Comments on: Three visits to rule them all (Part I) https://talesacrossthesea.net/33/one-recruiting-feat-to-rule-them-all-the-most-famous-three-visits-ever-to-a-straw-cottage-part-i-the-context/ 海外奇谈　　　Good Vibrations, Better Translations: Fun Chinese Stuff in English　　　海外奇谈 Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:28:57 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.41 By: Lara https://talesacrossthesea.net/33/one-recruiting-feat-to-rule-them-all-the-most-famous-three-visits-ever-to-a-straw-cottage-part-i-the-context/comment-page-1/#comment-80 Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:58:07 +0000 http://talesacrossthesea.net/?p=33#comment-80 As we’ve worked on this chapter of Three Kingdoms to produce our podcast, I’ve grown much fonder of two characters. One is the comic relief of Zhuge Liang’s boy servant, who is always blunt, accurate, and completely unhelpful to Liu Bei when the latter is trying to figure out if Zhuge Liang is at home. This kid keeps him on tenterhooks, by never referring directly to his master by name, but only by title: the master, the elder master, my young master. One of these is often in the straw cottage, but is never Zhuge Liang – it’s his younger brother or father-in-law, all of whom are masters to this poor kid. Every time Liu hears that a master is home, he falls for it and hopes it’s Liang, but no go in this chapter.

The other person I like more is Liu Bei himself, and for the reasons Mei outlined in her commentary. He’s all set to see Zhuge Liang, and when thwarted, he doesn’t storm off as Zhang Fei would like to, or simply turn back home as Guan Yu advocates, but starts up conversations with the two scholars in the tavern, Zhuge’s younger brother Jin, Zhuge’s father-in-law, the passing scholar Cui Zhoping who just happens across his path….Of course he’s travelled a long way and has nothing else to do to pass the time – no pressing engagements for this small-potatoes warlord wannabe! But more importantly he’s interested in people (at least male people) and really wants to hear their stories.

Maybe that’s what attracts Zhuge Liang, finally – not only interest in others, but the fact that Bei listens (a rare quality); perhaps Crouching Dragon realizes that with this guy as his leader his plans will actually be followed, not ignored or overridden (as Cao Cao does his advisors’ plans) or made to compete against other advisors’ tactics. As we see in the Battle of Red Cliffs, Liu Bei owes his victory to his complete obedience to his advisor, which probably no other warlord would have given Zhuge Liang.

Anyone with a boss would love to work for Liu, too – to have a boss trust that you know what you’re doing, no second-guessing or backstabbing or pitting one coworker against another.

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