Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is episode 132.

Last time, Zhuge Liang invented the wheelbarrow,

except he called his creations wooden oxen's and gliding horses, and he used them to move

grain. But it did not take long for Sima Yi to catch on, and he decided to do some corporate

espionage. Well, actually it was more like a corporate smash and grab. He sent some troops to

ambush one of Zhuge Liang's convoes and steal some of these contraptions.

He then had his own craftsmen take them apart and reverse engineer them,

thus flooding the wheelbarrow market with a bunch of made-in-China knock-offs,

and then he began using them to transport his own grain.

While Sima Yi was busy assimilating

foreign technology, the Shu general whose convoy was ambushed ran back to camp to tell Zhuge Liang

what happened. But far from being angry, Zhuge Liang was delighted. I was hoping that he would

steal them, he said with a smile. I may have lost a few

wooden oxen's and gliding horses, but soon our army will gain plenty of provisions.

Huh? His officers were not quite following, but that's just how Zhuge Liang preferred it. He now

told the general Wang Ping to take a thousand men disguised as the enemy

and sneak over to the northern plain under the cover of darkness.

Once there, they were to travel to the enemy's supply route under the guise of a convoy,

and then they were supposed to attack a real convoy

and take their wooden oxen and gliding horses and then they were supposed to attack a real convoy, and take their wooden

oxen and gliding horses, and then head back across the northern plain.

...