Novel scene
The King of the Nanman Captured the Fifth Time 南蠻王五次遭擒
About this event
"The King of the Nanman Captured the Fifth Time" is the latter scene of Chapter 89 of the Romance, whose chapter title is "The Marquis of Wuxiang Employs His Fourth Stratagem; The King of the Southern Man Is Captured for the Fifth Time." Meng Huo, released for the fourth time, took refuge with King Duosi of Tulong Cave and tried to stop the Shu army with four poisonous springs. When soldiers who drank the water of the Mute Spring lost their speech, Zhuge Liang, guided by a mountain spirit he met at the shrine of Ma Yuan, the General Who Calms the Waves, sought out Meng Huo's elder brother Meng Jie and cured his soldiers. In the end Meng Huo was seized by Yang Feng and his sons, who had come to help him fight, and was brought in for the fifth time. This scene is one episode of Zhuge Liang's Southern Campaign. Romance, Ch. 89 §17–21 · 26–38 · 47–51
Chen Shou's text has no such scene. The Biography of Zhuge Liang states only that in the spring of the 3rd year of Jianxing (225) Zhuge Liang led his forces to campaign in the south and that by the autumn of that year all was pacified, and the Biography of the Later Ruler states that in the 3rd month of that year he campaigned against the four southern commanderies and pacified them all. Records, Shu 5 §24Records, Shu 3 §6
In the Romance
In Chapter 89 of the Romance, Meng Huo, released for the fourth time, followed the advice of his younger brother Meng You and turned to King Duosi of Tulong Cave to the southwest. Duosi assured him that if the main road to the northeast were blocked with timber and stones, the Shu army would come in by the small road to the northwest, and that if they drank the water of the four poisonous springs on that road, the Mute Spring, the Destroying Spring, the Black Spring and the Soft Spring, not even an army of a million would return. Romance, Ch. 89 §17–22
In the blazing heat of the 6th month, Zhuge Liang rejected Jiang Wan's advice to withdraw and had Wang Ping search for the northwestern road, but the soldiers who drank the water of the Mute Spring all lost their speech. Zhuge Liang prayed at the shrine of Ma Yuan, the General Who Calms the Waves, on a mountain ridge, and from an old man he met at the shrine he heard that at the place where the hermit of Wan'an Stream lived there were the Anle Spring and the xieye yunxiang herb. The old man said that he was the mountain spirit who had received the command of the General Who Calms the Waves, and vanished. The hermit cured the soldiers with the water of the Anle Spring and revealed that he was Meng Huo's elder brother Meng Jie, declining both Zhuge Liang's offer to make him a king and his gifts of gold and silk. When digging the ground produced no water, Zhuge Liang prayed to Heaven all night, and at dawn every well was full of sweet spring water. Romance, Ch. 89 §23–43
When the Shu army set up camp before Tulong Cave without any harm, Duosi was astonished, calling them divine troops. Yang Feng, the cave chief of Yinye Cave, came to help with his five sons and 30,000 troops, but at a banquet his sons seized Meng Huo and Meng You, and Yang Feng captured Duosi. Yang Feng handed them over, saying it was to repay Chancellor Zhuge for saving their lives. Meng Huo said it was because his own people had harmed one another and that if he were captured at Mount Yinkeng he would submit for generations to come, and Zhuge Liang released him, saying that if he were captured again and still did not submit, his nine sets of kin would be exterminated. Romance, Ch. 89 §45–53
Written by 3KDEX (not yet reviewed) — The tags at the end of each paragraph link to the exact passage in the Records volume or Romance chapter it is based on.