Zhige Liang A godlike prophet
3 min readThe Three Kingdoms Period（220-280 AD）is known for having produced a number of legendary figures in Chinese history.Among them，Zhuge Liang，prime minister of theKingdom of Shu Han（221-263 AD），was undisputedly the most popular.
Zhuge，known as a great strategist，statesman，scholar and inventor，appears in numerous Chinese folk stories，novels，poems and plays.Today，most Chinese people know about him from such artistic creations，particularly from”The Romance of the Three Kingdoms，”one of the most famous Chinese nov-els.
Zhuge was born in today’s Yi’nan County in Shandong Province.Both of his parents died before he was eight years old.He and his brothers and sisters were all raised by his uncle Zhuge Xuan. After his uncle died when he was 16, Zhuge Liang lived on his own.
Later, he chose to live in seclusion in a place called Longzhong in today’s Hubei Province in central China. He farmed during the day and studied at night. His close friends knew that he was not only a well-learned scholar, but also a brilliant strategist who had a unique insight into current state affairs. They often called him by his nickname, the”Crouching Dragon.”
In 207 AD, on the strong recommendation of Zhuge’s close friends, Liu Bei,a descendant of the royal family of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) and later the founder of the Kingdom of Shu Han (221-263 AD), visited Zhuge three times, inviting him to be his political and military advisor and helphim fulfill his ambition of unifying the country and restoring the Han Dynasty.
After accepting Liu’s invitation, Zhuge had an in-depth discussion with the future emperor on the current political and military situation in the country and laid out his grand plan for conquering the other two major powers at that time, namelythe Kingdom of Wei (220-265 AD) in the north and the King-dom of Wu(222-280AD) in the east. This discussion was later described in novels and plays as the famous”Longzhong Dia-logue.”
Zhuge helped Liu through a number of thorny situations and eventually helped him establish the Kingdom of Shu Han in 221 AD. Liu then named him prime minister. And after Liudied in 223 AD, Zhuge served his son, the second emperor of Shu Han, both as the prime minister and the regent of the kingdom.
Zhuge’s well-known success on the battlefield included “borrowing”100,000 arrows overnight from the enemy by plying straw boats in front of the enemy troops in thick fog and single-handedly fending off a large invading enemy army by playing a zither on top of the gate of an empty city.
He also successfully called in the eastwardly winds to help win the famous Battle of Red Cliffs, in which Zhuge forged an alliance with Wu to defeat the powerful troops of Wei.
In order to improve the weapons of his troops and up-grade logistic work, Zhuge invented the so-called “wooden ox and flowing horse,”a type of wheelbarrow that could effectiv-ely transport grain and equipment in mountainous areas. He also reinvented the crossbow and turned it into a semi-au-tomatic weapon that could shoot farther and faster.
However, in late 234 AD, during his last northern expedi-tion to battle the troops of Wei, Zhuge fell seriously ill and eventually died in a military camp at the age of 53.
Nearly 2,000 years have passed since his death and he is still widely revered by Chinese people. And above all, he is remembered as an erudite scholar and godlike prophet who knew everything that had happened in the past 500 years and could predict what was going to occur in the coming 500 years.
