Chapter 103
— In Gourd Valley, Sima Yi Is Trapped; In Wuzhang Hills, Zhuge Liang Invokes The Stars.
Delivers the chapter's great remonstrance, and it is the one argument Zhuge Liang cannot answer. First Secretary, he objects to the Prime Minister checking the account books himself: 'In a household, for example, the male plows and the female cooks, and thus operations are carried on without waste of energy… If one individual strives to attend personally to every matter, he only wearies himself and fails to accomplish his end.' Cites Bing Ji, who asked after a panting ox but not the corpses in the road, and Chen Ping, who did not know the tax figures — then lands it: 'You are wearing yourself out, and Sima Yi has good reason for what he said.' Zhuge Liang answers in tears and does not change, and everyone in the tent weeps.