Jiang Gan

Volunteers his three-inch tongue and schoolboy friendship, and walks into a play staged for him: greeted as 'an emissary in Cao Cao's cause', gagged by the sword-rule at the feast, shown the troops and grain heaps, bedded down beside a snoring host - and left alone with the planted letter. He steals it, flees before dawn, and hands Cao Cao the forgery that beheads both admirals.

His disaster echoes forward: Zhuge Liang congratulates Zhou Yu on the ruse played off on him, and warns that Cao Cao will soon see through it without ever confessing the mistake.

Volunteers to redeem his first failure and is played again, note for note: coldly accused, packed off to a hut in the Western Hills, he wanders at night to a lamplit cabin where the Young Phoenix sits reading Sun Zi - exactly as arranged. He smuggles the great man to Cao Cao's camp, proud of his catch, and delivers the man who will chain the fleet for the fire.

Lamented in the threnody as the false friend whose Poyang Lake visit only displayed Zhou Yu's lofty ideals.