On a deep autumn night, past the second month of the standoff at Guandu (官渡), Xu You (許攸) left Yuan Shao's (袁紹) tent and brought a single writing into Cao Cao's (曹操) main camp.

Xu You stood before Cao Cao's tent. Cao Cao stepped out in bare feet, without even putting on his shoes. "Ziyuan (子遠) — old friend! That you have come tonight is a gift of heaven." Xu You answered in a low voice. "Mengde (孟德). I have come to hand you a single writing. Yuan Shao's granary (糧食庫) is gathered at one seat called Wuchao (烏巢). Break that seat with fire, and Yuan Shao's seven hundred thousand will collapse at a stroke."

Cao Cao nodded deeply. His mouth let slip a low word. "Ziyuan. Tonight's writing shall turn the fate of all under heaven. Our five thousand light cavalry shall move tonight toward Wuchao."

That night, Cao Cao himself led five thousand light cavalry toward Wuchao. Disguised under Yuan Shao's banners (假裝), they passed the guards of Wuchao. A guard asked; a quiet answer was given: "Lord Benchu's (本初公) reinforcements." The guard nodded and cleared the road.

Arriving before Wuchao's granary, Cao Cao gave the command. Five thousand torches rose above the granary. Fire devoured the roof. The stored grain of Yuan Shao's seven hundred thousand climbed in smoke toward the sky.

From Yuan Shao's main camp, the smoke (煙氣) of that fire was seen from afar. Yuan Shao struck the table with both hands, deep. His mouth let slip a low word. "Wuchao has been lost tonight. My seven hundred thousand will collapse tonight."

Within ten days thereafter, Yuan Shao's seven hundred thousand scattered upon the plain of Guandu. Cao Cao's three hundred thousand broke the great army of Yuan Shao at one great stroke. Yuan Shao barely fled back inside Jizhou (冀州).

Upon the table of the Son of Heaven at Xudu (許都), an edict rose. "Cao Mengde (曹孟德) is placed under the title of Chancellor (丞相), and set to bind Huabei (華北) into one." The Son of Heaven's hand pressed the jade seal upon that edict.

Meanwhile, in the back courtyard of the side residence at Jizhou, the three men Liu Bei (劉備), Guan Yu (關羽), and Zhang Fei (張飛) received the news of Wuchao. Liu Bei let slip a low word. "Guan Yu, Zhang Fei. From today, our steps must turn toward Jingzhou (荊州)." The path of the three brothers was turned toward the southern sky.

At Wuchao itself, the fire burned through the night and did not lift until dawn. A young soldier of Cao Cao's five thousand, standing at the outer edge of the burn, watched the grain go up. He was seventeen. He had never seen so much grain at one time. He did not eat that morning. A soldier who has watched seven hundred thousand days of grain become ash in a single night rarely eats the morning after. He drank a cup of water instead, wiped his face, and rode back to the south with the others. In the weeks to come, he would rarely tell anyone what he had seen; some fires, once watched, stay inside a young chest for the rest of a life. In the decades ahead, he would become a quiet man.

Inside the small inner room where Dong Cheng's hem had first been given, the Empress at Xudu laid her palm upon the closed chest at the foot of her bed. The chest still held the thin scarf of old cotton laid across its lid in a season before the standoff. The scarf had not been lifted. She did not lift it tonight either. A hem had been given; a fire had been laid far to the north; and the thread of the hem would begin to move after Guandu. She closed the door of her inner chamber and laid herself down without speaking.

The ninetieth night of Book 3 deepened quietly upon the fire of Wuchao's granary. The three characters Osohwa (烏巢火, the fire of Wuchao) were planted as a seed: the breath on which Xu You's writing, the torches of five thousand light cavalry, the scattering of seven hundred thousand, and the three brothers' southern gaze all rested at one seat. From Day 61's Sadohoe (四刀會) to Day 89's Gwando-dae (官渡對), the thirty nights of Book 3 lay together this night beneath the fire of Wuchao.

The last night of Book 3 drew its curtain quietly beneath the fire upon Wuchao's granary. The first step of Book 4 had begun to move with the three brothers toward Jingzhou in the south.

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