Chapter 118: Everything Grows Petty
Liu Shan and the Shu ministers learn of Zhuge Zhan's defeat, and they start weighing their options. Surrender is looking pretty appealing right about now.
However, one of Liu Shan's sons—Liu Chan—is appalled at the suggestion. He claims that surrendering to Wei is a betrayal of everything his grandfather Liu Bei fought for, and that they ought to ride out in one final, do-or-die attack.
Liu Shan thinks Liu Chan has been watching too many films, so he proceeds with the "surrender" plan.
Liu Chan goes home and is looking gloomy over dinner. His wife asks him what's wrong, and he tells her everything that happened, adding that he's probably just going to have to kill himself rather than acquiesce to Wei.
His wife tells him, okay, let's do it!
Liu Chan responds, hey, you weren't born a Liu, there's no reason for you to join me in this. But she says, look, the only opportunity a woman has to be remembered as a hero in this book is by supporting her husband in all his idiotic decisions. That is literally all we can do, blame society. Then she bashes her head against a pillar and dies.
After that Liu Chan takes his sons to the Liu Bei Memorial Pavilion, sacrifices them, and then ends his own life. He is now recognized as a hero for his filial devotion.
Isn't culture funny sometimes.
None of this makes any meaningful impact, and Liu Shan officially surrenders to Deng Ai when he arrives. Normally this is the kind of thing that would result in the execution of those in power, and probably even the general populace because that's just what you did back then, show everyone you have the power or some such bullshit. But Deng Ai's like, nah, I'm cool, I'm one of the good ones! And, you know, maybe if I go easy on you it'll make Wu more likely to surrender, it's like a win-win really. So the transfer of power is a fairly peaceful event; but this does mark, effectively, the end of anything that could even remotely be considered the "Han dynasty". It ain't getting restored.
...Except that Jiang Wei is still out there defending that gateway, holding off Zhong Hui. He is completely stunned when the news arrives that Shu has fallen behind his back; his soldiers, meanwhile, are angry and want to throw themselves at Zhong Hui, no matter how suicidal it might be.
Instead, Jiang Wei submits, and hands himself over to Zhong Hui—making it very clear that he'd rather keep fighting and preserve his kingdom if he had any choice in the matter, a take which Zhong Hui finds refreshingly honest. Jiang Wei also specifies that if it were Deng Ai and not Zhong Hui, he would have gone out swinging; there would be no surrender to a man of such little renown as Deng Ai. With these words, Zhong Hui comes to really respect Jiang Wei, and the two actually become something like friends.
Deng Ai hears that Jiang Wei chose to surrender to Zhong Hui, and he gets a little butt-hurt. Supposedly, this prompts him to write a letter to Sima Zhao, telling him that Wu is watching what they do next very closely and instructing him to put Liu Shan back on the Shu throne to keep the southern nation from growing defensive, so they will ultimately be easier to conquer. However, the implication here is that Deng Ai wants the man who owes him his life back in power, and his ballooning ego and his jealousy toward Zhong Hui isn't helping his image. Sima Zhao suspects Deng Ai is trying to usurp control of the Riverlands, and tells him there's too much red tape to make the decision that quickly. Deng Ai then writes back saying, well, longstanding tradition says a general in the field can override his liege's orders if they make strategic sense, and this makes strategic sense, so I'm doing it anyway.
This is all complicated by the fact that Jiang Wei tells Zhong Hui, huh, it's looking like Deng Ai might be thinking about revolting.
Since this is what Zhong Hui was starting to suspect anyway—and because this is a good opportunity to rid himself of a rival—he petitions Sima Zhao for permission to punish Deng Ai; he also intercepts one of Deng Ai's letters en route and alters it so that it comes off far more arrogant than Deng Ai intended. Combined, all of this ticks off Sima Zhao so much that he grants Zhong Hui permission to bring in Deng Ai, adding that he's rolling out with his own army to back him up in the arrest.
One of Sima Zhao's advisors asks why he needs to lead a separate army himself, when Zhong Hui has more than enough men to handle Deng Ai.
Sima Zhao responds that it's not Deng Ai he's worried about.