Chapter 48
— Banquet On The Great River, Cao Cao Sings A Song; Battle On Water, Northerners Fight With Chained Ships.
Imperial Protector of Yangzhou, the builder of schools and gatherer of refugees at Hefei: at the height of the moonlit banquet he alone names the song's omens ill - the paled stars, the raven with no branch - and the drunken Prime Minister runs him through with the levelled spear. Cao Cao weeps over the deed at dawn and buries him with a minister's honors.