Chapter 391: Borrowing Arrows with Straw Boats (Part 1)

The sky-screen disappeared for about a month.

The feudal lords waiting below all returned to their own places.

The Three Kingdoms also came to autumn.

The reeds on both sides of the Yangtze River were blown into a gray-yellow color by the wind.

The river water was half a foot shallower than in summer, revealing the silt and gravel on the shore.

The warships at Red Cliffs were still being rushed in the shipyard.

The lights in the Jiangdong water camp did not go out day and night.

Cao Wei's tents extended for dozens of miles from the river bank, and the smoke from the stove fires merged into a gray line stretching across the sky at dusk.

All three sides were waiting.

Waiting for the wind, waiting for food, waiting for a suitable opportunity.

No one knew how long this stalemate would last.

At noon this day, the sky was clear and cloudless.

Then the sky went dark.

It was not an eclipse, not dark clouds, but a whole piece of pitch-black sky-screen pressing down vertically from the dome.

There was no transition at the edges, as if someone had cut a piece of the sky with a knife, revealing a deeper and heavier background behind it.

The sky-screen covered the entire sky, from both sides of the Yangtze River to the Central Plains, from Yecheng in the north to Jiaozhou in the south, everyone looked up and saw the same ink color.

In the Jiangdong water camp, Zhou Yu was discussing the details of grain and forage scheduling with Lu Su, when it suddenly became quiet outside.

He put down the bamboo slip in his hand, walked out of the tent, looked up, and said nothing.

Lu Su followed him out, looked in the direction of his gaze, and the fan in his hand paused for a moment: "This is... here again?"

Zhou Yu did not answer, but his fingers pressed on the tent pillar slowly closed.

On the Cao camp side, Cao Cao was reviewing military reports before the table.

He felt the light outside the tent suddenly darken, put down the vermilion brush, walked out of the tent, and stood with his hands behind his back.

The ink color of the sky-screen reflected in his eyes, with a layer of extremely faint dark gold at the edges.

"The sky-screen is finally here again."

He said in a low voice, then turned to Xun Yu behind him: "Order the three armies, no disturbance, watch the changes quietly."

Xun Yu nodded.

He also looked up at the ink color, his fingertips twisting unconsciously in his sleeve.

Shu army tents.

Liu Bei was discussing the next deployment with Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei was sharpening his sword at the tent entrance.

The moment the sky darkened, the sound on the sharpening stone stopped.

Zhang Fei stood up, looked up at the sky, then turned to look inside the tent.

Guan Yu walked out first, followed by Liu Bei.

The three stood side by side, looking up at the pitch-black sky-screen that had suddenly appeared.

"Where is the military advisor?" Liu Bei asked.

Zhang Fei pursed his lips toward the side: "Still writing things in the tent."

Liu Bei did not pursue the question.

He knew Zhuge Liang was in the tent, but Zhuge Liang did not come out, which meant he didn't need to come out.

On the sky-screen, golden characters began to emerge.

The strokes were very thick, and every stroke left a short residual shadow on the ink background, like red-hot iron falling into water.

【Counting down the top ten famous scenes of the Three Kingdoms—Scene Nine: Borrowing Arrows with Straw Boats】

Small characters followed, the color slightly lighter:

【Without spending a single soldier or a single general, without consuming an inch of iron or a cent of wealth, borrowing heaven, borrowing earth, borrowing fog, borrowing the enemy's strength, to form ten thousand divine weapons.】

"Borrowing arrows with straw boats?"

Zhang Fei repeated these four characters and turned to look at Liu Bei.

"Big brother, is this talking about the military advisor?"

Liu Bei did not answer.

His gaze was still fixed on the sky-screen, his brow furrowed slightly.

The image on the sky-screen moved.

When the first scene appeared, someone in the Jiangdong camp recognized the scene—

The commander's tent, the wooden table, the military map hanging behind the table.

Two people sat before the table, one in a green robe, one in a brocade robe.

Zhou Yu's hand pouring wine paused.

The Zhou Yu on the sky-screen was smiling and talking to Zhuge Liang; he remembered that smile, it was fake at the time.

The sky-screen's narration voice rang out, different from the previous few times.

The previous narrations were like bell sounds, this one was more like someone talking by a chessboard, neither fast nor slow, every sentence leaving a lingering echo:

【Thirteenth year of Jian'an, before the battle of Red Cliffs.】

【Jiangdong water army commander Zhou Yu, fearing Zhuge Liang's talent, wanted to use military orders to eliminate him.】

The expression on Zhou Yu's face did not change, but Lu Su noticed his fingers holding the tea bowl move.

【Zhou Yu used the shortage of arrows in the army as an excuse to set a dead end.】

【Within ten days, build one hundred thousand wolf-tooth arrows; if it cannot be completed, it will be dealt with according to military law.】

On the sky-screen, Zhou Yu's voice was restored:

"Mr. Kongming, the army is short of arrows, making it difficult to defend against the enemy."

"Mr. is divine and counts, there must be a good strategy—"

The camera cut to Zhuge Liang.

He sat before the table, without a fan in his hand, his hands on his knees, his expression as usual.

His voice was half a degree lower than Zhou Yu's, but every word was clear: "Commander, rest assured, three days is enough."

Outside the image, Lu Su's brow furrowed.

He was at the scene back then and heard Zhuge Liang say this sentence with his own ears.

At the time, he thought Zhuge Liang was crazy.

Looking at it again now, he still felt the weight of this sentence was suffocating.

The sky-screen image continued.

After Zhuge Liang set the military order, he used his left hand to sign, the ink drying halfway on the bamboo slip.

When Zhou Yu took it, his fingertips rubbed against the ink, confirming it was dry, and then he smiled.

That smile was magnified on the sky-screen, the arc of the corners of his mouth lifting and the coldness that hadn't dissipated from the corners of his eyes appearing on one face simultaneously.

A line of small characters floated on the side of the sky-screen, with a golden background and dark patterns, pressed into the bottom right corner of the image like a seal:

【The scholar underestimates the enemy, the hero hides the blade. Zhou Yu's jealousy almost ruined Jiangdong's great cause.】

In the Jiangdong water camp, several young colonels looked at each other.

Someone asked in a low voice: "Did the commander really want to kill Zhuge Liang back then?" No one answered him.

But two steps behind Zhou Yu, an old general's boot tip rubbed against the ground and then stopped.

Liu Bei stood in front of the Shu army camp, his two hands hanging at his sides, his left hand clenching slightly and then relaxing.

The image cut to the second scene.

After Zhuge Liang left the commander's tent, he did not return to his own tent, but took a detour to Lu Su's tent.

The sky-screen made this detail very clear—

The path he took was not the shortest, but a detour of half a circle, avoiding the soldiers sent by Zhou Yu to watch him.

Lu Su looked up in the tent, seeing Zhuge Liang come uninvited, and was stunned for a moment.

The first sentence Zhuge Liang said after sitting down was played back by the sky-screen without change: "Zijing, lend me three things."

"Twenty fast boats, thirty soldiers per boat, a thousand bundles of straw, and green cloth curtains."

Lu Su's sky-screen playback sounded, his tone carrying uncontrollable doubt.

"Kongming, what do these things have to do with making arrows?"

Zhuge Liang did not answer directly.

He reached out and dipped a bit of tea on the table, wrote a character, and then wiped it off.

The sky-screen did not give a close-up of that character, but Gu Shanhe, sitting on the spirit ship, smiled when he saw that character.

Liu Bang beside him leaned over and asked what was written, Gu Shanhe waved his hand and said: "You'll know when you see it."

Lu Su agreed.

When he agreed, his brow was furrowed, but he did not hesitate when he said the word "good".

Another line of characters floated on the side of the sky-screen:

【The first major calculation of the overall situation: deceiving friends, deceiving enemies, deceiving the world, making everyone's predictions fail, laying the groundwork for borrowing arrows.】

For the next two days, the sky-screen played Zhuge Liang's daily routine in fast-forward:

Washing his face in the morning, taking a nap in the tent at noon, walking half a circle along the river in the evening, and returning to the tent to turn off the lights after dark.

No arrows were made, no soldiers were recruited, no materials were prepared.

Two days passed, and the firewood pile outside his tent had not decreased by a single stick.

Zhou Yu sent people to check every day, sent three batches of people, and the content reported back was the same: "Mr. Kongming has nothing to do today."

The third night, the third watch.

The sky-screen image suddenly magnified.

There was nothing on the river surface in the night, then fog rose from the water, like someone lighting a charcoal fire at the bottom of the river, heat steaming up from the water surface.

The fog was first a thin layer, at the height of the water surface.

Then it rose higher and higher, thicker and thicker, swallowing the entire river in half a cup of tea's time.

A lamp lit up in the image.

Then the second, the third.

Twenty fast boats emerged from the fog one after another, with straw stacks erected on both sides of the boat sides.

Covered with green cloth on the outside, they looked like a team of grain transport boats crossing the river from afar.

The boat speed was not fast, the sound of oars was very low, and the water marks at the stern of the boat dragged for a long time in the fog before dispersing.

Zhuge Liang stood on the first boat, with no attendants beside him.

A person stood at the bow, hands behind his back, looking at the river surface swallowed by the fog ahead.

The sky-screen narration voice rang out again, a little faster than before:

【Borrowing heaven's timing.】

【Zhuge Liang is well-versed in astronomy and calendars, accurately predicting the time of the heavy fog.】

【This is a heaven-sent winning opportunity that cannot be controlled by human power.】 ===== CHAPTER 392 =====