Now that you are rested and re-organized with Yuan Tan leading the army and Yuan Shao sitting on the throne, venture out into the world and head south towards the gate leading to Dong Zhuo’s land that you were previously stopped at. Along the way you may encounter He Yi and Huang Shao; you can recruit these fools now but there is not much point. Continuing on to Fan Shui Guan, now enter it and you’ll see Yuan Shu. He says that all of his champions were defeated by Hua Xiong, which could be foreboding for our army.
Sure enough, as you enter battle with Hua Xiong you’ll see he is quite beastly and has the Zhang Liao Destiny of an Emperor 2 pic. 227 STR, almost up there with Yan Liang and Wen Chou but not quite. Have Wen Chou duel him and that should result in a quick victory. Li Su is left and has the Arrows tactic, taking off 20-30 on each but nothing that will take you out. Finish up the battle and you’ll hear of a bearded man that also dueled Hua Xiong shortly thereafter and slaughtered him. Which we all know the bearded man being Guan Yu who defeated Hua Xiong and came back to drink Jiu.
Enter Fan Shui Guan and you’ll hear about Lu Bu and Guan Yu. The northeast building has a chest with a Dao and then a guy who is selling some weapons he found in the cave. Some nice ones too like the Mace and Staff. The Staff is an upgrade for Chen Lin making his physical attacks passable, but it is a hefty price. The Mace is an upgrade over the Ax for your two big brutes. In the north part of the fort you will see Lu Kuang and Lu Xiang, two generals looking to join. Let them join and you’ll probably have to head back to Ye to the billeting to clean up your party a bit. Lu Kuang is a bit better than Lu Xiang, so I’m going with Yuan Tan, Chen Lin, Lu Kuang, Yan Liang and Wen Chou (with Lu Xiang as the 6th man). We’re still missing the true tactician that we were warned that we needed prior to fighting Lu Bu.
Continuing on, you can search the spot where Chi Tu Ma regularly is but he’s not there in this one. Follow the winding path as it leads west and ultimately north, where it opens up a bit more. North and then west leads to a battle, but don’t go there yet. First head northeast and you will find a cave.
Cool looking water cave here. Head north a bit and then west once you enter. This then leads to a narrow path going north and a tactician-looking guy checking out a treasure. It is Guo Tu! This is just the tactician you need, with some new abilities like Insulate, Bolt and Castle. The chest nearby is a Staff by the way, so this can go straight to Guo Tu. Head east from here and you’ll see a staircase going down.
New area here with a grey floor. Work your way south a bit and then west to find some treasures – Life, Chariots and a Cap. Back east and take the staircase in the middle of this level. New area with a bright orange floor and narrow passageways. Not much to do here other than work your way south to an Elixir2 and a staircase nearby. Take the staircase and watch out for the damage spots on the floor – grab the Gold Key. Back up the stairs and continue south for another staircase, taking you back down into the grey floor area. Only way way to move here and that is east to a staircase going up. This puts us back to the first floor. Head south, go west for a second and wrap north (not up the bridge but north along the waterway). This leads to a staircase going down back to the 2nd floor that has a chest, the Tiger claw. No one can equip this at this time. With the Gold Key and Guo Tu in tow, you can now head out.
Actually just about as we were leaving the cave, we ran out of food. So we got on our Chariots towards Ye to buy food. Waited to rest until Fan Shui Guan so we could be fully healed heading into the upcoming battle. Figuring out who to use in the army is actually difficult now, as it is nice to have Chen Lin as an additional tactician to heal which opens up Guo Tu to do more (but you’d have to sit Lu Kuang who brings more physical attack capabilities).