"Chicken ribs… what exactly can you figure out from that?"
Zhang Fei frowned. He had read books—but this one threw him.
"Chicken ribs," Zhuge Liang said slowly, half guessing,
"Not much meat. Lots of bone. Easy to strip, but hardly satisfying. Tasteless to eat, yet a shame to throw away?"
"Huh?" Zhang Fei stared at him.
"Strategist, you barely eat chicken—how do you know this so well?"
"Let me tell you," Zhang Fei continued enthusiastically,
"Chicken ribs fried hard in oil, tossed with ginger and garlic, eaten with wine—that's perfection! How is that tasteless?"
Zhuge Liang fell silent.
That… is not the same thing at all.
Jian Yong, however, recognized the name.
"Yang Xiu of the Hongnong Yang clan—styled Dezhu. His father, Grand Commandant Yang Biao, was a loyal minister of the Han."
"For a man like that to involve himself in the succession struggle…"
Jian Yong couldn't understand it.
If Yang Xiu followed his father's loyalty to the Han, why entangle himself at all?
If he meant to serve Cao Wei, then entangling himself was even more foolish.
The hall sighed softly.
Cao Cao's power was only growing. Soon he would receive the Nine Bestowments and become King of Wei. His sons would eventually usurp the Han altogether.
For loyalists trapped in Xuchang, the future could only grow darker.
"What does 'that chicken' even mean?" someone asked, puzzled.
"Judging by context, it refers to an actual chicken," another guessed.
"Perhaps a later linguistic habit—splitting a character into meaning?"
Liu Bei barely heard them.
The words "qualified to contend for the empire" echoed in his mind.
He had reached this point.
Restore the Han. Revive its glory.
So what if he once sold straw sandals?
He could still seize Heaven's mandate. He could still—
"Big Brother," Zhang Fei interrupted suddenly,
"What does it mean that Shu-Han's chance at unification was 'destroyed jointly by your own relatives'?"
Liu Bei froze.
He stared at those words, then slowly looked around the hall.
The light screen had hinted before—Sun Quan's betrayal, Liu Feng's refusal to rescue Guan Yu.
But jointly?
Who else?
His gaze flicked past Mi Zhu and immediately rejected the thought.
Mi Zizhong betraying me would be like Sun Quan killing Zhang Zhao—self-mutilation.
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
His eyes circled again.
Finally, Liu Bei let out a long sigh.
Liu Feng had doomed his uncle.
Liu Shan… would never even be worthy of entering the ancestral temple.
Teaching children, it seemed, was harder than ruling a kingdom.
Sun Qian gently tugged Liu Bei's sleeve and offered a quiet, encouraging look.
My lord. There is still time.
[With the main course finished, let's talk about the rest.
The Hanzhong Campaign was a major victory for Liu Bei, but in terms of enemy casualties, only Xiahou Yuan was slain.
Cao Cao's retreat had two main reasons.
First, Zhao Yun went full war-god mode, making supply transport nearly impossible.
Second—and more importantly—Guan Yu was pressing in from the east.
It was like a blade held to Cao Cao's throat.
Cao Cao likely remembered the nightmare of losing Yan Province and decided not to gamble again.
So he abandoned Hanzhong and rushed home to defend his base.
Which means—yes—
The greatest contributor to taking Hanzhong was actually Guan Yu.]
Everyone froze.
…That's how you're calculating merit now?!
Huang Zhong felt genuinely dazed.
He had personally slain an enemy commander at over seventy years old.
By this logic… was he only third?
Zhang Fei's eyes lit up.
"Then if Second Brother can earn merit just by looking threatening at Xiangfan, surely I deserve some too?"
"I held Wudu with Ma Mengqi, dragging Cao Cao's forces to a standstill with a handful of men!"
A handful you got beaten back with, everyone silently corrected.
[There was also an invisible hero of the Hanzhong Campaign—
Zhuge Liang, who ran logistics.
Let's break it down.
The campaign lasted over two years.
Half a year marching along the Golden Ox Road.
Then Liu Bei suddenly went wild and climbed Mount Dingjun.
That meant the Chancellor had to:
—Supply Gao Xiang holding the Golden Ox Road
—Open an entirely new supply line through the Micang Mountains to Mount Dingjun
—Feed Zhang Fei and Ma Chao fighting in Wudu
Just imagining this logistics nightmare is enough to give you a headache.
And Zhuge Liang held it together.
Historically, Shu-Han logistics were consistently strong.
Records even note that during the Northern Expeditions, Zhuge Liang invented the Wooden Ox and Flowing Horse.]
Liu Bei looked at Zhuge Liang with shining eyes.
Zhuge Liang immediately waved his hands.
"No sorcery. None. Absolutely none."
Still, he felt oddly validated.
Someone understands how hard logistics really are.
Truthfully, while watching the Hanzhong Campaign earlier, Zhuge Liang had already been calculating supply routes in his head—
Only to realize, with despair, that he was responsible for all of them.
…A bit depressing, honestly.
[The Wooden Ox and Flowing Horse were essentially advanced wheelbarrows.
Today, museums in Sichuan and Hunan still display reconstructions.
Interested readers can go see them.
One thing is certain—they do not move on their own.
Otherwise, humanity would've solved the perpetual motion problem centuries ago.]
Images flashed across the light screen.
Zhuge Liang copied them furiously.
Copying myself doesn't count as plagiarism.
[Shu-Han's logistics were actually very similar to the Huaihai Campaign in modern times.
Marshal Chen Yi once said:
'The victory of the Huaihai Campaign was pushed forward by the people with wheelbarrows.'
From ancient times to the present, this truth never changes.
As the Internationale puts it:
There are no saviors, no gods or emperors—
Human happiness is created by human hands.
Whether it's Shu-Han's supply lines or modern revolutionary wars, they share one truth—
Glory belongs to the working people.]
The hall went dead silent.
A pin dropping would've echoed.
The words struck like a great bell smashing straight into their minds.
The people.
"Then…" Zhao Yun asked hesitantly,
"They have no emperor? But earlier the screen said their Founding Ancestor once evaluated me…"
"Perhaps 'emperor' is only a title," Zhuge Liang replied thoughtfully.
"The world beyond our borders is vast—mountains west of Kunlun, lands south of Lingnan, seas beyond Fusang, endless grasslands."
"There may well be realms without emperors."
"In fact… perhaps later generations learned from one another."
But privately, Zhuge Liang engraved those words deep into his heart.
The people.
No one understood logistics better than he did.
Every ration, every garment, every spearhead—came from the silent masses who never spoke.
But push them too far…
And they would erupt like a landslide or a tsunami.
Just like the Yellow Turbans.
Zhuge Liang looked at Liu Bei.
Liu Bei had gone completely still after seeing those words.
Did Zhuge Liang follow Liu Bei because of a ceremonial title as Imperial Uncle?
Because of the General of the Left?
No.
He followed Liu Bei because—among all the warlords—
Liu Bei treated the common people as human beings.
Cao Cao slaughtered cities without hesitation.
He allowed Cheng Yu to use human flesh as rations and asked no questions.
In Jiangdong, noble clans swallowed farmland whole, leaving peasants nowhere to stand.
Sun Ce was a hero.
But his brother…
Enough of that.
Let's talk instead about how ten thousand men created the God of Xiaoyao Ford.
Fun fact:
The word "people" first appeared in the Book of Songs (Daya · Yi), as a loyal minister's remonstration to a tyrant king.
The ancients probably never imagined—
Two thousand years later, the king would be gone.
And only the people would remain.