[Three Kingdoms 365 · Day 171] What Cao Cao Shot, Cao Cao Lost — Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang put Cao Cao’s ten-hundred-thousand arrows to use

When the twenty boats reached the southern main body, the fog had at last fully lifted. The surface of the river glittered under the first thread of sunlight. Kongming (孔明) and Lu Su (魯肅) disembarked. Zhou Yu (周瑜) looked from the wharf upon the arrows embedded in the twenty boats.

Both sides of the boats were fully laden with arrows. The straw was covered over with the gray of the arrowheads. Zhou Yu first had the arrows on one boat counted. It was a little over five thousand. He had the second, third, and fourth boats counted in turn. A number near five thousand repeated on every boat.

When counting the sum of the twenty, Zhou Yu had his men divide them into five bundles, four boats each. Each of the five bundles held around twenty thousand.

"Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand."

Zhou Yu read out the numbers. Five times twenty thousand came together to one hundred thousand. It was a number that had crossed the figure of the promise at a stroke.

Zhou Yu closed his fan. Then he bowed his head deeply before Kongming. The depth of yesterday morning's signature had been paid this morning, in a single heap of one hundred thousand arrows. A second short smile passed at the corner of Zhou Yu's mouth. If yesterday morning's smile had been the exposure of intent, this morning's smile was the acknowledgement of the depth of a single move.

"Sir. The dawn of your three-day promise has been completed this morning. One hundred thousand arrows have been well delivered before this commander's navy. The meaning of your line, 'the price of borrowing is paid by the giver,' has this morning been loosed before this commander's two eyes."

Kongming lowered his fan.

"Commander. This scholar's one move is a move folded upon one step of the Commander's. Without yesterday morning's erasure of the two names of Cai Mao (蔡瑁) and Zhang Yun (張允), this morning's decision of Cao Cao (曹操) to take the 'second road' would not have been made. This morning's one hundred thousand arrows are a single move made where the Commander's step and this scholar's step met at one river's dawn."

Zhou Yu's smile lasted a little longer this time. Upon the long layer of wariness, one layer of acknowledgement settled thicker. Yet beneath those two layers, last evening's "single resolve of one who does not lose," at the riverside, was still sitting firmly. This morning's move was not a move lost to Kongming, but a move won together with Kongming.

Zhou Yu raised his hand.

"Have the chief archers of the navy gather at this seat this afternoon. The one hundred thousand arrows shall be divided among the twenty archer squads. The single target of each squad's three-day training will be placed upon this morning's heap of arrows."

The subordinates bowed their heads. The one hundred thousand arrows were carried off as the ground of Commander Zhou's three-day navy training to come.

Meanwhile, at Cao Cao's camp to the north, the morning sunlight lit one face of the river. It was the hour at which the fog had at last fully lifted. Cao Cao stepped out before the door of the main tent and looked upon that face of the river.

Upon the surface of the river, Jiangdong's (江東) twenty boats had already vanished to the south. The fate of the tens of thousands of arrows that must be embedded in the straw of those boats was calculated quickly inside Cao Cao's head. Upon his face, one layer of realization settled. The arrows shot into the fog had now been piled, as a single heap, upon one hand on the opposite bank.

A deep sigh escaped at the corner of Cao Cao's mouth. That yesterday morning's erasure of Cai Mao and Zhang Yun and this morning's shooting into the fog had been two steps of one single calculation — Cao Cao understood it only now.

"Zhou Yu and one scholar beside him have borrowed away a heap of my arrows. Those who made me lay down the two pillars of my navy yesterday are, this morning, making one training ground of their own navy from my very arrows."

Cao Cao's two eyes looked long upon that face of the river. The sound of the river's water flowed, this morning again, at the same pace from north to south. The direction of the wind was still from north to south. Yet upon Cao Cao's shoulder, this morning's weight settled one layer thicker than before.

Lu Su, beside Kongming, looked toward the direction of Cao Cao's tent on the opposite bank.

"Sir. Cao Cao lost, and greatly, this morning. And Jiangdong gained, and greatly, this morning."

Kongming lowered his fan once more.

"Lu Sir. What Cao Cao shot is what Cao Cao lost. This morning, Cao Cao has lost more than if he had shot nothing at all. Yet this scholar's move is not ended this morning; it begins from here. This morning's one hundred thousand arrows are one step in the long preparation reaching all the way to the single wind of the single dawn of Red Cliffs (赤壁)."

The eleventh morning of Book 6 opened quietly upon a heap of one hundred thousand arrows. What Cao Cao shot was what Cao Cao lost. It was a morning on which the two moves of Zhou Yu and Kongming of Jiangdong had folded upon one river's dawn. The price of the one hour the fog had lent was paid in one layer of weight upon the north.

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