Discord between lord and vassal simmers in the court of Shu, while things boil over in the court of Wei.

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Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. This is episode 145.

Last time, Jiang Wei had launched another Northern campaign. Yeah, I know. It sounds like a broken record by now. But this time, he got off to a pretty nice start. He bested Deng Ai in a contest of formations and took over Deng Ai’s camps at Qi Mountain. Deng Ai only escaped with his life when his comrade Sima Wang (4) rescued him. It turned out that Sima Wang knew a little more about Jiang Wei’s formation than Deng Ai did, and that gave Deng Ai and idea.

He told Sima Wang, “Tomorrow, while you engage Jiang Wei in a contest of formations, I will lead an army to launch a sneak attack on the backside of Qi Mountain. We will engage them on both sides and retake our camp.”

So it was settled, and Deng Ai sent a message to Jiang Wei, challenging him to round two the next day, and Jiang Wei agreed. After sending Deng Ai’s messenger away with his reply, Jiang Wei told his officers, “The late prime minister gave me a secret text that taught me the 365 permutations of this formation. Deng Ai challenging me to a contest of formations is a case of trying to show off in front of a master. But there must be deception afoot. Do you know what it could be?”

The general Liao Hua guessed, “They must be trying to distract us while they attack us from the rear.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Jiang Wei said with a smile as the screen faded to black.

 

The next day, Jiang Wei mobilized his entire army and deployed it in front of Qi Mountain. On the other side, Sima Wang led his forces out of their camp by the Wei River and went to meet Jiang Wei. Once the two sides lined up, the two commanders came out to talk.

Jiang Wei told Sima Wang, “Since you challenged me to a contest of formations, why don’t you set one up for me to look at first?”

So Sima Wang deployed his men in the formation of the Eight Trigrams. But Jiang Wei laughed and told him, “That was my formation; you just stole it. What’s so special about that?”

Sima Wang’s answer was, “Oh yeah? Well, you stole it from somebody else, too. So ha!” Which, yeah, was pretty weak.

Jiang Wei now asked, “How many permutations does your formation have?” To which Sima Wang replied, “I can set up the formation, so of course I can make it change. This formation has 81 permutations.”

Jiang Wei now smiled and said, “Why don’t you show me a few?”

So Sima Wang went into his formation and directed his troops through several different permutations and then came back out and asked, “Did you recognize those permutations?”

Jiang Wei laughed and said, “My formation has 365 permutations according to the cycle of days. You are the proverbial frog in the well, possessing only a glimpse of a corner of the sky. What do you know about the intricacies of formations?”

Well, Sima Wang knew OF those 365 permutations, but he hadn’t learned them all. But he was gonna fake it till he made it. He told Jiang Wei, “I don’t believe you. Show me.”

But Jiang Wei said, “Tell Deng Ai to come out, and I’ll show it to him.”

Uhh, well, that’s a problem, since Deng Ai was nowhere near here.