Mi Heng 禰衡

In Chapter 23 of the Romance, when Cao Cao wants to coax Liu Biao into submitting, Jia Xu says a scholar famed for his writing must be sent, and Xun You recommends Kong Rong. Kong Rong says, 'My friend Mi Heng, courtesy name Zhengping, is ten times more talented than I,' and submits a memorial recommending him to the emperor. The memorial introduces him as a retired scholar of Pingyuan, twenty-four years old, and praises him as one who can recite whatever he has seen once and never forgets what he has heard but briefly. Romance, Ch. 23 §6–8

Cao Cao summons him but does not invite him to sit. When Mi Heng sighs, 'Heaven and earth are so vast, yet how is there not a single man here?', Cao Cao names Xun Yu, Guo Jia, Zhang Liao, Xu Chu, Xiahou Dun, Cao Ren and others. Mi Heng disparages them one by one, saying for instance that Xun Yu is fit only for paying condolence calls and Zhang Liao only for beating drums and striking gongs, and calls the rest mere clothes racks, rice bags, wine casks and meat sacks. When Zhang Liao draws his sword to cut him down, Cao Cao makes him a drummer instead. He says that Mi Heng has an empty reputation, so that if he were killed the realm would say Cao Cao could not tolerate others, and that he means to humiliate him. Romance, Ch. 23 §11–15

At a banquet the next day Mi Heng, still in his old clothes, beats the drum and plays 'The Three Rolls of Yuyang', and the guests are all so stirred that they shed tears. Rebuked to change his clothes, he strips them off before everyone and stands naked, then slowly puts on his trousers. When Cao Cao calls this a breach of propriety, he replies that it is deceiving one's sovereign and slighting one's superiors that is a breach of propriety, and rebukes Cao Cao in such terms as that his eyes are foul because he cannot tell the worthy from the foolish, and his heart is foul because he constantly harbors usurpation. Romance, Ch. 23 §15–18

When Kong Rong, fearing that Cao Cao will kill him, steps forward, Cao Cao sends Mi Heng as an envoy to Jing Province, saying that if Liu Biao comes to surrender he will make him one of the high ministers. When he refuses to go, Cao Cao has two men hold him on either side and take him along. At the farewell outside the east gate, when Xun Yu and the others do not rise, Mi Heng wails aloud, saying, 'I am walking among the coffins of the dead—how could I not weep?', and declares that he is a subject of the Han court and has not become one of Cao Man's gang. Romance, Ch. 23 §19–21

Arriving in Jing Province, Mi Heng pretends to extol Liu Biao's virtue while mocking him, and Liu Biao sends him to Huang Zu in Jiangxia. Liu Biao says that Cao Cao means to borrow his hand to kill Mi Heng and saddle him with the infamy of having harmed a worthy man. In Xudu, too, Cao Cao answers Xun Yu's question by saying that he means to borrow Liu Biao's hand to kill him. Romance, Ch. 23 §22 · 25

Drunk together with Huang Zu, Mi Heng names as the figures of Xudu 'the big boy Kong Wenju and the little boy Yang Dezu', and tells Huang Zu that he is like a god in a shrine, who receives sacrifices but has no power to answer them. Huang Zu, in a great rage, beheads him, and Mi Heng does not stop cursing until the moment he dies. Liu Biao sighs and has him buried by the shore of Parrot Isle, and Cao Cao laughs, saying, 'The pedantic scholar made a sword of his tongue, and it has cut his own life short instead.' Romance, Ch. 23 §27–28 · 30

In Chapter 40, Xi Lü slanders Kong Rong, saying that Kong Rong and Mi Heng praised each other as 'Confucius not dead' and 'Yan Hui reborn', and that it was Kong Rong who put Mi Heng up to insulting the Chancellor. Cao Cao, in a great rage, has Kong Rong arrested. In Chapter 60, when Yang Xiu says to Cao Cao, who has treated Zhang Song coldly, 'Your Excellency tolerated even someone like Mi Heng,' Cao Cao replies that he could not bring himself to kill Mi Heng because his writing was widely known in his day. Romance, Ch. 40 §7–8Romance, Ch. 60 §15