草船借箭的故事

Borrowing Your  Enemy's  Arrows

   Cao Cao's troops came to Chibi,on the north bank of the Changjiang River.He was

preparing to attack Wu.ZhouYu's troops were stationed on the other side,ready to

defend.

      Many peopl esaid that ZhugeLiang was brilliant and shrewd.ZhouYu not entirely

convinced,so he wanted to use this chance to confound ZhugeLiang,and thereby make

him lose face.

     ZhouYu said to  ZhugeLiang,"We need a great deal of arrows for fighting on water.

Please make 100,000 arrows for us."

     ZhugeLiang replied,"As it's urgent,I'll do it in three days!If fail,I'll accept any punish-

-ment."

     ZhouYu was delighted.It was impossible to make 100,000 arrows in three days,

So ZhugeLiang would surely fail.ZhouYu also asked his assistant,Lu Su,not to supply

enough material.

      ZhugeLiang borrowed twenty light boats from Lu Su and sent men to place several

grass figures on both sides of the boats. He then swore Lu Su to secrecy.

      Two days passed,and ZhugeLiang did nothing.

      On the third night,ZhugeLiang invited Lu Su to drink with him on his boat.He asked

his ment to link the twenty boats together and sail towards CaoCao's camp.It was foggy

that night,everything was blur in the distance.When they got close to CaoCao's camp,

ZhugeLiang ordered his men to beat their drums and shout.Lu Su was afraid that CaoCao

would order an attack,but ZhugeLiang just asked him to drink.

       CaoCao thought that ZhouYu was attacking.He could not count the enemy soldiers,

so he ordered his archers to shoot them.All the grass men on the boats were soon covered

with arrows.ZhugeLiang gave orders to depart.When CaoCao realized what had happened,

it was too late.The twenty boats had already returned to the south bank.ZhugeLiang was

good at observing weather signs.He knew that there would be fog that day.

         ZhouYu got 100,000 arrows,but even so,he was furious.ZhouYu thought of an idea

to burn  all of CaoCao's warships.Who would be sent to do this?