Zhang Fei Was Not Only a Loud Voice — The Reading at Work behind the Voice

From Chapters 42, 63, and 70 of Romance of the Three Kingdoms

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Zhang Fei Was Not Only a Loud Voice

The Contrivance at Changban Bridge

The Three Shouts

After Breaking the Bridge

The Stratagem That Captured Yan Yan

Untying the Ropes

A Standoff of Fifty Days

The Stratagem of Wine

Stratagem Answered with Stratagem

The Difference from the Historical Record

Conclusion

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Zhang Fei Was Not Only a Loud Voice

Speaking of Zhang Fei, his great shout at Changban Bridge is famous. But Zhang Fei was not a man who had fought by the loudness of his voice alone. He read situations, read his opponent's thinking, and moved his opponent exactly as he had read. This time we follow three scenes in which Zhang Fei used his head: the dust cloud on the bridge, the winning over of the veteran general, and the stratagem at the mountain pass.

The Contrivance at Changban Bridge

At the battle of Changban, Liu Bei's army had been defeated and was fleeing. Zhao Yun, holding the infant Adou, broke through the heavy encirclement and reached the bridge. Waiting on the bridge was Zhang Fei. Zilong, hurry. I will take on the pursuers, he said. The force Zhang Fei had was only about twenty horsemen.

Zhang Fei gave those twenty horsemen a task: tie branches to the horses' tails, and ride back and forth behind the woods east of the bridge. The branches dragged along the ground, and a great dust cloud rose. From the opposite bank, it could only look as if a great army were hidden behind the woods.

Wen Pin's army, which had pursued him, stopped in front of the bridge. The figure of Zhang Fei alone, and the dust cloud behind him. Suspecting an ambush, they could not approach.

The Three Shouts

Zhang Fei had halted his horse alone in the middle of the bridge. With a tiger's bristling whiskers and eyes opened round, he held his serpent spear across. In time, famed Cao generals such as Cao Ren and Zhang Liao assembled before the bridge one after another. Yet none advanced. They feared there might be one of Kongming's stratagems.

At last Cao Cao himself appeared from behind the lines, his canopy raised. Zhang Fei, seeing that canopy, read it: Cao Cao suspects something. That is why he has come to see for himself, he thought. Here Zhang Fei loosed his first shout: I am Zhang Yide of Yan. Let anyone who will stake his life come and fight me.

His voice was like thunder, and Cao's army all trembled. Cao Cao said: I have heard it from Guan Yu.

Cao CaoThat man, even amid an army of a million, is a man who takes a general's head.

With his second and third shouts, Zhang Fei pressed on without pause: will you fight, or will you not? Will you withdraw, or will you not? Just then, Xiahou Jie, who was at Cao Cao's side, fell from his horse in terror and died. Cao Cao turned his horse and fled, and Cao's army collapsed westward all at once.

After Breaking the Bridge

Zhang Fei did not pursue. He called back his twenty horsemen and had the branches untied. And after breaking the bridge, he returned to Liu Bei. But Liu Bei's judgment was stern: your courage is courage, but breaking the bridge was a pity. Had you not broken it, Cao Cao would have feared an ambush and been unable to advance, he said.

By breaking it, they would realize his troops were few. Liu Bei had read one move further ahead. Zhang Fei's stratagem had worked. It is only that, in depth of reading, there was still someone above him.

The Stratagem That Captured Yan Yan

The second is the veteran general Yan Yan, in the campaign into the riverlands. Yan Yan was the veteran general defending Ba Commandery; shut up in his town, he would not let Zhang Fei's army approach. It would not fall by force. Here, too, Zhang Fei switched to reading. Zhang Fei deliberately leaked information: tonight, we advance by a small path.

Zhang FeiThe carts will follow behind.

Yan Yan placed an ambush on that small path, positioned to attack the carts after Zhang Fei had passed. When the drums sounded, they would all come out at once — that was the signal on Yan Yan's side. At night, when the line of carts came, the ambush leapt out with the drums. But the Zhang Fei who had passed first was a fake.

The real one was at the rear of the line. Zhang Fei's side's signal was a gong. The gong sounded, and the army gathered from all four directions. Before he could fight Zhang Fei properly, Yan Yan was seized by the joint of his armor and taken alive. Zhang Fei had read even how Yan Yan would come out. He had used, in reverse, the very form of being lured out.

Untying the Ropes

Ba Commandery fell, and Yan Yan was brought bound before Zhang Fei. Yan Yan would not bend his knee. A great general has come — why do you not surrender? When Zhang Fei roared at him, Yan Yan answered back:

Yan YanIn my province there are generals who are beheaded, but no generals who surrender.

Even when Zhang Fei ordered him beheaded, Yan Yan did not change color in the least: if you will behead me, behead me — what is there to be angry about? At that moment, Zhang Fei's anger stopped dead. Zhang Fei came down from his seat, sent the soldiers away, and untied Yan Yan's ropes with his own hands. He had him dressed, seated him in the central seat of honor, bowed his head, and said:

Please forgive my rudeness just now. That the veteran general was a man of heroic spirit, I had known from before, he said. Moved by this treatment, Yan Yan decided to surrender. And he offered this: in return for your kindness, I will guide you as far as Chengdu without drawing a single bow. In fact, the passes ahead opened their gates one after another at Yan Yan's persuasion.

Not beheading a single general had opened the whole army's road ahead.

A Standoff of Fifty Days

The third is the battle with Zhang He over Waguan Pass, at the entrance to Hanzhong. Zhang He had divided 30,000 troops among three forts in the mountains. Zhang Fei clashed with 10,000 troops, and, pinching him with Lei Tong's 5,000, once defeated Zhang He. But Zhang He shut himself in his mountain fort, positioned to drop logs and stones, and would not come out.

However much they showered him with insults, on the mountain he answered by drinking wine. The standoff continued for more than fifty days. Past fifty days, Zhang Fei's side changed. He formed camp in front of the mountain and began drinking wine almost every day. Worried, Liu Bei asked Kongming:

Liu BeiWhat is that drinking about?

Kongming answered with a laugh:

KongmingYide is by nature strong and firm, but he is the man who untied Yan Yan with righteousness.

Drinking after enduring fifty days could be no mere drinking. This was a stratagem to break Zhang He, he said. Kongming had fifty jars of Chengdu's good wine loaded onto three carts and sent into the camp. When the wine arrived, Zhang Fei entrusted the two wings to Wei Yan and Lei Tong, fixed only the signal flag, and began preparing to drink.

The Stratagem of Wine

Drinking wine beneath his tent, he had young soldiers wrestle and watched, laughing. The sight was well visible from atop the mountain. Zhang He, watching from the summit, flew into a rage: Zhang Fei, there is a limit to mockery. That night, Zhang He himself led troops down the mountain. In the lamplit tent, Zhang Fei sat quietly and did not move.

When Zhang He thrust with his spear, it was not a person. It was a figure of bundled straw. Behind the tent, the signal cannon sounded, and the real Zhang Fei leapt out. In the firelight, the two fought thirty or forty bouts. The reinforcements Zhang He awaited on both sides did not come. Wei Yan and Lei Tong were holding them off on the way.

On the mountain, even the fort that had been left behind was taken, and fires rose. Zhang He lost all three forts and fled back to Waguan Pass. His 30,000 troops lost 20,000 in this battle. Liu Bei in Chengdu, hearing the report, said: Yide's drinking was a stratagem.

Liu BeiTo bring Zhang He down from the mountain.

Stratagem Answered with Stratagem

Zhang He, shut up in Waguan Pass, was refused reinforcements and reset his own stratagem: he placed two ambushes in the mountain's shadow, and positioned himself to lose deliberately and draw Zhang Fei in. Lei Tong fell into this ambush and was killed. The next time Zhang He lost deliberately, Zhang Fei did not pursue.

He had seen that it was a stratagem. Zhang Fei said to Wei Yan:

Zhang FeiStratagem shall be answered with stratagem.

The next day, Zhang Fei pretended to pursue and drew the ambush out. Wei Yan's picked troops drove the ambush to the valley mouth, blocked the road with carts loaded with brushwood, and set them alight. The valley was wrapped in smoke, and the ambush could not move. Zhang He was heavily defeated again. Even so, the pass did not fall.

Zhang Fei withdrew the army and went out himself to search for a small path. On a mountain path, he met local people carrying small bundles. Zhang Fei told his soldiers not to frighten them, and from atop his horse politely asked the way. The small path over Zitong Mountain that those people had come by was a road that came out directly behind Waguan Pass.

Zhang Fei took 500 light cavalry and, by that small path, went around behind the pass. Fire rose behind the pass, and Zhang He came out to meet him — and, learning it was Zhang Fei, fled. His horse could no longer advance, and Zhang He abandoned it and escaped by climbing the mountain. When he reached Nanzheng, those at his side numbered only a dozen or so.

The Difference from the Historical Record

Here, let us make the difference from the historical record clear. The scene at Changban Bridge also has a record in the Biography of Zhang Fei in Records of the Three Kingdoms, the historical record: that he guarded the bridge and held his spear across, called out “I am Zhang Yide — let the enemy come and fight to the death,” and that no one could approach. However, the contrivance of branches and dust clouds, the three shouts, and Xiahou Jie's death are embellishments of the Romance.

The scene with Yan Yan also has almost the same story in the historical record. The words of the “beheaded general,” and his untying the ropes and treating him as an honored guest, also remain in the record. The battle of Waguan Pass also has a skeleton in the historical record: that after a standoff of more than fifty days, on a narrow mountain road the front and rear could not help each other, and Zhang He abandoned his horse and escaped by climbing the mountain.

The spectacle of the drinking bout and the straw figure are contrivances the Romance added. In other words, all three stories are divided this way: the core is in the historical record, and the showy contrivances are the Romance.

Conclusion

Zhang Fei's loud voice was not mere intimidation. With dust clouds he made them look like a great army; he untied a veteran general's heart; he turned even a drinking party into a stratagem. He read what his opponent was thinking and what he feared, and moved him accordingly. Zhang Fei was not only a loud voice. Behind the loudness of his voice, a reading was always at work.