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Guan Yu’s envoy came, the messenger was welcomed into the city by Lu Meng himself and well treated.
    When he had read the letter, Lu Meng said to the bearer, “You must understand the different circumstances. When I formed a league with General Guan it was my personal desire. Now I am acting on my master’s orders and cannot do as I wish. Please return and explain this well to your general.”
    The bearer of the letter was entertained at a banquet and escorted to repose at the guesthouse, where the families of the officers all came for news of their dear ones. They also brought him letters or messages for the officers, assuring them of their safety and wellbeing. When he left the city, Lu Meng himself went to see him off.
    On his return, the messenger told Guan Yu what Lu Meng had said and told him that his family, as well as those of the officers and men, were all safe and well cared for. This, however, did not please Guan Yu at all, for he saw in this merely a wicked scheme to gain favor and popularity.
    “The villain! If I cannot slay him while I live, I will, after I am dead. My hate will not go unappeased.”
    He roughly dismissed the messenger, who went out and was at once surrounded by those whose families were in the city, eager to hear news of them. And when he gave them the letters and messages and told them that Lu Meng had treated their families very well, there was great rejoicing among the men in the camp, and with it departed their desire to fight.
    Guan Yu led the army to attack Jingzhou, but day after day many of the men deserted and ran away to the very city they were meant to be attacking. So Guan Yu’s bitterness and anger increased daily, and he advanced in angry haste. One day there was a great shouting ahead and he found his way blocked.
    “Why not surrender, Yun-chang?” said the leader of this body, Jiang Qin by name.
    “I am a general of the Hans. Do you think I will ever surrender to a rebel?” roared Guan Yu.
    So saying he whipped his horse forward and raised his sword to strike. However, after only three bouts Jiang Qin fled as if in defeat. Guan Yu followed for about twenty li when amid loud shouting there suddenly appeared Han Dang from a gully on his left and Zhou Tai from another on his right. At this moment Jiang Qin also wheeled round to fight, so that Guan Yu was opposed by three forces all at once. Unable to withstand these, he retreated.
    Before he had gone very far he saw standing on a slope to the south a thick crowd of people and flapping in the wind a white banner bearing the words, N ATIVES OF J INGZHOU . At the sight of Guan Yu and his army, the crowd began to call out, “Surrender quickly, natives of Jingzhou!” Guan Yu, seized with another fit of fury, wanted to rush in and slay these agitators, but just then two other cohorts appeared led by Ding Feng and Xu Sheng to support the original three forces. The five bodies of men raised a ruckus of shouting and drum beating that seemed to shake the very earth. Like the kernel of a nut, Guan Yu was entirely surrounded.
    This was not all. As the battle drew on the number of his followers diminished each moment. He fought on till dusk, and looking about him he saw all the hills crowded with Jingzhou folk and heard them calling brother to brother, son to father, or father to son, till his soldiers’ hearts melted. One by one they ran to their relatives, heedless of their general’s prohibition. Presently he had but three hundred left, but with them he kept up the battle till midnight. Then there was another shouting from the east. Luckily it was his son Guan Ping and the faithful Liao Hua that had come to his rescue.
    “The soldiers have no heart to fight,” said Guan Ping. “We must find some place to camp till help can arrive. There is Maicheng, small but sufficient to encamp our men.”
    Guan Yu consented, and the exhausted army hurried there as quickly as they could.
    The small force was divided among the four gates for