Time rewinds slightly: shortly after Gao Lan leads his troops into the battlefield, Hua Xiong has already advanced to a location fifteen miles away. The decisive battle between Liu Bei's Army and Yuan Shao's Army caused both sides' scouts to be restricted to a range of ten miles, as any greater distance would render communication meaningless.
It was there that Hua Xiong received the latest batch of weapons—a shipment disguised as bridge-building materials by Li Youu and transported by Sunx Qian. This batch consisted of saddles and stirrups, products that Chen Xi had manufactured in large quantities but reserved largely for storage, having used them only once for his own forces.
After Hua Xiong returned east to Yanzhou with the Xiliang Iron Cavalry, Li Youu deemed it the right time to deploy this batch of equipment.
