Zhao Zilong’s rescue of Xuande’s infant heir is a crisis of loyalty played out amid the flight from Changban: Zhao searches a disordered battlefield for his lord’s family, while Xuande’s wives and child are separated from one another and exposed to danger. The rescue culminates in Lady Mi’s sacrifice and Zhao’s return with the child secured inside his breastplate. Xuande’s response makes the episode more than a daring retrieval: it becomes a test of the bond between lord and commander, with the child’s safety set against the life of the man who saves him.

A search amid the retreat

Zhao has been fighting through the night. At dawn, still unable to find Xuande or his family, he chooses to re-enter the fighting with only a handful of followers. He believes he has failed in the responsibility entrusted to him, and the search for the child and heir gives him a purpose for continuing. The scene places the rescue within the larger flight: the people are in distress, Xuande’s household has been scattered, and no single report can yet tell Zhao where the family has gone.

On the road he recognizes Jian Yong, who explains that the two ladies abandoned their carriage and fled with the child. Jian Yong followed them, but was wounded and separated from them. Zhao sends him to be cared for and dispatches a messenger to Xuande with word that he will search until he finds the women and child. His promise gives the episode its governing measure of duty: he treats the search not as a task that can be abandoned when the odds worsen, but as an obligation whose failure would be final.

Zhao finds Lady Gan among a crowd of more than two hundred men and women. She is walking barefoot and in ragged clothing, having become separated from Lady Mi and the child in the confusion. Zhao reunites her with Mi Zhu, whom he rescues from a troop of soldiers, and provides the two with captured horses so they can return to Xuande. But he does not accompany them. Once Lady Gan is in Mi Zhu’s care, he turns back into the battle to continue looking for Lady Mi and the heir.

Lady Mi’s choice

Zhao’s search continues alone. He asks everyone he meets whether they have seen Lady Mi and the child; at last, someone directs him to a ruined, burned-out house. Inside, he finds Lady Mi wounded and unable to walk, with the infant. She tells him that the child will live if Zhao takes him to his father, and says she can then die in peace. Zhao tries to persuade her to leave with them, but she insists that her injury makes escape impossible and that remaining together would put both her and the child at risk.

When the enemy approaches, Lady Mi places the child in Zhao’s arms and refuses his attempts to return him to her. She then puts the child down, rises, and throws herself into a dry well. The narrative makes her choice the decisive cost of the rescue: Zhao can carry the heir to safety only because Lady Mi gives up her own chance of escape. In keeping with the account’s emphasis on her sacrifice, Zhao pushes a crumbling wall over the well to conceal her body and protect her from abuse. He then loosens his breastplate and places the child inside it.

The return with the heir

Carrying the child, Zhao rides back through enemy forces. The infant’s presence changes the terms of every encounter: Zhao can no longer fight as he normally would, because he must shield the child as well as defend himself. When Zhang He pursues him, Zhao tries to escape, but horse, rider, and child fall into a pit in the road. A sudden flash of light carries them back onto firm ground; Zhang He, frightened by the supernatural event, withdraws. Zhao then fights off further attackers, and Cao Cao, watching from a hill, is so impressed by his courage that he orders his men to take him alive.

Zhao nevertheless breaks through the opposition. He kills one of the brothers blocking his route and then turns on the second, who is pursuing him, before riding on toward the bridge where Xuande awaits. His horse is nearly exhausted when he reaches Zhang Fei’s position, and he calls for help. Zhang Fei tells him to cross while he holds off the pursuers. Zhao continues to Xuande, arriving with the child after a journey in which the rescue depends both on his fighting and on other commanders’ actions along the escape route.

Xuande’s test of loyalty

Weeping, Zhao dismounts before Xuande and reports Lady Mi’s death, his effort to cover the well, and the danger he faced while carrying the child. He fears that the infant may not have survived the journey, but finds him asleep inside the breastplate. Zhao hands him to his father, relieved that the heir is safe and still judging himself by the possibility that he has failed.

Xuande responds by throwing the child to the ground, declaring that to protect him Zhao nearly lost Xuande’s greatest commander. Zhao lifts the child and bows low, saying that even death could not prove his loyalty more fully. The gesture is deliberately startling: the rescued infant is Xuande’s son and heir, yet Xuande’s rebuke places the commander’s life at the center of the moment. The episode closes not merely with the child’s survival, but with Zhao’s service publicly affirmed and his bond with Xuande sharpened by the cost of the rescue.