Gongsun Sheng Subdues Demons at Mount Mangdang; Heavenly King Chao Gai Is Struck by an Arrow at Zengtou City

There is a poem that says: Do not lightly believe idle talk spoken behind others’ backs; when you can forgive, forgive as much as you can. Though the homeless heroes of Mount Mangdang were subdued, the chief of Liangshan lost his life. The generals put on white mourning clothes, their grief cutting to the heart; beneath the Yellow Springs, the hatred born of that arrow is hard to redress. Pity the hero of unmatched skill— he could only be buried for a time by the waters outside a desolate city. Now Gongsun Sheng took out a diagram of a formation and gave it to Song Jiang and Wu Yong, saying, “This is the method by which Zhuge Liang of the late Three Kingdoms laid out the stone maze. It is divided into sixty-four companies on four sides and eight directions, with the commander guarding the center. The formation is like a creature with four heads and eight tails; it can turn back and forth and is arranged according to Heaven, Earth, Wind, and Cloud, and the formations of Dragon, Tiger, Bird, and Snake. When they come down the mountain and charge into the formation,......