Page:Romance of the Three Kingdoms - tr. Brewitt-Taylor - Volume 1.djvu/124



t was one Mi Chu who said he knew how to defeat Ts‘ao Ts‘ao utterly. He came of a wealthy family of merchants trading in Loyang. One day travelling homeward from that city in a carriage he met an exquisitely beautiful lady trudging along the road, who asked him to let her ride. He stopped and yielded his place to her. She invited him to share the seat with her. He mounted, but sat rigidly upright never even glancing in her direction. They travelled thus for some miles when she thanked him and alighted. Just as she left she said, “I am the embodied spirit of the Southern Heat. I am on my way to execute a decree of the Supreme to burn your dwelling, but your extreme courtesy has so deeply touched me that I now warn you. Hasten homeward, remove your valuables for I must arrive to-night.”

Thereupon she disappeared. Mi Chu hastily finished his journey and as soon as he arrived moved everything out of his house. Sure enough that night a fire started in the kitchen and involved the whole house. After this he devoted his wealth to relieving the poor and comforting the afflicted. T‘ao Ch‘ien gave him the office he then held.

The plan he proposed was this. “I will go to Pohai and beg K‘ung Jung to help; another should go to Ch‘ingchow on a similar mission, and if the armies of these two places march on our enemy he will certainly retire.”

The Prefect accepted the plan and wrote letters. He asked for a volunteer to go to Ch‘ingchow and a certain Ch‘ên Têng offered himself and, after he had left, Mi Chu was formally entrusted with the mission to the north. Meanwhile they would hold the city as they could.

This K‘ung was a native of Ch‘üfou in the old state of Lü, one of the twentieth generation in descent from the great Teacher Confucius. He had been noted as a very intelligent lad, somewhat precocious. When ten years old he had gone to see Li Ying, the Governor, but the doorkeeper demurred to letting him in. But when he said, “I am Minister Li’s intimate friend,” he was admitted. Li asked him what relations had existed between their families that might justify the term intimate. The boy replied, “Of old my ancestor (K‘ung)