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Stratagems

Burning of the Linked Camps

Both

Lu Xun burned the camps Liu Bei had chained along the river at Yiling. The fire and the rout are historical. Seven hundred li of camps, and Zhuge Liang foreseeing the loss from Chengdu, are the novel’s scale.

The frame is historical. Character, dialogue, and scale are often rewritten by the novel.

In 222 Liu Bei’s eastern army camped from Yiling to Xiaoting, with stockades linked together, and faced Wu. Lu Xun judged that the army’s edge had dulled and that the camps stood among trees and grass. Wu set them alight together. The camps collapsed and Liu Bei fled by night. That is the core of Yiling in the Records.

The novel adds two layers. One is distance: seven hundred li of camps, too long to command and large enough for a panorama. The other is a distant witness: Zhuge Liang in Chengdu sees that the campaign must fail and cannot stop Liu Bei. The historical Zhuge Liang was governing Shu. He was not reading those stars.

The burning is therefore marked “both.” The tactic stays with Lu Xun and the battle of Yiling. The seven hundred li and the foreknowledge stay at the novel’s scale. The commander is not Zhou Yu and not Zhuge Liang. Lu Xun set the fire.