At Mount Dingjun in Hanzhong, the veteran Huang Zhong faces Xiahou Yuan with Fa Zheng beside him. Fa Zheng has him seize the high mountain west of Mount Dingjun first, and says he himself will signal with flags from the summit. When the white flag goes up, do not move, and when the red flag goes up, go down and strike. Xiahou Yuan’s troops surround the mountain and pour out insults until, after noon, they are worn out and sit down off their horses. The red flag goes up, and Huang Zhong charges down the mountain and cuts Xiahou Yuan down with a single stroke.
Cao Cao, who has been staying at Nanzheng with his great army, loses Xiahou Yuan and comes out to the Han River in person. Kongming gives Zhao Yun five hundred men and has them hide below an earthen hill upstream on the Han River. Every night when the cannon sounds, they are to beat drums and blow horns, but not go out to fight. Cao Cao’s troops, taking it for a raid, rush out to find no one there and go back, three nights over.
Cao Cao takes fright and moves his camp thirty li back.
Kongming has Liu Bei camp with the Han River at his back. When battle is joined, the troops of Shu abandon their camp, horses and weapons on the road and flee, and Cao Cao, growing suspicious at the sight, pulls his troops back. Camping with the water behind them is suspicious, and so is throwing away horses and weapons. The moment Cao Cao turns his troops, the troops of Shu pour out from all sides, and having lost Nanzheng too, Cao Cao flees to Yangping Pass. Kongming says that Cao Cao has always been suspicious, so though he handles troops well, he loses often when he doubts. I beat him with troops that sow doubt.
Nothing to eat on them
When Yangping Pass too goes up in flames, Cao Cao falls back to the mouth of the Xie Valley and makes camp. If he advances, Ma Chao blocks the road, and if he withdraws, he fears the troops of Shu will laugh at him. He passes several days unable to make up his mind.
One evening the cook brings him chicken soup. Looking at the chicken ribs in the bowl, Cao Cao is struck by something and falls into thought. Just then Xiahou Dun enters the tent and asks for the night’s password. Cao Cao answers without thinking. Chicken ribs, chicken ribs.
Xiahou Dun tells the commanders that the password tonight is chicken ribs. The army’s registrar Yang Xiu hears the two words and has the soldiers under him pack their things and get ready to go home.
Alarmed, Xiahou Dun sends for Yang Xiu and asks why he is packing. Yang Xiu answers that from tonight’s password he knows the King of Wei will soon withdraw.
雞肋者 食之無味 棄之可惜
ji lei zhe, shi zhi wu wei, qi zhi ke xi
Chicken ribs have no taste when you eat them, yet it seems a pity to throw them away. (Chapter 72)
Yang Xiu goes on. Advancing now cannot win, and withdrawing risks being laughed at, so there is nothing to gain by staying here. Tomorrow the King of Wei will turn back, so I am packing ahead of time to avoid a scramble when we leave. Xiahou Dun says Yang Xiu truly knows the King of Wei’s heart, and packs his own things too. Every commander in the camp gets ready to go home.
The camp at night
That night Cao Cao’s mind is in turmoil and he cannot sleep. He takes up a steel axe and walks around the camp alone. Reaching Xiahou Dun’s camp, he finds the soldiers all packing their things.
Greatly alarmed, Cao Cao summons Xiahou Dun and asks why, and Xiahou Dun says that the registrar Yang Xiu knew ahead of time that the king meant to go home. Cao Cao sends for Yang Xiu and questions him, and Yang Xiu answers with the meaning of chicken ribs.
Cao Cao is furious. How dare you invent rumours and unsettle my army? He has the swordsmen drag Yang Xiu out and behead him, and hangs his head outside the camp gate.
A single character on a gate
Yang Xiu trusted in his talent and held nothing back, and he had brushed against what Cao Cao disliked many times.
Once, when Cao Cao had a garden built, he went to look at it when it was finished. Saying neither good nor bad, he wrote a single character, 活 (alive), on the gate and left. No one understood, but Yang Xiu said that 活 placed inside 門 (gate) makes 闊, the character for wide. The chancellor dislikes the garden gate being too wide. When the gate was rebuilt narrower, Cao Cao was delighted and asked who had understood him. Told it was Yang Xiu, Cao Cao praised him but was deeply wary of him in his heart.
Another time a box of milk pastry came up from the northern frontier. Cao Cao wrote 一合酥, one box of pastry, on the lid and set it on his desk. Yang Xiu came in, saw it, fetched a spoon and shared it out among the people there. When Cao Cao asked why, Yang Xiu answered. Take apart the character 合 (box) and it becomes 人 (person), 一 (one) and 口 (mouth), so you clearly wrote one mouthful for each person, and how could I disobey the chancellor’s order? Cao Cao laughed, but hated him in his heart.
Afraid that someone might secretly harm him, Cao Cao told those around him that he often killed people in his dreams, so they must not come near him while he slept. One day as Cao Cao napped, his blanket fell to the floor and an attendant hurried to cover him. Cao Cao sprang up, cut him down with his sword and went back to sleep.
When he got up much later, he asked in feigned surprise who had killed his attendant, and on hearing the truth he wept and had him buried with honour. Everyone believed that Cao Cao really did kill people in his dreams. Only Yang Xiu, at the funeral, pointed to the coffin and sighed. It was not the chancellor who was dreaming, but you. Hearing this, Cao Cao hated him all the more.
The heir
Cao Cao’s third son, Cao Zhi, admired Yang Xiu’s talent and often talked with him all night. When Cao Cao discussed making Cao Zhi his heir, his eldest son Cao Pi found out. Cao Pi secretly had Wu Zhi hidden in a large chest, passed off as silk, and brought into his house to confer with him. Yang Xiu reported this to Cao Cao, and the next day Cao Pi sent in a chest that really held only silk. Cao Cao instead suspected Yang Xiu of slandering Cao Pi.
To test the abilities of his two sons, Cao Cao told each of them to go out through a gate of Ye, while secretly ordering the gatekeepers not to let them pass. Cao Pi went first, was stopped and came back. When Cao Zhi asked what to do, Yang Xiu said that if anyone blocked a man going out on the king’s orders, he should simply behead him. Cao Zhi beheaded the gatekeeper and went out, and Cao Cao thought Cao Zhi capable. But later, hearing that it was Yang Xiu who had told him what to do, he flew into a rage.
Yang Xiu also wrote out answers in advance, more than ten of them, for questions Cao Cao might ask Cao Zhi. Whenever Cao Cao asked about affairs of state, Cao Zhi answered without a pause, and Cao Cao privately found it strange. When Cao Pi bribed one of Cao Zhi’s attendants and stole the answers, Cao Cao was furious. How dare that wretch deceive me? By then Cao Cao already meant to kill Yang Xiu, and on the night of chicken ribs he borrowed the charge of unsettling the army.
Yang Xiu was thirty-four years old when he died.
Broken teeth
After beheading Yang Xiu, Cao Cao pretends to be angry with Xiahou Dun too, then relents at the commanders’ pleas, and the next day leads his troops out beyond the mouth of the Xie Valley. Wei Yan blocks the road, and in the thick of the fighting fire rises in Cao Cao’s camp. Ma Chao has raided two of his camps.
As Cao Cao watches the battle from his horse on a high mound, a band of men suddenly bursts in front of him. Wei Yan is here! Wei Yan’s arrow strikes Cao Cao in the face, and he tumbles from his horse. As Wei Yan climbs the mound with his blade, Pang De leaps in, drives Wei Yan off and protects Cao Cao.
Back in camp, Cao Cao has two front teeth broken. Only then does he remember Yang Xiu’s words. He has Yang Xiu’s body recovered and buried with honour, and soon orders the army to withdraw. Leaving Pang De to guard the rear, Cao Cao is carried out of the Xie Valley lying in a cart.
From the two words chicken ribs, Yang Xiu read a decision Cao Cao had not yet spoken aloud. He spread that decision among the commanders before Cao Cao did. Cao Cao beheaded Yang Xiu that night, and the next day withdrew his troops just as that decision said.
Have you ever said the right thing at the wrong time and found yourself in trouble for it?