Zhuge Liang (诸葛亮), a Daoist turned military
consultant of Shu Kingdom (蜀国) in the Three Kingdoms
era, was also the best meteorologist, the
leading cosmologist and the great qigong
master of the time. When Cao Cao, the Secretary of State
for Wei Kingdom (魏国), the sole superpower
around at the time, sent his mighty navy
to attack Wu Kingdom in the excuse,
presumably, that one of Wei's fishing
boats along with dozens of fishermen were missing in the Yangtze River near
the maritime territory of Wu, Zhuge Liang
realised he must come up with some real
life action rather than just standing
there protesting, otherwise, once Wei was
done with Wu, Shu could be the next in
the line to face Cao Cao's murderous
marines. So he left Chengdu, Shu's capital, for Wuhan, Wu's capital, and used
his skills, knowledge and credit in
Heaven to apply for the loan of east
wind. His application was granted on the
day of Male Wooden Mice (甲子日) and with which he
successfully transformed the Yangtze
River into a gigantic Chengdu style hot pot and turned Wei’s warships into dumplins.
Borrow the East Wind is
a classic repertoire of Beijing Opera, originally played by Ma
Lianliang (马连良), one of the Great Four
Mature Male Characters (四大须生) in Beijing Opera
history.
We must
not show cowardice in
front of beasts. We
should learn from Wu Song the Tiger
Beater. In the eye of Wu
Song, beasts are beasts;
whether you upset them or
not, they will not give
up their attempt on your
life. When a beast
pounces on you, you
either kill the beast or
are killed by the beast.
No other way round.
