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“I have long had a friendly feeling for you,” said Sun Quan to Guan Yu, “on account of your great virtues. Now I would have made a covenant and alliance with you, if you would. You and your son have long held yourselves to be invincible, but you see you are my prisoners today. Yet I hope to win you over to my side.”

But Guan Yu only answered roughly, “You green-eyed boy! You red-bearded rat! I made a covenant in the Peach Garden with my brothers to uphold the Hans. Think you that I will stand side by side with a rebel such as you are? I am a victim of your vile schemes, but I can only die once. And there is no need of many words.”

“He is a real hero, and I love him,” said Sun Quan to those standing near. “I will treat him well and endeavor to win him over. Do you think it well?”

Said the First Secretary Zuo Xian, “When Cao Cao had hold of this man, Cao Cao treated him lavishly well. Cao Cao created him a marquis; in three-day interval Cao Cao held a small banquet, in five days a great one; Cao Cao gave him gold and presented him with silver; all this, hoping to retain him at his side. But Cao Cao failed. The man broke through his gates, slew his six generals in five passes and went away. Today Cao Cao fears him, and almost moved the capital for dread of him. Now he is in your power, destroy him, or you will rue the day. Evil will come if you spare him.”

Sun Quan reflected for some time.

“You are right,” said he presently, and gave the order for execution.

So father and son met their fate together in the winter of the twenty-fourth year (AD 219) in the tenth month. Guan Yu was fifty-eight.

A poem says:

Peerless indeed was our Lord Guan Yu, of the latter days,

Head and shoulders stood he out among the best;

Godlike and terrible in war, elegant and refined in peace,

Resplendent as the noonday sun in the heavens,

Haloed as are the noblest of those early days,

He stands, the brightest model for all ages,

And not only for the strenuous days he lived in.

And another:

Seek ye a noble one? Then take ye the way of Jieliang,

Watch ye how all men revere Guan Yu,

Each excelling others to honor him,

Him, one of the three brothers of the Peach Garden Oath,

Of whom two have won sacrifices, as Emperor and prince.

Incomparable their aura spreads through the world;

They are resplendent as the great lights of the firmament;

Temples to our Lord Guan Yu abound, no village lacks one,

Their venerable trees at sundown are the resting places for birds.

So Guan Yu ended his life. His famous steed, Red-Hare, also captured with its master, was sent to Sun Quan, who gave it as a reward to his captor, Ma Zhong. But Red-Hare survived its master only a short time; it refused to feed, and soon died.

Foreboding of misfortune came to Wang Fu within the city of Maicheng. His bones felt cold; his flesh crept; and he said to his colleague Zhou Cang, “I have had a terrible dream in which I saw our lord all dripping with gore. I would question him, but I was overcome with dread. May it augur no evil tidings!”

Just then the troops of Wu came up to the city wall and displayed the gory heads of the two, father and son. Wang Fu and Zhou Cang went up on the wall to see if the dread tokens were real. There was no doubt. Wang Fu with a despairing cry threw himself over the wall and perished, Zhou Cang died by his own hand. Thus Maicheng fell to Wu.

Now the spirit of Guan Yu did not dissipate into space, but wandered through the void till it came to a certain spot in Dangyang on a famous hill known as the Mount of the Jade Spring. There lived a venerable Buddhist priest whose name in the faith was Transverse-Peace. He was originally of the Guardian Temple in the River Si Pass and abbot of that temple. In the course of roaming about the world, he had reached this place. Entranced with its natural beauty, he had built himself a shelter of boughs and grass, where he sat in meditation on the “Way.” He had a novice with him to beg food and to attend to his simple wants.