laughed and exulted that he would soon have Zhu Ge-liang’s head.
“On the morning of the third day the fog lay on the river so thick that it was as if the sun had lost its power, and so dense that a man standing at the stern of a ship could not see the bow.
“Zhu Ge-liang was at the riverbank early. He smiled to himself. He ordered the men to tie the boats together, stem to stern, and they set out onto the broad swift Yang-ze. The twenty boats made a long line as the crew rowed upstream through the fog, towards Cao Cao’s camp.
“By noon, Zhu Ge-liang’s ships were opposite Cao Cao’s camp. The noise and the din of the thousands upon thousands of soldiers told Zhu Ge-liang he had arrived, for even at noonday the sun did not penetrate the heavy fog. Zhu Ge-liang ordered the ships to form a line, bows to the west, sterns to the east. Then he told the crew to beat on their drums and shout to make as much noise as a navy a thousand times as strong.”
The old storyteller paused and his hand returned to his knee as the instruments made some dramatic plunks and bangs and whines. I looked around the smoky room. Every face was turned to the old man who was sitting there in old-fashioned clothes, telling a story that was written more than six hundred years ago and which described events that had taken place eleven hundred years before that. The old man sat still as a stone, looking off into nowhere. This must have been the way people were entertained in the days when almost no one could read. I was tryingto decide if this was better than TV when one of those wrinkled hands rose like a bird off a thin black knee and began to move gracefully in the air.
“In the camp of Cao Cao, half-a-million strong, the soldiers heard the pounding of the drums out in the river and the clamour of voices rolling out of the fog. Quickly they sent an urgent message to Cao Cao.
“Cao Cao was wary. He thought that Sun Quan was using the fog as cover for a full attack. He gave orders. Thousands of bowmen rushed to line up along the riverbank several ranks deep with their braced longbows and metre-long arrows. The riverbank seemed to bristle with cocked arrows as the archers awaited to order to shoot.
“Soon the air sang with the twang of bowstrings and the hiss of flying arrows as rank after rank of bowmen loosed their shafts and the fog above the river rained bamboo arrows onto the ships. The arrows pierced the cloth walls, struck the straw men, and stuck there, or buried their points fast into the ships’ hulls. When the ships and straw men were thick with arrows, Zhu Ge-liang ordered the crew to turn the boats around.
“As the line of boats turned in the current and took up the new position, the fog thinned enough for Cao Cao to make out the shapes of the ships. He redoubled his efforts. Out on the broad swift Yangt-ze the pounding of the drums kept up, the shouts of the crew continued, and the arrowsskimmed through the fog towards those ships, seeking the enemy who were not there.
“In the late afternoon, the fog began to thin further when a breeze from the west sprang up. Zhu Ge-liang ordered the boats to withdraw downstream, but not until the whole crew shouted in unison, “Thank you for lending us your arrows, Cao Cao. You can be sure we will return them soon!”
Boing, boing, boing, crash, crash, tick, tick, tock, tock
. The old wrinkled hands returned to the thin black knees as the men at the tables around Lao Xu and me laughed and nodded, lit up fresh cigarettes and began to talk again. Most of them ignored the musicians and the storyteller as the old men left the dais and filed slowly out of the room.
I was trying to decide whether I liked that story better than the Long March and I decided that I did. I’m not sure why. Maybe simply because it was older — about 1,700 years older!
I think it was at that moment that I
really
understood how long Chinese history stretched back, and how many wars there had been. Sun
“On the morning of the third day the fog lay on the river so thick that it was as if the sun had lost its power, and so dense that a man standing at the stern of a ship could not see the bow.
“Zhu Ge-liang was at the riverbank early. He smiled to himself. He ordered the men to tie the boats together, stem to stern, and they set out onto the broad swift Yang-ze. The twenty boats made a long line as the crew rowed upstream through the fog, towards Cao Cao’s camp.
“By noon, Zhu Ge-liang’s ships were opposite Cao Cao’s camp. The noise and the din of the thousands upon thousands of soldiers told Zhu Ge-liang he had arrived, for even at noonday the sun did not penetrate the heavy fog. Zhu Ge-liang ordered the ships to form a line, bows to the west, sterns to the east. Then he told the crew to beat on their drums and shout to make as much noise as a navy a thousand times as strong.”
The old storyteller paused and his hand returned to his knee as the instruments made some dramatic plunks and bangs and whines. I looked around the smoky room. Every face was turned to the old man who was sitting there in old-fashioned clothes, telling a story that was written more than six hundred years ago and which described events that had taken place eleven hundred years before that. The old man sat still as a stone, looking off into nowhere. This must have been the way people were entertained in the days when almost no one could read. I was tryingto decide if this was better than TV when one of those wrinkled hands rose like a bird off a thin black knee and began to move gracefully in the air.
“In the camp of Cao Cao, half-a-million strong, the soldiers heard the pounding of the drums out in the river and the clamour of voices rolling out of the fog. Quickly they sent an urgent message to Cao Cao.
“Cao Cao was wary. He thought that Sun Quan was using the fog as cover for a full attack. He gave orders. Thousands of bowmen rushed to line up along the riverbank several ranks deep with their braced longbows and metre-long arrows. The riverbank seemed to bristle with cocked arrows as the archers awaited to order to shoot.
“Soon the air sang with the twang of bowstrings and the hiss of flying arrows as rank after rank of bowmen loosed their shafts and the fog above the river rained bamboo arrows onto the ships. The arrows pierced the cloth walls, struck the straw men, and stuck there, or buried their points fast into the ships’ hulls. When the ships and straw men were thick with arrows, Zhu Ge-liang ordered the crew to turn the boats around.
“As the line of boats turned in the current and took up the new position, the fog thinned enough for Cao Cao to make out the shapes of the ships. He redoubled his efforts. Out on the broad swift Yangt-ze the pounding of the drums kept up, the shouts of the crew continued, and the arrowsskimmed through the fog towards those ships, seeking the enemy who were not there.
“In the late afternoon, the fog began to thin further when a breeze from the west sprang up. Zhu Ge-liang ordered the boats to withdraw downstream, but not until the whole crew shouted in unison, “Thank you for lending us your arrows, Cao Cao. You can be sure we will return them soon!”
Boing, boing, boing, crash, crash, tick, tick, tock, tock
. The old wrinkled hands returned to the thin black knees as the men at the tables around Lao Xu and me laughed and nodded, lit up fresh cigarettes and began to talk again. Most of them ignored the musicians and the storyteller as the old men left the dais and filed slowly out of the room.
I was trying to decide whether I liked that story better than the Long March and I decided that I did. I’m not sure why. Maybe simply because it was older — about 1,700 years older!
I think it was at that moment that I
really
understood how long Chinese history stretched back, and how many wars there had been. Sun
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