Following Chen Deng’s plan, Liu Bei asks Yuan Shao for help, and Yuan Shao raises an army and comes out to Liyang. Cao Cao goes himself to hold Yuan Shao off and sends his generals Liu Dai and Wang Zhong to Xu carrying the Chancellor’s banners. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei capture the two generals one after the other. Liu Bei does not kill them but sends them back. He means to leave room to make peace with Cao Cao.
Around then, in Xuchang, Dong Cheng’s plot comes to light. A servant whom Dong Cheng had punished runs to the Chancellor’s residence and tells everything. Cao Cao feigns illness, summons the physician Ji Ping, and catches him trying to poison the medicine. Cao Cao finds the edict from the belt and the pledge with its names in Dong Cheng’s room. Dong Cheng and the four others, Wang Zifu, Chong Ji, Wu Shi and Wu Zilan, are taken to the city gates with their households and put to death. There were more than seven hundred. Cao Cao kills even Dong Cheng’s sister, the Emperor’s consort. Of the names left on the pledge, Ma Teng was in Xiliang, and Liu Bei in Xu.
Cao Cao comes to Xu with an army of two hundred thousand. Zhang Fei proposes a night raid on Cao Cao’s camp, but Cao Cao knows in advance and is waiting. Zhang Fei flees to the Mangdang Mountains, and Liu Bei gallops alone by way of Qing Province to put himself in Yuan Shao’s hands. Xu falls. The only place left is Xiapi. Guan Yu is there, guarding Liu Bei’s two wives.