Yang Xiu

Yang Xiu's debut - Cao Cao's brilliant secretary; the famous 'one cup of strained curds' / 'one man one mouthful' anecdote and the 'wisdom-equals-mine' aside foreshadow his eventual execution at Hanzhong.

Yang Xiu; tests Zhang Song with Cao Cao's military treatise; Zhang Song recites it back word for word - proving the treatise is a copy of an older work. The Yang Xiu / Zhang Song exchange is the chapter's standout intelligence scene.

Grasps the tablet enigma at a glance while the whole staff stands mute — made to hold his answer until Cao Cao works it out a mile down the road: 'yellow silk, young wife, a daughter's child, pestle and mortar' = 'decidedly fine and well told.' The cleverness Cao Cao marvels at here kills him in the next chapter.

Reads 'chicken tendon' as the retreat order it secretly was and packs the camp — and dies for it at thirty-four, the charge of wrecking morale 'only a subterfuge' for years of accumulated hatred: the 'Alive'-on-the-gate reading, the One-Cream-Box shared out by the spoonful, 'the Prime Minister was in no dream, but only you were asleep,' the exposed basket that wasn't silk, the gate-warden advice, and Cao Zhi's coached replies. The poem's verdict: he died of misdirected genius, not of foretelling retreat.