Chinese History & Mythology

Sun Quan could not stop thinking about Jingzhou. Zhang Zhao offered a plan and said, “The person Liu Bei relies on most now is Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang’s elder brother, Zhuge Jin, serves in Eastern Wu. First, we can place Zhuge Jin’s family under guard. Then send Zhuge Jin to Western Chuan to meet Zhuge Liang and force him to persuade Liu Bei to return Jingzhou. Just tell Zhuge Liang that if Jingzhou is not returned, Zhuge Jin’s family will not be safe. Zhuge Liang values family loyalty and will surely agree.”

Pang Tong and Fa Zheng continued urging Liu Bei to kill Liu Zhang during the banquet. In their view, Western Shu could then be taken with little effort. But Liu Bei firmly refused. “I have only just arrived in Shu,” he said. “I have not yet earned the people's trust or established my reputation. Such a thing must never be done.” No matter how many times they tried to persuade him, Liu Bei would not agree.

These days, we are so surrounded by ads that we are almost numb to them. You unlock your phone and the first thing you see is a notification. You open a webpage and a pop-up jumps right into the middle of the screen. You scroll through short videos and suddenly one cuts in with, “Friends, you have to buy this.” Even when you just want to sit quietly and listen to some music, before the intro is even over, you can get hit with ads for shampoo, insurance, and during election season, even ninety-second campaign ads. Basically, whatever ads a website wants to throw at you, it just keeps cycling them in front of you. So it is very easy to feel that all of this belongs to the modern commercial world, as if advertising could only exist after factories, assembly lines, neon city lights, television, and the internet came along.

Zhou Yu had been defeated by the three forces of Guan Yu, Huang Zhong, and Wei Yan, which Zhuge Liang had arranged in advance, and Eastern Wu’s navy had also suffered considerable losses. Huang Gai and Han Dang quickly helped Zhou Yu back onto a boat. From a distance, Zhou Yu saw Liu Bei and Lady Sun standing on the mountaintop, watching the battle. Shame and anger surged through him. His arrow wound had not yet healed, and now, with rage attacking his heart, the old injury burst open on the spot. He fainted at once. After the generals revived him, they could only escort him back to Chaisang. Zhuge Liang ordered everyone not to pursue, then returned to Jingzhou with Liu Bei to celebrate and reward the soldiers who had made contributions.

Just as Kongming was about to execute Guan Yun Chang according to military law, Liu Bei quickly stepped forward and pleaded for mercy. He said, “Back when the three of us swore brotherhood in the Peach Garden, we vowed to live and die together. Although Yun Chang has violated military law, I truly cannot bear to break the oath we made in those days. I ask that you record his offense for now and spare his life, so that he may atone for it through future service.” After hearing this, Kongming finally agreed to spare Guan Yu.

 If time could move backward and we turned the clock back to the nineteen eighty, what kind of China would you see?

Now, back to Lu Su. Following Zhou Yu’s orders, he went to visit Kongming on his small boat. The moment Lu Su sat down, Kongming smiled and said, “I was just about to congratulate the Commander.”

Now, when Guan Yu released the waters from upstream, Zhang Fei charged out from downstream and cut straight into Cao Ren’s defeated army. The two sides clashed in fierce battle, and Zhang Fei soon ran into Xu Chu. He immediately lowered his spear and attacked. Xu Chu did not dare stay and fight for long, and quickly forced his way out and fled.

Today, we are going to talk about a steaming hot topic: morning markets and night markets in China. I believe many of you may have this habit. You open YouTube and watch videos about Chinese food. In the past two years, as China’s morning market and night market culture has become more visible, more and more creators on YouTube have started filming videos in different Chinese cities, walking through morning markets and night markets and recording what they see. Most of these videos do not have English explanations. They simply record Chinese street food, crowded streets full of people moving around, and the sounds of vendors calling out to customers. At this moment, many people may ask, “Where is this?” In fact, almost every city in China has a few streets like this. In the morning, people gather on these streets for a certain period of time, and then the crowds slowly disappear. When night falls, the same kind of street life appears again.

Liu Bei successfully recovered Fancheng and comforted the people. The county magistrate Liu Mi held a banquet to welcome him. During the banquet, Liu Bei saw a young man standing nearby. His bearing was impressive, so Liu Bei asked about him. Liu Mi answered, “This is my nephew Kou Feng. He was originally the son of the Kou family of Luohou. His parents died early, so he has been raised here with me.” Liu Bei admired his manner and wanted to take him as an adopted son.