Lu Xun

Lu Xun; named in passing - will rise to prominence later.

Paired with Dong Xi over the fourth army - his first command in the saga.

Made Leader of the Van by Sun Quan's own mandate, ordered to Qichun with his lord in support.

Gives the answering signal that brings Taishi Ci down, and joins the pursuit that turns Cao Cao toward Yiling.

Lu Xun; with Sun Quan.

Arrives with a hundred thousand marines at the blackest moment — drives Cao Cao's army back, lands, takes thousands of horses. The prose introduces him as the son-in-law of Sun Ce.

Lu Xun; the chapter's strategic centerpiece. Lu Meng feigns illness; Sun Quan appoints Lu Xun in his place; Lu Xun writes a fawning letter to Guan Yu praising his greatness - Guan Yu drops his guard, transfers half his Jingzhou garrison north to Fan. The deception that opens the back door.

Named once, fatally — 'that impractical fellow Lu Xun,' says Guan Yu, waving away the last true warning he will get.

The student takes command: guaranteed by Kan Ze's whole house over the sneers of Zhang Zhao, Gu Yong, and Bu Zhi, invested on a purpose-built altar with the Prince's own sword — 'slay the disobedient and report afterwards.' He weathers the old guard's contempt, refuses to relieve Sun Huan ('when Shu is broken, he will be free'), stops Han Dang from charging at the yellow umbrella, and orders his ears stopped against every insult — waiting, exactly as he says, for the enemy to move his camps into the trees.

The masterpiece: reads the 'air of slaughter' over the valley and waits out the bait, the insults, and his own officers' sniggers — then tests Fu Tong's camp with Chunyu Dan ('I wanted to test the force of our enemy... happily Zhuge Liang is not here'), and burns alternate camps, twenty of forty, with straw, sulfur, and saltpeter on the southeast wind. Liu Bei's host is annihilated in a night. Pursuing, he rides into the boulder-maze at Fishbelly Creek by the Gate of Death, is led out by Zhuge Liang's own father-in-law, and turns home — 'I am not his equal' — not for the stones, but because Cao Pi's three armies are already moving, exactly as he guesses.

The outer jaw of the Nanjun relief that crushes Cao Zhen and Xiahou Shang — and the reason Jia Xu counsels Cao Pi against war: 'Lu Xun occupies all the strategic positions of importance.'

Reaps the rewards of Xiaoting — General Who Upholds the State, Lord of Jiangling, Governor of Jingzhou, Supreme Commander — and gives the temporizing counsel on Wei's four-army offer: consent, arm, and wait to see whether Zhuge Liang can be beaten. Kept at Jingzhou on Gu Yong's advice when Cao Pi's fleet comes.

Lu Xun; in Wu.

Nominated by Gu Yong as the only man fit for it and invested past the point of ceremony: Grand Commander, General Who Pacifies the North, Commander-in-Chief of all the State Armies including the Imperial Guards, Assistant in the Royal Duties, given the White Banners and Golden Axes of imperial rank, with every officer civil and military under him — and Sun Quan personally holding his whip while he mounted. Asks for Zhu Huan and Quan Zong, takes seven hundred thousand out in three divisions, REJECTS Zhu Huan's plan to block the Jiashi and Guichi roads in favour of his own, occupies Shiding, and sends his two commanders round behind the Wei camp for a double attack. Comes home under an imperial umbrella and immediately proposes writing to Shu to set Zhuge Liang moving again.

The chapter opens on his victory — the Wei army 'defeated, with very great loss, by Lu Xun of Wu' in the autumn of the sixth year of Beginning Prosperity — and the Wu letters that follow, boasting of it and proposing a joint attack, are what put the second invasion in motion.

Made Regent Marshal at the accession and given the custody of Wuchang alongside the Heir Apparent. He is also the reason Sima Yi will not leave the east in the opening pages. When Sun Quan finally asks his opinion of the joint attack on Wei he sees straight through it: 'We owe this to Zhuge Liang's fear of Sima Yi... However, we must consent since Shu asks it. We will make a show of raising an army and in a measure support them. When Zhuge Liang has actually attacked Wei, we will make for the Middle Land ourselves.' Which is exactly the fence-sitting Sima Yi describes to Cao Rui a few pages later.

Given the central of Wu's three fronts - camp at Miankou and Jiangxia with Zhuge Jin and take Xiangyang - in the three-hundred-thousand mobilisation Sun Quan orders on the strength of Zhuge Liang's letter.

The withdrawal is the most admired piece of generalship in the chapter, and Cao Rui says so twice. Plans the pincer that would have broken the Wei army, loses it when his junior officer is taken at the ferry, and then extracts three armies without a battle: his soldiers are set to planting beans and his officers to throwing arrows into narrow-necked vases where the enemy can see them, Zhuge Jin is told to fit out his ships as if for an immediate advance, and Lu Xun himself gives out that he is marching on Xiangyang — 'My army must retreat slowly, or the enemy will come in pursuit, which will mean defeat and loss.' Cao Rui will not touch it. He is also the man Sima Yi is holding the east against, and the reason Wei can never put its whole weight on Shu.

Named in passing only, and dead: 'At this time old officials like Lu Xun and Zhuge Jin were dead, and the business of the government, great and small, was in the hands of Zhuge Ke.' The sentence is the chapter's explanation of how one man came to hold everything.

Named in passing only, and long dead, as the father of the man Wu now entrusts its river defence to: 'Lu Kang, son of the late leader Lu Xun'.