Cao Cao asked Cheng Yu, "How does Shan Fu's ability compare with yours?" "Ten times greater," was the reply. "It is most unfortunate," Cao Cao said, "that Xuande is winning the loyalty of worthy and capable men. His wings are fully formed. What can we do?" "Although Shan Fu is with the other side," Cheng Yu said, "if Your Excellency is determined to have him serve you, there is an easy way to do it." "How can we win him over?" Cao Cao asked. "He is devoted to his mother," Cheng Yu replied, "his father having died when he was young. She is all he has. His brother Kang is also dead, so there is no one else to look after her. If you can entice his mother here and induce her to write Shan Fu to join her, he cannot refuse." Cao Cao was delighted with Cheng Yu's advice.
Shan Fu's mother, Madame Xu, was brought to the capital and treated royally. Cao Cao said to her, "They say your excellent son, Yuanzhi, is actually one of the extraordinary talents of the empire. Now he is in Xinye assisting the disobedient subject Liu Bei in his revolt against the court. For so precious a jewel to fall in the muck is truly regrettable. We would prevail upon you to write and call him back to the capital. I will guarantee him before the Emperor, who will reward him amply." Cao Cao ordered writing instruments brought.
"What manner of man is Liu Bei?" the matron asked. "A low-class sort, once based in Xiaopei," Cao Cao replied. "He makes preposterous claims to being an imperial uncle and is utterly without credibility or righteous commitment. He is a perfect example of 'a noble man on the outside, a base man within.'" Madame Xu reacted sharply to this indictment. "You!" she cried harshly. "What fraud and fabrication! I have long known Xuande to be a descendant of Prince Jing of Zhongshan, the great-great-grandson of Emperor Jing the Filial. Xuande is a man who humbles himself before men of ability and treats others with self-effacing respect. And he is renowned for his humanity. Why, callow youths and grey old men, herdsmen and wood-gatherers all know his name. He is one of the true heroes of our age. And if my son serves him, then he has found himself the right master. As for you, though you claim the name of prime minister to the Han, you are in reality a traitor who perversely takes Xuande to be the 'disobedient subject,' and would have my son forsake the light and elect the dark. Where is your shame?"
With that, Madame Xu struck Cao Cao with an inkstone. In a fury Cao Cao ordered armed guards to march the matron out and behead her. But Cheng Yu intervened. "The woman," he said, "antagonized you in order to die. If you kill her, you will earn yourself a vicious name even as you confirm her virtue; and once she is dead, Shan Fu3 will commit himself to assisting Liu Bei avenge his mother. But if you detain her, the son's body will be in one place, his heart in another. That way, even if he remains with Liu Bei, he will not give his utmost. Furthermore, if we keep the woman alive, I think I can induce Shan Fu to come here and serve Your Excellency." Cao Cao concurred and spared the woman.
Madame Xu was held in custody and cared for. Cheng Yu visited her regularly and, pretending he had once sealed a pact of brotherhood with her son, attended her solicitously, as if she were his own mother. Cheng Yu honored her with gifts, always including a personal note, and the matron would answer in her own hand, Having coaxed these samples of her script out of her, Cheng Yu proceeded to imitate it. He then forged a letter and had a henchman carry it to Xinye. A guard brought the messenger to Shan Fu, who, knowing there was a letter from his mother, immediately received him. The messenger said, "I am a house servant. Your mother sent me with this." The letter read:
The recent death of your younger brother has left me with no other kin save you. In the midst of my sorrow and isolation, I never dreamed His Excellency Cao would lure me to the capital to denounce your betrayal and to put me in chains. My life has been spared only through Cheng Yu. If you surrender, I will be saved. When you read this, do not forget the hardships your mother endured to raise you. Come with all speed to fulfill your duty as a filial son. Afterward, we will bide our time until we can go home and tend our garden. That way we will avoid calamity. My life hangs by a thread. You are my sole hope of salvation. Need I implore further?
Tears flooded Shan Fu's eyes as he read the letter. He went to Xuande to acknowledge his identity and explain his intentions. "At the beginning," Shan Fu said, "I went to Governor Liu Biao, impressed by his reputation for welcoming men of learning. But in advising him, I soon discovered how unfit he was. I took my leave by letter, went to the farm of Still Water, and told him all that had happened. He took me to task for not recognizing my true lord, and then urged me to serve you.4 I put on that mad show in the market to attract Your Lordship's interest. I was favored by your gracious invitation and given grave responsibilities. But what am I to do now that my mother has been tricked and taken by Cao and threatened with harm? She has written herself summoning me, and I cannot fail her. It is not that I am loath to toil for Your Lordship to repay your confidence in me, but with my dear mother in his hands I would not be able to give your cause my best. Permit me therefore to announce my departure. Surely we shall find a way to meet again."
Xuande cried out at these words, but then he said, "Mother and son are nature's nearest kin. You need not give further thought to me. I can wait until you have been reunited with your mother for another opportunity to profit from your instruction." Shan Fu prostrated himself in gratitude and begged permission to leave. Xuande prevailed upon him not to leave at once but to remain the night for a final farewell dinner.5
Sun Qian took Xuande aside and said, "This extraordinary genius is thoroughly familiar by now with our military situation. If you let him go, they will use him at the highest level, and we will suffer for it. Try your utmost, my lord, to get him to stay— then Cao Cao will execute his mother, and to avenge her Shan Fu will fight all the more fiercely against Cao Cao." But Xuande replied, "That I cannot do. It would be inhumane to let them kill the mother so that we can use the son. It would be unjust and dishonorable to hold him against his will and keep mother and son apart. I would rather die first." Xuande's firmness moved all who heard of it.
Xuande invited Shan Fu to drink. But Shan Fu said, "Knowing my mother is imprisoned, I could not swallow the most precious potion, the most exquisite liquor." "When you said you were leaving," Xuande declared, "I felt as if I were losing my very hands. The rarest delicacies will seem tasteless to me." The two men faced one another and wept, then they sat down to await the dawn. Xuande's commanders had already arranged the farewell banquet outside the walls of Xinye. Afterward, Xuande and Shan Fu rode out of the city side by side. Reaching a pavilion, they dismounted and prepared to part. Xuande, proposing a last toast, said, "My meagre lot, my paltry destiny keep us from remaining together. I hope you will serve your new master well and gain recognition for your merits."
Weeping freely, Shan Fu said, "Despite my insignificant talent and superficial knowledge, Your Lordship charged me with the gravest responsibilities. Now on my mother's account I have to leave, though our task remains incomplete. But no matter how Cao Cao pressures me, I will not propose a single strategy for him to my dying day." "Once you have gone, master," Xuande said, "I intend to withdraw to the mountain forest." "When I laid plans with Your Lordship for the royal cause," Shan Fu went on, "my meagre intelligence was all I had to count on. But now, because of my mother, I cannot think clearly. Even were I to remain, I would be of no use. My lord would do well to seek elsewhere some high-minded worthy to support and assist you in your great enterprise. You must not lose heart like this."
"Not one of the worthy men of our age," Xuande said, "surpasses you." "How can my useless, commonplace qualities deserve such high praise?" Shan Fu asked. Then, on the verge of parting, Shan Fu turned to the commanders and said, "It is my earnest wish that you all continue to serve our lord well. Leave behind a record of worthy deeds and shun my example of failing to finish what I have begun." The commanders grieved.
Xuande could not bring himself to say good-bye and saw him off one stage farther, then another stage. "You should not take the trouble to escort me so far," Shan F
u said. "Here I bid you farewell." Xuande took Shan Fu's hand. "Now we part," Xuande said, "to go to different worlds.6 Who knows when we may meet again?" Xuande's tears fell like rain. Shan Fu, too, wept as he parted from his lord. Xuande poised his horse at the forest's edge, watching Shan Fu and his attendants race into the woods. "Gone!" Xuande cried. "What will become of me now?" Through blurry eyes he gazed into the distance, but a clump of trees blocked his line of vision. "I want those trees cut down," he shouted, "so I can see Shan Fu once again!"
At that very moment Shan Fu reappeared, whipping his horse to a gallop. "He's coming back! Can he have changed his mind?" Xuande cried and eagerly rode out to meet him. "Good sir," Xuande addressed him, "can it be that you are not leaving after all?" Shan Fu reined in and said, "My emotions were so conflicted, I forgot one thing. There is an extraordinary scholar in this area, in Longzhong, barely twenty li from Xiangyang. Your Lordship should seek him out." "Dare I trouble you to request that he come to see me?" Xuande inquired. "It would not be appropriate to send for him," Shan Fu replied. "Go to him in person, my lord. If you gain his services, it will be like the Zhou dynasty's winning Lü Wang, or the Han's winning Zhang Liang."7
Xuande asked Shan Fu, "Compared to yours, sir, what are his talents like?" "To compare him to someone like me," Shan Fu answered, "would be like comparing the fabled unicorn to a dray, a peafowl to a crow. He is in the habit of likening himself to Guan Zhong and Yue Yi—but he surpasses them in my view,8 for he is perhaps the one man in the empire who can plot the interaction of the heavens and the earth." "I would hear his name," Xuande said. "He is from Yangdu in Langye," Shan Fu replied, "and bears the double surname Zhuge. His given name is Liang; his style, Kongming. He is a descendant of Zhuge Feng, former commander of the Capital Districts. His father, Zhuge Gui styled Zigong), was a governor's deputy in Taishan district. Zhuge Gui died young, leaving Liang in the care of his younger brother Xuan. Zhuge Xuan, Liang's uncle, was a long-standing friend of Liu Biao, protector of Jingzhou. That is why they made their home in Xiangyang, under Liu Biao's protection. After Zhuge Xuan died, Liang and his younger brother Jun worked on the family's farm in Nanyang. Liang enjoyed chanting the Liangfu elegies.9 Where they lived there was a stretch of hills known as Sleeping Dragon Ridge; he took the sobriquet Master Sleeping Dragon from that. His talents are indeed transcendent. Your Lordship, ignore his low estate and visit him—the sooner the better, for if he is willing to assist you, you need have no fear for the stability of the empire."
Xuande said to Shan Fu, "Master Still Water once said to me, 'If either Sleeping Dragon or Young Phoenix will help you, you can reestablish order in the realm.' Could the man you speak of be one of the two?" "Young Phoenix," Shan Fu replied, "is Pang Tong of Xiangyang. Sleeping Dragon is none other than Zhuge Liang—Kongming." In his excitement Xuande leaped up and cried, "Now I know what Still Water meant. These great men are before my very eyes. But for you, I should have remained blind to them." A later poet left these lines commemorating the moment Shan Fu recommended Zhuge Liang:10
To part for aye made Xuande sore with grief.
At road's fork they stopped; in each emotions deep.
A word is dropped, like thunder's boom in spring,
Rousing the dragon sleeping in Nanyang.
Having imparted Kongming's name, Shan Fu once again took leave. Xuande, now awakened to the meaning of Still Water's words, led his men back to Xinye to prepare gifts to take to Kongming in Nanyang.11
On the road, Shan Fu was moved by his lord's love and his unwillingness to say goodbye, but he began to wonder if Kongming would actually be willing to leave the hills and help guide Xuande's course. Before going to Cao Cao, therefore, Shan Fu rode straight to the young recluse in his thatched hut. Kongming asked his purpose in coming. "My wish," Shan Fu said, "was to serve Protector Liu,12 but Cao Cao seized my mother, and she has written summoning me. What choice do I have? I'm on my way to her now. Just before leaving, I recommended you to Xuande; he should be coming to pay his respects. I hope you will not deny him, but will put at his disposal those great abilities you have always shown. It would be a blessing for us all."
Kongming was annoyed. "And you mean to make me the victim of this sacrifice?" he said, and with a flick of his sleeves retired. Shan Fu retreated in embarrassment and resumed his journey. Indeed:
Out of love for his lord, Shan Fu appealed to a friend;
Out of love for his mother, he was homeward bound again.
What would the outcome be?
Read on.
37
Still Water Recommends Another Noted Scholar;
Liu Xuande Pays Three Visits to Zhuge Liang
Riding at breakneck speed, Shan Fu reached the capital. Informed of his arrival, Cao Cao had Xun Wenruo, Cheng Yu, and other advisers greet him at the city gate. From there Shan Fu went to the minsterial residence and paid his respects to Cao Cao. Cao Cao said to him, "How could so noble and enlightened a scholar as you, sir, lower himself to serve Liu Bei?" "In my youth," Shan Fu responded, "I fled my village and drifted through all sorts of places. Chance brought me to Xinye, where I formed a strong friendship with Xuande. But since my mother is here now in your care, I feel overcome with shame and gratitude." "Now that you are here," the prime minister said, "you will be able to tend and care for your honorable mother at dawn and at dusk as ritual prescribes. And I, too, perhaps may benefit from your superior learning." Shan Fu expressed his thanks and withdrew to his mother's chamber.
Shan Fu prostrated himself tearfully before his mother. "What brings you here?" she exclaimed in amazement. "I was in the service of Liu Xuande," he explained, "when your letter came. I rushed here at once." Mother Xu exploded in fury, swearing as she struck the table. "You disgraceful son," she shouted, "flitting hither and thither for so many years. I thought you were finally making progress with your studies. Now you've ended up worse than you started out!1 As a scholar, you should be aware that loyalty and filial devotion may conflict. How could you have failed to see Cao Cao for what he is—a traitor who has abused and ruined his sovereign—while Liu Xuande is widely known for humanity and righteousness? Moreover, he is a scion of the royal house. You had found yourself a proper master, but trusting a forged scrap of paper, which you never bothered to verify, you left the light for the dark and have earned yourself a name beneath contempt. Oh, you utter fool! With what kind of self-respect am I supposed to welcome you, now that you have shamed the spirit of your ancestors and uselessly wasted your own life?"
During his mother's tirade Shan Fu cowered on the ground, hands clasped over his head, not daring to look up. Suddenly, she turned and vanished behind a screen. Moments later a house servant appeared and called out, "The lady has hanged herself from the beams!" Beside himself, Shan Fu rushed to her, but her breath had ceased. Later someone wrote "In Praise of Mother Xu" :2
Mother's Xu's integrity
Will savor for eternity.
She kept her honor free of stain,
A credit to her family's name.
A model lesson for her son,
No grief or hardship would she shun.
An aura like a sacred hill,
Allegiance sprung from depth of will.
For Xuande, words of approbation,
For Cao Cao, utter condemnation.
Boiling oil or scalding water,
Knife or axe could not deter her.
Then, lest Shan Fu shame his forebears,
She joined the ranks of martyred mothers.
In life, her proper designation;
In death, her proper destination.
Mother Xu's integrity Will savor for eternity.
Seeing his mother dead, Shan Fu lay broken on the ground. Much time passed before he recovered. Cao Cao sent him ritual gifts of condolence and personally attended the sacrificial ceremonies. The coffin was interred in the high ground south of the capital. Shan Fu fulfilled the mourning and guarded the grave site. Everything that Cao Cao proffered he declined.
At this time Cao Cao was considering a southern expedition. But Xun Wenruo warned, "Winter is no time for that. After the spring thaw we can make an all-out attack." Cao Cao agreed. He then diverted water from the River Zhang to make a lake for naval training for the attack on the south. The lake was called the Pool of the Dark Tortoise.3
As Liu Xuande was preparing gifts for his visit to Kongming in Longzhong, the arrival was announced of an unusual-looking Taoist with a tall hat and broad sash. "Why, this must be Kongming himself!" Xuande said and attired himself formally to welcome him. It turned out, however, to be Still Water. Delighted, Xuande took him into his private quarters and led him to the seat of honor. Xuande said, "Since leaving your saintly presence, I have been beset by military concerns and thus failed to pay a courtesy call. Now I am honored by this visit, which gratifies my deeply felt longing and admiration." "I had heard," Still Water replied, "that Shan Fu was here and came especially to see him." "He went to the capital," Xuande explained, "in response to an appeal from his mother, whom Cao Cao had jailed."
"So he fell for the ruse!" Still Water said. "Mother Xu is known for her absolute integrity. Even if Cao imprisoned her, she would never agree to call for her son. The letter has got to be a forgery. By not going he could have saved her; his going dooms her." Agitated, Xuande asked for an explanation. "She lives according to the highest ethic," Still Water said, "and would be ashamed for her son." "As he was leaving," Xuande said, "he recommended Zhuge Kongming of Nanyang. What do you know about him?" "If Shan Fu had to leave, he had to leave," Still Water replied. "But why did he have to drag Kongming into this to sweat out his heart's blood?" "What do you mean by that, good master?" Xuande asked.
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