I just read through the Battle of Red Cliff in the Three Kingdoms.
So basically Cao Cao has rolled his massive troops down to the big rivery place and gotten these two Southerner Generals to train his troops to use boats and stuff. On the other side is Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, who are incredibly cunning military geniuses that hate and try to kill each other constantly. So first of all, Cao Cao tries to subvert Zhou Yu by sending an old friend to his house to convince him to switch sides. This guy is welcomed heartily by Zhou Yu and they drink and crash in Zhou Yu's tent. The old friend discovers a letter while the other guy is passed out written by the two Southerner Generals, saying how they want to defect and betray Cao Cao. When the old friend returns Cao Cao is enraged and beheads the generals, only then realizing Zhou Yu had planned this shit all along. Cao Cao had basically screwed over his military tactics.
Meanwhile, Zhou Yu says to Zhuge Liang "I'm the commander, and I say go and gather a few thousand arrows in ten days."
"Do I get any supplies to make them or money to buy them?"
"Nope."
"Okay, then I can do it in three days."
Zhou Yu laughs at this, but then Zhuge Liang does absolutely nothing for two days. Then on the third day, he gets a bunch of boats, wraps them in straw and fabric, gets the boatmen to float up the river, make some noise around the enemy camp, and then happily floats back to his base with the boats covered in arrows sticking out of the straw bundles and shit, thanking Cao Cao for the free arrows as he goes.
So then Cao Cao is pissed, but then he gets two captains in his armies, relatives of the guys he had executed, and pays them with money to go and fake-defect to the enemy. Of course, Zhou Yu an Zhuge Liang suspect this. They then meet with one of their most loyal and longest-serving commanders, and plan for him to speak out at them during the next battle planning session. He does, and Zhou Yu has him beaten for it. Then, his other commanders voice their misgivings about the beatings in a tent, when the two spys from Cao Cao walk in and mention to them that they're spies. Next time Cao Cao sees them, their heads are on sticks outside the base.
Finally, Cao Cao accepts a message of defection from the commander that was beaten, but also sends the old friend of Zhou Yu to try and scope out what's going on. Zhou Yu then condemns the guy and sends him away with an armed escort to this inn "for his own protection", but there he runs into one of Zhou Yu's commanders, the brilliant strategist Tong who expresses his disappointment and disgust at the way Zhou Yu runs an army. So the old friend convinces Tong to come along with him to Cao Cao's base. There, Cao Cao heaps gifts on Tong and offers to spare his people. Tong gratefully accepts this offer and tells Cao Cao how he can compensate for his ground-pounding soldiers' lack of military training simply by connecting his boats with rope and iron chains as well as wooden planks. The river is calm enough that this wouldn't affect the boats, and his soldiers would have a larger, more stable platform to fight on. Cao Cao happily accepts this and sends Tong back to make sure the plan isn't leaked. He then drinks his guts out with his much larger army.
The next day as Cao Cao's massive fleet comes down the river, Zhuge Liang casts a spell that changes the wind, allowing Zhou Yu's boats to rocket down the river and shoot flaming arrows into the ships. Tong never betrayed Zhou Yu, the advice of joining the ships meant that the fire would literally spread over every damn ship in the fleet.
Cao Cao suffered a grievous defeat, and Zhuge Liang got away without getting killed by Zhou Yu.
Fuck Yeah.
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Ah, we are high school boys,
the miserable high school boys.
If we were girls, we could get popular by doing anything:
rock band, jazz band,
karate, kendo, mahjong, cyborg, synchronized swimming...
On the other hand, high school boys are
useless outside battle and sports anime.
But they're recklessly trying to make a slice-of-life anime about us.
Ah, we are high school boys,
the miserable high school boys.
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