“You must be aware that if this design leaks out, we shall all be utterly exterminated.” “Your excellency need not be anxious, and if I do not aid in accomplishing your patriotic designs, let me die a thousand deaths.”
Wang, bowing, thanked her. The next day, taking several of the brilliant pearls preserved in the family, he ordered a skilful workman to inlay them into a golden coronet, which he secretly sent as a present to Lü Pu. Highly gratified, Lü himself went to Wang’s house to thank him, where a well-prepared feast of viands and wine awaited his arrival. Wang went out to meet him, and waiting upon him into the rear hall, invited him to sit at the top of the table, but Lü objected: “I am only a general in the prime minister’s department, while your excellency is a high minister in his Majesty’s court—why this mistaken respect?”
Wang rejoined, “There is no hero in the country now besides you; I do not pay this honor to your office, but to your talents.” Lü was excessively pleased. Wang ceased not in engaging him to drink, the while speaking of Tung Choh’s high qualities, and praising his guest’s virtues, who, on his side, wildly laughed for joy. Most of the attendants were ordered to retire, a few waiting-maids stopping to serve out wine, when, being half drunk, he ordered them to tell the young child to come in. Shortly after, two pages led in Tiau Chen, gorgeously dressed, and Lü, much astonished, asked, “Who is this?”
“It is my little daughter, Tiau Chen, whom I have ordered to come in and see you, for I am very grateful for your honor’s misapplied kindness to me, which has been like that to near relatives.” He then bade her present a goblet of wine to him, and, as she did so, their eyes glanced to and from each other.
Wang, feigning to be drunk, said: “The child strongly requests your honor to drink many cups; my house entirely depends upon your excellency.” Lü requested her to be seated, but she acting as if about to retire, Wang remarked, “The general is my intimate friend; be seated, my child; what are you afraid of?” She then sat down at his side, while Lü’s eyes never strayed from their gaze upon her, drinking and looking.
Wang, pointing to Tiau, said to Lü, “I wish to give this girl to you as a concubine, but know not whether you will receive her?” Lü, leaving the table to thank him, said, “If I could obtain such a girl as this, I would emulate the requital dogs and horses give for the care taken of them.”
Wang rejoined, “I will immediately select a lucky day, and send her to your house.” Lü was delighted beyond measure, and never took his eyes off her, while Tiau herself, with ogling glances, intimated her passion. The feast shortly after broke up, and Lü departed.
The scheme here devised was successful, and Tung Choh was assassinated by his son when he was on his way to depose the monarch. His death, however, brought no peace to the country, and three chieftains, Tsau Tsau, Liu Pí, and Sun Kiuen, soon distinguished themselves in their struggles for power, and afterward divided the Empire into the three States of Wu, Shuh, and Wei, from which the work derives its name. Many of the personages who figure in this work have since been deified, among whom are Liu Pí’s sworn brother Kwan Yü, who is now the Mars (Kwan tí), and Hwa To, the Esculapius, of Chinese mythology. Its scenes and characters have all been fruitful subjects for the pencil and the pen of artists and poetasters. One commentator has gone so far as to incorporate his reflections in the body of the text itself, in the shape of such expressions as “Wonderful speech! What rhodomontade! This man was a fool before, and shows himself one now!” Davis likens this work to the Iliad for its general arrangement and blustering character of the heroes; it was composed when the scenes described and their leading actors existed chiefly in personal recollection, and the remembrances of both were fading away in the twilight of popular legends.
Among the numerous historians of China, only a few would repay the labor of an entire translation, but many would furnish good materials for extended epitomes. Among these are the Tso Chuen, already noticed; the Anterior Han Dynasty, by Pan Ku and his sister; the Wei Shu, by Wei Shau (A.D. 386-556); and the works of Sz’ma Kwang. In addition to the dynastic histories, numerous similar works classified under the heads of annals and complete records in two sections of this division would furnish much authentic material for the foreign archæologist. The most valuable relic after the Chun Tsiu, of a historic character, is the “Bamboo Books,” reported to have been found in a tomb in Honan, A.D. 279; it gives a chronological list down to B.C. 299, with incidents interspersed, and bears many internal evidences of genuineness. Legge and Biot have each translated it.[331]