The Origin of the Story of Changbanpo and Two Types of Pingshu

Chang­ban­po Site in Dan­gyang Dis­trict, Yichang City, Hubei Province
Watch online:Yuan Kuocheng’s sto­ry­telling seg­ment from “Romance of the Three King­doms” titled “Zhang Yide Drinks and Breaks the Chang­ban Bridge”

   
The sto­ry of “Chang­ban­po” is record­ed in his­tor­i­cal books, but most of the details were added by lat­er nov­els and sto­ry­telling.
   
The most excit­ing parts of this sto­ry are twofold: first, Zhao Zilong of Chang­shan charg­ing into Cao Cao’s army and retriev­ing Adou sev­en times; and sec­ond, Zhang Yide of Yan, sin­gle-hand­ed­ly repelling Cao Cao’s mil­lion-strong army with his spear and horse. Is this real­ly so mirac­u­lous?
   
The Biog­ra­phy of Zhang Fei in the Records of the Three King­doms reads as fol­lows:
   
After Liu Biao’s death, Cao Gong entered Jingzhou, and the First Lord fled south. Cao Gong pur­sued him for a day and a night, even­tu­al­ly reach­ing Chang­ban in Dan­gyang. Upon hear­ing Cao Gong’s troops were approach­ing, the First Lord aban­doned his wife and chil­dren and fled, send­ing Fei with twen­ty cav­al­ry­men to hold off the rear. Stand­ing atop a bro­ken bridge, Fei, glar­ing, held his spear in hand and declared, “I am Zhang Yide. Come and fight to the death!” None of the ene­my dared approach, and the First Lord escaped.
   
Although the words are few, the majesty is vivid. Zhang Fei led 20 men to scare off Cao’s troops, which seems to be a true sto­ry. Whether or not he also scared Xia Hou­jie to death is not impor­tant. There is also a cor­re­spond­ing sen­tence in “The Biog­ra­phy of Zhao Yun”:
   
When the First Lord was pur­sued by Cao Gong at Chang­ban in Dan­gyang, he aban­doned his wife and chil­dren and fled south. Yun per­son­al­ly held the young son, who was the Lat­er Lord, and pro­tect­ed Lady Gan, who was the Lat­er Lord’s moth­er, and they all escaped dan­ger.
   
The man Zhao Yun res­cued was Liu Chan, son of Liu Bei and Lady Gan. Lady Gan died of ill­ness while Liu Bei was in con­trol of Jingzhou, but before he could even take con­trol of Xichuan. Liu Bei then mar­ried Princess Sun Shangx­i­ang. The Romance of the Three King­doms empha­sizes that Liu Bei val­ued Lady Gan the most, and there­fore placed high hopes on A Dou.
   
Lat­er nov­els, sto­ry­telling, and dra­mas all men­tioned anoth­er Mrs. Mi, espe­cial­ly the sto­ry of her jump­ing into the well, which is the most shock­ing and trag­ic scene. This should prob­a­bly be clas­si­fied as artis­tic pro­cess­ing by lat­er gen­er­a­tions.
   
The Romance of the Three King­doms tells this sto­ry in Chap­ters 41 and 42. I have select­ed a sec­tion relat­ed to Chang­ban Bridge for your review:

  
Zhang Fei refused to lis­ten and led over twen­ty rid­ers to Chang­ban Bridge. See­ing a forest­ed area east of the bridge, he devised a plan: he instruct­ed his twen­ty-odd rid­ers to cut down branch­es, tie them to their hors­es’ tails, and gal­lop back and forth through the woods, kick­ing up a cloud of dust to con­fuse the ene­my. Zhang Fei him­self, how­ev­er, stood on the bridge, his spear in hand, and gazed west­ward.

    …
   
Zhao Yun escaped and head­ed towards Chang­ban Bridge when he heard a loud shout from behind. It was Wen Pin lead­ing his troops. Zhao Yun arrived at the bridge, exhaust­ed. See­ing Zhang Fei stand­ing on his horse with his spear point­ed, Zhao Yun shout­ed, “Yide, help me!” Zhang Fei replied, “Zilong, hur­ry up! I’ll take on the pur­suers myself.”

    …
   
Wen Pin led his troops in pur­suit of Zhao Yun to Chang­ban Bridge. They saw Zhang Fei, his whiskers erect, eyes wide open, his spear in hand, stand­ing on the bridge. He saw a cloud of dust ris­ing from the woods east of the bridge, sus­pect­ing an ambush. He reined in his hors­es, not dar­ing to approach. Soon, Cao Ren, Li Dian, Xia­hou Dun, Xia­hou Yuan, Le Jin, Zhang Liao, Zhang He, Xu Chu, and oth­ers arrived. See­ing Zhang Fei stand­ing on the bridge with his glar­ing eyes and spear in hand, they feared it was Zhuge Kong­ming’s plan and dared not approach. They set up their posi­tions in a line on the west side of the bridge and sent a mes­sen­ger to report to Cao Cao. Upon hear­ing this, Cao Cao quick­ly mount­ed his horse and retreat­ed from the bat­tle line. Zhang Fei, eyes wide open, could vague­ly dis­cern the blue silk umbrel­las, hal­berds, and ban­ners of the rear guard approach­ing. He guessed that Cao Cao, sus­pi­cious, had come in per­son. Zhang Fei roared, “I am Zhang Yide of Yan! Who dares to fight me to the death?” His voice was like thun­der, and the Cao army trem­bled in fear. Cao Cao hur­ried­ly ordered his umbrel­la to be removed, and look­ing back at his left and right, he said, “I once heard Yun­chang say: Yide can take the head of a gen­er­al in a mil­lion-strong army as eas­i­ly as tak­ing some­thing from a bag. When we meet today, we must not under­es­ti­mate the ene­my.” Before he fin­ished speak­ing, Zhang Fei opened his eyes and shout­ed again, “Zhang Yide of Yan is here! Who dares to fight to the death?” See­ing Zhang Fei’s courage, Cao Cao was quite tempt­ed to retreat. See­ing that Cao Cao’s rear army had moved, Fei raised his spear and shout­ed again, “You don’t want to fight, and you don’t want to retreat, why!” Before the shout­ing end­ed, Xia­hou Jie beside Cao Cao was so fright­ened that his liv­er and gall­blad­der were shat­tered that he fell off his horse. Cao then turned his horse and ran away. So all the gen­er­als of the army ran west­ward togeth­er. It is exact­ly:

   
How can a young child hear the sound of thun­der? How can a sick wood­cut­ter hear the roar of tigers and leop­ards?
   
Count­less peo­ple threw away their guns and hel­mets at once. Peo­ple surged like a tide and hors­es like a land­slide, tram­pling on each oth­er. Lat­er gen­er­a­tions wrote a poem in praise of them:
   
At the Chang­ban Bridge, a mur­der­ous aura rose. With a roar like thun­der, he sin­gle-hand­ed­ly drove back a mil­lion Cao Cao sol­diers.

    
The nov­el Romance of the Three King­doms is very well writ­ten, with con­cise lan­guage, just like a his­to­ri­an who was very fru­gal with words, but there was no spare time to “add fuel to the fire” where nec­es­sary, so it is as fun to read as a sto­ry­telling.
   
How­ev­er, the Three King­doms sto­ry­telling remains the most enter­tain­ing. It’s arguably the most clas­sic long-form sto­ry­telling to have sur­vived to this day, with writ­ten records dat­ing back to the North­ern Song Dynasty. Of course, dif­fer­ent dynas­ties, dif­fer­ent places, and even dif­fer­ent sto­ry­telling artists have inter­pret­ed the Three King­doms in dif­fer­ent ways.
   
Of all the Three King­doms sto­ry­telling avail­able today, I believe Mr. Yuan Kuocheng’s is the best, and per­haps even the best of his own inter­pre­ta­tions. He con­sult­ed exten­sive sources for this sto­ry, apply­ing the rig­or­ous approach of a schol­ar. Con­se­quent­ly, his work boasts a rig­or­ous inter­nal log­ic and few omis­sions. His fre­quent paus­es to com­ment on the char­ac­ters of the Three King­doms, from the nov­el to his­tor­i­cal sources, quot­ing from clas­sic texts, and adding the sto­ry­teller’s reflec­tions on life and his­tor­i­cal events, are tru­ly cap­ti­vat­ing. I pon­dered how this kind of sto­ry­telling tran­scends the ordi­nary sto­ry­telling of ordi­nary folk artists, bring­ing to mind Liu Jingt­ing and his mas­ter, Mo Houguang, the renowned schol­ar-sto­ry­teller.
   
But then again, Yuan Kuocheng’s sto­ry­telling is all about show­ing off his knowl­edge, so few peo­ple would lis­ten. The essence of his style lies in the folk sto­ry­telling art, with its inter­est­ing spo­ken lan­guage, detailed char­ac­ter por­tray­als, and elab­o­rate events. If you don’t believe me, just lis­ten to the “Chang­ban Bridge” sec­tion. It basi­cal­ly fol­lows the plot of “Romance of the Three King­doms,” but the nov­el­’s 600 words become a long para­graph when told by the sto­ry­teller, and it’s much more enter­tain­ing. Even chil­dren love it:

   
Watch online:Yuan Kuocheng’s sto­ry­telling seg­ment from “Romance of the Three King­doms” titled “Zhang Yide Drinks and Breaks the Chang­ban Bridge”

   
Next, I found anoth­er book: “The Three King­doms” by Zhang Guo­liang, a mas­ter of Suzhou sto­ry­telling. Orig­i­nal­ly, sto­ry­telling flour­ished in Yangzhou. The Jiang­nan region was orig­i­nal­ly called “pinghua.” Lat­er, as the north­ern region gained pop­u­lar­i­ty, it sur­passed the Jiang­nan region, so the term “ping­shu” is now com­mon­ly used. Here’s a pas­sage (it’s quite long, so bear with me) from Zhang Guo­liang’s sto­ry­line “The Three King­doms,” which shares the same sto­ry. You can com­pare it with Yuan Kuocheng’s pre­vi­ous pas­sage:

   
By then, Zhang Fei could see Cao Cao’s army, boom­ing with artillery fire, march­ing towards Chang­ban Bridge. He thought, “Should I leave?” No! If I leave, Cao Cao will seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty and pur­sue me, leav­ing Big Broth­er no time to escape. If I don’t leave, I’ll just have to do what Zilong did: charge into the camp and slaugh­ter them, dri­ving them back while I run for­ward to pro­tect Big Broth­er, which would allow me to escape fur­ther. But that would­n’t work either. First, my most impor­tant task is to hold the bridge. What if I charge and they cross it, Big Broth­er won’t even know, and that would put him in even greater dan­ger? Sec­ond, Zhao Yun stormed the camp to res­cue the mis­tress and the young lady, a des­per­ate charge forced upon him. Now, as long as we hold this bridge, there’s no need to fight. We need to devise a two-pronged strat­e­gy: defend the bridge while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly repelling Cao’s mil­lion-strong army. Zhang Fei thought, “When I was on my own at the Fancheng sus­pen­sion bridge, I had a hun­dred sol­diers and a dozen tree stumps with me, ready to use my tac­tics. Now I have noth­ing, and I’m com­plete­ly help­less.” Cao Cao’s army was get­ting clos­er and clos­er. What should we do? — “Oh, this is dif­fi­cult.”

   
When the Third Gen­er­al was get­ting anx­ious, he heard some­one call­ing him, “Third Gen­er­al, Third Gen­er­al.”

   
Zhang Fei looked up and saw a squad of twen­ty-five cav­al­ry­men charg­ing towards him. They were his own broth­ers. Zhang Fei won­dered, “My eldest broth­er has been defeat­ed so bad­ly, where did he find such a dis­ci­plined squad of cav­al­ry?” It turned out that this squad had been attacked by the ene­my on a moon­lit night, some of them killed in bat­tle, oth­ers fled. See­ing the ene­my’s supe­ri­or num­bers, they knew they could­n’t defeat the ene­my with few­er men, so they took shel­ter in Bal­ing Vil­lage. They wait­ed until today to search for the Emper­or’s uncle’s main force. See­ing a riv­er block­ing their way, they searched along the river­bank for a bridge. They found it, and they also spot­ted Zhang Fei on it.

   
When Zhang Fei saw a group of cav­al­ry com­ing, he came up with a plan and shout­ed, “Come on!” to them.

   
“What are your orders, Gen­er­al Three?”

   
“Lis­ten, Cao Cao is com­ing from the front…”

   
“Then, Gen­er­al Three, let’s leave quick­ly.”

   
Zhang Fei: “You must under­stand that my elder broth­er is over there in the woods. If we hur­ry, we will be pur­sued by the old ban­dits.”

   
“Then, Gen­er­al, what if you don’t leave?”

   
“Lao Zhang planned to scare off Cao’s sol­diers before leav­ing.”

   
The sol­dier did­n’t under­stand what he meant and asked, “Then, Gen­er­al, how did you scare off Cao’s troops?”

   
“Old Zhang is using a trick!”

   
“Will the three gen­er­als use a trick?”

   
“Old Zhang has always been cun­ning.”

   
Zhang Fei was about to boast again. The sol­dier won­dered what trick he was going to use to scare off a mil­lion Cao sol­diers. He was prob­a­bly think­ing of his teacher, Mr. Zhuge Liang, and could­n’t think of one right away. So he asked, “Gen­er­al, what’s your plan?”

   
Zhang Fei imme­di­ate­ly ordered them to cross the bridge and go to a small woods two miles away. Each per­son had to break off a branch. The branch should not be too long or too short, as it would break, and if it was too short, it would be use­less. They had to hold on to the end, even if they had to uri­nate or defe­cate, and not dis­mount. If Cao Cao saw through their plan and attacked them, every­one would be killed.

   
Zhang Fei’s plan could indeed be called a good one. He instruct­ed his sol­diers to tie one end of a bro­ken branch to the hors­es’ tails and drag the oth­er, thin­ner branch on the ground, like a small broom. Then, each sol­dier mount­ed their horse, whip in hand, and gal­loped back and forth through the woods. Twen­ty-five hors­es, one hun­dred horse hooves, and twen­ty-five branch­es drag­ging along the ground—it was late autumn. With these cav­al­ry­men run­ning back and forth, the twen­ty-five branch­es sweep­ing the ground kicked up a cloud of dust that obscured the sky. From Chang­ban Bridge, the view must have been of falling leaves and thick smoke, like a gal­lop­ing army.

   
Zhang Fei fin­ished mak­ing these arrange­ments and told them to pro­ceed imme­di­ate­ly. A sol­dier asked Zhang Fei, “Excuse me, Gen­er­als, what is this plan?”

   
“This is a great plan to scare Cao Cao!”

   
“What’s it called, then?”

   
Zhang Fei thought about it and said, “My teacher always said that Cao Cao was sus­pi­cious through­out his life. This strat­e­gy is called ‘the strat­e­gy of con­fus­ing the ene­my’. Go and pre­pare quick­ly.”

   
The sol­diers imme­di­ate­ly crossed the bridge, walked two miles, and entered the woods. They fol­lowed the three gen­er­als’ instruc­tions, tying branch­es, mount­ing their hors­es, and whip­ping their hors­es. In a short while, the woods were filled with smoke and dust, and fall­en leaves were fly­ing. At first, every­one thought this plan was sim­ple and inter­est­ing, so they were full of ener­gy and rode faster. As time went on, sand and stones came fly­ing over­head, and the air was filled with mud, mak­ing it suf­fo­cat­ing. In the end, every­one was run­ning breath­less­ly and sweat­ing. Every­one knew the three gen­er­als’ tem­pers, so no one dared to dis­mount with­out orders. As they ran, they cursed Zhang Fei: “Short-lived Zhang Fei, you came up with this plan, you will def­i­nite­ly end your descen­dants!”

   
They cursed, “Go back!” and “Run away!” Zhang Fei, stand­ing on the long plank bridge, wait­ed for the cav­al­ry to leave. Soon, he saw thick smoke ris­ing from the grove behind. He thought to him­self, “Zeng Cao, you have a mil­lion-strong army, and I only have twen­ty-five twigs. Let’s have a duel to see who’s stronger.” He braced him­self and wait­ed on the bridge for Cao Cao’s arrival.

   
Zhang Yan’s sol­diers, who had fled back, saw Cao Cao and his large army approach­ing and hur­ried to report, “Report to the Prime Min­is­ter!”

   
“What’s the news?”
    

   
“On the bridge ahead, the black-faced Zhang Fei stands on horse­back, spear drawn, block­ing our path. Gen­er­al Zhang Yan has been stabbed by him. Please let the Prime Min­is­ter decide.”

   
“Is there Zhang Fei block­ing the way on the bridge ahead?”

    “yes!”

   
“Well…” Cao Cao thought, Kong Ming, you first sent the white-faced Zhao Yun to charge my camp for a day and a night, and now you’ve sent the black-faced Zhang Fei to guard the bridge. You’re try­ing to teach me a les­son. What are you up to, Zhuge Liang? I’ve nev­er encoun­tered this kind of fight­ing style before, and it’s com­plete­ly baf­fling. Ever since Cao Cao fell for Zhang Fei’s trick on the Fancheng Bridge, he’d real­ized Zhang Fei was­n’t being fool­ish late­ly. I also heard he’d become Kong Ming’s appren­tice and had learned how to use juice. Be care­ful this time.

   
Although Zhang Fei’s strat­e­gy was poor, it was always adapt­able to Cao Cao. Today’s trick was not too big or too small.

   
Cao Cao ordered the sol­diers to with­draw and the main force to advance. As they neared, he looked up and saw, as expect­ed, the dark-faced Zhang Fei, firm­ly seat­ed on his horse, stand­ing alone at the bridge­head. He ordered the troops to halt. At the sound of can­non fire, the entire force, front and back, halt­ed, swords, spears, and ban­ners falling one after anoth­er.

    “Gen­tle­men!”

    “Prime Min­is­ter!”

   
“Fol­low me and take a look.”

   
“Prime Min­is­ter, please! Prime Min­is­ter, please!”

   
Cao Cao, lead­ing his civ­il and mil­i­tary offi­cials and a hand­ful of atten­dants, rode to the foot of the long plank bridge. Though they were still some dis­tance from Zhang Fei, and unable to reach him for a fight, they could still hear him clear­ly. The prime min­is­ter and his civ­il and mil­i­tary offi­cials mount­ed their hors­es. Cao Cao leaned side­ways on his horse, his eyes glanc­ing at Zhang Fei from behind his tri­an­gu­lar robe. He thought, “We’re old acquain­tances, we’ve dealt with each oth­er often. No intro­duc­tions need­ed.” He raised his hands and bowed to Zhang Fei, “I was won­der­ing who it was on the bridge. It’s Gen­er­al Yide III. I’m hon­ored to meet you. Ha…”

   
Zhang Fei ignored Cao Cao’s greet­ing. I was going to call you Ah Man, so a return of the greet­ing is fine. Today, you defeat­ed my eldest broth­er at Chang­ban­po and left him with no place to hide. My sec­ond sis­ter-in-law also com­mit­ted sui­cide by jump­ing into a well. I wish I could rush down the bridge and kill you imme­di­ate­ly to relieve the hatred in my heart! How­ev­er, in order to defend the bridge today, I have a plan. There is no need to fight you head-on. Whether this plan suc­ceeds or not, I still need your help. If the plan suc­ceeds, you retreat; if it fails, it’s up to you. Any­way, I will defend this bridge to the death, and I am ready to fight you to the death like Zhao Yun. Don’t even think about a sin­gle Cao sol­dier cross­ing the bridge. Zhang Fei changed his mind and cursed Cao Cao under the bridge: “Hey! You old thief under the bridge!”

   
“Ah! You wretch!”

   
Cao Cao, hear­ing Zhang Fei’s rude words, showed no weak­ness and quick­ly respond­ed. “I polite­ly called you ‘Third Gen­er­al,’ show­ing cour­tesy, but instead of return­ing the greet­ing, you called me ‘old thief.’ You’re such a cow­ard! I’m going to kill myself! I won’t both­er with him today. Let me find a way to deal with him.”

   
The three gen­er­als stood on the bridge, fac­ing Cao Cao, their eyes wide with anger. They glanced at the woods on the oth­er side of the bridge, where dust cov­ered the sky and smoke bil­lowed. Great! Cao Cao, I’m invit­ing you to watch a show. “Lis­ten up, old thief! Old Zhang, under the orders of my mil­i­tary advi­sor, has set an ambush and set fire to the woods on the oth­er side of the bridge. We’re going to burn all the troops you brought with you to a crisp, leav­ing no one alive. I’ve been wait­ing for you here for a long time. Come with me! Look over there!” Zhang Fei said, then point­ed toward the bridge.

   
“Fire attack?” Cao Cao was ter­ri­fied when he heard about anoth­er fire attack. Ever since Zhuge Liang appeared, every bat­tle had involved a fire attack. The fires at Bowang and Xinye burned hun­dreds of thou­sands of our troops, and now there’s anoth­er fire attack. I’m real­ly con­fused as to whether it’s real or not. He looked up in the direc­tion Zhang Fei point­ed and said, “Oh my!” He saw “whoosh!” Black smoke bil­lowed in the air, and it seemed as if he could see armies com­ing and going in an end­less stream, just like a thou­sand hors­es gal­lop­ing. “This…” Cao Cao could­n’t real­ly tell the truth, so he asked the civ­il and mil­i­tary offi­cials on both sides: “Gen­tle­men.”

   
“Prime Min­is­ter. Prime Min­is­ter!”

   
“Is there an ambush?”

   
See­ing the thick smoke, the civ­il and mil­i­tary offi­cials were ter­ri­fied. They were also dis­cussing whether there was a fire attack or not. They were not sure. Although Liu Bei was defeat­ed mis­er­ably at Chang­ban­po, most of his gen­er­als had not been seen, and he still had great strength. In par­tic­u­lar, his mil­i­tary advi­sor Zhuge Liang had been nowhere to be seen, and he was elu­sive. Now that we are advanc­ing straight ahead, it is unknown why he has set up a fire attack in the woods ahead. It is also pos­si­ble that Zhang Fei is using the pow­er of the mil­i­tary advi­sor to intim­i­date us and force us to retreat with­out a fight. Every­one heard the Prime Min­is­ter ask­ing, and they had to speak out. If they were wrong, how could we bear the con­se­quences if a mil­lion sol­diers were buried in the sea of fire? They all thought to them­selves, “Prime Min­is­ter, you are also very smart. It is up to you to decide whether there is a fire or not.” So they all said, “Ah! Prime Min­is­ter, I am incom­pe­tent…” “I am incom­pe­tent…” “Please see for your­self, Prime Min­is­ter.”

   
Cao Cao also knew that it was dif­fi­cult to pre­dict the out­come at the moment, so he gave up the dis­cus­sion. Xu Shu, who was stand­ing near­by, knew at a glance that Zhang Fei’s plan was a lie. Zhao Yun had res­cued A Dou from the camp. If Liu Bei had gone far away, Zhang Fei would not be able to stop him here. Liu Bei must be right across the way, or not far away yet. So Zhang Fei came up with a trick to deceive Cao Cao and then with­draw with Liu Bei. Xu Shu thought of this, rode his horse to Cao Cao, and cupped his hand: “Prime Min­is­ter, in my opin­ion, if the Prime Min­is­ter crossed the bridge and the fire start­ed, it must have been a fire attack. If the Prime Min­is­ter did not cross the bridge and the fire did not start, then there was no fire attack.”

   
Cao Cao looked at Xu Shu and thought, “You’re the most elo­quent speak­er, but you’ve been talk­ing for so long it’s as if you haven’t said any­thing. It seems you’re also unsure, so you have to say this.”

   
Cao Cao pon­dered it again and under­stood. Fire or not, Liu Bei was over there. To ensure Liu Bei’s safe escape, Kong Ming had Zhang Fei ambush him there. But was there a fire or not? Remem­ber when Xia­hou Dun’s troops entered Bowang­po and were caught in a fire, their entire army of 100,000 men was anni­hi­lat­ed. Zhang Liao led 100,000 troops to attack Quewei Moun­tain three times, claim­ing there was a fire, but it turned out to be just a scare tac­tic. Lat­er, when his troops entered Xinye, a mas­sive fire con­sumed all 100,000 sol­diers. The last time I per­son­al­ly vis­it­ed Fancheng, I met Zhang Fei. He said there was a fire attack, and I believed him, but it turned out to be false. Today’s… Cao Cao was ter­ri­fied at the thought. If fire attacks fol­low this pat­tern, then today’s should be a real fire attack.

   
Are there any rules for fight­ing war? If Zhuge Liang’s mil­i­tary tac­tics were mere­ly so sim­ple, how could he have helped Liu Bei con­quer three king­doms? It’s no won­der Cao Cao was afraid of Kong Ming. For decades, he had con­sis­tent­ly won bat­tles, pos­sess­ing his own set of strate­gies and tac­tics. Sud­den­ly, with the recent series of fires and set­backs, he still could­n’t com­plete­ly destroy Liu Bei. Fur­ther­more, Kong Ming pos­sessed a wealth of tal­ent, the abil­i­ty to gov­ern a nation, and pos­sessed the Six Strate­gies and Three Strate­gies, as well as a deep under­stand­ing of astron­o­my and geog­ra­phy. While he was no mediocre per­son, he was ulti­mate­ly infe­ri­or to him. So, Cao Cao became obsessed with this.

   
Since it’s a real fire attack, then retreat. Cao Cao did­n’t want to, fear­ing that oth­ers would laugh at him. Then he thought again, and he got it! Let me charge your troops onto your bridge? It seemed like I had seen through the trap and was just bluff­ing to test him. If it’s a real fire attack, Zhang Fei will sure­ly be hap­py when my troops charge, think­ing I’ve fall­en for a trick. See­ing you hap­py, I’ll retreat: If the fire attack is fake, see­ing my 830,000 troops charg­ing, you are a brave man after all, not a cow­ard, so you will have to show your true col­ors. Wait until then, I’ll take advan­tage of the sit­u­a­tion and charge. Right. Cao Cao imme­di­ate­ly ordered: “Come! Charge for­ward with the boss!”

   
Cao Cao, hold­ing the com­mand flag in his left hand, flicked his right robe sleeve for­ward, sig­nal­ing a false charge. Though fake, the dis­play was pow­er­ful. The gen­er­als pre­pared their weapons, long and short, with their heads in a tan­gle, and opened the four gates. Swords and spears had been low­ered, but in an instant, from front to back, swords, spears, and ban­ners were raised high. The cav­al­ry­men pulled their hors­es, and they raised their heads and neighed, ready to charge.

   
The infantry pre­pared to march. It was just then: horns blew, drums beat, can­nons roared, and a cho­rus of cries, “Charge!” It was earth-shak­ing and deaf­en­ing. Cao Cao stood beneath the bridge, observ­ing Zhang Fei intent­ly.

   
Although it was a feint, the impos­ing pres­ence of a mil­lion-strong army was over­whelm­ing. Zhang Fei believed Cao Cao had seen through his plan: but how? He thought, per­haps a branch had fall­en from the tail of one of the cav­al­ry­men in the woods, or per­haps one of them had dis­mount­ed to relieve him­self, allow­ing Cao Cao to see through them; or per­haps the shout­ing of Cao’s sol­diers had fright­ened them, reveal­ing their weak­ness. If they rushed across the bridge, my broth­er, his wife, the civ­il and mil­i­tary offi­cers would be cap­tured in one fell swoop. Zilong would be exhaust­ed from fight­ing and unable to resist. How could I bear to watch my eldest broth­er’s utter destruc­tion? If you, Cao Cao, were to charge the bridge, I, Zhang Fei, would not flee. I would sim­ply charge down and anni­hi­late you, leav­ing you com­plete­ly defeat­ed. Zhang Fei’s brows were furi­ous, his beard erect, his hair and whiskers stand­ing tall, his awe-inspir­ing face intim­i­dat­ing the ene­my. Zhang Fei also made a ges­ture ready to charge down: If you don’t come up, I won’t go down either. After all, Zhang Fei was alone, with­out any­one to cheer him on. So he held the Wen Ba Snake Spear in his hand and roared, “Wow…!” like a tiger’s roar and a drag­on’s roar, and imme­di­ate­ly the birds fell to the ground and the beasts stum­bled.

   
Zhang Fei him­self had not yet real­ized the pow­er of the shout. He saw Xia Hou­jie, Cao Cao’s nephew, stand­ing beside him. He was not very skilled and was hold­ing a Ruyi crutch on his horse. He was so fright­ened by Zhang Fei’s roar that his heart and courage shat­tered. His mount was not a vet­er­an of the bat­tle­field, so when it heard the beast-like roar, its horse’s butt lift­ed up and with a back sheep­skin, Xia Hou­jie fell off the horse and rolled right in front of Cao Cao’s horse. Although Cao Cao’s horse was not bad, it was very ner­vous when it heard the shout, with its ears erect. Sud­den­ly, some­thing rolled at its feet. It was so star­tled that it tried to tight­en its hoof, but when it put it down, it stepped on Xia Hou­jie’s chest, killing him on the spot. Cao Cao was watch­ing Zhang Fei’s expres­sion close­ly. When he heard Zhang Fei’s cry, he felt the front hoof of his horse move. He looked down and saw that his nephew was dead. He lost his com­po­sure and shout­ed, “Ah!”

   
All the gen­er­als were ter­ri­fied by Zhang Fei’s heart-wrench­ing cry, and they were instant­ly remind­ed of an inci­dent from years ear­li­er: Guan Yu had behead­ed the renowned Hebei gen­er­al Yan Liang at White Horse Slope. Upon return­ing to camp, Cao Cao lav­ish­ly praised Guan Yu’s prowess. Guan Yu then retort­ed, “Although I am a capa­ble gen­er­al, I am no match for my third broth­er.” Cao Cao inquired, “How capa­ble is your broth­er?” Guan Yu replied, “My third broth­er’s roar increas­es his strength by a thou­sand pounds. In a host of mil­lions, he can take a gen­er­al’s head as eas­i­ly as tak­ing some­thing from a bag.” Cao Cao had instruct­ed every­one to lis­ten care­ful­ly and nev­er for­get, and he had writ­ten these words on his bat­tle robe. Hear­ing this cry, every­one shud­dered with fear. If he charged, we would be no match for him, let alone pro­tect you, the Prime Min­is­ter. Hear­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s cry of “Ah!”, every­one mis­un­der­stood Cao Cao’s fear and tried to escape. See­ing this, his men imme­di­ate­ly cir­cled Cao Cao’s horse, prepar­ing to flee. See­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s horse move, the civ­il and mil­i­tary offi­cials took it as an order and seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-mount their hors­es. Sud­den­ly, a scram­ble ensued, with weapons pierc­ing the hors­es’ but­tocks. Cao Cao’s sil­ver-maned horse, struck by the weapons, sprang for­ward, dart­ing for­ward. Thus, the rear guard became the front, the front the rear, and the army retreat­ed in chaos, with the front and rear swarm­ing in the pro­ces­sion.

   
Xu Shu was secret­ly delight­ed. As he fled, he took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to threat­en Cao Cao: “Prime Min­is­ter! Prime Min­is­ter, this is bad! Zhang Fei is catch­ing up with us!”

   
“Ouch!” Cao Cao ran away in a hur­ry.

   
At this moment, Zhang Fei him­self was stunned: Why would Cao Cao’s mil­lion-strong army retreat? Zhang Fei had nev­er roared like this before on the bat­tle­field, and today, when he did, he had­n’t real­ized how much of an impact it would have. Sud­den­ly, as if awak­ened from a dream, he real­ized: Oh! Cao’s troops had been fright­ened away by me. A sin­gle roar could have thrown Cao Cao’s mil­lion-strong army into dis­ar­ray! In fact, it was­n’t just a mil­lion Cao sol­diers that were fright­ened away; even the east­ward-flow­ing Chang­ban Riv­er was stopped by Zhang Fei’s shout, rolling west­ward. Hence the say­ing “drink­ing water caus­es it to flow back­wards.” Just how pow­er­ful was Zhang Fei’s roar? Ancients praised it: “By the Chang­ban Bridge, mur­der­ous intent ris­es, spears drawn, hors­es fixed, eyes wide open. A sin­gle roar, like thun­der, sin­gle-hand­ed­ly dri­ves back Cao Cao’s mil­lion-strong army.” These words are enough to pon­der. It’s clear how pow­er­ful it was!

   
This sto­ry­telling is rich­ly spiced, and while cer­tain­ly enter­tain­ing, it’s cer­tain­ly not bad. How­ev­er, the log­ic and causal rela­tion­ships are so tan­gled that they seem a bit chaot­ic. This sec­tion, in par­tic­u­lar, focus­es on the hero­ism of the char­ac­ters and the tense atmos­phere of the scene. The exces­sive use of gags and jokes makes it seem glib, pet­ty, and lack­ing in mas­culin­i­ty. Of course, this asso­ci­a­tion is based sole­ly on the text, with­out the sto­ry­teller’s voice, so it’s not enough to make a defin­i­tive assess­ment.