How wise and close to the demon!
These five words are Lu Xun's evaluation of Zhuge Liang, who believes that Zhuge Liang's wisdom is like a monster. Zhuge Liang is a rare genius in history, good at Qi men and qi men, proficient in the five elements of yin and yang, able to divinate, can predict, Zhuge Liang no longer lives like a person, but a "monster".
So where is Zhuge Liang's demon? This can be seen through the borrowing of arrows from grass boats. Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang made a bet to let Zhuge Liang build 100,000 arrows in three days, and Zhuge Liang agreed.
The first two days Zhuge Liang did nothing, and on the third day Zhuge Liang left in several boats. Lu Su thought that Zhuge Liang was going to escape, and it turned out that he had gone to borrow arrows. Lu Su was also very curious, how did Zhuge Liang borrow arrows from Cao Cao?
Zhuge Liang prepared more than a dozen straw boats with scarecrows on them, which looked like real people from a distance. When the grass boat approached Cao Cao's water village, Cao Cao thought that the enemy was sneaking in, so he quickly ordered the release of arrows.
In this way, Zhuge Liang borrowed 100,000 arrows from a straw boat. There is a question worth pondering, why did Zhuge Liang not worry about Cao Cao firing rockets, or why did Cao Cao not release rockets?
Zhuge Liang was sitting on a straw boat, and if Cao Cao had fired a rocket, wouldn't he have burned Zhuge Liang to death? Zhuge Liang expected that Cao Cao would not release the rocket, because there were two reasons.
First, rockets take time to prepare, and they cannot be used directly. In general, soldiers are ordinary arrows, and during sieges and ambushes, soldiers will use rockets because they have time to prepare.
Cao Cao saw that someone was sneaking in, and he definitely didn't have time to prepare rockets, so he could only let the soldiers quickly resist the enemy and shoot arrows.
Second, if Cao Cao used rockets, Zhuge Liang's losses would be small, and Cao Cao's losses would be large. When the grass boats caught fire, the boats would rush to Cao Ying and burn Cao Ying, and Cao Cao would have no way to escape.
Although Cao Cao did not release rockets at that time, when Huang Gai surrendered, he ignited the grass boat, and as a result, Cao Cao's warship was burned.
Through the burning of Chibi, we can see how wise Cao Cao was not to release rockets at that time. Zhuge Liang was a wise man, and Cao Cao was not a fool.
References: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, etc