Zhang Fei captures Yan Yan during Xuande’s advance into Shu, but the encounter becomes more than a military victory: after first threatening his prisoner, Zhang Fei releases him and treats him with honor. Yan Yan repays that generosity by using his reputation and command over the intervening garrisons to open the way toward Chengdu without further fighting.

Causes and Stakes

Zhang Fei’s column is one of three advancing under Kong Ming’s plan, which calls for Zhang Fei to travel through the high country while Zhao Zilong follows the river valley. Before the march, Kong Ming warns Zhang Fei that his troops must behave well if they are to win the people’s trust. The admonition frames the campaign as a test not only of force but of how the advancing army treats those it encounters.

At Bazhou, the governor Yan Yan refuses to surrender. He has long opposed Xuande’s alliance and sees the advance as an opportunity to frustrate Xuande’s plans. His advisers expect Zhang Fei either to exhaust his provisions through delay or to lose control of his temper and alienate his own troops. They believe such a failure of patience could leave Zhang Fei vulnerable to capture. Yan Yan’s resistance therefore turns the city into both an obstacle and a test of the general’s conduct.

The Ambush at Bazhou

For three days Zhang Fei taunts Yan Yan, without drawing him out. He then orders attacks for three more days, but these also fail to change the standoff. When men in his camp offer to use a secret path to bypass Bazhou and continue toward Xuande, Yan Yan learns of the proposal through spies and prepares an ambush along that route. What appears to be a way around the impasse becomes the ground on which the two commanders meet.

At about the third watch that night, Yan Yan’s men see what they take to be Zhang Fei approaching with a spear in hand and followers behind him. Confident that their ambush has caught the famous general, they charge. A gong sounds, however, and warriors emerge against them: the figure they had mistaken for Zhang Fei was a decoy, while Zhang Fei himself leads the counterattack. Yan Yan fights but is overwhelmed and captured. Bazhou falls, and Zhang Fei brings his prisoner into the city.

From Threat to Respect

Zhang Fei demands to know why Yan Yan refused to surrender. Yan Yan answers that he may lose his head but will not yield to raiders he considers immoral. Still angry at the continued defiance, Zhang Fei orders his execution. Yan Yan challenges him to take his head and questions the anger behind the order. His composure catches Zhang Fei off guard: instead of carrying out the sentence, Zhang Fei pauses and recognizes the courage of the man before him.

The reversal is made concrete in Zhang Fei’s treatment of his captive. He steps down, removes Yan Yan’s chains himself, orders fresh clothes for him, and seats him beside him in a place of honor. Yan Yan is deeply moved and kneels before Zhang Fei. The same encounter that began with refusal, deception, capture, and a threatened execution ends in respect and a new allegiance—not because Yan Yan’s earlier opposition is erased, but because Zhang Fei answers it with generosity.

The Surrender of the Garrisons

Zhang Fei asks Yan Yan for the best route into Shu. Yan Yan promises to repay the kindness shown to him and says Chengdu can be taken without fighting. His plan rests on his own standing: as a governor of status and reputation, he commands the garrisons from Bazhou toward the capital. He uses that authority to order them to surrender to Zhang Fei.

The plan works as the army advances. Towns and cities give way, and when a garrison hesitates, Yan Yan points to his own surrender as the reason its defenders should follow. His captured position thus becomes a practical instrument for preventing further resistance. The episode shows the campaign’s momentum changing through an act of clemency: Zhang Fei’s decision not to execute Yan Yan enables the former opponent to bring other garrisons over without a fight.

Significance

The capture at Bazhou combines tactical deception with a consequential change in the relationship between victor and prisoner. Zhang Fei defeats Yan Yan by drawing his forces into an ambush, but the campaign’s larger gain comes after the battlefield encounter, when he chooses honor over the execution he had ordered. Yan Yan’s response turns personal gratitude into military cooperation, helping Zhang Fei’s column proceed toward Chengdu through the surrender of successive garrisons.

The episode also gives particular force to Kong Ming’s earlier warning about winning the people’s trust. The advance is not presented as depending on force alone: Zhang Fei’s treatment of a defiant local commander changes the terms of resistance and produces a result that an attack on Bazhou by itself could not secure. The capture is therefore a turning point in the column’s progress, joining battlefield cunning to restraint and converting victory over one opponent into the peaceful submission of others.