Chapter 98: Zhuge Liang is a Lying, Time-Bending Piece of Shit
Once again, the Shu army is running out of grain. This is mostly because they can't get shipments past the town from last chapter while it's still occupied by the enemy. This is despite Wei Yan staying nearby to keep the place in lockdown. I don't fully understand it either.
Suddenly, there's a report that Wei happens to be shipping a huge supply of grain nearby. Zhuge Liang thinks, okay, that's too much of a coincidence. And he's correct; he calls upon his many past experiences of violently burning people to death to recognize that Wei are planning to use the bogus wagons to lure in Shu and violently burn them to death. However, this is Zhuge Liang we're talking about here, so I'll let you take one guess as to which army actually gets violently burnt to death by the end of it.
Now that he's had another successful victory, Zhuge Liang decides it's time to order a full retreat. When questioned why they're not advancing, he has to remind his generals that they still don't have any food. Military geniuses over here.
While they do that, we cut over to Wu for a moment. Sun Quan reads in the newspaper that Shu is trouncing all over Wei, and he says, that sounds fun, we should do that too! But his advisor says, no, we only have 20 or so chapters left in this book, if you don't declare yourself emperor now you might never get around to it. Once you do that, THEN send the army.
Thus, Sun Quan (finally) becomes Emperor of Wu. But then when he asks about attacking Wei again, the exact same advisor says, nah, it wouldn't look cute to do that so soon after becoming emperor, you need to focus on internal affairs first.
(Except part of this process sees them renewing the alliance with Shu, who then requests that Wu takes part in a two-pronged invasion. So they start training the troops anyway.)
Turning our attention back to Shu, Zhuge Liang receives word that the guy running the town from the last chapter has fallen ill and is near death; and here the prime minister (he's already been promoted back I guess) sees his opportunity. He tells Wei Yan and Jiang Wei to leave immediately and get there within three days to make their coordinated attack.
But when they arrive, Zhuge Liang is already inside having taken the town himself. Laughing, he explains that he double-timed his march to beat them there, although neglects to adequately account for how he actually captured the town using fewer, more exhausted troops in a day and a half when his previous attempt lasted a whole month with fresher men. His best rationale is that he "had his spies on the inside start fires and create confusion", although how they got in or why he didn't utilize them last chapter is a mystery. He also explains that he only gave Wei Yan and Jiang Wei the orders he did because the marching would be good for morale.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
At this point, Cao Rui in the capital of Wei receives two pieces of news at the same time: that Shu is gaining territory in the west, and that Sun Quan has declared himself emperor, allied himself with Shu, and now has troops training along the Wei-Wu border. He feels like he's in a massive bind with enemies threatening both sides; but Sima Yi reviews the situation and says, look, has Wu done shit this entire book? They have not and they're not about to start now. Lu Xun is smart enough to know Zhuge Liang is playing him so he's only going to make it look like he's helping. We can focus on Shu.
Appeased, Cao Rui pulls Sima Yi off of Wu detail and assigns him full-time to dealing with Zhuge Liang. If your response to this is "Wait, Sima Yi was defending against Wu?" ...this is how I feel all the time.