Zhuge Liang — The Man Who Could Never Hand Off the Work

You Cannot Summon Him

"You can go and see this man. But you cannot summon him to come to you."

The one who said this was Xu Shu. He had told a certain general about a man he wanted him to meet. When the general said, "Bring him here with you," Xu Shu gave this answer.

The man who could not be summoned was a young man with no post and no title. He lived by plowing his own field.

His name was Zhuge Liang. His courtesy name was Kongming. A courtesy name is a name people used besides their given name. Later he would become famous as the strategist in the story of the Three Kingdoms.

This was China about 1,800 years ago. The Han dynasty, which had lasted more than 400 years, was falling apart, and warlords were fighting everywhere.

Liang lost his father when he was young. His uncle took him south to Jingzhou. Then the uncle died too.

After that, Liang plowed his own fields. He liked to sing an old song called "Song of Liangfu." He was eight chi tall, a very tall man for that time.

And he always compared himself to Guan Zhong and Yue Yi.

Guan Zhong was a great minister of long ago who had made the state of Qi the leader of all the lords. Yue Yi was a great general of long ago who led the army of the state of Yan and cornered a much bigger state.

Nobody around him agreed with this.

He was an unknown young man plowing a field. Perhaps it was too much to ask them to agree.

Only two friends agreed: Cui Zhouping and Xu Shu. They really believed it.

A later book, the Weilüe, tells this story about Liang's younger days.

While his friends worked hard at reading every small detail of the books, Liang alone grasped only the big picture. Morning and evening he would sit hugging his knees and chant in a long, drawn-out voice.

One day, it is said, Liang spoke to three of his friends.

"If you three become officials, you could rise to be governor of a province or of a county."

The three asked him how far he himself would go. Liang only laughed and said nothing.

His choice of a wife was unusual too. Huang Chengyan, a respected man of the region, is said to have come to him with an offer.

"I hear you are looking for a wife. I have an ugly daughter. Her hair is yellowish and her skin is dark. But her talent is a match for yours."

Liang agreed, and Huang Chengyan at once put his daughter in a carriage and sent her over.

The people of the region made a joke of it, it is said. They even made up a saying: Don't copy Kongming's way of choosing a wife, or you'll end up with Chengyan's ugly daughter.

This was the man that a general would soon come to visit himself.

The general's name was Liu Bei. He was said to be of the blood of the Han emperor's family, and he kept his soldiers in a town called Xinye in Jingzhou.

Told that Liang could not be summoned, Liu Bei went to him himself.

It took three visits in all before he finally met him, says the Records of the Three Kingdoms, written by a historian named Chen Shou. It was around the year 207. Liang was in his late twenties.

In a later story, Liu Bei visits in the snow and waits until Liang wakes from a nap. What Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms says is only one line: "He went three times in all, and then finally met him."

Liu Bei sent everyone else away and asked him a question. His own wisdom and plans were shallow, he said, and he had kept stumbling until now. Still, he had not given up his goal. What should he do?

Liang's answer was this.

"Cao Cao now has a million soldiers and holds the emperor in his hands to give orders to the lords. You truly cannot fight him head-on."

Make an alliance with Sun Quan in the east. Meanwhile, take Jingzhou, and Yizhou to the west. Liu Bei said, "Good."

After that, the two grew closer day by day. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, who had followed Liu Bei for years, did not like it. Liu Bei calmed them.

"Having Kongming is for me like a fish having water. Gentlemen, I ask you not to say any more."

The young man nobody had recognized had become his lord's "water."

Before long, the lord of Jingzhou died. His son Liu Zong, who took over, sent word of surrender to the attacking Cao Cao without a fight.

When Liu Bei's army passed near Xiangyang, Liang said that if Liu Bei attacked Liu Zong now, Jingzhou would be his.

Liu Bei's answer was short.

"I cannot bear to."

Cao Cao's army chased them. It caught up at Changban, and Xu Shu's mother was captured.

Pointing at his own chest, Xu Shu said goodbye to Liu Bei.

"I first planned great things with you, to make you a king and a leader of all the lords, because of what is in this heart. Now I have lost my old mother, and my heart is in chaos. I can be of no more use. Please let me part from you here."

Xu Shu went off to Cao Cao.

He was one of the only two who had believed in Liang, and the one who had recommended Liang to Liu Bei.

A big job was already waiting for Liang, who was left behind: to persuade Sun Quan in the east.

You May Take It Yourself

"This is urgent. Give me your order, and let me go to General Sun to ask him for help."

Liang said this to Liu Bei when they had been chased by Cao Cao as far as Xiakou. It was the year 208.

Sun Quan was holding his army at Chaisang, watching to see which side would win.

Liang had come to ask for help. But first he pushed the other man away.

"If the forces of Wu and Yue can stand up to Cao Cao, it is best to break with him quickly. If they cannot, why not lay down your weapons, put away your armor, and face north to serve Cao Cao?"

Facing north is how a servant bows to his lord. Liang went on.

"You show a face of obedience outside, but inside you are still unsure. If you cannot decide at a moment of danger, disaster will come very soon."

Then why did Liu Bei not serve Cao Cao? Sun Quan asked back. Liang answered that Liu Bei was a hero of the imperial blood. How could he bow to another man?

Sun Quan's face changed, and he said:

"I hold the whole land of Wu and an army of a hundred thousand, and I will not take orders from anyone. My mind is made up."

The man who came to ask for help had made the other man angry, and made him decide.

After that, Cao Cao was beaten at Red Cliffs and withdrew to the north.

In a later story, Liang builds an altar and calls up a southeast wind, and Cao Cao's ships are burned. But what Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms says about Red Cliffs, in Liang's biography, is only one line: "Lord Cao was beaten at Red Cliffs and led his army back to Ye."

After the battle, the job given to Liang was to set up the taxes of three districts and pay for the army.

Later Liu Bei marched west into Yizhou. Even after its capital, Chengdu, fell, Liang always stayed in Chengdu while Liu Bei was out fighting, and he never let the food and soldiers run out.

The man who had talked about the great plan for the whole land kept taking the roles that stayed out of sight.

Around that time, this happened.

Liu Bei stopped without warning at a county called Guangdu, on a trip to look around. The head of the county, Jiang Wan, had left his work undone, and he was drunk too.

Liu Bei was furious and tried to have him put to death. The one who stopped him was Liang.

"Jiang Wan is a man who could hold up a country. He is not a man of the size to govern only one county. His way of governing puts the peace of the people first, and does not care about appearances. Please look into it once more."

Liu Bei already respected Liang, so he did not punish Jiang Wan. He only removed him from his post.

But there was also a death that Liang did not stop.

Liu Feng was a man whom Liu Bei, who had no heir, had raised as his own son. After losing a battle, he came back to Chengdu, and Liu Bei blamed him for things like not saving Guan Yu.

Liang thought that Liu Feng was strong and rough, and that after the change of rulers he would be too hard to hold back. So he urged Liu Bei to get rid of him on this occasion.

Liu Feng was ordered to die, and he took his own life.

The one who wept was Liu Bei.

Next to a lord who moved by feeling, the one who gave the cold answer was Liang.

In 221, Liu Bei took the throne as emperor. The one who talked a hesitating Liu Bei into it was Liang too. Liu Bei made Liang his chancellor. The chancellor was the highest post, running all of the government under the emperor.

Then Liu Bei attacked the state of Wu in the east, and was defeated. Liang sighed.

"If Fa Zheng were alive, he would have held Your Majesty back and not let you go east. Even if you had gone, it would not have been this dangerous."

Fa Zheng was a minister who had lent Liu Bei his wisdom, and he had already died.

Spring of 223. Liu Bei lay in his sickbed at Yong'an, gravely ill. Liang was called from Chengdu.

Liu Bei said to Liang:

"Your talent is ten times that of Cao Pi. You will surely bring peace to the country, and in the end you will accomplish the great task."

Cao Pi was the man who had taken the throne for himself in the northern state of Wei.

"If my heir is worth helping, help him. If he has no talent, you may take it yourself."

Take it himself. The country, that is.

Liang answered, weeping:

"I will use all my strength as your arms and legs, keep the honor of my loyalty, and go on until I die."

Liu Bei also left words for his heir Liu Shan: work together with the chancellor, and serve him as you would serve your father.

That year, in the fourth month of the lunar calendar, Liu Bei died at Yong'an. He was sixty-three.

When Liu Shan took the throne, everything in this country, large and small, came to be decided by Liang.

Before his death, Liu Bei had also said something to Liang about another man.

"Ma Su says more than he can do. Do not use him for great things. Watch him carefully."

Liang did not think so.

Sweating All Day Long

Liang was checking the government account books himself.

Yang Yong, the chancellor's clerk, walked straight in and warned him, it is said.

"Government has a proper shape. Those above and those below must not take over each other's work. Let me use a household as an example."

The master of a certain house let the farmhand plow and the maid cook. The rooster told the morning, the dog barked at thieves, the ox carried heavy loads, the horse went the long roads. The work of the house never stopped, and the master could rest easy with his head on a high pillow, eating and drinking.

But one day the master tried to do all of it himself. He let no one help, wore out his body, and was chased by small tasks until he was exhausted in body and mind. In the end he got nothing done.

"Is it because his wisdom is not as good as the farmhand's, the maid's, the rooster's, and the dog's? No. He has lost the way a master of a house should do things."

After giving examples of the great ministers of old, Yang Yong ended like this:

"Now you check the account books yourself and sweat all day long. Are you not tired?"

Liang apologized to Yang Yong, it is said.

When the southern districts rebelled, Liang tried to go himself too.

A minister named Wang Lian tried to stop him again and again.

"That land is barren, a land of plague. The man who carries the hopes of a whole country should not take such a risk."

The reason Liang tried to go himself was that he thought the other generals did not have his talent.

Wang Lian's words were so earnest that Liang put off leaving for a long time. Then Wang Lian died. In 225, Liang set out for the south himself.

When he left, it is said, one man walked with him for dozens of li (a li is a little over 400 meters) to see him off. It was Ma Su. He was the very man Liu Bei had named on his deathbed. Liang asked him to share a good plan once more, and Ma Su answered:

"In war, attacking hearts is the best way, and attacking cities is the worst. Fighting with hearts is the best, and fighting with soldiers is the worst. Please make them submit in their hearts."

Liang used this plan, and it is said he won over the people of the south.

Ma Su was a man Liang liked. When Liang called him in and began to talk, it would go on from midday into the night.

There is a funny story too. When Qiao Zhou, who later became known as a scholar, met Liang for the first time, all the people around burst out laughing. After the meeting, an official asked to look into who had laughed. Liang said, it is said:

"Even I could not hold it in. How could the people beside me?"

After he became chancellor, Liang sent a notice to his officials.

"If there were someone who followed even a tenth of Xu Yuanzhi's example, or the earnestness of Dong Youzai, and was loyal to the country, my mistakes would be fewer."

The notice went on. In the past, Cui Zhouping had often told him what was good and bad about himself. Later Xu Yuanzhi had often taught and advised him. Liang said that he was foolish by nature and could not take in everything, but he had stayed on good terms to the end with the people who told him hard things.

Xu Yuanzhi was Xu Shu. The names of those two who had believed in the young Liang were right here.

In 227, Liang went to Hanzhong to attack the northern state of Wei. Before he left, he handed the young emperor a letter. It later came to be called the "Memorial on Leading the Army."

In it, Liang wrote about himself like this:

"I was a commoner without rank or post, plowing my own fields in Nanyang. In troubled times, I only wished to keep my life going, and did not look for the lords to know my name."

This was the young man who used to compare himself to Guan Zhong.

Then, calling the dead Liu Bei the "late emperor," he went on:

"The late emperor did not treat me as a low man. Honoring me far more than I deserved, he lowered himself, visited me three times in my thatched hut, and asked me about the affairs of the age. I was moved by this, and promised to run about for the late emperor."

The letter went on.

"The late emperor knew that I am careful, and before he died he entrusted me with the great task. Since then I have worried and sighed morning and night. I fear that I will fail to do what was entrusted to me, and so hurt the late emperor's good judgment."

If he failed in what was entrusted to him, it would mean the late emperor's eye for choosing Liang had been wrong. Perhaps that was why Liang took everything on himself.

The letter ended like this:

"I cannot hold back my feeling for the favor I received. Now, about to go far away, I face this memorial and tears pour out, and I do not even know what I am saying."

An Eye for People

In the spring of 228, Liang sent his army north to Qishan.

It began well. The army's ranks were in order, rewards and punishments were strict, and orders were clear. Three districts that had been under Wei turned against Wei and joined Liang. Guanzhong, the key to Wei's western defense, shook with fear.

While he had his army in the north, Liang heard news of his old friends who had gone over to Wei, it is said. Xu Shu and another fellow student were not used much in Wei. Liang sighed:

"Does Wei have so many able men? Why are those two not put to use?"

The emperor of Wei came out as far as Chang'an and had the famous general Zhang He hold off Liang.

Who would lead the front?

The army had old generals like Wei Yan. Everyone who gave an opinion said they should lead the vanguard.

Going against everyone's opinion, Liang chose Ma Su. He gave him a large army and put him in front.

It was the same Ma Su about whom the late emperor had said, "Do not use him for great things."

Ma Su and Zhang He clashed at Jieting.

Ma Su went against Liang's orders, moved wrongly, and was badly beaten by Zhang He. His soldiers scattered.

With nothing left to advance from, Liang pulled his army back to Hanzhong.

This story later became widely known through the saying "Weeping, he cut down Ma Su." But the records do not agree on how Ma Su died.

Liang's biography says, "He executed Su and apologized to everyone." Ma Su's biography says, "Su was sent to prison and died there. Liang shed tears for him." Ma Su was thirty-nine, nine years younger than Liang. In the biography of Xiang Lang, a friend of Ma Su, it even says that Ma Su ran away, and that Liang resented Xiang Lang, who knew about it and did not report it, and removed him from office.

Ma Su left a letter for Liang before he died, it is said.

"My lord, you looked on me like a son. I looked on you like a father."

The letter cited a story of a holy king of old who punished a father who had committed a crime and then raised up his son, and it ended like this:

"Please do not let the friendship of this whole life be spoiled here. If you do that, even if I die, I will hold no grudge in the world beyond."

At that time, it is said, a hundred thousand soldiers wept for Ma Su. Liang himself attended the memorial service, and treated the children Ma Su left behind just as he had when Ma Su was alive, it is said.

After a while, Jiang Wan came to Hanzhong. He was the man who had once been drunk and left his work, and had been nearly killed by Liu Bei, until Liang saved him.

Jiang Wan said, it is said:

"The land is not yet settled. Is it not a pity to kill a man of wisdom?"

Liang answered in tears:

"The reason Sun Wu could win in all the land was that he used the law clearly. The land is divided, and the fighting has only just begun. If we throw away the law again here, how will we beat the rebels?"

Sun Wu was a general of long ago, known for his book on war.

A man once saved from the law was sorry that the law had killed a man, and the man who had saved him was talking about the law in tears.

Liang sent a letter to the emperor.

"The failure at Jieting, where orders were disobeyed, and the mistake at Jigu, where I was careless in preparing, are all the fault of a minister who gave out his tasks wrongly. I have no eye for people, and I am dim in thinking things through. Please let me lower my own rank by three steps, to answer for this fault."

I have no eye for people.

The man who in his youth had compared himself to a great minister had written that, with his own hand.

To those who urged him to add soldiers and try again, he answered, it is said:

"We had a larger army than the enemy at both Qishan and Jigu. We could not beat them, and they beat us. So the sickness is not in too few soldiers. It is in one man."

"From now on, anyone who cares about the country, please just earnestly point out my faults."

Liang's rank went down from chancellor to General of the Right.

But the records go on. He still did the chancellor's work in his place and ran everything, as before.

His rank went down three steps. The work he carried did not shrink by even one piece.

And After Him?

In 231, Liang again laid siege to Qishan.

The man in charge of bringing the army's food from the rear was Li Ping. He was the other minister who had been entrusted, along with Liang, with what came after Liu Bei's death.

Long rains kept falling, and the food could not get through. Li Ping sent a messenger to tell Liang to turn back. Liang followed this and withdrew his army.

But when Li Ping heard the army had withdrawn, he pretended to be surprised and said:

"There is plenty of food. Why are they coming back?"

He was trying to escape the blame for his own failure, and to make it look as though Liang had stopped the advance.

Liang brought out all the letters Li Ping had sent him, before and after, and showed them. The contradictions in what he had said were plain. Li Ping was left without words, admitted his fault, and apologized.

Li Ping lost his rank and was reduced to a commoner.

After that, Liang wrote a letter to Li Ping's son.

"I have worked with you and your father to help the house of Han. The gods know this, not only people."

The letter asked the son to comfort his father, and said that if he changed his heart there might still be a way to get back to where he was. It ended like this:

"Facing this letter, I sigh for a long time, and only shed tears."

The one who punished was Liang. The one who wept was also Liang.

There were other ministers Liang punished. Liao Li thought his own talent was second only to Liang's, and spoke ill of the ministers around him and even of the late emperor. Liang went to the emperor, took away Liao Li's rank, and moved him to far-off Wenshan.

There was another worry in the camp.

The fierce general Wei Yan asked, each time they marched out, to be given ten thousand soldiers. He wanted to take a different road from Liang's and meet him farther ahead. Liang did not allow it. Wei Yan called Liang a coward and complained that his talent was never fully used.

Wei Yan and Yang Yi, who was very good at his work, got on terribly. Liang valued Yang Yi's talent and relied on Wei Yan's courage. He always regretted their quarrel, but he could not bear to throw either one away, Chen Shou writes.

In the spring of 234, Liang marched out for the last time. He set up camp at Wuzhang Plains and faced Sima Yi of Wei across the south of the Wei River.

Liang always worried that the food would run out and his goal would not be reached. So he split his army and had them farm. The farming soldiers mixed with the people living by the Wei River, but the people lived in peace, and the soldiers did not do as they pleased.

The man who had plowed fields in his youth had his men plow fields in his last camp too.

At the time of this march, Liang wrote a letter to his older brother, who served the state of Wu.

"Zhan is already eight years old. He is clever and dear. But I worry that he is maturing too early, and may not grow into a man of great capacity."

He was the son born to Liang late in life, when he had no children.

Once a messenger from Liang came to Sima Yi across the lines. What Sima Yi asked about was not the war. He asked how Liang slept and ate, and how busy his work was, it is said.

The messenger answered:

"Lord Zhuge gets up early in the morning and goes to bed late at night. He judges all punishments of twenty strokes or more himself. He eats less than a few sheng (a small measure) of food a day."

Sima Yi said:

"Liang will die soon."

When Liang's illness grew worse, the emperor in Chengdu sent a minister named Li Fu to visit him. It was to consult him about the country's future.

Li Fu heard his words and said goodbye, but after a few days, it is said, he suddenly turned his horse and came back. Liang said:

"I know why you came back. The answer to what you want to ask is Gongyan."

Gongyan was Jiang Wan. He was the man who had been nearly killed for being drunk, and whom Liang had once saved.

Li Fu asked more. After Jiang Wan, who could take the post?

"Wenwei can follow him."

Wenwei was the courtesy name of Fei Yi.

Li Fu asked who would come after that.

Liang did not answer.

That year, in the eighth month of the lunar calendar, Liang died in the camp of illness. He was fifty-four.

In the later story, Liang lights lamps for seven stars and prays to extend his life, and dies when the prayer fails. Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms says only: "In the eighth month of that year, Liang fell ill and died in the army."

His will was short. Bury him on Dingjun Mountain in Hanzhong. Make the mountain itself the grave, and let the mound be just big enough for the coffin. Dress him in his everyday clothes, and put no objects in.

In Chengdu he had eight hundred mulberry trees and fifteen qing (a unit of land area) of poor fields. That was enough for his family to live on. He would leave no extra property when he died. It was just as he had written to the emperor before.

After the army pulled out, Sima Yi walked around the ruins of Liang's camp and said:

"A genius of the land."

On the way back, Wei Yan and Yang Yi began to fight. Each accused the other of treason to the emperor, and in a single day urgent messages came one after another. Wei Yan lost and ran, and his head was cut off.

They were the two men whom Liang had been unable to throw away.

When Li Ping heard of Liang's death, he fell ill and died. He had always hoped that Liang would one day restore him to his old place. Those who came after could not do that. That was what he had always thought, Chen Shou explains.

In Wenshan, Liao Li, who was farming with his wife and children, wept and sighed when he heard of Liang's death.

"I will end as a man who wears his robe folded to the left."

Wearing the robe folded to the left was the way of the foreign peoples far from the capital. The day he would return to the capital would never come. Perhaps that was what he thought.

The men he had punished were weeping.

People in many places asked to build a shrine for Liang. But the court refused, saying it did not fit the rules.

Season after season, it is said, people held offerings for Liang by the roadside, though it was not publicly allowed.

"You can go and see this man. But you cannot summon him to come to you."

For the man who had come to visit him three times, that young man kept running for more than twenty years.

The people who held offerings for Liang by the roadside had not been summoned by anyone to come either.