Yang Yi

Yang Yi; Zhuge Liang's logistics chief; rising on the staff.

Volunteers to go and replace Ma Su the moment the plan reveals the hilltop camp — 'I am none too clever I know, but let me go' — and is being briefed on where to camp when the rider arrives with the news that Jieting and Liliu are already lost.

Carries the Second Memorial from Hanzhong and is called into the presence to hand it over — the errand that turns a hesitant court into an edict for war.

Asks the question the retreat needs explaining for - 'O Prime Minister, you have just scored a victory, and the enemy have lost their bravery; why retreat?' - and draws out Zhuge Liang's whole reasoning: short food, an enemy that will not fight, reinforcements coming, light horse that could cut the provision road, and the order already sent to Wei Yan to kill Wang Shuang so the pursuit never starts.

Intervenes twice, and the first intervention sets the whole ending in motion. Talks Zhuge Liang out of executing Gou An for the ten-day delay ('If you put this man to death, perhaps others will not undertake transport duty'), so the man takes eighty blows and his grudge to Sima Yi instead. Then queries the retreat plan from the textbook: 'In the days of old, when Sun Bin was attacking Pang Juan, Sun Bin decreased the cooking arrangements as the soldiers were increased. Why do you reverse this, O Prime Minister?' - and gets the answer that saves the army.

Supplies the idea that makes the long war possible: split the army and rotate it, a hundred thousand in the field and a hundred thousand at home, a hundred days at a time, 'and so on alternately... their energies will be conserved and you can gradually work toward the Middle Land.' Then, when Sun Li's two hundred thousand arrive exactly as the relief falls due, he is the one who asks for the rotation to be suspended - and is refused, which produces the chapter's best scene. Finally leads the ten thousand bowmen and crossbowmen with Ma Zheng into the Wooden Path ambush.

Raises the problem that produces the chapter's invention - 'The stores of grain are all at Saber Pass, and the labor of transport is very heavy. What can be done?' - and gets the answer that the timber bought in the River Lands was always meant for wooden transport animals 'as they will require neither food nor water and they can keep on the move day and night without resting'.

Receives the silken bag at the couch with the warning that goes with it: 'After my death, Wei Yan will turn traitor. When that happens and the army is in danger, you will find herein what to do.' Then given the working orders - keep the veterans (Ma Dai, Wang Ping, Liao Hua, Zhang Yi, Zhang Ni) in the service, withdraw gradually, set Jiang Wei to guard the retreat - and receives them weeping. Tests Wei Yan deliberately by sending him the rearguard authority ('I sent him the authority to test him, and now he has discovered himself as the Prime Minister foretold'), gives the rearguard to Jiang Wei instead, and brings the army back to the Plank Trail before letting anyone put on mourning.

His fall happens in this chapter, in four paragraphs. He brings the coffin home over the Chashan Mountain Path, opens the silken bag at exactly the moment its cover specifies, baits Wei Yan into the shout, delivers the body to Chengdu, binds himself at court and confesses fault, and is promoted Instructor of the Center Army. Then Jiang Wan is made Prime Minister over his head, and he says the thing that finishes him — to Fei Yi, of all people: 'If when the Prime Minister died I had gone over to Wei, with the whole army, I should not have been thus left out in the cold.' Fei Yi reports it, Liu Shan imprisons him and means to execute him, Jiang Wan talks the sentence down to loss of rank, and he is sent to Hanjia in Hanzhong, 'where he committed suicide through shame'.