Zhuge Liang 诸葛亮
Zhuge Liang began as an advisor to Liu Bei, and after his death he governed Shu on behalf of the young heir. Relations with allies and campaigns against Wei depended on him. In Romance of Three Kingdoms he is also a master of ruses that are easy to imagine on stage. Zhuge Liang can obtain arrows from the enemy without a battle or drive off an army by playing the qin at the open city gates.
Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮) was born in 181 in Yangdu, in the Langya commandery. He lost his parents early and lived with his uncle. Later Zhuge Liang settled in seclusion. It was there that Liu Bei sought him out. According to Chen Shou, Zhuge Liang proposed that Liu Bei establish himself in the southwest and come to an agreement with Sun Quan. In 208 he himself had to travel to Sun Quan to negotiate a joint war against Cao Cao. The allies defeated Cao's forces at Red Cliffs.
In 223 the dying Liu Bei entrusted him with the care of his son Liu Shan. Zhuge Liang became regent, restored relations with Wu, led his troops south, and then undertook several campaigns against Wei. His memorials to the emperor survive in the chronicle. After the defeat at Jieting he took responsibility for having entrusted the command to Ma Su. Zhuge Liang died in 234 during yet another northern campaign, in the camp at Wuzhang.
In Luo Guan-Zhong's novel Romance of Three Kingdoms he anticipates his opponents' decisions with a precision no one could achieve in real warfare. The most famous stratagem is the "Empty Fort". Zhuge Liang has almost no troops, but he orders the gates opened and calmly plays the qin. Sima Yi decides that an ambush surely awaits him in the city. This episode is known from the novel. There, too, Zhuge Liang miraculously summons the wind and obtains enemy arrows with the help of boats.
In Romance of Three Kingdoms (1994) he was played by Tang Guo-Qiang, in the 2010 series by Lu Yi. John Woo cast Kaneshiro Takeshi in the role for Red Cliff (2008) and Red Cliff: Part 2 (2009). His character arrives to negotiate the alliance and spends a considerable part of the film alongside Zhou Yu, who is to command on the battlefield.
