Ma Su's words immediately won the agreement of the young officers gathered around him.
"Sun Quan burned the Cao army at Red Cliffs, and his military strength is at its height. How could he possibly be shattered, ten thousand against a mere eight hundred?"
"General Zhang, military deductions cannot be guided by personal grudges!"
"Is General Zhang perhaps making sport of us?"
Zhang Fei's face flushed a deep crimson, yet he found himself unable to respond. The battlefield record of his blue-eyed brother-in-law was indeed something that anyone with even a trace of military understanding would find difficult to accept.
In the end, Guan Yu stepped in to quell the dissent. "Let us simply assume that Sun Quan has already suffered defeat and no longer possesses the strength to advance."
Since General Guan had spoken, the others could only accept the premise. The officers marked the assumption and returned their attention to the sand table with renewed focus.
Ma Su was once again the first to speak.
"Since Sun Quan has troops stationed at Lukou, we could have the commander of Jiangling join forces with the Lukou garrison and march north. They could seize Xiangyang, hold it, and then lay siege to Fan City. What do you think?"
"The Lukou garrison cannot be moved," Guan Yu replied, his tone enigmatic. Even he struggled to justify such a restriction.
A wave of frustration rose within Ma Su. Nothing was permitted. Drawing a slow breath to steady himself, he tried again.
"Then let the Hanzhong garrison make a feint through the Baoxie Path. They can project an attack toward Chang'an to pin down Cao Cao's forces. Would that suffice?"
Guan Yu stroked his beard in silence. Huang Zhong was forced to answer, albeit reluctantly.
"The Hanzhong garrison has already returned to Chengdu. There will be no offensive from Hanzhong."
At this, even Xiahou Lan let out a heavy sigh.
Gao Xiang and Chen Shi studied the map in earnest before concluding, "If that is the case, the western forces at Hanzhong cannot coordinate, and Sun Quan in the east is likewise unable to assist. Even the Lukou garrison cannot be mobilized. This amounts to attacking the fortified strongholds of Xiangyang and Fan City with a mere thirty thousand men against an iron wall."
"And with Cao Cao free of concern on both flanks, he can commit his full strength to reinforce Xiangyang. How can thirty thousand prevail against a city defended by a hundred thousand?"
"Pfft!" Zhang Fei suddenly burst into laughter at the mention of a hundred thousand troops.
Faced with the bewildered gazes of the crowd, Zhang Fei could only offer an awkward explanation. "I… I just remembered something amusing. Besides, this is only a deduction. We are merely testing possibilities!"
Yet how could such a deduction proceed? There were no allies to coordinate with, no reinforcements to follow, and not even a means to delay the enemy's relief forces.
"I just suddenly thought of something funny… and this is only a simulation, right? Try pushing it a bit!"
Ma Su stated bluntly that such a task would require a far more brilliant strategist than General Zhang. However, Guan Yu silenced all objections with a glance. The officers could only rack their brains, their expressions bitter as they struggled to conceive a path to victory.
The more perceptive among them had already begun to wonder: my lord has only just allied by marriage with the Marquis of Wu, so how has the relationship deteriorated so swiftly?
Meanwhile, in a blacksmith's shop by the Hudu River, Ma Liang stood barefoot among piles of stone charcoal, sorting through them alongside an old smith.
"Found it!" The old smith's eyes lit up as he pulled a piece from the pile and held it out to Jiang Wan.
"Young master, this piece is top-quality stone charcoal."
Ma Liang studied the coal in his hand with curiosity and pointed to the other pieces on the ground. "How can you tell it is superior? What method do you use to distinguish it?"
The old smith chuckled and snapped the piece in two. The fragments struck each other with a crisp, ringing sound.
"This kind of shiny coal is hard. It catches fire easily, burns hot, and produces iron of much better quality."
Ma Liang carefully recorded the details and tried it himself. The piece in the old man's hand was indeed as hard as stone, while the duller pieces on the ground crumbled underfoot without effort.
"This coal is already quite good," the old smith said, his thoughts drifting to the past. "I am from Hedong. When I was young, we could find stone charcoal nearby. Back then there was also a kind like loose soil. Once dried, it was excellent for cooking."
"And there is also a folk remedy." The old man's eyes flickered with a hint of mischief, prompting a helpless sigh from Ma Liang.
"I thank you, elder. We have an agreement. You will share all you know, and we will reward you according to the usefulness of your knowledge. You must trust in the Administrator of Jingzhou."
"Ah, yes, yes. Force of habit." The old man laughed awkwardly, wiping his hands on his clothes.
"In my family, we have a secret recipe. If someone accidentally swallows gold or silver, take a piece of stone charcoal half the size of a thumb and a piece of stone sulfur the size of a full thumb. Grind them together and drink it with wine. It will pass through the body."
A wave of nausea rose in Ma Liang's chest. How was such a thing even to be verified? And was this not medicine? What did it have to do with iron smelting?
Maintaining a composed expression, he recorded it nonetheless, though he silently resolved to leave the task of verification to someone else.
"Oh, and one more thing." Ma Liang nearly stopped writing, but the old man was already continuing.
"I heard this from my mother. If a woman's monthly cycle does not come, boil some stone charcoal into a broth. Drink it together with the dregs of three croton beans, and it will surely work."
Ma Liang dutifully wrote it down, privately deciding that these two "remedies" should be handed over to the Divine Physician Zhang Zhongjing. As for verifying them, he was utterly at a loss.
After leaving the blacksmith, Ma Liang returned to the county office and handed his records to Jiang Wan. Within the Department of Inspection and Observation, Ma Liang was practically the only consistently active agent, largely because his work was exceptionally reliable.
The records he submitted had already been organized into three sections. One detailed the smith's knowledge of coal types, another analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of using coal for smelting, and the last contained the so-called secret formulas.
Jiang Wan skimmed through them and sighed inwardly. He set aside the folk remedies. "Make a copy of this and send it to Physician Zhang."
He then brought the two technical reports on coal to Zhuge Liang's desk, where several other accounts from blacksmiths were already laid out. At the end, Jiang Wan had appended his own assessment:
Summarizing the artisans' accounts, charcoal and stone charcoal each have their merits. However, stone charcoal is difficult to mine and produces inconsistent iron quality. This may be due to differences in type. If these differences can be identified and the correct method applied, stone charcoal may prove superior to wood charcoal.
Yet even as he wrote it, Jiang Wan could only shake his head. Identifying the correct method was far easier said than done.
"Gongyan, your efficiency is remarkable."
Jiang Wan turned to see Zhuge Liang, his robe dusted with mud, as though he had just returned from the fields.
"Is that Tiangong Kaiwu truly so useful?"
At the mention of the book, Zhuge Liang's fatigue vanished at once, replaced by bright enthusiasm.
"Useful? It is nothing less than a compendium of the workings of Heaven itself!"
"From just two chapters, I have gained insights into rice cultivation that surpass even those of the most experienced farmers. I cannot imagine what secrets the remaining chapters might contain."
"That such a treasure, filled with the mysteries of the universe, is sold so cheaply by later generations… I cannot begin to comprehend what kind of flourishing age the future must be."
The future. Whenever the subject arose, Jiang Wan could not help but think of the light screen and its miraculous ability to turn speech into text. He, too, felt a quiet sense of longing.
"I truly wish to see what kind of presence that 'aircraft carrier' possesses. I imagine it as a drifting territory, self-sufficient, bearing an elite army that comes and goes like spirits."
Zhuge Liang shook his head slightly.
Gongyan, your vision is still too limited.
His thoughts had already gone much further. On the light screen, the price of a Han sword, an Eight-Ox Crossbow, and Tiangong Kaiwu were all roughly the same. To the people of the future, these three items held comparable value.
But what was Tiangong Kaiwu? The chapter on rice cultivation alone could increase Jingzhou's grain yield by thirty percent. How many lives could that additional harvest sustain? It was a work that could be called a pillar of the state, yet in the future it cost only forty-nine yuan, scarcely five coins.
A treasure capable of saving countless lives was worth five coins.
The blueprints for a great crossbow, capable of aiding conquest, were worth only thirty coins.
And a Han sword, which could neither feed the hungry nor quench thirst, and was less practical on the battlefield than a long spear, was worth twenty coins.
He then thought of the "flip-flops" he had seen on the light screen, which Zhao Yun had praised highly, yet which cost nothing at all.
To later generations, such things were of little consequence, while their greatest praise was reserved for the "aircraft carrier." The might of the future was beyond measure.
The morning mushroom knows nothing of the passage between day and night. The summer cicada knows nothing of spring and autumn.
Who among them was the mushroom, and who the cicada?
Footnote: Zhuge Liang is not just impressed, he is shaken. Imagine realizing that something capable of feeding an entire region is priced like a trivial everyday item in the future. That is not just a technological gap, it is a complete shift in what a civilization values.
The "Mushroom and Cicada" metaphor is a classic deep cut from Zhuangzi. It is a reminder that people are always trapped within the limits of their own era.
To Zhuge Liang, the aircraft carrier is not merely a weapon, it represents a world where survival itself is no longer the central struggle. And that realization is far more overwhelming than any battlefield.