On November 13, Professor Miao Huaiming, of the School of Humanities, gave a lecture to the students of the Kuang Yaming Honors School and the top-ranking class, and the title was “A sober suffering tragic hero: Interpretation of Zhuge Liang's image in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” Miao serves as a vice dean and doctoral supervisor at the humanities school and is known for having created and kept running an account called blog for ancient Chinese novels on Wechat, a popular social media platform. In his lecture, Miao brought historical events back into life one after another in plain and humorous language, helping students get a better understanding of Romance of the Three Kingdoms in a relaxing and lively atmosphere.

“University teachers like to complicate simple matter.” joked Miao when he said it would take a semester course to have a thorough analysis of Zhuge Liang's characters, so he had to use the 100-minute lecture time to focus on one of the personalities of Zhuge Liang, striving for the impossible.

This, according to Miao, is a quality missing in most of us today. That was the reason why he had chosen to focus on this character of Zhuge Liang. Today, many people like to ask “Is it useful?” when they face any choice, but lots of happiness in our life is derived from doing things that may seem useless.

The professor raised a question metaphorically: before Zhuge Liang left his thatched cottage to assist the southern China warlord Liu Bei in his cause of restoring the Han Dynasty, Liu Bei, in fact, already had plenty of competent generals under his command. But why hadn’t Liu succeeded? To answer this question, Miao first described, from a present-day perspective, Zhuge Liang as a “four-no’s youth”, that is, no diplomas, no seniority, no research achievements, and no awards. But once he entered the officialdom, Miao continued, Zhuge Liang planned, devised, and then transformed the messing political landscape in the late Eastern Han Dynasty into a situation of three kingdoms with Liu Bei holding one. That proved Zhuge’s unmatched talent.

Then, Professor Miao humorously described the historical scene of the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280) in a close-to-daily-life tone. He started from the forging of brotherhood in the peach garden and went to the conversation between Liu Bei and Cao Cao on heroes while drinking, and he concluded that it could be no other one but Zhuge Liang who was able to help Liu Bei change the game in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. A genuine hero as he was, however, Zhuge Liang was doomed to fail no matter how many efforts he managed to make.

Admittedly, Miao said, Liu Bei met all the qualifications necessary to unify the nation: he was a wise lord, accompanied by competent ministers and generals and supported by his people, but his kingdom Shu (221-263) was the first to break down. To answer the question, Miao analyzed some commonalities of China’s four greatest classical novels. One commonality was that endings are often planned when stories began. In the case of Zhuge Liang, before leaving home, he already saw his doomed failure, but he still went out of his way to assist Liu Bei. Zhuge Liang, said Miao, was “a sober suffering tragic hero”.

Besides the personality of Zhuge Liang, Professor Miao also interpreted his historical image and compared him with Guan Yu, a well-known general of Liu Bei, helping the students better grasp the topic. Finally, he analyzed the ages of the relevant characters and the original novel, and that helped the students learn more about the character and image of Zhuge Liang in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.