Zhuge Laing was born in the present day province of Shangdong.
He was reputed to have ancestors that were revered servants of the Han
state, but Zhuge was orphaned at a young age. After being forced
away from Shangdong, Zhuge shacked up in a tiny house near Longzhong province.
From here he learned the classics of Chinese antiquity and socialized with
quite the exclusive crowd of thinkers and renowned men of the age (Hom).
Zhuge kept a close eye on the happenings of the land and was constantly
mulling over plans to right the country where it had fallen into war.
It is at this point in Zhuge's life that Liu Bei makes his third visit
requesting help.
The main reason Zhuge Liang decided to help, deemed Liu Bei a man worthy
to rule a kingdom. Time and again Luo mentions that the people in
the countryside had heard of the victories Liu Bei achieved in his battles.
It is also stated that the people under his domain were well fed and housed
and were sufficiently protected. Zhuge undoubtedly knew all of this,
and could see these attributes during the short time spent with Liu Bei.
During his life in service of the Shu kingdom Zhuge Liang earned himself
a revered place in history for his bravery, his cunning, and his ability
to read others.
 It is also obvious
that Zhuge Liang joins the Shu kingdom because he wants peace. The
first advisory words Zhuge speaks to Liu Bei are a denouncement of Cao
Cao and his grip on the emperor saying that it would only further tear
apart China. Cao Cao, when unable to get what he wanted by diplomacy,
resorted to deceit and force. In the end, he was a danger to China
because he was ruthless in his search for power. The Sun clan in
the Southlands was no different, and they had an incredibly large navy
in order to take whatever they needed. Liu Bei was the only leader
not looking to take over the country. In fact, all he wanted to do
was to restore the Han dynasty, the empire that his ancestor had founded…the
empire that was ruled by an emperor to which he was an uncle. Zhuge
Liang understood that Liu Bei wanted a return to the ways of the first
two centuries of the Han: a peaceful time with unity and prosperity (Luo
129-141).
Zhuge Liang had some specific thoughts on loyalty and warfare.
The essential precept of being a good warrior was to obey your liege lord
at all costs. Zhuge Liang showed his veneration to this ideal by
serving Liu Bei faithfully until his death and even then, Liu Bei asked
Zhuge Liang to take control of the Shu kingdom. While most of the
reason Zhuge served Liu Bei was because he admired his sincerity, he did
not necessarily want Shu to rule. However, with Liu Bei’s death,
Zhuge Liang redoubled his efforts to secure the place of the Shu kingdom
fulfilling his dying lord’s final words. Before initiating the final
string of battles with Cao Cao, Zhuge Liang wrote a letter to Ah Dou, Liu
Bei’s heir and the emperor of the Shu kingdom. This letter shows
the humble Zhuge as only a servant of the late emperor Liu Bei. He
intends to fulfill the task his deceased lord laid upon him from his own
deathbed. In addition, according to Liu Bei’s dying wishes, Zhuge
Liang acts as a servant to Ah Dou even though he is a third of his age.
He respectfully asks to lead a campaign north against Cao Rui (Cao Cao’s
second son and third emperor of the Wei kingdom) or to die in the attempt
(Sui). In some final words, Zhuge adds advice about how to handle
the many different types of people under the Shu banner. It would
have been easy for Zhuge to elevate himself to emperor of the Shu kingdom,
but he chose to remain loyal. In fact, he died on just before his
seventh incursion into Wei territory from exhaustion and old age.
Zhuge Liang was so faithful that he literally worked himself to death trying
to finish Liu Bei’s dream.
In matters of tactics, it is said that no one in history was better
at being able to guess the enemy’s next move. Numerous times Zhuge
Liang divined where the enemy would attack and established an appropriate
defense for it. Even more times he was able to set up an ambush to
scatter the enemy troops before they could set camp. Zhuge Liang
is also known for his use of unconventional warfare. In his first
battle with Shu, Liang used fire in order to defeat Wei forces and not
a single Shu soldier perished. Zhang Fei and Guan Yu were not convinced
that Zhuge Liang, a country peasant not even of thirty years, was fit to
advise military strategy to Lord Liu Bei. This attack removed any
doubt from their minds that Master Zhuge was unfit for the job as after
the Wei troops were routed they ran to Master Zhuge and exclaimed, “He
is a true hero, a champion!” (Luo 163) In all of Shu’s battles proper
deployment of the army was essential for victory since Shu had far fewer
troops than Wei and Wu. In nearly every victory Shu won they were
outnumbered. It was only Zhuge’s battle formations that led to such
victories.
Zhuge Liang was also a master at diplomacy, especially with the
southern Wu kingdom. Cao Cao prepared a man-made lake in order to
train his troops for a southern invasion. Realizing that the extinction
of Wu would leave Shu the sole enemy of Cao Cao, Zhuge went alone to the
Wu kingdom and made a treaty with Sun Quan. To seal the treaty, Master
Zhuge needed to first convince Zhou Yu, Wu’s top military strategist to
fight, not surrender. To do so, he told Zhou Yu that Cao Cao’s underlying
reason for invasion was in order to take Xiao and Da Qiao (renowned in
China as the most beautiful women) back north with him as mistresses.
Zhou Yu, himself married to Xiao Qiao, was enraged and yelled, “Cao, old
traitor, you and I cannot share foot on this earth!” deciding to attack
immediately (Luo 214). Zhuge Liang feigned ignorance and apologized
for upsetting the man. Played like a fiddle, Zhou Yu led the strike
against Cao Cao. When Cao Cao attacked, he thought he was dealing
only with Wu, but Shu reinforcements outflanked Cao Cao’s forces.
Shu’s well-placed ambushes, combined with Wu’s fire attack that left most
of Cao Cao’s navy destroyed, forced Wei to retreat back to secure lands
north of the Yellow River. This was a great victory for the Wu-Shu
alliance, but it was short lived as Zhou Yu, realizing that Zhuge Liang
was too dangerous if not an ally, ordered him murdered. Zhuge was
prepared, however, and made a grand escape from the South.
It was also said that Zhuge Liang could tap into the occult arts
to create unnatural winds and other forces of nature. Just after
it was decided to use fire on Cao Cao’s ships, Zhuge had an altar built
on which he made ritual sacrifices and called up a northern wind (Luo 260-272).
The wind did not blow north in the part of the season they were in, but
for three days a gale sprang up and proved to be the catalyst of Cao Cao’s
most humiliating defeat. Another instance in which Master Zhuge tapped
the occult was on a retreat from the Wu army at Yi Ling. As the Wu
army pursued they happened upon a great stone maze with rocks piled in
various positions. A purplish haze hung above the maze and while
inside of it no one could hear a thing. Lu Xun, the military strategist
who replaced Zhou Yu, entered the maze and was hopelessly lost. In
the end he made it back to the entrance, but the pursuit of Shu was effectively
cut off (Luo 372). Truly a man with such talents as Zhuge Liang had
is revered for a reason.
According to Luo, Master Zhuge had a “sixth sense” in his ability
to read other people’s intentions. A perfect example of this is his
realization that Wei Yan, a great Shu general who joined early in the forging
of the empire, would defect. At his death, he left instructions for
his son and for Liu Bei’s heir on how to deal with this and when the defection
did take place there was no trouble at all dealing with it (Mystique Graphics).
Another example of Master Zhuge’s perception of others can be seen in his
dealings with Guan Yu. Predicting where Cao Cao would retreat after
the battle at Chi Bi, Zhuge assigned every commander with orders except
for Guan Yu. Insulted, he demanded to know why he was given no task.
Master Zhuge, fully realizing that Guan Yu was a man of the utmost honor,
explained that he was uncertain in using him in this battle because Cao
Cao was so generous to him once long ago. He feared that Guan Yu
would allow Cao Cao to escape. Enraged Guan Yu said that was unfounded
and forced Master Zhuge to give him chance saying, “I, Guam, have followed
in elder brother’s wake through long years of war, and have never been
left behind. Today we close with a great enemy, but the director
has given me no assignment!” (Luo 268) Appeased by Guan’s signing
of a legal document accepting full military punishment (death) if he should
allow Cao Cao to pass, Zhuge ordered him to guard the most crucial pass
on the path of Cao Cao’s retreat. Sure enough, when Cao Cao was retreating
and encountered Guan Yu, he was allowed to pass after little smooth talking.
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