Zhuge Zhan

First appearance, and it is at his father's funeral: when the coffin is carried into the Prime Minister's palace by royal command, 'his son Zhuge Zhan was chief mourner'. He will command the last stand at Mianzhu in ch117.

Called out of the retirement he took when Huang Hao began directing affairs, given the seventy thousand troops of the capital, he wins the first two battles by putting his father's old wooden image in a light carriage under the standard 'The Han Prime Minister Zhuge Liang' — which routs Deng Zhong and Shi Zuan without a fight. Deng Ai's letter offers him the rank of Prince of Langye and frames it as a compliment to his father: nobody of the age was his father's equal, the six Qishan expeditions failed only by the will of Heaven, but 'this Latter Ruler is dull and weak, and his kingly aura is already exhausted'. Zhuge Zhan tears the letter to fragments, has the messenger beheaded on the spot, and sends the head back to Deng Ai's camp. Beaten by an ambush on the third battle, penned in Mianzhu, and finally unwilling to wait any longer for a Wu relief that never comes: 'This long defense is useless. I will fight!' Surrounded with three thousand men, wounded, he draws his sword — 'I am done, but in my death I will do my duty!' — and kills himself.

Named in passing only, and dead since last chapter - but his death is what opens this one: 'The news of the fall of Mianzhu and the deaths in battle of Zhuge Zhan and Zhuge Shang, father and son, brought home to the Latter Ruler that danger was very near.'