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Monday, July 17, 2006 |
| HCS: "All's Fair In Love & War"
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As revenge for what Zhuge Liang did to Cao Cao, someone suggested to him that he should send two officers disguised as defectors to Zhou Yu. To make the defection more believable, they should bring 500 soldiers with them. "In was, nothing is too deeitful." As a man who knew by heart The Art of War, written by the famous war strategist Sun Zi, Cao Cao was certainly very good at using tricks. Zhou Yu, however, was not easily taken in. He kept the "defectors" in his camp and ordered that they be closely watched. He wanted to use them to send back false information. Meanwhile, in his own camp, Cao Cao was confronted with some serious trouble. Most of his soldiers were northerners who by the great waves of the Yangtze River and the soldiers vomited so violently that they became sick one after another. Cao Cao was very worried. Then someone offered him another suggestion: Why not tie the boats together with iron chains so that they would be steady? Cao Cao thought the idea was very good and took immediate action. When an old general of Wu, Huang Gai, saw that all of Cao Cao's boats were tied together, he at once offered a strategy to Zhou Yuto beat Cao Cao - burn the Cao camp. But in order for the plan to work they needed someone to infiltrate the camp. Huang Gai wrote a letter to Cao Cao and pretended that he wanted to defect to the Wei camp. He wrote: "I want to join you and will fight in the vanguard for you when the battle begins. I'll be your agent. In this way, you'll surely win the battle." Zhou Yu and Huang Gai were still not sure if Cao Cao would believe this letter, so they arranged a show. First of all, Huang Gai critised Zhou Yu's war plans at the military conference and openly argued for surrender. Zhou Yu, pretending to be furious, shouted: "Drag him down and give him 100 strokes of cane!" Those who were at the meeting all pleaded for Huang Gai. Zhou Yu kicked the table over and said: "All right. Save 50 strokes till I beat Cao Cao!" The generals pulled Huang Gai up, for he had fainted. He had been stripped of his clothes and was bleeding all over. Cao Cao's two officers immediately sent this information back. Soon afterwards, Cao Cao received the letter from Huang Gai. But in the letter, there was no mention of the humiliating scene. Cao Cao thought: "My army is 10 times stronger than the united army of Wu and Shu. It is only natural that some of them should give up resisting." So he did not have the least doubt about the truth of Huang's defection. Then came the eve of the great battle...
To be continued...Labels: random |
| posted by
WanTse @ 7/17/2006 04:27:00 pm
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