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“Our officers are all geniuses: wise, bold, loyal, righteous, and magnanimous. As for poor simpletons like me, they are counted by hundreds; there are cartloads of them, bushels of them. No one could count them.”

“What office may you hold then?” Zhang Song replied, “Mine can hardly be called an office. I am a Supernumerary Charioteer. But, Sir, what state affairs may you control?”

“I am the First Secretary in the Palace of the Prime Minister,” replied Yang Xiu.

“They say that members of your family held office for many generations, and I do not understand why you are not in court service actually assisting the Emperor, instead of filling the post of a mere clerk in the private palace of the Prime Minister.”

Yang Xiu's face suffused with shame at this rebuke, but he mastered himself and replied, “Though I am among the minor officials, yet my duties are of great importance, and I am gaining experience under the Prime Minister's guidance. I hold the office for the sake of the training.”

Zhang Song smiled, saying, “If what I have heard is true, Cao Cao's learning throws no gleaming light on the way of Confucius or Mencius, nor does his military skill illumine the art of Sun Zi or Wu Qi. He seems to understand the doctrine of brute force and holding on to what advantages he can seize, but I see not how he can give you any valuable training or enlighten your understanding.”

“Ah, Sir; that comes of dwelling in out-of-the-way parts. How could you know of the magnificent talents of the great Prime Minister? But I will show you something.”

Yang Xiu called up an attendant and bade him bring a book from a certain case. He showed this to his guest, who read the title “The New Book of Cao Cao”. Then Zhang Song opened it and read it through from the beginning, the whole thirteen chapters. They all dealt with the art of war.

“What do you take this to be?” asked Zhang Song, when he had finished.

“This is the great Prime Minister's discussion of the art of ancient and modern war composed on the model of Sun Zi's Treatise on the Art of War. You may be disdainful of the Prime Minister's talents, but will this not go down to posterity?”

“This book! Every child in Yiazhou knows this by heart. What do you mean by calling it a new book? It was written by some obscure person of the time of the Warring States, and Cao Cao has plagiarized it. But he has deceived no one but you, Sir.”

“But what is the use of your sarcastic insult in saying that your school children know the book by rote? It has never been given to the world, although copies have been made. It belongs to his private library.”

“Do you disbelieve me? Why, I know it and could repeat it.”

Then Zhang Song repeated the whole book, word for word, from beginning to end.

Yang Xiu said, “You remember it like this after only one reading! Really you are marvelous.”

He boasted not a handsome face,

Nor was his body blessed with grace.

His words streamed like a waterfall,

He read a book and knew it all.

Shu's glories could he well rehearse,

His lore embraced the universe.

Or text or note of scholiast

Once read, his memory held fast. At leave-taking Yang Xiu said, “Remain a while in your lodgings till I can petition our Prime Minister to give you another interview.”

Zhang Song thanked him and left. By and bye Yang Xiu went to see Cao Cao on the matter of receiving the emissary from the west and said, “Sir, why did you formerly treat Zhang Song so off-hand?”

“He spoke very rudely; that is why.”

“But you bore with Mi Heng; why not with this man?”

“Mi Heng's reputation for scholarship stood highest of all, and I could not bear to put him to death. But what ability has this Zhang Song?”

“To say nothing about his speech being like the River of Heaven, nothing daunts his talent for dialectic. I happened to show him your new treatise; he read it over once and could repeat it. From this, it is evident he is cultured and has a prodigious memory. There are few like him in the world. But he said the book was the work of an obscure person of a few hundred years back, and every school child in his country knew it.”

“It only shows that the ancients and I are in secret sympathy,” replied Cao Cao.

However, Cao Cao ordered the book to be torn up and burned.

“Then may I bring him to see you, Sir, that he may see the glory of our court.”

Cao Cao grudgingly consented, saying “I am reviewing troops tomorrow on the western parade ground. You may bring him there and let him see what my army looks like. He will be able to talk about it when he goes home. When I have dealt with the south, I shall take the west in hand.”