On the morning after the third stride, Kongming (孔明) opened before Liu Bei (劉備) a paper map five chi (尺) wide.

The map followed the same composition as the three strands drawn upon the earth of the yard yesterday. Only now, upon the paper, the three strands had become three clear slices with clear boundaries. The first slice was the northern Central Plain (中原). The name of Cao Cao (曹操) was written neatly at its center. The second slice was the southeastern Jiangdong (江東). The name of Sun Quan (孫權) was written there. The third slice held the two provinces of Jingzhou (荊州) and Yizhou (益州) to the southwest. At the center of that slice, for the first time this morning, a single name was written.

劉 (Liu).

Kongming wrote that single character with his brush, then set the brush down.

"Your Lordship. The three slices upon this map today are the three slices of the realm for the next twenty years. To the north, Cao Cao is already firm. To the southeast, Sun Quan is still young, but Zhou Yu (周瑜) stands at his side, and he too will soon be firm. The remaining slice is the southwest — the two provinces of Jingzhou and Yizhou. That slice is Your Lordship's seat."

Liu Bei looked long at the single character 劉 upon the map. Beneath it, the two boundaries of Jingzhou and Yizhou had been faintly drawn. Until today, his name had been one that came down upon the five dots of Pingyuan (平原), Xuzhou (徐州), Xiaopei (小沛), Runan (汝南), and Xinye (新野), only to be lifted again each time. This morning, for the first time, that name had come down neatly upon one slice of a single map.

"Master. The seat of Jingzhou today is the seat of Liu Biao (劉表). Yizhou is the seat of Liu Zhang (劉璋). Both bear the Liu (劉) surname. How can I take those seats?"

Kongming opened his fan lightly.

"Your Lordship. Liu Biao's seat will not outlast next autumn. His illness has already grown deep. When he passes next autumn, the succession of his seat will waver between his two sons. Inside that wavering, Your Lordship's three strides can pass onto that seat in a single movement."

"And Liu Zhang of Yizhou?"

"Liu Zhang's seat will pass to Your Lordship over the six years after next autumn. Six years is not long, when one keeps one's rhythm in the measure of Your Lordship's three strides."

Liu Bei drew a deep breath. The name of a man who had moved across five yards for twenty years was, this morning, taking two seats upon a single map as his share. Jingzhou and Yizhou. The two slices were becoming the two legs of one name.

Kongming brushed the tip of the fan lightly across Cao Cao's name in the north of the map.

"Your Lordship. The resolve to strike Cao Cao in a single blow — do not set it down this morning. Striking Cao Cao is a matter for after Your Lordship's two legs (Jingzhou and Yizhou) stand firmly planted upon the map. Before then, should Cao Cao come down south, Your Lordship must take the hand of Sun Quan in the south. Do not hold Cao Cao off by your own strength alone; hold him off with two hands — Yours and Sun Quan's."

"Take Sun Quan's hand…"

"Yes. This coming autumn is the time to take that hand. Cao Cao's southern campaign (南征) will begin this coming autumn."

Liu Bei's eyes widened.

"This coming autumn."

"Yes. The breeze I heard yesterday inside this man's ten-pace yard was already tilting from north to south. This autumn's wind will push Cao Cao's banners southward. When that wind reaches the strand of Red Cliffs (赤壁), Your Lordship's hand and Sun Quan's hand must, at the same instant, be present at that place."

Red Cliffs. Those two characters came out of Kongming's mouth for the first time this morning. They were also the title of the ninth slip of Cao Cao's ten slips, shown in Book 5 Day 125. The ninth slip upon Cao Cao's Chancellor's wall and the five-chi map in the yard of Wolonggang now held the same two characters together, at two seats eight hundred li apart, on this single spring morning.

Liu Bei did not know it. Nor did Kongming. Yet the place of Red Cliffs upon the five-chi map before them rested, from this morning, with the same weight upon the two walls of two men of two empires. The rhythm of the world was gathering upon one place. Men of great talent often share a common strangeness: they name, in advance, the very places their enemies will eventually name too, without any of them having met. Red Cliffs tonight stood on the lips of two such men at once.

Kongming took the brush up again. Upon a strand of river between the north and the south on the map, he wrote two small characters anew.

赤壁.

Liu Bei laid his finger upon those two characters. Beneath his finger, upon the paper, the handful of dirt carried from yesterday afternoon's yard through his palm rubbed off again, a little.

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