"The traitor Cao truly commands an astonishing number of exceptional men." Kongming shook his head, a rare trace of unconcealed envy slipping into his voice.
Hearing this, Liu Bei could not help recalling the keen intellect who had first urged him to seek out Kongming. "I wonder how Yuanzhi is doing these days," he said quietly.
"Guangyuan—Shi Tao," Pang Tong added in a low voice. "If I remember correctly, he entered Cao's camp together with Yuanzhi?" Shi Tao had once been close to both Kongming and Pang Tong during their years in Jing Province, and had remained Xu Shu's lifelong confidant.
"Guangyuan is a man of integrity." Thinking of old friends, Kongming's spirits dipped for a moment. He soon steadied himself. "The talents of those two are in no way inferior to Liu Ziyang's. They ought to be highly esteemed in the capital."
"That may not be the case!" Jian Yong suddenly cut in. "While I was traveling through Liang and Yong, I encountered an envoy of the traitor Cao coming from the capital. Using the excuse of inquiring after relatives, I asked him about Master Yuanzhi."
Jian Yong's expression darkened. "The envoy spoke of them with nothing but contempt. He said Xu Shu and Shi Tao were nothing more than ornamental advisers—men whose reputations far exceeded their actual abilities."
"This…" Kongming and Pang Tong exchanged a glance. No one understood their friends' caliber better than they did. Without a word, the same thought quietly took shape in both their minds.
[Light-Screen]
At this point in history, one cannot help but ask whether Cao Pi was genuinely dull or merely putting on a show. When Liu Ye offered him a clear and incisive strategy, Cao Pi rejected it with an air of righteous indignation:
"The man has already surrendered to me, yet you ask me to attack him? Would that not damage my reputation? Why should I not instead assist Sun Quan in striking Liu Bei?"
Liu Ye likely had to suppress an overwhelming urge to kick Cao Pi squarely in the face. With strained patience, he explained:
"Yi Province is protected by formidable natural barriers. If we dispatch troops there, Liu Bei will simply withdraw his forces. What would we gain? At present, Liu Bei has lost all restraint in his pursuit of revenge. If we move against the Yangtze now, Liu Bei will certainly join us in driving the blade home rather than aiding Sun Quan. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"
The reasoning was impeccable, the prospects dazzling. Yet the historical record is blunt: "The Emperor did not listen." Instead, he formally "appointed Quan as King of Wu."
Liu Ye, still desperate to salvage the situation, protested again:
"If you grant him the title of King, then the people of the South will rightfully become Sun Quan's subjects. Should we attack him later, we will have lost all moral justification. It would be better to bestow upon him only the rank of General. Then, when he inevitably violates the rites, we will have a righteous cause to punish him."
Once more, the records are mercilessly concise: "The Emperor did not listen."
"Hahaha!" Zhang Fei burst into laughter. "So the Cao thief really sired a second Duke Xiang of Song?"
Liu Bei set aside his thoughts of Xu Shu for the moment, intending to discuss a rescue or recruitment with Kongming later that evening. At Zhang Fei's remark, he shook his head. "Duke Xiang of Song was pedantic, but his actions stemmed from a misguided sense of benevolence. Cao Pi, on the other hand, is simply obsessed with empty vanity."
Pang Tong felt a genuine flicker of pity for the strategist displayed on the screen. "To spurn enlightened counsel and act with such arrogant caprice… he is narrow-minded to the core. A ruler like that turns the brilliance of a man such as Liu Ye into a joke for posterity."
Only then did the assembly fully understand why the screen had described Liu Ye as famous for failed strategies. Jian Yong chuckled. "After Hanzhong, Liu Ye must have realized that the elder Cao was not his ideal lord, so he devoted himself to impressing the son. Had he been able to help Wei unify the realm, he might have become a legendary minister remembered for generations."
"Instead," Zhang Fei barked, "he discovered that Cao Pi is truly his father's son—in all the worst ways!" The hall erupted in laughter.
[Light-Screen]
To judge the Battle of Yiling as Liu Bei's "gamble with destiny" is to see that he was deliberately dragging Sun-Wu into mutual destruction in order to draw Cao-Wei into the war.
Had Wei intervened, Sun-Wu, caught between two fronts, would have been unable to hold. In Liu Bei's design, Sun Quan would have had no choice but to bow his head and beg for peace. With Wei's armies pressing along the Yangtze, the very survival of Wu would have depended entirely on Emperor Zhaolie's decision.
It was a step-by-step scheme, riddled with uncertainty. Liu Ye understood this gamble, which was why his counterproposal was to seize Jiangling at once.
Taking Jiangling would have blocked Liu Bei from advancing eastward while giving Wei a springboard deep into the South. Had Cao Pi heeded this advice, the era of the Three Kingdoms might have ended decades earlier.
Liu Bei's gamble was one of desperation in the final years of his life, driven by the fact that the Cao clan had usurped the Han. The two were like fire and water. Wei would never willingly aid Shu, yet Liu Bei could never have imagined that Cao Cao's heir would be… like this. It was akin to "casting flirtatious glances at a blind man."
This answers the earlier question: what was Liu Bei waiting for during those six months? He was buying time for Wei to act. But Lu Xun's precise and devastating strike ended the war prematurely, cutting off every one of Liu Bei's hopes.
"This strategy was far too reckless!" Kongming shook his head in disapproval.
"But it was the only way to restore the Han!" Pang Tong shot back sharply.
Kongming glanced at him, one brow lifting slightly. Trying to outshine me, are you? Very well—let's hear it. "Pray, Shiyuan, enlighten us."
Pang Tong met his gaze without flinching. "The twin cities of Jiangling are a natural fortress, long fortified under General Guan's command. Even after emerging from Yiling, taking Jiangling by force would be a nightmare. Yet look at Sun Quan: when the traitor Cao held Jiangling, he said nothing. The moment General Guan held it, he suddenly declared it the 'lifeline of the East,' as though his treachery at Xiangfan were some unavoidable necessity. Shameless!"
"Why did he not tell Cao Cao that Hefei was the 'doorstep of the East' and demand it be handed over? He simply exploited an ally to carry out a backstab. For our lord, Jiangling is the vital artery through which the wealth of Yi Province flows downstream. Without it, the Restoration is nothing but empty talk."
Pang Tong's eyes burned. "If we cannot take it back from the East, then we must lure the tiger into the fray. Let the North and the East bleed each other while we search for an opening. Otherwise, even if we conquer the North, a Wu state holding Jiangling will forever harbor treacherous designs. The moment we weaken, they will strike. To hold Jiangling is to let Yi Province live; to lose it is to accept a slow death among the mountains."
Kongming fell silent for a long while before finally speaking. "That is no different from trying to snatch food from a tiger's mouth."
Pang Tong sneered. "Looking at the maps on this screen, I see exactly how critical Jiangling is. Kongming, with your brilliance, could you truly not see this during the actual campaign? You place too much faith in 'great righteousness' and in alliances. A man as fickle as Sun Quan will betray us sooner or later. If betrayal is inevitable, then it is better to seize his throat first and make him fear the cost."
Kongming remained quiet. He understood the reasoning all too well. Yet he also knew how hard it would be to restrain the North alone. Had they truly been too lenient toward the East?
[Light-Screen]
After the Battle of Yiling, Cao Pi polished his imperial crown, straightened his robes, and sat in anticipation of Sun Quan's promised surrender.
He was like a young groom awaiting the marriage of a famed neighborhood beauty—excited, anxious, and utterly convinced he was about to accomplish what his father never had. "I, Cao Pi, am no less than Cao Cao. At last, I will bring glory to our ancestors!"
But poor Cao Pi was being played like a fiddle. The moment victory at Yiling was secured, Sun Quan treated the surrender documents as little more than toilet paper.
With the court-wide celebrations concluded and Liu Ye's warnings cast aside, the stage had been set for a triumph that never came. Cao Pi was left humiliated. Like a naïve youth toyed with and discarded by a courtesan, his heart was consumed by a single, blinding rage.
"Deploy the troops! Deploy them at once!" He would make the fickle Sun Quan pay a terrible price.