[Looking at both Cao Wei and Sun Wu as a whole, although their downfalls each had their own immediate causes, they shared one fatal similarity: they both collapsed from internal rot.
Once the roots are rotten, it doesn't matter how lush the branches look—nothing can be saved.
This is also why so many readers stop reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms after the Chancellor falls at Wuzhang Plains. What's left to read after that? A contest over who decays more gracefully?
Wu's internal chaos, six rebellions plus one?
The final Wu emperor riding out in a plain cart, white banners raised, bare-chested, bound with rope, holding a jade disc and leading a sheep in surrender?
Liu Shan being enfeoffed as the Duke of Anle and declaring, "I am happy here and do not miss Shu"?
Or the Jin dynasty that replaced Wei, where taking Five-Stone Powder became fashionable, followed by the War of the Eight Princes and the Uprising of the Five Barbarians?
Yet there are some Three Kingdoms stories that rarely get told at all.
For example—Shi Xie.]
Whenever the Three Kingdoms are discussed, Shi Xie is almost always hidden in the background.
But if we're talking about achievements that echo through a thousand years, there were very few people of that era who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.
Shi Xie governed Jiaozhou for forty years.
In those four decades, Jiaozhou was almost entirely spared from warfare. Its economy and culture flourished, Han civilization truly took root, and the region became integrated with the Central Plains.
Even today, the Vietnamese still venerate Shi Xie as a founding ancestor, and legends persist of him attaining immortality.]
Alongside the narration, the light curtain displayed an idyllic pastoral scene.
Liu Bei squinted at it and frowned.
"I've farmed before," he muttered. "Don't try to fool me."
Rosy cheeks. Fair skin.
These are farmers?
And what kind of household owns that many oxen?
Look at their clothes—far too fine. And that plow the ox is pulling…
Wait.
Why is the plow curved?
Liu Bei froze, his brows knitting together. As a down-on-his-luck descendant of the Prince of Zhongshan, he knew farming well. He had used both the seed drill and the straight plow before—but this curved plow looked… better.
Beside him, Kongming—who had once literally "tilled the fields of Longzhong"—had already pulled out a piece of silk and begun sketching the curved plow with focused intensity.
Zhao Yun also took out a silk cloth, carefully copying the round waterwheel in the irrigation channel. As he drew, he pondered:
"This looks similar to a chain pump, but the structure is completely different… Still, if later generations used it, there must be a reason."
Better copy it down first.
The scene shifted. The pastoral fields faded, replaced by broad roads stretching in all directions. People wearing pointed bamboo hats gathered in worship around a statue dressed in ceremonial robes.
Beneath it, the light curtain labeled the site in Chinese:
Tomb of Shi Xie
Huang Zhong frowned. "If this is Shi Xie's tomb, why are the pillars carved with characters that look like tadpoles?"
Guan Yu, well-read in the Spring and Autumn Annals, stroked his beard.
"Vietnam… Perhaps the curtain is mistaken. It should be Nanyue. Pre-Qin texts mention a Hundred Yue peoples—one branch was called Nanyue. They may have passed their traditions down for a thousand years. Those markings resemble ancient shamanic script…"
He trailed off.
Even he felt that explanation was shaky. Who carves that kind of script on a tomb?
But after getting tangled in these minor details, Liu Bei finally snapped back to the important part.
"'Happy here'?! 'Doesn't miss Shu'?!"
He slapped his thigh. "Excellent! Truly my good A-Dou!"
"Big Brother, don't be angry," Zhang Fei said cheerfully.
"Look at Sun Quan's descendants—they're even more humiliating! Plain carts, white banners, bare chests, bound with rope, jade in mouth, sheep in tow—lower than household slaves! If Sun Jian or Sun Ce saw that, they'd burst out of their coffins and smash the lids clean off!"
Liu Bei nodded instinctively—then froze.
He turned around.
At some point, Zhang Fei had returned, leaning against the doorframe, a wine jug in his left hand and a roast chicken in his right, using the light curtain as dinner entertainment.
Seeing Liu Bei's murderous glare, Zhang Fei obediently shuffled forward, holding up both items.
"If it really won't do, Big Brother, eat and drink a little to cool off—so you'll have the strength to beat A-Dou later!"
Liu Bei didn't know whether to laugh or cry. His anger deflated by half.
He waved Zhang Fei off irritably. "Go squat somewhere and stop being in the way."
Still, he agreed verbally.
"Sun Jian was loyal and resolute; Sun Ce's valor crowned the age—both were true heroes. None of them could have imagined descendants who would…"
"Become dogs for others," Zhang Fei supplied promptly, borrowing a phrase from the light curtain.
He earned himself another glare.
"The curtain treats Jin's indulgence in Five-Stone Powder as a crime," Huang Zhong said, puzzled.
"Why is that? My former lord Liu Biao took it as well. He even hosted banquets where guests partook together."
No one could answer.
Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, and Zhuge Liang exchanged looks.
We were all too poor to afford it—why ask us?
After some thought, Kongming said cautiously, "Guo Jia died young. There were rumors at the time that the imperial physicians in Xuchang believed his frailty stemmed from prolonged Five-Stone Powder use."
Liu Bei concluded decisively, "Then don't touch it. If people more than a thousand years later still speak of it in hushed tones, it's almost certainly something sinister."
[Based on archaeological evidence, in 157 CE—the third year of Emperor Huan's Yongshou era—the empire's population stood at roughly 56.47 million.
By 280 CE, when Western Jin reunified the realm, the population had fallen to just 16.16 million.
In barely a century, nearly forty million lives were ground away by war.
Jiaozhou was one of the very few regions that still managed population growth. No wonder the Vietnamese continue to remember Shi Xie. As for how Ming later lost Vietnam—that's another story.
In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, once the Chancellor falls at Wuzhang Plains, the era becomes no different from ordinary warlord fragmentation.
Surrounded by ambitious wolves, Jiang Wei—alone in inheriting the Chancellor's will—could only sigh before his death:
"My plans failed. It was Heaven's will."
But enough of the depressing talk about Cao Wei.
Next time, we can finally talk about Shu Han.
There may be moments that raise your blood pressure—but at least there are plenty of interesting stories. Stay tuned.]
Without waiting for Kongming, Liu Bei immediately raised his thumb.
Caught up in the mood, everyone else followed suit—even Huang Zhong, who looked faintly confused but raised his thumb anyway.
Still, no one was particularly cheerful.
Forty million people gone.
Even forty million cattle would be unimaginable—let alone living, breathing people who spoke the same language.
And no one present understood better than these generals how such people vanished.
"This is precisely why the Han must be restored," Liu Bei said quietly.
"If the realm were handed to a butcher like Cao Cao—hands soaked in blood, yet hypocritically chanting, 'White bones lie exposed in the wild, for a thousand li no rooster crows'—I would be unworthy of my ancestors."
"And the curtain speaks with disdain of Jin, mentioning the War of the Eight Princes and the chaos of the Five Barbarians. Just hearing the words makes my skin crawl. I dare not imagine the calamity itself."
"We are willing to die for my lord!"
"We are willing to die to restore the Han!"
The generals rose solemnly and spoke in unison.
"Strategist, you will have successors!" Zhang Fei's eyes shone.
"With the guidance of this light curtain, Heaven's Mandate must rest with Big Brother!"
"Strategist," he continued eagerly,
"Who is this Jiang Wei? Your nephew? Your cousin? I'll go fetch him right now so you can groom him early!"
In truth, late Three Kingdoms warfare slowed because there were barely any men left to fight.
The land itself was shattered—from Liaodong to Jiangdong, from Shandong to Fufeng, nowhere knew peace.
Even Shi Xie's lineage rebelled after his death, and the suppression cost countless lives.
In the end, there was only one conclusion:
Better to be a dog in times of peace
than a man in an age of chaos.