Chapter 102- Kongming‘s Wooden-Ox Flowing Horse Invention Tricked and D...

Okay, let's untack this, and I think we have to start right where the source does, with the warnings. Before anyone even marches, it feels like the universe is yelling at Kongming to just stop. It really does. It's a fantastic narrative setup, heightens all the tension. You have the imperial astrologer, Kaozhu, coming to Kongming and the Shu court with these three specific really bad omens. What were they exactly? Well, the first one was incredibly visual, and frankly, terrifying. Reports came in of tens of thousands of birds flying south, just dropping dead out of exhaustion into the Han River. Whoa, like a mass death event. Exactly. Foreshadowing, perhaps? Yeah. Then there was the celestial sign. Ah, the stars, always important. Crucial in this context. The Ku star, which represented Shu, was seen passing really close to Taibai, that's Venus associated with the north, with Wei. The interpretation was clear. The advantage, the Qishan, was with Wei. Okay, so birds falling from the sky, stars aligned against you. What else? Wasn't there something about trees? Yes, the third omen. Mysterious weeping sounds heard at night from the cypress trees in Chengdu, the capital. Just adds this eerie, unsettling layer to everything. So you've got dying animals, bad stars, weeping trees. How does Kongming justify pushing forward? I mean, how do you ignore that? That's really the heart of his character at this point in the story, isn't it? He's completely bound by his oath to the late Emperor Lu Bei. He sees these signs, these, someone calls them false disasters or baseless omens, and basically says, my duty overrides this. The mission to restore the Han dynasty comes first. So it's resolve, but almost a tragic resolve. Deeply tragic, I'd say. He's presented as unwavering, but you feel the weight. It's like he feels compelled to act, even if it means fighting the cosmos itself. And he makes this very public, right? There's a whole ceremony. Absolutely. He performs the tai lao, this really solemn sacrifice, at Lu Bei's temple. The text says he weeps openly, swearing he won't rest, he can't rest, until the Wei rebels are gone and the Central Plains are back under Han rule. This is where that famous phrase comes in, or the feeling behind it. Exactly the sentiment. Sha, zhugun jinghui, bow until death. Only then may the effort cease. It's less like a general starting a war and more like a man fulfilling a vow he knows might kill him. Which makes what happens next even harder-hitting. The story immediately shows us how fragile he is under all this pressure. Yeah, it's brutal timing. Just as the army's ready, word arrives. General Guan Jing, son of the legendary Guan Yu, has died from illness. Oh, man. And Kong Ming just collapses, faints from grief. It's not just losing a general. It's like another pillar of the cause is crumbling. When he comes to, his words are heartbreaking. Pity the loyal and righteous man. Heaven does not grant him longevity. It's like he sees the odds stacking up even higher. So he's carrying all this grief, all this bad juju, and still marches out with, what, 340,000 troops? That's the number given, yeah. A massive force, heading out under a very dark cloud. Okay, let's flip to the other side then. How does Wei react? Emperor Cao Rui, Sima Yi. Are they feeling confident seeing Xu march out despite all these apparent warnings? Well, Cao Rui is definitely alarmed. I mean, 300,000-plus troops showing up on your doorstep is alarming, period. But he immediately summons Sima Yi, his go-to strategist. And Sima Yi, what's his read? Ah, Sima Yi. It's fascinating because the text says he did his own astrological readings. And guess what? He saw the same things? Exactly the same things Cao Zhu saw. He confirms the stars favor Wei, that the Central Plains' prosperity is strong. So in his mind, Kong Ming isn't just attacking Wei. He's Ai Niqian Erzaing, literally acting against heaven's will. That gives Sima Yi a huge psychological boost. He feels like he's got fate on his side. But he's not just relying on stars, right? He's making moves. What about his commanders? No, he's incredibly practical. His choice of commanders is, well, it's brilliant, but also kind of ruthless. He specifically brings in the four sons of General Xiao Yuan, who died years ago fighting Shu. Xiaoba, Xiaowei, Xiaowei, and Xiaohui. Why them specifically? Revenge. Pure and simple. Sima Yi knows their father was killed by Huang Zong, a Shu general. These men aren't just soldiers. They're driven by a deep personal vendetta against Shu. Sima Yi even says they're better commanders than the previously disgraced Xiaomao, precisely because of this burning desire for vengeance. Wow, weaponizing grief. That's effective, I guess. Very. But the core Wei strategy wasn't actually about aggressive commanders. It came directly from Emperor Kao Rui in a handwritten note. Okay, the imperial mandate, what did it say? Patience. Absolute, disciplined patience. The edict was explicit. That qi jian bi gu sheng, wu yin zhi feng gu, basically. Strengthen your walls, hold your forts, and do not engage them in open battle. Why? Wei had more troops, didn't they? They did. Around 400,000. But Kao Rui understood Shu's fundamental weakness. Logistics. Those supply lines stretching back to Shu were long, difficult, vulnerable. So don't fight the army, fight the supply train. Precisely. Let them sit there, burn through their resources, get hungry, get tired, and then, when they're weak, cheng su gong xi, attack the emptiness, hit them where it hurts. It forced Sima Yi into a defensive posture, which must have been frustrating, but it was smart. Okay, so Sima Yi has his orders. Dig in. He's got 400,000 troops along the Wei River, the Yi, Wei Bin. What did these defenses actually look like? They were substantial and focused on securing the river and their own logistics. Key move, building nine large floating bridges across the Wei. This gave them incredible flexibility to move troops and supplies quickly from north to south bank. Smart. Keeps Kongming guessing. Definitely. And they built a new fortress on the east plain, Don Juan, to protect their rear. They shored everything up. But there must have been a key point, a weak link, they knew Kongming would have to target. Absolutely. Baiyuan, the north plain. Controlling Baiyuan meant controlling the Longdao Road. The road to Longji. Exactly. That was Wei's lifeline to the west. Supplies, communication, everything. If Xu took Baiyuan and cut the Longdao, Sima Yi's whole position on the Wei River becomes, well, very difficult, maybe impossible. So he put experienced generals, Guo Huai and Sun Lai, there with strong reinforcements. He was the place they had to hold. Which naturally brings us to Kongming's plan. He knows he can't win a waiting game because of those supply lines, so he needs something clever. Brilliant and incredibly risky. First, he makes a show of digging in for the long haul. He sets up 19 huge camps, five main ones, 14 smaller ones stretching way back. It looks like he's settling in for Jingji, a long siege. Okay, projecting endurance. But that's not the real plan. Not the immediate one. The setup. He knows Baiyuan is the key pressure point for Wei, so he orders this massive, very visible attack towards Baiyuan. Feint. A huge feint, designed purely to draw Sima Yi's attention and probably his best troops northward, away from the river. Okay, so distract them with a big push at Baiyuan. What's the real target? The bridges. Those nine floating bridges are the linchpin of Wei's defense. If Kongming can destroy them, he cuts Sima Yi's army in two, traps forces on the south bank, and potentially opens the way for a devastating rear attack on the main Wei camp. Right, cripple their mobility. How did he plan to do it? This is where it gets interesting, right? The details. Oh, the details are fantastic. This wasn't just sending soldiers. He prepared over 100 wooden rafts, loaded them with straw, reeds, flammable oils, basically floating firebombs. And who's manning this? A specialized force. 5,000 elite sailors, guys who knew the river, their mission. Sail downriver under cover of darkness, light the rafts, crash them into the bridges, burn them down, and then secure the south bank. It's audacious. It really is. It relies entirely on Sima Yi falling for the Baiyuan feint and not suspecting an attack on the river itself. But how predictable was Sima Yi? About as predictable as a coiled snake. He saw right through it. The moment he got reports of Kongming's elaborate camp setup and this huge movement towards Baiyuan, Sima Yi apparently said, Kongming's elaborate arrangements hide a strategy. He knew the Baiyuan attack was fake. Instantly. He deduced the real target had to be the bridges. The Baiyuan noise was just cover. So Sima Yi doesn't just ignore the feint. He uses it. Exactly. He uses Kongming's own deception as the trigger for his counter trap. He prepares this layered defense designed to dismantle every single piece of Kongming's plan before it can even get going. Okay, breakdown Sima Yi's counter. How did he handle the different threats? It was a master class in anticipation. First, the main Shu army heading towards Baiyuan for the feint. He stationed Xihuba and Xiaowei, remember the revenge guys, in ambush in the South Mountain. Lying in wait. Right. The plan was, when the alarm sounds at Baiyuan signaling Kongming's attack has started, these two hit the Shu main force from the flank, turn the feint back on itself. Nasty. Okay, what about the river attack? The fire rafts? That's where the real genius perhaps lies. Sima Yi knew the rafts were coming, so he didn't just defend the bridges themselves, he defended the approach. He placed Zhang Hu and Le Shen with 2,000 crack archers and crossbowmen along the north bank of the river upstream of the bridges. Ah, so they could shoot the sailors and the rafts before they reached the target. Precisely. Neutralize the threat midstream. Don't let them even get close enough to light the fires effectively. Intercept and destroy. Okay, devastating. And the troops actually attacking Baiyuan. The ones carrying out the feint. He even had a plan for them. Guo Huai and Sun Li, defending Baiyuan, were told to pretend be defeated. To fall back, lure the presumably victorious Shu troops across the river in pursuit. Uh-oh. Yeah, but only if they crossed in the afternoon or evening. Then spring a massive arrow ambush on them when they were exposed and likely tired. He even accounted for the time of day. Incredible, calculating down to the hour. He even used his own sons, Sima Xi and Sima Zhao, to manage reinforcements for the main camp. Just in case. Every angle covered. Every move Kan Ming might make, Sima Yi had a counter prepared. Kan Ming had this big plan. A three-pronged attack across the Wei River, the Wei Shui. This was supposed to be it. Oh yeah, hugely ambitious. It really hinged on everything happening at once, perfectly synchronized. You had Wei Yan and Ma Dai hitting the north plain, Baiyuan. You had Wu Ban and Wu Yi with these Mufa Bing soldiers on rafts. Their job, burn the floating bridge, the Fuqiao. That bridge was everything. Because if the bridge goes, the main Wei camp is vulnerable. Exactly. The third group, the biggest one under Wang Ping and Zhang Yi, could then assault the Wei dry camp, the Han Ying, while the defenders were basically cut off. But Sima Yi was a step ahead. He saw it coming. What did he do? He anticipated the whole thing. Up at Baiyuan, his general son Lai pretends to retreat around dusk, lure his Wei Yan and Ma Dai in. Classic trap. Textbook. As it gets dark, Sima Yi attacks on the left, Guahuai from the right. Total ambush. Sources say shoe losses were heavy. Lots of soldiers pushed right into the river. They were only pulled out because Wu Yi's forces happened to be nearby. And at the same time, that crucial bridge mission, total disaster. What happened there? Wuban's rafts run right into Zhang Hu and Le Xin, waiting on the bank with archers. Intense arrow fire. Wuban himself gets hit, falls into the water, killed. All the rafts are captured. The bridge is fine. So no signal fire. Wang Ping and Zhang Yi are just waiting. Waiting for smoke that never comes. Instead, they get word. Both the Baiyuan attack and the bridge attack failed. They start to pull back, realizing they're exposed. Then a cannon shot signals the Wei ambush from behind. They get hit hard on the retreat. Just crushed. So Kong Ming gets back to his base at Qishan Dazhai. What's the damage? The sources are pretty specific. He's lost around 10,000 men. This isn't just a setback. It's a massive blow. Strategically, morally, it's devastating. 10,000 men. Yeah, you can't just shrug that off. How do you even start to recover from that kind of loss? Militarily, it seems impossible in the short term. It pretty much is. And Kong Ming seems to realize that. The army needs time. So the immediate move isn't military. It's political. Diplomacy. Ah, okay. So that's where Fei Yi comes in. Right. Fei Yi arrives from Chengdu. And Kong Ming sends him straight away to Wu, to Sun Quan, carrying a really important letter. He needs Wu to create a massive diversion, like now. And this letter, knowing Kong Ming, it probably doesn't say, help, I just lost 10,000 troops, does it? Not even close. It's a masterclass in spin. He talks about the Han Dynasty suffering, slams Cao Cao's usurpation, and then claims, Shu forces are this close to wiping out the Wei forces by the river. He basically frames the situation as if victory is imminent. Wow. So he's asking for help, but framing it as an opportunity for Sun Quan. Exactly. He urges Sun Quan to uphold the alliance, launch his own northern campaign, and uses that powerful phrase, Tong Van Tien Sa, let's share the land after we beat Wei. It's all about ambition, share destiny, not weakness. Clever. And Sun Quan? Buys it completely, or at least sees the strategic opening. He agrees immediately. Mobilizes this enormous force, 300,000 troops, the sources say. 300,000, that's huge. Massive, split into three divisions, attacking New City, Xiangyang, and Huayang all at once. That definitely gets Wei's attention and pulls resources away from Simi Yu. Okay, so the diversion works, but then there's that interesting detail from the feast, right? With Sun Quan and Fei Yu. Yeah, this is fascinating. Sun Quan asks Fei Yu, so who's leading your vanguard? Fei Yu says, Huayang. And Sun Quan just laughs. Laughs, wow. He says, Huayang is brave, sure, but he has the same buzang, a crooked heart. He predicts Huayang will definitely cause trouble if Kan Ming isn't around. That's quite an assessment from an ally hundreds of miles away. He nails Huayang's character. He really does. It shows how much these leaders understood about personality and loyalty, even among their allies. But the real kicker is what happens when Fei Yu tells Kan Ming about this. What does Kan Ming say? He sighs, basically confirms Sun Quan is right. He says something like, yes, Sun Quan is brilliant. I know all about Huayang. I only use him because I value his courage. Wei Qi. Wait, so Kan Ming knows Huayang is potentially dangerous, a future liability, but uses him anyway, just for his battlefield courage. That seems risky. Doesn't that contradict his image as this super careful planner? It does seem like a contradiction, doesn't it? But maybe it shows Kan Ming is capable of calculated risk. He needs that aggressive battlefield leadership right now, the kind Huayang provides. So he's making a trade-off, immediate military need versus long-term political stability. Looks like it. He needs Huayang's boldness to break Sima Yi's lines now, and he'll deal with the crooked heart problem later, or hope someone else will. It's quite a cold calculation. Okay, that makes a certain kind of ruthless sense. So the diplomatic front is stabilized. Sima Yi is distracted by Wu. Now Kan Ming can focus back on Sima Yi himself. And this time, he uses deception. Yes. And ironically, Sima Yi sort of initiates it, or at least sets the stage. He sends a fake defector. Ah, the Zhang Wen incident. Tell us about that. Right. So this Wei officer, Zhang Wen, a partial general, shows up at Kan Ming's camp. Claims he's defecting because Sima Yi unfairly promoted Qin Lang to front general over him. Seems plausible, right? Yes. Grumbling over promotions happens. Standard stuff. So Kan Ming takes him in. Not so fast. Kan Ming puts on a bit of theater. He says, okay, prove it. Just then, someone appearing to be Qin Lang rides up outside the camp, challenging Zhang Wen. Kan Ming tells Zhang Wen, you kill him, prove your loyalty, and you're in. A trial by combat, basically. Pretty much. Zhang Wen rides out, engages the challenger, and kills him in one go. Seems like proof, right? Defector kills his rival. That's convincing. But this is where Kan Ming springs the trap. The moment the challenger falls, Kan Ming orders Zhang Wen arrested and executed. What? Why? He just passed the test. Because the way he passed the test was the proof it was all fake. This is the aha moment. Kan Ming explains his logic. He says he knew the guy Zhang Wen killed wasn't the real Qin Lang. Why? Because Sima Yi wouldn't promote just anyone to front general. That rank implies serious skill. W, Yi, Go, Qiang. A high martial skill. Someone that's skilled would be killed in a single exchange by a disgruntled, partial general like Zhang Wen. It's just not plausible given Sima Yi's standards. So the ease of the kill was the giveaway. Kan Ming deduced the victim must be an imposter. Precisely. He figures it must be Qin Lang's less skilled younger brother, Qin Ming, sent there deliberately to be killed to make the defection look real. Kan Ming isn't just assessing Zhang Wen. He's assessing Sima Yi's personnel judgment. And he knows it's solid. That is brilliant. He turns Sima Yi's own rigorous standards against him. Completely flip the script. Zhang Wen breaks down, confesses Sima Yi sent him as a decoy. Kan Ming spares his life. But only if Zhang Wen does one thing. Write a letter back to Sima Yi. A letter confirming the defection is going well and setting up a night raid at Jieying. He tells Sima Yi to attack when he sees a fire signal from inside the shoe camp. The double cross is now fully in motion. So Zhang Wen writes the letter under duress. How does it get back to Sima Yi? Kan Ming picks one of his own soldiers to deliver it, pretending to be Zhang Wen's trusted messenger. The soldier takes the letter to Sima Yi, confirming the plan. Attack at the second watch. Air Yang. That night, follow the fire signal. Does Sima Yi buy it? He's usually so cautious. He seems to. The sources say he inspects the letter carefully, checks the handwriting, Zhang Wen's seal. It all looks authentic. He trusts the source, Zhang Wen, and the setup seems logical after the successful defection. He even promises the messenger a reward. He thinks his plan is working. Is he going to lead the raid himself? He actually wants to. But his son, Sima Xi, steps in, shows some good sense, urges his father not to risk it. Send a general first, Sima Xi advises, and you provide backup. Smart kid. Who does Sima Yi send? He agrees and sends the real Qin Lang this time, with 10,000 troops. Sima Yi will follow with reinforcements. That caution probably saved Sima Yi's life. Okay, so Qin Lang heads towards the shoe camp at the second watch. What happens next? This is where it gets strange, right? Yeah, this is where the occult element comes in. Just as Qin Lang's forces approach, the weather apparently changes dramatically. Clear night sky suddenly becomes pitch black, dense clouds, fog, shadow. The source uses the phrase, 黑漆漫空,对面不见. Black mist fills the sky, you can't see the person opposite you. Exactly. Complete unnatural darkness descends. And Sima Yi sees this and thinks it's good news. He's overjoyed. He thinks heaven itself is helping him, providing cover for his surprise attack. He urges Qin Lang on. But it's not heaven helping him. Not according to the sources, it's Kongming. Qin Lang advances into the shoe camp, finds it empty. He realizes instantly it's a trap. Way too late. Suddenly, ambush forces erupt from the darkness. Wang Ping and Zhang Yi hit from the left. Ma Dai and Mo Zong from the right. Qin Lang's 10,000 men are caught, surrounded. Completely cut off in the blinding dark. And Sima Yi is coming up behind with reinforcements. Right into another ambush. Wei Yan, there's that courage Kongming valued. Hits him from one side. Zhang Wei from the other. The Wei losses are catastrophic. The source says, 七上八降. Eight or nine out of ten killed or wounded. Devastating. Utterly devastating. The real Qin Lang is killed in the fighting. Sima Yi barely escapes with his life, fleeing back to his own camp. And then what happens with the weather? As soon as the fighting dies down around the third watch, the sky clears up again. Just like that. Normal night. And the explanation given is? The source's state, Kongming, created the darkness using the Dunjia method, basically. Occult arts involving manipulating spirits, the six jia spirits, to control battlefield conditions. When the battle was won, he dismissed the spirits and the sky cleared. Wow, okay. So let's recap this incredible sequence. Kongming suffers a massive defeat. Right. Loses 10,000 men. He pivots immediately to diplomacy, getting Wu to launch a huge diversionary attack. Buys himself crucial time and distracts Sima Yi. Then Sima Yi tries a deception with a fake defector. Which Kongming sees through by analyzing Sima Yi's own standards for promoting generals. Pure psychological insight. He turns that deception back on Sima Yi, setting up a night raid ambush. And then, according to the text, uses occult magic to create perfect conditions, total darkness, for that ambush. Leading to a huge way defeat. What an arc. It really shows that for Kongming, strategy involved so much more than just moving troops around. It's diplomacy, psychology, knowing your enemy's mind, and maybe even controlling the elements. Absolutely. This sequence highlights how understanding human nature like Sima Yi's predictable rigor in promoting officers, or even Wei Yan's risky courage, was central to Kongming's approach. He exploited Sima Yi's certainty about his own system. Kongming realized he couldn't just force a win the usual way. He needed something different. Something unconventional. So instead of charging in, he started looking at the terrain, scouting for an advantage. And he finds this place, Upward Valley, or Calabash Valley Hulagu. And the description of the place is so specific in the text, it's really interesting. Well, the geography was the strategy, or at least enabled it. It was shaped like a gourd, apparently. Big open space inside, enough for a large camp. Room for over a thousand people, the text says. But the entrance, that was the key. It was super narrow, like only wide enough for one person or maybe one horse at a time. Defensible. Hidden. Extremely. And the source says Kongming felt great joy when he found it. He knew immediately this was it. This was the spot for his secret project. Exactly. He seals it off, puts Du Rui, Hu Zong, and Ma Dai in charge of a workshop there. Top secret stuff. This wasn't about building walls. It was about building, well, the future of logistics, basically. Under total secrecy. Absolute secrecy. Because the clock was ticking. And pretty soon after setting up, Kongming calls his commanders together and unveils it. The wooden ox and the flowing horse. And tells them these things don't need food or water and can run continuously. Day and night. You can imagine the reaction. It must have sounded like magic. Seriously. I mean, this is the third century A.D. How did they supposedly work? What were the mechanics? Well, the text gives some surprisingly specific, almost biomechanical details. The wooden ox. Square abdomen, curved head, one foot, and four legs. It sounds like it was designed to mimic how an animal moves to handle rough ground. And crucially, there was this internal part called the tongue. It rested on the abdomen and it seems like it acted as some kind of control mechanism. Like a switch or a locking pin. The hidden switch. Got it. And the efficiency. You mentioned they didn't need food or water, but what about carrying capacity? Pretty impressive, actually. One wooden ox could carry about a month's worth of food for 10 soldiers. Wow. And get this. For every six feet the human operator walked, the ox covered the same ground in just four steps. Think about the labor savings over hundreds of miles. Huge difference. And the flowing horse. That seems to have been more about pure bulk transport. It used two big square board bags for hauling grain or other heavy supplies, just keeping that flow constant. And they built these things quickly. In days, according to the text. And they looked as if alive. Kongming wasted no time. He put Gao Xiang in charge of a thousand troops, and they started running nonstop supply lines between Jiang and the front lines at Mount Qi. So just like that, Sima Yi's entire waiting game is attrition strategy. Poof. Gone. Completely nullified overnight. Kongming suddenly had sustainable logistics. And Sima Yi's reaction? A sheer panic, basically. His scouts start reporting these, you know, weird wooden animals moving supplies 24-7. He realizes Kongming isn't going to run out of food. He can stay there forever if he wants. So the waiting game is over. Sima Yi needs to adapt. Right. He switches tactics from attrition to, well, industrial espionage. He orders two of his generals, Zhang Hu and Le Lin, to go steal some. Just grab the tech. Exactly. Ambush Gao Xiang's supply convoy, grab a few the tech says only three to five, and bring them back quick. And they succeed. They do. They manage to snatch a few and race back to Sima Yi. Sima Yi must have been thrilled. Oh, overjoyed. He thinks, okay, problem solved. He gets a hundred of his best artisans, tells them, take these apart. Figure them out. Copy them exactly. Reverse engineering. Ancient style. Pretty much. And they do it fast. Less than half a month, and they've churned out over 2,000 identical copies. Sima Yi figures he's matched Kongming. Neutralize the advantage. But hang on. If this tech was so vital, why wasn't Kongming more careful? Why let them get stolen so easily? It seems like a huge risk. Ah, but that's the beautiful part. When Gao Xiang comes back, probably expecting to get shooed out for losing the prototypes. Kongming just laughs. Laughs and says, I want him to steal them. He knew Sima Yi would copy the outside. He was counting on it. Because Sima Yi didn't know the secret. Exactly. He didn't understand the real secret. The vulnerability. That little tongue mechanism. Okay, so Kongming basically handed Sima Yi the means of his own defeat. The setup for the double cross. Precisely. Phase one. Grab the goods. Kongming sends Wang Ping with 1,000 troops, but they're disguised as Wei soldiers. As patrols. Minky. They find Sen Wei, the general Sima Yi put in charge of his brand new copy transport fleet out at Longji. Wang Ping attacks, kills Sen Wei quickly, and just captures the entire convoy. All 2,000 of Sima Yi's brand new machines. Wow. Okay, so now Wang Ping has this massive fleet of enemy transports. But surely, Wei forces will react. Oh yeah. Guo Wei immediately gives chase, trying to get the convoy back. And this is where the tongue comes in. This is the moment. As Guo Wei's forces are closing in, Wang Ping gives a specific order. Instantly, every single one of those 2,000 carts just stops. Dead in their tracks. Paralyzed. Can't be moved. Like a kill switch. Exactly. A hidden mechanical kill switch. So Wang Ping just abandons the whole massive, immobile convoy right there and his forces retreat, basically baiting Guo Wei further in. Guo Wei must have been completely baffled. Utterly confused. He gets there, sees this huge pile of useless wooden carts. His men try everything. They can't budge them. They have no idea how they work, or rather, why they've stopped working. And while they're scratching their heads. Wang Ping circles back, this time with reinforcements, Wei Yan and Jiang Wei. They come back to the abandoned convoy. Simple. Wang Ping gives the opposite order. Twists the tongue back. And they just spring back to life. Instantly. Fully operational again. Wang Ping's troops just hop on and drive the entire captured convoy away. Leaving Guo Wei just standing there, watching his stolen tech that he copied, being driven off using a secret he didn't know existed. That's devastating. Absolutely demoralizing. But Kong Ming wasn't quite done twisting the knife. He adds a final psychological masterstroke. There's more. Oh yeah. He sends out Zhang Yi with 500 troops. But they aren't soldiers anymore. They're disguised as, well, supernatural beings. What? Like ghosts. Kind of. The text calls them the Six Ding, Six Jia Divine Soldiers Demons. Think painted faces, weird flags, swords, and carrying gourds filled with stuff to make smoke and fire. Pure terror theater. Okay, so why? What's the point? As Wang Ping's forces are driving the reactivated convoy away, these divine soldiers suddenly emerge from the mountain passes nearby. Making it look like? Making it look like the carts aren't being driven by soldiers, but are being magically spirited away by gods or demons. Oh, that is brilliant. Pure psychological warfare. Completely. Guo Huai and his troops see this terrifying spectacle. See the carts moving seemingly on their own, accompanied by these things. They are utterly freaked out. They think it's divine intervention. They conclude it must be divine aid, Shen Tzu. And you don't mess with the gods. They completely lose their nerve, abandon any thought of pursuit. Sima Yi's copied technology is rendered useless not by superior force, but by sheer terror and superstition. Making the enemy defeat themselves through fear. Exactly. And the final nail in the coffin, Sima Yi himself rushes to try and salvage the situation, help Guo Huai. And walks right into another ambush. Yep. Zhang Yi and Liao Hua are waiting for him. Total rout. The whole Wei effort in that sector just collapses.