When Zhuge Liang finds himself in the same room as the Southlands’ foremost academics, the gloves come off and jabs fly. Verbal jabs, of course.

* Transcript

* No map or key characters graph this week since everything happens in basically one building in Chaisang and we aren’t introduced to anyone significant.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. This is episode 53.

Last time, Sun Quan’s adviser Lu Su had brought Zhuge Liang to the Southlands to meet with his master in hopes of forming an alliance between Liu Bei and the Southlands to resist Cao Cao. But when Lu Su went to see Sun Quan, he found the other advisers all telling Sun Quan that Cao Cao was too strong and that it was in everyone’s best interest to surrender. Sun Quan was nonplussed by this, and while he was taking a bathroom break, Lu Su told him that while everyone else could surrender to Cao Cao, Sun Quan alone could not.

“For the likes of me,” Lu Su said, “surrender means being sent back to my hometown. Eventually, I can work my way back into high office. But if you surrender, you would not be able to go home. Your rank would be no more than a marquis. You would have but one carriage, one horse, and a few servants. You would be no one’s lord. Everyone else was just trying to save themselves. You must not listen to them. It’s time to make a master plan for yourself.”

Now, Lu Su’s analysis is pretty spot on if you think about it. Look at what happened when Cao Cao took over Jing Province. All the officials and officers who surrendered made out pretty well with nice ranks and titles. But their former lord, Liu Cong (2), met an ignoble end. Sun Quan himself had just been pressed by his own advisers to surrender, and those advisers were no doubt looking out for themselves. Lu Su, however, showed his loyalty in placing Sun Quan’s interests above his own.

“Everyone else’s words disappointed me greatly,” Sun Quan said. “But your sage counsel match my thoughts exactly. Truly it was heaven that sent you to me! But Cao Cao has recently absorbed Yuan Shao’s forces and has newly been bolstered by the troops of Jing Province. I do worry that he is too powerful for us to fight.”

“I brought Zhuge Jin’s (3) younger brother Zhuge Liang back from Jiangxia with me. Your lordship can ask him for the truth about Cao Cao’s forces,” Lu Su said.

“Master Sleeping Dragon is here?”

“He is resting at the guest house right now.”

“It’s getting late, so let’s not meet today,” Sun Quan said. “Tomorrow, assemble all the civil officials and military officers in the great hall. We can give him a glimpse of our talent before we talk business.”

 

So the next day, Lu Su went to the guest house to fetch Zhuge Liang and once again reminded him to not tell Sun Quan about how immense Cao Cao’s army really was.

“I will proceed as the situation dictates; I will not slip up,” Zhuge Liang said with a smile.

When they arrived at Sun Quan’s headquarters, they were greeted by 20-some of Sun Quan’s top civil officials and military officers, all dressed to impress. After greeting each and every one of them and asking for their names, Zhuge Liang took his seat as the guest of honor.

 

Judging by Zhuge Liang’s air of self-assurance and the dignified, confident way in which he carried himself, these officials could guess that he had come to persuade Sun Quan to help Liu Bei. Well, all the civil officials were for surrendering to Cao Cao, so they wanted to knock Zhuge Liang back on his heel a little bit. So how do civilian officials in third-century China do that? Why, with a war of words,