[Three Kingdoms 365 · Day 161] The Hand That Struck the Table — Sun Quan slashes the table with his sword and resolves to resist Cao Cao

It was the dawn of the next day. Sun Quan (孫權) sat again upon the high seat of the hall. The night before had been long. He had held a council with his mother, Lady Wu (吳太夫人). "The decision of a sovereign is made together with the weight of the father's relic blade," she had said. And — "For outside matters, ask Zhou Yu (周瑜); for inside matters, ask Zhang Zhao (張昭)" — this too was a line of her testament.

Zhou Yu had ridden all night from Poyang (鄱陽) and returned to Chaisang (柴桑). He arrived an hour before dawn. Before entering the hall, he held a short council with Sun Quan in a side room. The last line of the council came from Zhou Yu's mouth.

"My lord. Cao Cao's (曹操) million is, in truth, two hundred thousand. Half of that two hundred thousand are soldiers who have never crossed the northern river. At the middle of the river, if a sliver of fire catches, that half will remain merely floating upon the water."

Sun Quan's eyes opened wide. That line matched, almost character for character, what Kongming (孔明) had said yesterday morning.

At dawn, eleven civil officials were already seated in the hall. Behind them, Zhou Yu had newly taken his place. Kongming, who had been waiting in a room outside the hall, entered again under Lu Su's (魯肅) guidance and stood to one side.

Sun Quan's right hand rested upon the table, as it had yesterday morning. The fingertip was a hand's-breadth from the handle of the blade. Yet that breadth, which yesterday had been mere distance, this dawn had become the breadth that held a decision.

A long silence held inside the hall. The eleven gazes, Zhou Yu's gaze, and Kongming's gaze were all gathered upon Sun Quan's right hand. Sun Quan clenched his right hand, quietly. Then he gripped the handle of the blade.

The blade was lifted off the table. Its edge received the first thread of dawn's sunlight. The light flashed upon the tip of the edge. Then the blade struck a corner of the table.

The corner of the table was cut away. The cut piece of wood fell to the floor of the hall with a single sound. In a corner of the hall's floor, the fragment lay quietly.

Sun Quan rose from his seat. He then brought a single line down, large, upon the whole of the hall.

"Zhu jiang li gan fu you yan dang ying Cao zhe, yu ci an tong!"

Any among the generals and officials who should dare again to speak of welcoming Cao Cao will be as this table.

The air inside the hall sank. Of the eleven civil officials, not one opened his mouth again. Zhang Zhao bowed his head first, deeply. The remaining ten followed, each bowing in turn. The stream of lines that had argued for submission fell away together with the fragment of the table upon the floor.

Zhou Yu bowed his head toward Sun Quan.

"My lord. The decision has been made. The preparation of what follows, this man shall take upon himself."

Kongming bowed his head from his side.

"Lord Sun's decision has this dawn completed the seat of the hall. Liu Bei's (劉備) twenty thousand stand, from today, upon your side."

Sun Quan's right hand still held the handle of the blade. That hand settled, quietly, upon the table again. The cut corner still lay upon the floor of the hall. The cut edge of the table now held, and for all time, the trace of the decision.

The depth of that trace was the whole of this dawn's hall.

Dawn's sunlight was now flowing long from the east window of the hall toward the west window. As the light crossed over the cut place of the table, it lit the depth of that cut.

The sixth morning of Book 6 opened quietly upon the striking of a table. The hand of the sovereign of Jiangdong, the hand that would meet Cao Cao's million, had this dawn gripped the blade and struck the table. It was a dawn upon which a sovereign's decision had been made.

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