The Sanguo Yanyi - Chapter 66

The Sanguo Yanyi - Chapter 66:

Armed With Sword, Guan Yu Goes To A Feast Alone;

For The State, Empress Fu Offers Her Life. 

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WARNING:

THERE'S SPOILERS HERE YET TO BE READ.
READING THEM MIGHT JUST DO IN YOUR HEAD.
BUT IF YOU READ ON, 
MANY QUESTIONS  BEGONE, 
AND YOU'LL SLEEP EASIER IN YOUR BED. 

So it's Chapter 66 now (I'm sure the superstitious out there among you are probably like "Whoa! What an inauspicious number that is. Something bad's going to happen in this chapter, I know it!")

And you know what? They're right. They do know it. Because something bad does happen in this chapter. What happens?  Ohhhhh, the suspense...is it getting to you yet? ;)

Well, let's start, quite logically, with the first part of the chapter, which deals with Wu's efforts to obtain the "return" of Jingzhou...sort of funny choice of words the author used there, isn't it? The "Return" of Jingzhou...Sun Quan is always going on and on about how Jingzhou must be "returned" to the Southland. isn't that odd? Considering that nowhere in this story did Jingzhou ever belong to the Southland of Wu, having belonged to the Imperial Family in the form of Liu Biao prior to his death, then to Liu Qi his son, and then passed into the hands of Liu Bei...I'm sort of wondering when it was that Jingzhou ever was actually a property of the Southland to begin with?  Even if you go back to the days BEFORE the Han, Jingzhou never belonged to Wu, but always belonged to the Kingdom of Chu...

Ah well, I suppose that isn't really important, though it does sort of indicate a perhaps misplaced sense of entitlement on the part of Sun Quan, who really seemed to make it appear that he, at least, did believe that Jingzhou had belonged to the Southland and was a territory that had been taken away, and should be returned. I would not mention this, of course, except to point out a major point of contention between the erstwhile allies, Wu and Shu...THE point of contention between Wu and Shu, actually. It's a very significant point of contention, too, because it is the matter of Jingzhou which will eventually lead to total all-out war between Wu and Shu later on (that was a Spoiler, by the way).

At any rate, by this point in the stoy, Wu and Liu Bei's army have been playing a game of diplomacy, strategy and counterstrategy being employed over and over, over the matter of Jingzhou. This game of strategy and counterstrategy between Wu and Liu Bei's army, of course, was previously embodied in the rivalry of two premiere strategists, Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu. But Zhou Yu, you'll remember, died of frustration a few chapters back, and Lu Su took his place...poor Lu Su...a guy who appears to have been too good and honest a man to engage in the sometimes sordid affairs of diplomacy...In a more honorable world, Lu Su would have been a god among men, but in the world of politics, Lu Su was quite correct in believing himself to not even close to equalling his predecessor, Zhou Yu. And Zhou Yu, it should be remembered, could not equal Zhuge Liang, so what chance does Lu Su stand against Zhuge Liang? Poor Lu Su indeed!  I'd not want to be in the shoes Lu Su was in, not for a mountain of gold and jewels.

Thus far, through various strategies and tricks, Liu Bei's forces have managed to retain control of Jingzhou, while Sun Quan steadily became more and more pissed off about being tricked out of Jingzhou. Now, however, due to the death of Pang Tong, Zhuge Liang has left Jingzhou and gone into the West to help Liu Bei take control of Yizhou. That leaves Guan Yu as the guy to deal with about Jingzhou...

Now, Guan Yu is no Zhuge Liang...he's not even close to as cunning as Zhuge Liang. But he IS a Guan Yu...pretty much the most feared warrior in the entire land after Lu Bu met his demise...Guan Yu is the NEW Lu Bu. He even rides Lu Bu's horse, Red Hare. He's not a guy to take lightly, and Guan Yu was also far from stupid himself. Lu Su had his work cut out for him trying to get Jingzhou away from Guan Yu...so we see the background which explains why this attempt at luring Guan Yu to a banquet for assassination happened. 

It should be noted here that Lu Su, at this time, was nearing the end of his life, and was very ill and becoming a frail, sickly old man. That he went to this banquet at all, knowing that Guan Yu could easily kill him, shows his devotion to duty but besides that, it's indicative of the general state of relations between Wu and Shu. Lu Su represents the old days when Wu and Shu dealt very carefully with each other through words alone, which has endured since before the Battle of the Red Cliffs. But Lu Su is sick and dying and with him will die the old era and usher in a new era...the era of warfare between those Allies.

But the war doesn't quite start yet. Guan Yu, clever as he is, manages to leave this assassination banquet with his life intact, and without having given back Jingzhou either...So it seems that the bad thing that happens in this chapter does not appear, at least for the moment, to involve Guan Yu or Lu Su. The alliance between the Southland and the West River Land is still intact, if highly strained.

So what's the terrible thing that happens in this chapter? Well, if it isn't happening in Wu or in Shu, who does that leave?  That's right. It's happening in Wei, where yet another plot is hatched to assassinate Cao Cao. (There seems to be a lot of those. Pity one of them didn't succeed.)

You may have noticed that Cao Cao is NOT at all a fan of attempts on his life. He totally annhialated the conspirators in the Girdle conspiracy...aka Dong Cheng's assassination plot, you'll recall. All of them but Liu Bei were murdered by his troops, and he spent years, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and endless supplies of wealth and resources to attempt to hunt down and crush Liu Bei. Needless to say, Cao Cao took it very seriously when people tried to kill him...and he was exactly the type to hold grudges.

So when the Empress herself, and her father, hatch a plot to kill Cao Cao...well...it's not too dificult to imagine how a guy like Cao Cao reacted to that sort of thing. And Cao Cao demonstrated ruthlessly that he would not even stop at killing a pregnant woman...

Of course, it should be noted that killing the woman pregnant with the Emperor's heir could have been politically motivated, and quite premeditated, and not a mere act of passion. If so, that makes Cao Cao even more of a cold-blooded monster than he even portrayed. But at any rate, the message Cao Cao sent by such horrific deeds as the slaying of the Empress would have been quite clear to the people of the Late Han:  Don't mess with Cao Cao, because he will send your soul to Hell bruised. 

Enjoy this, the 66th chapter of the Sanguo Yanyi Audiobook, here at DJRaspe.com, and happy holidays to you (if you're somewhere where there's a holiday going on), and happy reading to you at any rate.  

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