Cao Cao's troops marched from Wan Castle to Xin Ye city. After being aware that Kong Ming trapped Cao Ren's troops, Cao Cao's hatred towards Kong Ming deepens. Now Cao Cao plan to stop up the river Bai and at the same time level the Fan Castle to the ground. However, since Liu Bei has gathered peasants from Xin Ye into the Fan Castle, if Cao Cao fight the peasants, he afraid that he will be unpopular among the people of Jing Zhou. Therefore, Cao Cao change his mind, whereby he will demand Liu Bei to surrender. If Liu Bei surrendered, he will avert the battle and thus saving the people. Thus, Cao Cao chose Xu Shu to be the messenger. Although Xu Shu was Kong Ming's classmate, he might return back to Kong Ming and Liu Bei's site. However, if he returned, he will be a laughing stock as he always hold his principle strongly. Therefore, he would never returned to Liu Bei.

The next day, Xu Shu went to Fan Castle and discussed with Liu Bei that Cao Cao is about to stop up river Bai and sending his army to block every exit in preparation to attack Fan Castle. And it is a shame to ask him to become messenger and demand Liu Bei's surrender. He continued saying that Cao Cao is pretending to care about the people, but all he wanted was to win their sympathy. Liu Bei won't be able to defend this Castle anymore if he did not surrender.
Right now, this castle is not defendable, Liu Bei decided to migrate the people to Xiang Yang City. However, Cai Mao had surrendered Xiang Yang to Cao Cao, they will definately won't accept them. The people in Fan Castle are willing to follow Liu Bei although it will not be easy to flee if too many people are following.

After knowing Liu Bei is evacuating the people from Fan Castle, Cao Cao took this opportunity to beat Liu Bei and ordered the troops to attack them. Since Liu Bei is now carrying the burden of migrating the people, thus, there is nothing for Cao Cao to fear about Kong Ming. Liu Bei and his men continued their journey toward Xiang Yang. But the people with him makes the journey very slow. Though Kong Ming may be the world's best strategist, the people remains vulnerable to the attack.

When Liu Bei reached Xiang Yang, Cai Mao refused to open the gate and attack the peasants.
At that time, Wen Yan, one of the Liu Biao's previous General, came out to help Liu Bei and open the gate for Liu Bei. Though Wei Yan managed to open the gate, if Liu Bei join the fight, they will jeopardize the people.
Liu Bei decided not enter this city. He then decided to move to Jiang Ling (one of Jing Zhou's city, which also has ample supply.
After Liu Bei left Xiang Yang a while, a spies from Liu Bei came back and said Cao Cao has entered Xiang Yang. Which means, the enemy's vanguard is quickly approaching them behind.

Cao Cao's position is getting far more formidable when he has taken Xiang Yang over. According to Cai Mao, Jing Zhou has Cavalry: 50,000, Infantry: 150,000, Navy: 80,000. Most of their supplies was in Jiang Ling. The rest were stored in granaries. They have about 7,000 war ships, and all managed by Cai Mao.
Therefore, Cao Cao appointed Cai Mao as his navy admiral. Cao Cao's army was not used to naval battles. Thus, although Cao Cao knew Cai Mao was not a trustworthy man, he still need Cai Mao's leadership to train their army against Wu. Meanwhile, due to the majority of the supplies was in Jiang Ling, he worried that Liu Bei would get there before them. Therefore, he ordered his cavalrymen to chase them.

No matter how amazing Kong Ming was, with these people, his strategy will be useless. There was only one way for him to chose, that was request reinforcement from Liu Qi in Jiang Xia. Therefore, he quickly sent Guan Yu as messenger to request on behalf. If Guan Yu late, Liu Bei troops would be exterminated. Because of worrying that Guan Yu may not be able to get the reinforcement, Kong Ming soon decided to to Jiang Xia as well to catch up with Guan Yu. Now the team only left Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei and Guan Ping.

Liu Bei went to Mt. Jing to rest for the night, followed by his people and 2,000 men. Meanwhile, Cao cao pursuing army was drawing near to Mt. Jing.
Can they beat Cao Cao's army while Kong Ming's brilliant strategy was unavailable? And the gallant warrior, Guan Yu, was not there either?