Traditional Chinese legend, retold in simple Mandarin
Three Kingdoms: The Empty Fort
空城计
Three Kingdoms: The Empty Fort (空城计, Kōng chéng jì) is a story from Three Kingdoms, the Chinese classic by Luo Guanzhong, retold in simple Mandarin as a 3-chapter story with audio for learners at about HSK 2 (Elementary).
Retold from the classic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms: with a huge army at the gates and only old soldiers inside, Zhuge Liang opens the gate and plays the zither.
Meet the voices
- Narrator · 旁白 — The storyteller who sets the scene.
- Zhuge Liang · 诸葛亮 — The calm strategist who fights fear with a smile and a zither.
- Old Chen · 老陈 — A shaky old soldier who sweeps the road with a smile.
- Sima Yi · 司马懿 — The careful general who leads the huge army.
- Sima Zhao · 司马昭 — His hot-headed young son who wants to charge in.
- Scout · 探子 — A rider who brings the bad news.
3 chapters, one journey
Chapter 1: Bad News at Xicheng
坏消息
A rider brings terrible news: a huge army is marching on Xicheng, and Zhuge Liang has only old soldiers and a very strange plan.
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Chapter 2: The Zither on the Wall
城墙上的琴
With the gate open and a smile on every face, Zhuge Liang waits on the wall as Sima Yi's army arrives and stops to think.
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Chapter 3: The Shaking Hands
手在抖
The army rides away doubting, but the night on the wall holds one more secret about the bravest man in Xicheng.
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Key words in Three Kingdoms: The Empty Fort
Behind the story
This story comes from Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义), the great Chinese historical novel by Luo Guanzhong, written about six hundred years ago. It tells of the wars after the Han dynasty fell, when three kingdoms fought for China.
The Empty Fort Trick (空城计) is one of its most loved scenes. In Chinese today, 空城计 is a phrase for bluffing: looking calm and strong when you have nothing behind you. The scene is also a favorite in Peking opera.
Did you know?
- Zhuge Liang (诸葛亮) is the model of the clever adviser in Chinese culture, and his white feather fan is his trademark.
- The zither in the story is a qin (琴), an old Chinese stringed instrument that scholars played for calm and thought.
- In the novel, the trick works because Sima Yi knows how careful Zhuge Liang is; historians doubt it happened this way, but Chinese readers remember it as a lesson in courage.