Straw-Headed Monster

Chapters 99-101

We get to see Kongming defeat Sima Yi a few more times. But twice, Kongming is prevented from utterly vanquishing Wei. First, he is recalled to see the Emperor. One of Sima Yi’s agents fools Liu Bei’s son (the Emperor) into thinking that Kongming will try to seize the throne. The second time, Kongming gets false information that the Southlands are invading, so he leaves Wei to stop them. The first recall reminded me of Bel Riose from Asimov’s Foundation and Empire (loosely based on the Roman general Belisarius). In that book, the Foundation is destined to defeat the Empire even if the Empire has a great general and a great Emperor. The prognosticators from the Foundation know that a strong Emperor will always worry and recall a general before the Foundation is destroyed.

Besides that, these chapters give us a couple of delights. First, we can add a new good character death. In Chapter 100, Cao Zhen reads a letter from Kongming that is so insulting that Cao Zhen dies from the “bitter anger” that “flooded his chest” (p. 1821). Cao Zhen was unlikable; it’s a good way for him to exit.

The second delight is Kongming at war. He fools Sima Yi several times. Most ridiculously, he fools Sima Yi in Chapter 101 by creating decoy versions of himself, each surrounded by warriors that are painted to look like each other. It makes Sima Yi think that Kongming is teleporting as a god. To support the plan, Kongming also orders Guan Zing to dress up as something called the “Straw-Headed Monster of the Fields,” (p. 1833) which receives little elaboration. I’m picturing a scary version of the scarecrow from the 1985 film Return to Oz.

We lose a couple more characters too. We lose Zhang Bao, son of Zhang Fei (like Cao Zhen, we are two generations into some major deaths now). We also lose Zhang He, one of the most likable Wei. He goes down fighting and gets a decent burial.