Am growing more tired of Luo's bias by the moment. Moss doesn't help. Cf his introduction:
(Cao Cao's) boldness and unflinching resolve are dogged unceasingly by his selfish scheming. An example of his craftiness occurs after he defeats Yuan Shao's army at the battle of Guandu. Evidence is found in the enemy camp that some of his subordinates had been in treasonous correspondence with Yuan Shao. But in order to preserve harmony in his own ranks and make the guilty one beholden to him, he has the documents burned without looking at them.Real selfish scheming, that: the kind that can get your throat slit in the night.
Forge on, forge on. Am not even diverted by the text telling me that Liu Bei goes off to see Lu Bu accompanied only by Lory Guan and Zhang Fei. Clearly Guan Yu has his transgendered moments too.
(Lu Bu is being rather commonsense, here in ch 16, and I'd be tempted to like him if only because he's the only person to date who's ever tried sitting people down and getting them to talk. But yappari the man is a brute and a bully. Oh right, right-- Luo says the man is a brute and a bully.)