Zhuge Liang

When speaking of loyalty, Chinese people naturally think of Yue Fei, a Song dynasty general, who served his country with unreserved integrity and loyalty.

They also think of Zhuge Liang, prime minister of the Shu state during the Three Kingdoms period, who gave his all until his heart stopped beating.

Traditional Chinese culture's eulogy of loyalty and righteousness has been fully elaborated in these authors' colorful stories.

Taoism emphasizes truthfulness, Buddhism emphasizes compassion, and Confucianism values loyalty, tolerance, benevolence, and righteousness.

Accomplishing it lies with heaven.

Zhuge Liang.

A few days ago, I wrote about companies that lose money to win a market.

Those companies were playing poker.

Sometimes survival meant faking a deadly illness, other times it meant staring down a vast army with nothing but nerve and an unshakable bluff.

Would you believe me if I told you that a battle could be won by doing absolutely nothing and one of the most impressive military tactics of all time was also the laziest? Well, back in the 3rd century AD, a Chinese general called Zhuge Liang was defending the Shuhan Kingdom against the two rival kingdoms of Wei and Dongwu.

Liang had sent his large army to a faraway camp on a mission whilst he stayed behind in a town with only a hundred soldiers.

But surprisingly, the enemy sprung a surprise attack on the town, advancing with an army of 150,000 men.

Chiang had teased him at the time.

How did it compare to Zhuge Liang's legendary Eight Trigrams Formation? Now, here was a Heavenly Furnace.

If this battle went well, there'd be no living with the man's boasting.

But a willingness to think hard about the fight was, after all, the first virtue of a commander.

Many of them had their eyes half open, half closed.

We knew their hearts were still troubled, unwilling to close their eyes in peace.

Back home in Sichuan, there is a memorial hall for Zhuge Liang, the great military strategist of the ancient kingdom of Shu, and a line of poetry that every Sichuanese knows.

Before his campaign could triumph, he died.

Think you're better than me? Think you can do that? Just hit that button.

Kongming.

[buzzing]

Yes.

Oh, [laughs] oh, my bad.

I'm in already.

Kongming of the Party People.

[buzzing]

they might have but i don't really know these live action extras yeah

none of us are connected to the japanese drama scene so you knowing the name or not is not going to make a huge impact on us I just hope that the costume design is better than the period designs in Ya Boy Kongming.

Because Kongming's outfit was just a tragedy.

Caitlin, it looked like a bedspread.

They put this man in a robe made out of a