Kong Ming

Kong Ming’s role as strategist is defined by his ability to make an enemy’s assumptions work against it, from battlefield ambushes to the open gates of Xicheng. His authority rests not only on devising plans but on directing people, supplies, and information; at the end of his life, he transfers that authority through instructions to Jiang Wei, Ma Dai, and Yang Yi, while arranging for his own death to remain concealed long enough for the Shu army to withdraw.

Strategy and Command

Kong Ming’s plans repeatedly treat terrain and the enemy’s expectations as parts of the same problem. At Bowang, as Cao Cao’s much larger force advances on Xinye, Kong Ming sends Guan Yu to conceal troops in the hills and strike the rearguard and supply train when flames appear. Zhang Fei is to wait in the valleys behind the forest and attack the stores at Bowang. Other commanders prepare fires along the ravine, while Zhao Zilong is instructed to lead the advance party and feign retreat at first contact. The plan distributes separate tasks across the route of the advancing army, turning its movement through constricted ground into an opportunity for coordinated attacks.

Kong Ming’s orders provoke resistance within his own command. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei doubt his competence and resent his appointment; they are especially skeptical that he will stay away from the fighting. Xuande rebukes them, and they agree to cooperate, though reluctantly. Even Xuande is unsettled when Kong Ming orders the camp abandoned as the enemy approaches. Kong Ming, however, is so confident in the plan that he has Sun Qian and Jian Yong prepare celebrations for victory. His command therefore tests not only his tactical design but also whether others will act on orders they do not yet trust.

His strategic method also appears in the way he reads the opponent’s choices. Jia Xu observes Cao Cao’s attention to the vulnerable southeastern wall and recognizes that the apparent preparations to attack elsewhere are a deception. This episode frames warfare as a contest of interpretation: a weakness may be real, but an enemy’s visible focus on it can itself be bait. The same logic shapes Kong Ming’s better-known schemes, in which the apparent action and the actual purpose are deliberately divided.

Deception, Resources, and Terrain

During the campaign against Cao Cao, Kong Ming exploits dense fog to obtain arrows without exposing his forces to a direct fight. He sends boats toward the enemy shore and has the sailors beat drums and shout, making the movement sound like an assault. Cao Cao responds by ordering his archers and crossbowmen to fire into the fog. The arrows strike straw barriers on the boats; as daylight clears the mist, the boats turn back with their bales bristling with arrows. The stratagem converts Cao Cao’s defensive response into a supply for Kong Ming’s side, while the fog conceals both the boats’ true purpose and their withdrawal.

At the Altar of the Seven Stars, Kong Ming offers Zhou Yu a different kind of advantage. He says that he learned from magic books how to command winds and call rain, and proposes a special altar on Nanping Mountain to produce a southeasterly wind for three days and nights. Zhou Yu accepts the proposal and provides what is needed. Kong Ming travels with five hundred workers and one hundred and twenty banner carriers; the altar is built of red earth, with three levels and symbols of the twenty-eight constellations on its lowest level. The episode joins practical preparations to a claim of supernatural skill, presenting weather as both a military necessity and a force that may be brought within the strategist’s control.

Later, at Jieting, Kong Ming’s campaign is undone by a failure to follow sound advice. He assigns Ma Su to hold the position, with Wang Ping overseeing him, but Ma Su chooses a hilltop instead of defending the road, against Wang Ping’s recommendation. Ma Su relies on passages from Sun Zi’s Art of War despite having little practical experience; the enemy cuts him off, and the lack of water helps break his force. Wang Ping sends Kong Ming a report of their positions, but Jieting falls and the retreat brings further losses. The episode sets Kong Ming’s reliance on information and terrain against a subordinate’s misplaced confidence in book learning, showing how a plan can fail when command is exercised without judgment.

The Empty City and the Retreat

After the loss of Jieting and Lieliu, Kong Ming hastens to Xicheng, where the army’s supplies are stored. He has only five thousand men when he learns that a force of 150,000 under Sima Yi is approaching. Instead of attempting to display a strength he does not possess, he orders the banners and other signs of occupation removed, hides the people, and commands silence. Then, wearing his customary Daoist robes, he sits on the city wall with only two boys and plays a lute. The gates remain open.

Sima Yi interprets the scene as evidence of a hidden trap. Rather than enter the apparently undefended city, he orders his army to turn aside, and the force passes out of sight. The stratagem reverses the usual display of military power: the visible absence of defenses becomes more alarming than a conventional show of force. Its success depends on Sima Yi’s judgment of Kong Ming, the disparity in their numbers, and the decision to make the city’s apparent calm the center of the deception.

Succession and Final Instructions

When Kong Ming is dying, Jiang Wei sits beside him after sending Wei Yan out to confront and hold off the Wei troops. Kong Ming gives Jiang Wei secret formulae concerning military concerns and precautions, and entrusts him with plans for a bow capable of firing ten arrows at once, which he has not had time to develop. He warns that most of the kingdom is safe but that Yinping may soon become a source of trouble. Jiang Wei breaks down as he receives the materials, and Kong Ming identifies him as the person fit to succeed him.

Kong Ming also prepares for the political and military consequences of his death. He gives Ma Dai secret information to be used afterward and gives Yang Yi a silk bag containing instructions. He predicts that Wei Yan will rebel and tells Yang Yi to open the bag at the front when the moment comes, so that the person designated to kill Wei Yan can be found. The plan does not merely name a successor; it anticipates a breakdown in the army’s unity and assigns different men specific roles in containing it.

In his final memorial to the second ruler, Kong Ming recalls his service and laments that he has not fulfilled his task. He urges the ruler to be honest and self-disciplined, to care for the people, follow his late father’s path, promote the worthy, and prevent the unworthy from harming the state. He distributes his estate in Chengdu to his children, describing it as eight hundred mulberry trees and about fifteen hundred acres. The modest figures accompany his appeal to the ruler: public duty, rather than accumulated wealth, is the measure by which his service should be understood.

Death and Fulfilment of the Prophecy

Kong Ming orders that after his death his body be placed upright in a large box and that the army make no change in its appearance or routine. He directs that seven grains of rice be placed in his mouth and a lamp at his feet, believing these acts will keep his guiding star from falling and confound Sima Yi. If the army is attacked, Yang Yi is to put a wooden statue of Kong Ming in his carriage and drive it toward the enemy. These instructions turn the appearance of Kong Ming’s continued presence into a final military device: his death must not be revealed before the withdrawal is secure.

He points out his guiding star in the Northern Bushel constellation, then dies at fifty-four. When Li Fu asks who should succeed Jiang Wei in turn, Kong Ming names Fei Yi but dies before supplying any further names. His succession plan is therefore both deliberate and limited: he identifies immediate leadership while leaving the longer future unresolved.

The prediction concerning Wei Yan is fulfilled after Kong Ming’s death. Wei Yan boasts that there is no one left to fear and shouts that no one can kill him. Ma Dai, acting on Kong Ming’s prior instruction, answers that he can and kills him. The end confirms the reach and cost of Kong Ming’s foresight: even beyond his death, his instructions determine the outcome of a rebellion, while his carefully managed retreat and the divided succession reveal how much the Shu army’s stability had depended on his personal command.