him on the mountain pass.
Jiang Wei loses a lot of troops fighting his way out. Still, it looks like his fortunes might recover when he clashes with Sima Yi's oldest son Sima Shi, and manages to run him straight into a line of Shu troops, who all happen to be wielding the extremely devastating repeating crossbow prototypes invented by Zhuge Liang.
And that is where this chapter's cliffhanger leaves off.