Yuan Shang

Yuan Shang; Yuan Shao's third son; favoured for succession; arrives with reinforcements during the campaign.

Eager to shine before his father, he duels Shi Huan with his pair of swords and kills him with a feigned-flight arrow through the left eye. His mother's urging and his father's favor set him up as heir over his elder brothers, and when Cao Cao returns in AD 203 he claims the command himself: 'Father... let me lead the army against this enemy.'

Named heir at the wordless deathbed, he matches his mother's cruelty by slaughtering the mutilated concubines' families - then loses everything he inherited: reinforcements grudged, his brother driven to Pingyuan but Yejun besieged behind him, his relief column betrayed by four defecting commanders, his camp raided the night after his surrender offer, and his seals and robes hung on spears before the walls. He flees to the Zhongshan Mountains with nothing.

Flees Zhongshan to Yuan Xi, then with him past Youzhou into the Wuhuan State and finally Liaodong - plotting on the road to murder Gongsun Kang and take his country. The host strikes first: asked for cushions in the freezing hall, he hears 'when your heads take that long, long journey, will there be any cushions?' - and the hidden swordsmen finish the Yuan line. The heads travel to Yezhou in a small wooden box.

Yuan Shang; named in passing in the Liaodong recap.