The wind-fever is treated, and the divine physician dies.
A final command is transmitted, and the treacherous hero reaches his end.

Now it was told that Liu Bei, the King of Han, collapsed when he heard that Guan Yu and his son were dead. The civil and military officials rushed to summon help, and after some time he regained consciousness and was carried back into the inner hall. Zhuge Liang, whose courtesy name was Kongming, advised, “My lord, worry less. In the old sayings it is said that life and death are in the order of Heaven. This disaster came to Guan Yu because of his daily inflexibility and pride. My lord should care for your own body and seek revenge only in time.”

Xuande, whose courtesy name was Xuan De, said, “When I and my sworn brothers Guan and Zhang made the oath at the Peach Garden, we swore to live and die together. Now Yunchang is gone; how can I alone enjoy rank and comfort?” He had not finished speaking when Guan Xing arrived, crying aloud. On seeing him, Xuande cried once and fainted again. The officials revived him. For a day he would faint and waken three or five times, and for three days he would not take gruel or water, only wailing. His tears soaked his collar and robe until the stains turned red like blood. Kongming and the other officials repeatedly urged him to pull back.

Xuande said, “I swore with the king of Eastern Wu that I would never share the same sun and moon.” Kongming said, “I hear that in Wu they offered Guan Gong’s severed head to Cao Cao, and Cao Cao buried him with courtly honors.”

Xuande said, “What does this mean?”

Kongming said, “It is Wu’s attempt to shift blame onto Cao Cao. Cao Cao saw through that plot, so he buried Guan Gong with rich honors and invited Your Majesty to place blame on Wu.”

Xuande said, “I will set out immediately with troops to punish Wu and wash away my grievance.”

Kongming remonstrated, “It cannot be done. Wu now asks me to attack Wei, and Wei also asks me to attack Wu. Both sides harbor hidden schemes and wait for a crack. My lord should hold your army still and hold the funeral for Guan Gong. When Wu and Wei quarrel with one another, seize the moment to strike them.” The officials remonstrated again. At last Xuande managed to take food. He issued an order that all officers and soldiers in Shu should wear mourning. The Han King came out himself at the southern gate to summon the spirit and conduct the funeral, and he cried out in grief the whole day.

Cao Cao was in Luoyang. After burying Guan Yu, each night whenever he closed his eyes he saw Guan Yu. He was deeply alarmed and asked the officials what to do. They said, “The old halls of the traveling palace in Luoyang are haunted; you may build a new hall.”

Cao Cao said, “I wish to raise a hall named Jian Shi Hall, but I have no fine carpenter for it.” Jia Xu said, “There is a master carpenter named Su Yue in Luoyang, famous for clever design.” Cao summoned him and asked him to draw plans. Su Yue presented a plan for a nine-bay great hall with covered galleries and pavilions before and behind. Cao inspected it and said, “You have drawn it very much as I wished; I fear only that there is no timber to carry this.”

Su Yue said, “About thirty li from the city lies a pond called Yuelong Pond. In front of it is a shrine called Yuelong Shrine. Beside the shrine stands a giant pear tree, over ten zhang high, straight and fit to supply the main beam of Jian Shi Hall.”

Cao rejoiced and ordered carpenters to go and cut it.

The next day they reported that the tree could not be sawn, the ax could not bite into it, and it could not be felled. Cao did not believe them, so he personally rode out with a few hundred riders to Yuelong Shrine and dismounted before it. He looked up at the tree, towering like a canopy and reaching into the clouds, without any bend in it. He ordered it cut down. A few local elders came forward to remonstrate: “This tree is already several hundred years old and is home to a spirit person. It is likely unfit to be cut.”

Cao roared, “I have traveled under heaven for forty years. From Son of Heaven to the common people, none has failed to fear me. What spirit dares to disobey my will?” Then he drew the sword he wore and cut it himself. There was a sharp ringing sound, and blood sprayed all over him. Cao startled and panicked. He cast down the sword, mounted, and returned to the palace.

That night, in the second watch, Cao could not sleep, though he sat in the hall and drifted into dozing at the screen. Suddenly a man in wild hair and a black robe, carrying a sword, came straight before him, pointed and shouted, “I am the spirit of this pear tree. You build Jian Shi Hall to seize the great charge, and now you come to fell my sacred wood. I know your life is at an end. I have come to kill you.” Cao shouted, “Where are the guards?” and the black-robed man moved to strike. Cao cried out, and suddenly realized he was awake: he had a pounding headache he could not bear. He sent orders throughout the hall for doctors; no treatment could cure him. Everyone feared for him.

Hua Xin said, “Your Highness, do you know the divine physician Hua Tuo?”

Cao said, “Is he the one called Zhou Tai from Jiangdong?”

Hua Xin said, “It is.”

Cao said, “Though I have heard his name, I do not know his craft.”

Hua Xin said, “Hua Tuo, courtesy name Yuanhua, was from Qiao in Pei. His medical art is rare in the world. If there is a patient, he cures him with medicine, with needles, or with moxibustion as needed. For sickness of the five organs and six bowels when medicine is useless, he gives Mai-fei decoction to make the patient as if drunk dead, then opens the abdomen with a sharp knife, washes the organs with medicine broth, and the patient feels little pain. When finished, he stitches the incision and applies medicine; in a month or in twenty days, the patient is restored. Such is his astonishing skill.

One day he was passing on the road and heard a person groaning. He said, ‘This is a disease in which food and drink refuse to descend.’ He asked and it proved true. He had him drink three sheng of garlic-juice, whereupon a snake two or three zhang long emerged; the man’s appetite immediately returned. Governor Chen Deng of Guangling had vexation and flushed face, could not eat or drink, and sought Hua Tuo’s treatment. Tuo gave him a medicine; he vomited three sheng of parasites, each with red heads and trembling fore and aft. Deng asked why. Tuo said, ‘You have overate fishy flesh and this is the poison.’ Though he recovered today, in three years it will surely return; then he cannot be saved.’ Later Chen Deng indeed died after three years.

Another person came with a boil between the brows, unbearably itchy. He asked him to inspect it. Tuo said, ‘There is an insect inside.’ The men laughed. Tuo split it open and a yellow magpie flew out; the patient was cured.

Another person’s toe had been bitten by a dog; at the end of the toes two lumps grew, one causing sharp pain, the other intolerable itching. Tuo said, ‘The pain is from ten needles inside; the itching from two black-and-white game pieces inside.’ None believed him. He cut it open and the signs proved true. This man was indeed in the line of Bianque and Cang Gong.

He now lives near Jincheng, not far from here. Why would Your Highness not summon him?”

Cao immediately sent men through the night to summon Hua Tuo inside and diagnose his pulse and illness. Tuo said, “Your Highness’s headache comes from a wind disorder. The root is in the head; wind-phlegm cannot be expelled. Decoctions alone will not cure this. I have one method: first he must drink the Mai-fei Decoction, then the sharp axe must open the cranium to remove the wind-phlegm from the brain.”

Cao was furious and said, “You would kill me!”

Tuo said, “Your Highness once had an arrow poisoned through the right arm, like Guan Gong. I scraped the poison and he scarcely flinched. But now your small illness should not invite such suspicion.”

Cao said, “To scrape is for arm pain; shall one open the head? You knew Guan Yu well and use this moment to repay him!” He ordered him seized and dragged to prison, then beaten and questioned.

Jia Xu remonstrated, “A physician of this caliber is rare in the world; he should not be discarded.” Cao shouted, “This man means to use his opportunity to harm me. He is no different from Jiping’s pattern.” He ordered him tortured at once.

In prison there was a guard surnamed Wu, who everyone called Wu the Jailer. He served Hua Tuo each day with wine and food. Tuo, moved by his kindness, said, “I am soon to die and regret leaving the Book of the Green Gourd untaught to the world. Because of your kindness, I have no way to repay you. I will write a book and send it home; bring it to me, and then return with the Book of the Green Gourd to continue my art.”

Wu was overjoyed and said, “If I can get this book, I will leave this post and heal the sick of the world, passing on the virtue of the teacher.” Tuo wrote at once and gave it to Wu the Jailer.

Wu traveled to Jincheng and asked Tuo’s wife to fetch the Qingnang Book. He returned to prison and returned it to Hua Tuo. They reviewed it, and Tuo immediately handed the book to Wu.

Wu carried it home and hid it. After ten days Hua Tuo died in prison. Wu bought a coffin and burial coffin and then left his assignment to return home, intending to study the Qingnang Book. He saw his wife burning the volume there. He cried out in alarm, rushed to seize it, but it was already burned to ash; only one or two leaves remained. Wu cursed and berated his wife. She said, “Even if one learns medicine as miraculous as Hua Tuo, if he has to die in jail, what use is it?” Wu sighed and stopped. So the Qingnang Book was never passed on to the world; only small arts about chickens and swine were later passed down, and those too were from one or two burned leaves.

A poem later lamented:

Hua Tuo’s immortal skill, like a great mulberry branch, Divine insight like peering through one span of wall, It is mournful that the man dies and the book is severed, Later ages will no longer behold the Green Gourd.

After Cao Cao murdered Hua Tuo, his illness only worsened, and he still worried about Wu and Shu. While he was fretting over this, close officers suddenly reported that Eastern Wu had sent envoys with a memorial. Cao took the document and read it. It said briefly:

Your servant Sun Quan has long known that Heaven’s mandate has returned to Your Majesty. In hope that the Great Office be corrected at the earliest, I beg that You dispatch generals to crush Liu Bei and level the Two Rivers; I and my men will then return in submission.

Cao read it and laughed broadly, then showed it to all ministers: “This boy means to set me upon the funeral pyre!” The Chamberlain Chen Qun and others answered, “The Han house has long decayed. Your Highness’s virtue and merit are towering, and the people look to you. Now Sun Quan kneels in submission. This is Heaven’s design, and all signs are in accord. Your Highness ought to follow Heaven and men and seize the proper office.”

Cao laughed: “I have served the Han for many years. Though I have merits and benefits for the people, I have only reached the rank of King and the highest fief available. How could I harbor other designs? If Heaven’s mandate lies with me, I am already King Wen of Zhou.”

Sima Yi said, “Now that Sun Quan has submitted, Your Highness should grant him an office and rank so that he denies Liu Bei.” Cao agreed and issued a memorial appointing Sun Quan as General of Agile Cavalry and Marquess of Nanchang, with the governorship of Jing Province. He at once sent the imperial edict to Wu.

Cao’s illness grew worse. One night he dreamt that three horses ate from one trough; on waking he asked Jia Xu, “Recently I dreamt three horses in one trough, and I suspect this means Ma Teng and his son bring disaster. Ma Teng is dead now, yet last night I dreamt it again. What does it portend?”

Jia Xu said, “The horse omen is lucky. The blessed horse returns to Cao. Why should the king of Cao be worried?” Cao accepted that and did not doubt it.

Later people wrote:

Three horses in one trough may be seen as suspicious, Yet few know whether this has planted the roots of Jin. Cao Man’s scheming was full of villainy, but who in court recognized the Master Sima?

That night Cao lay in his chamber. At the third watch, when he grew faint and dizzy with head and eyes, he rose and reclined again against the side chair. He heard the hall split as if torn. Startled, he looked and saw Empress Fu, Consort Dong, the two princes, and Fu Wan and Dong Cheng among twenty others, all with their whole bodies smeared blood, standing beneath dark sorrowful clouds, and low voices calling for their lives. Cao snatched his sword and swung it into the air. A loud crack sounded and the southwest corner of the hall collapsed.

Cao staggered and fell to the ground. Attendants pulled him out, moved him to another palace, and he recovered there. In the next watch they again heard endless crying from men and women outside the hall until dawn. At daylight Cao summoned ministers and said, “In thirty years of life in arms and campaigning I had never trusted strange omens or phantasms. Why is this happening today?”

The ministers answered, “Your Highness should have Daoist priests hold sacrificial rites and charms to avert what approaches.” Cao sighed, “The sages said: ‘If one has offended Heaven, there is no prayer that can help.’ Heaven’s mandate is already used up for me. What can be done?” He refused to allow rites.

The next day he felt heat in his qi rise to the upper burner and could not make out what he saw. He urgently consulted Xiahou Dun. When Dun reached the hall gate, he too saw Empress Fu, Consort Dong, the two princes, Fu Wan, and Dong Cheng standing within the dark clouds. He was horrified, collapsed, and after he was helped out he fell ill.

Cao summoned Cao Hong, Chen Qun, Jia Xu, Sima Yi, and others to come to his bed and entrust matters after him. They knelt and said, “Your Highness, cherish your body; recovery will come and you will rise suddenly.”

Cao said, “For more than thirty years I have been reckless across the land, and all rival lords are gone. Only Sun Quan in Wu and Liu Bei in Shu remain uncleared. I am now in dangerous illness and cannot again confer with you all, so I entrust family matters.

My eldest son Cao Ang, born of Lady Liu, died young in Wan City. Now Lady Bian has borne four sons: Pi, Zhang, Zhi, and Xiong. The third, Zhi, has been my favorite; he is graceful yet shallow and unreliable, given to wine and loose living, and so he has not been named heir. The second son, Zhang, is brave but lacking strategy. The fourth, Xiong, is often sick and unlikely to survive. Only the eldest, Cao Pi, is grave, reverent, and careful; he may inherit my work. You should support him.”

Cao Hong and the others wept and received the order before they left.

Cao ordered attendants to fetch the perfumes he kept in daily use and distribute them to all the palace women, bidding them, “After I die, you must learn weaving with diligence and make silk shoes in quantity; selling them will give you your own means.” He also ordered the rest to stay mostly in the Copper Sparrow Terrace, setting daily memorial meals, and always having female musicians sing at table.

He further ordered that at Zhande Prefecture’s Jiangwu City, outside the city walls where weapons were taught, seventy-two decoy burial mounds be raised, and none should learn my place of burial, lest people exhume it. After all the orders, he took one long breath and wept in torrents. In a moment his qi left him and he died.

He was sixty-six. It was the first month of spring in the twenty-fifth year of Jian'an.

Later there was a piece called Ode to Ye City, lamenting Cao Cao:

In Ye, at the waters of Ye City and Zhang waters, A strange man surely rises from here. Great designs and elegant writings mingle like text and meaning; Ruler and minister as kin, yet as father and son too. Heroic hearts did not house common thoughts, Where they rose and withdrew no one could read by the eye. He was both prime mover and great culprit—not two men; From one body came both stench and fragrance. Poetry with spirit and command with force— can such power be scattered among ordinary crowds? Across the taiping rivers he built his terrace by the Taihang ridge, His vigor and reason surged and fell against each other. Can such a man exist without rebellion? If he was not tyrant, he was no king by destiny. Great captains became sons and daughters in lament, Yet nothing could make this inner unrest cease. The lamp in the front chamber knows what harm there was not, The divided incense cannot be called compassionless. Alas! The ancients act with no act too small; Their lone magnificence carries meaning. Young scholars lightly mock those in the mound; The dead in the mound will laugh at your scholar’s heat.

When news of Cao Cao’s death arrived, all civil and military officers wore full mourning.

At once envoys were sent to inform Prince Cao Pi, Marquis of Yanling, Crown Prince Cao Zhang, Marquis of Linzi, and Prince Cao Zhi, Marquis of Linzi, and Cao Xiong, Marquis of Xiaohuai, of their loss.

Officers prepared a golden coffin and silver casket and put Cao’s body in preparation; before dawn they carried the coffin and spirit-banner to Yè Commandery overnight.

When Cao Pi heard of his father’s death, he wailed aloud and led all officials in and out of the city ten li to meet the procession, which halted in a side hall. Officials in mourning gathered and wept there.

Suddenly one man stepped forward and said, “Please, Crown Prince, restrain grief and discuss the momentous matter.” All eyes turned; it was Sima Fu, Director of the Inner Household.

Sima Fu said, “Since King Wei has passed, the realm is shaken. We should quickly establish a successor king to steady the people; crying alone is not enough.”

An official said, “The Crown Prince should indeed inherit, yet without an order from the Son of Heaven no one should act precipitously.”

Minister of War Chen Jiao then tore a sleeve from his robe with his sword and shouted, “This very day I will request that the Crown Prince inherit! If anyone here dares to object, let them take this sleeve as example!”

All officials were struck with awe. Then Hua Xin arrived from Xuchang on a flying horse. All were startled.

Soon Hua Xin entered. The officials asked the reason.

Hua Xin said, “Now that the King of Wei is gone, the realm is shaken. Why do we delay and install the Crown Prince?”

The officials replied, “We were only discussing that because we lacked the Son of Heaven’s edict we wished him, the empress and mother Lady Bian’s mercy, to establish the Crown Prince as king.”

Hua Xin said, “I have obtained the edict from the Han emperor; it is here.” Great cheering arose. He drew the edict from his breast and read it aloud.

It turned out Hua Xin had flatly flattered Wei and drafted this decree, pressuring the Present Emperor to submit. The emperor only obeyed, and the order thus decreed Cao Pi as King of Wei, Chancellor, and Governor of Ji Province. Cao Pi ascended the same day and accepted the ceremonial bows and dances of all officials.

Exactly when the court was celebrating and toasting, news came that Cao Zhang had arrived from Chang’an with one hundred thousand troops. Cao Pi was startled. He asked the ministers, “My younger brother with the yellow beard is rough by nature and deeply skilled in arms. He has come with an army from afar. He must be angling for the throne. What am I to do?”

At once a man below the steps answered, “I beg to go and meet the Marquis of Yanling and resolve this matter in a few words.” The officials said, “No one but a senior statesman can untangle this calamity.”

The chapter closed:

Watch the matter of Cao Pi and Cao Zhang and see how near it comes to a contention like the Yuan house before them; Who this man may be remains unknown.

How this turned out will be told in the next chapter.