text:
Talk:List of minor residents of Tatooine

 * This page (the first two comments below) was moved from Talk:Oola.

Didn't this character also appear in the novels? Probably "Tales from Jabba's Palace". Rmhermen 05:02 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This gets my nomination to be tied for least useful page ever. Why isn't there just a page "minor Star Wars characters" or something like that? Daniel Quinlan 02:23 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

-Because if there were an article containing all relevant minor Star Wars characters, it would be hundreds and hundreds of pages. firenexx 23:54, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

"In early editions of the novel based on the movie Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi refers to Owen as his brother, but this is corrected in later printings."

stereotyping and racism
I removed this from the article:

 * He is also one of the most prominent examples of stereotyping and racism in Star Wars: Episode I. As a typically anti-Semetic caricature, Watto has bad teeth, a long nose, bulging eyes, and (worst of all), the greedy charicteristic popularised by Christopher Marlowe's Barabas and William Shakespeare's Shylock. His race is the only one in the galaxy where "Hypnotism doesn't work on me...Only money." In addition, he is given a gravally Yiddish accent, and he is, literaly a blue Jew.

I'm not here to express an opinion, but if the above is to go back in, it needs to be cited and/or sourced, ie: to maintain NPOV, the above accusation can only go in if we're reporting on established opinions, otherwise, it makes it sound like Wikipedia is expressing a personal opinion. func (talk) 04:54, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure but I think Hutts are asexual. Someone might want to check.

Note to anyone intending on splitting off a section
This page has been processed by N-Bot, which, for browsing convenience, changes links to redirects to lists to links to the relevant list sections: e.g. Salacious Crumb is changed to Salacious Crumb.

As a result, anyone who intends to split a section out of this page should be aware that, as of 7 August 2005, the following sections were linked to from the following pages:

 * Lars, Beru: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, List of changes in Star Wars re-releases, Force Theme, List of major Star Wars deaths
 * Lars, Cliegg: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Darth Vader, C-3PO, Watto, Skywalker family, Repulsorlift, Minor residents of Tatooine, List of major Star Wars deaths
 * Crumb, Salacious: List of Star Wars characters
 * Gardulla the Hutt: Watto, Dates in Star Wars, List of Star Wars characters, Sebolto, List of Star Wars planets (T-V)
 * Lars, Owen: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, R2-D2, C-3PO, Dates in Star Wars, List of Star Wars races, Anchorhead, Minor residents of Tatooine, Star Wars Gangsta Rap, Phil Brown, Joel Edgerton, Force Theme, Davin Felth, List of major Star Wars deaths

N-Bot (t/c) 21:41, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

In Episode II, we can see that Owen and Beru must have known both R2-D2 and C3PO, yet in episode IV they don't seem to recognise them.

Moving page
Move to List of minor Star Wars Tatooine residents for consistency--PatCheng 04:19, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Oola
That section sounds more like a fanfic than real content. The Great Dance...? Hopes of escape upon seeing Luke's hologram...? Sorry, but that sounds a little far-fetched.

 * Not at all. Comes from the Tales from Jabba's Palace anthology. --maru  (talk)  contribs 19:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Should something be added to note that fact that when Jabba pulls her close to him in Return of the Jedi, her breast is exposed?

 * I have the book and nowhere does it say that she was forced to be naked for one day. I think that stuff is fanfic. -Quinlanfan2

 * If there are not any objections, I am going to erase the naked for one day stuff. I have read that part in the book and it does not happen. Quinlanfan2 23:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Someone appears to have reinserted it... I'll remove it now unless someone can provide a source...

Yoda921 11:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Yoda

I agree, i watched the movie 4 times and never saw her breast pop out. I'm going to also delete it unless someone can take a picture and put it up. Jo Vader

If any think there was once a bunch of pure Fanfic material in here, you should have seen what some guy did to Leia's page! Also, I think Oola's "breast problem" is only in the special edition. Son of Jadoja 01:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Ged Gjenzek?
Who is Ged Gjenzek? Does this person appear in any film, book, comic book, or other Star Wars material? 71.174.78.146 04:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nope. He's not canon, so I removed that section. -LtNOWIS 14:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Lars Owen`s ages
it`s something strange in Lars Owen`s ages(Anakin`s step-brother) Anakin was born at 41 BBY and left tatooin at 32 BBY like 9 years old boy, and back again on toatooine after 10 (like 19 years old) at 22 BBY. On tatooine he first time met his step-brother Lars and Lars`s girlfriend,In Episode I Lars was shown somewhere same ages like Anakin (19-20 years old). But in Lars`s ages are ilogical If we suppose that Shmi was married close after Anakins living Tatooine Thats mean that her second chilled must be, at least, 9 year youngest then Anakin in the fact, at the Owen and Anakin first meeting on Tatooine Owen has to be old max 10 years.

Milen Djokic 7.05.2007

He's her stepson, not her biological son.

Merger
I replaced the proposed deletion tag with a merge tag. I propose that any worthwhile content be merged to the List of minor Star Wars characters page and that the rest be deletion. It should be noted that the page will have to be redirected to List of minor Star Wars characters after the merger so that attribution will be preserved in this article's history. -- Kjkolb 00:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Oliver Otis Howard

fixes
These nightly "fixes" are getting a little annoying. Some things can be gotten from context - I find it doubtful that any of Cromwell's old soldiers went on to go out West and fight the Nez Perce. Hephaestos 05:07 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

and you americans complain about terrorists when your own people executed terrorism on a larger scale and killed more women and children! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.31.3.195 (talk) 16:49, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Cochise
Why is there no mention of Howard and Tom Jeffords' dealings and 1872 treaty with Cochise? — TAnthonyTalk 18:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

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3rd cousin to Frances Perkins
I am not a wikipedia contributor, but I thought this info might be an addition to this page on Oliver Otis Howard. Apparently he was a first cousin to Frances Perkins' grandmother, thus making him a third cousin to Frances herself. Elisabeth L. Daley eldaley@gmail.com  info is from https://francesperkinscenter.org/life-new/  98.118.61.234 (talk) 17:10, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Oliver Otis Howard
Oliver Otis Howard did not suffer a defeat at Gettysburg. His decision making on July 1, 1863, was critical to the Union victory. And this article's summary of the Nez Perce War is irresponsible. 2601:982:8300:FC0:B9A1:F1BA:24D2:8333 (talk) 20:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Oliver Otis Howard


text:
Talk:Causes of sexual identity

Is sexual identity a disease? If not, how can it have an etiology? Tweak First definition: The assignment of a cause: as, the etiology of a folkway.

I'm really confused here. What, exactly is meant by sexual identity? If it is synonymous with sexual orientation, there needs to be a lot changed with this article, but I want to make sure first before if I muck things up Thanks Dysprosia 06:31 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hmm. This uses the term "hermaphrodite", which I believe is now deprecated in favor of "intersexual" (there are no true human hermaphrodites). Haven't we got an article on this under gender identity or some similar name? -- The Anome 07:14 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * The thing is, if sexual identity is synonymous with sexual orientation, then the stuff about intersexed and the "Boy Raised As a Girl" book ref needs to go, as they are concerned with gender identity and not sexual orientation at all.
 * If sexual identity is synonymous with gender identity, then the stuff on the "Gay gene" and the link to homosexuality needs to go, because gender identity has nothing to do with homosexuality...
 * So it's a double edged sword :) Dysprosia 07:17 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yep, and we've got a sexual orientation article, and (if I recall correctly) a causes of sexual orientation article too... -- The Anome 07:19 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I have a fairly long discussion that attempts to respond to many of these good questions and acute abservations. Should I append it here or put it somewhere else? If it should go into a separate document somehow, please clue me in. Patrick Moran

 * All that's important, really for now, is to know what is meant by sexual identity. From there, the article can be sculpted into something more factually accurate, and you can put this discussion into the article if you like.
 * Dysprosia 00:13 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I am possibly being lazy by avoiding giving an answer to "what is meant by sexual identity" without the context that I think is necessary. But what bothered me most about the homosexuality entry was that very lack of organic unity, so if you want just skip down to where I start talking about XX, XY, XYX, XYY, etc. Sorry. The discussion and questions raised so far have been excellent. Here are some of my thoughts on the questions raised thus far.

I'll give you three theses I hold, and then I'll put forward my arguments for them after making a few definitions on the fly:

(1) We cannot discuss homosexuality without dealing with both sexual identity and sexual orientation.

(2) For practical reasons it would not make much sense to talk about homosexuality without bringing in gender identity.

(3) People need to understand that sexual preferences are not a matter of choice.

Some definitions:

hermaphrodite -- "union of a male body and a female body." A person or animal with the sexual organs of both the male and the female. (Rare but possible.)

pseudo-hermaphrodite -- A person or animal with ambiguous sexual organs, e.g., micro-penis or very large clitoris. (Typically these characteristics of individuals occur when there has been some interference with normal fetal development.)

intersexual -- someone with sexual characteristics (inter =) between those of a male and those of a female? If this definition holds then it is not a very apposite term.

Some issues: what are:

sexual identity

gender identity

sexual orientation

The question which most often draws a reader to an explanation of homosexuality is, I suspect, "What is going on here? Why is this person behaving in this way?" And, if we expand the question a little, then it becomes something like: "Why is this male behaving like a female in a sexual context?" or "Why is this female behaving like a male in a sexual context?"

Some parts of this question are biological: What is male? What is female? Other parts of this question are social and behavioral? What kinds of sexual partners do (fe)males interact with? What kinds of clothing do (fe)males wear? The first kind of question is related to sexual identity. The second kind of question is related to gender identity -- because whether, e.g., a man is supposed to wear a kilt, a sarong, or trousers depends on whether he is a Scot, a Malaysian, or whatever. How to make a correct cut between shades of gray? Language biases us to dichotomize our world into clearly divided sets such as male and female. We very readily assume that if a male human has one X chromosome and one Y chromosome, and a female human has two X chromosomes and zero Y chromosomes, we have exhausted the field of sexual identity. If we want to know whether some person is male or female, we examine a cell and count the X and Y chromosomes. But language and habits of thought have led us astray because there are several other possibilities such as XYX, XYY, and so forth. The extra chromosome combinations turn out to have real-world consequences, so if language were to be made precise enough to mirror the world to an appropriate level of exactness, then we would need terms for several more "sexes."

The combinations of chromosomes within a cell sample of an individual does not exhaust the complexities of where to "pigeon-hole" the individual because in some individuals about half the cells are XX and about half are XY.

The following comes from my Mac's scrapbook, I think I copied it from Science News:

To be born as a hermaphrodite is a rare side effect of being conceived by IVF, suggest geneticists in Scotland.

David Bonthron of the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh and his colleagues examined a boy born with an ovary and a fallopian tube in place of his left testicle. Some of the boy's cells are male, with one X and one Y chromosome, while others have the female XX pattern (The New England Journal of Medicine, vol 338, p 166).

The boy's mother had IVF treatment. Bonthron believes two embryos transferred into her uterus--one male and one female--fused and became a single fetus.

Your "identity" is known when you, the person under inspection by some authority, turns out to fit a description that the concerned authorities agree upon. John Doe the third is the one whose fingerprint matches this image, whose DNA is such-and-so, who was born in London, England in 1938, etc., etc.

Your "sexual identity" is known when... What? The problem of definition turns out to be fuzzy even after your chromosomal characteristics and your genitalia have been clearly determined. That is because it is "nature and nurture," not "nature or nurture." The way the brain develops depends on genetic characteristics and also on what happens during the growth from single cell to mature organism. Abnormal conditions in the womb can make an XY individual develop into what is in every other way a female. If the appropriate hormonal inputs are not present at the appropriate time, the infant's body is not masculinized. If there is only a partial breakdown in the process, then the brain may not develop the way that a normal XY individual's brain will develop.

Gender identity is even more complex than sexual identity. Sexual identity is complicated, but at least it is subject to objective determination. Gender identity is more subjective. Person have their own understanding of what they are. I may see myself as a man in a man's body, a woman in a man's body, a woman in a woman's body, a man in a woman's body..... or a XX+XY individual in a body that has been surgically "corrected" to be female who is only interested in stereotypically female individuals as romantic interests. (Hmmm, do we rightly call that kind of person a homosexual?)

Gender identity is known by the self, and by other people. How do I conceive of myself? I may think of myself as a heterosexual male who resolved sexual tensions when confined with other males in the most satisfactory way that I could find, but other people may see me as an effeminate homosexual. I may fit their definition because I do not hawk and spit and because they have heard what I did in the army or in prison.

Sexual orientation is another carton of bees. The tendency toward dichotomization is reinforced by people's desire to fit closely to their ideals. One very easily slips from observing that, e.g., "female human beings appear in general to be more nurturing and less inclined to aggressive behavior than human males," to insisting that "ladies must be gentle, demure, and nurturing, never violent or aggressive in word or act." Male humans more often than not are sexually attracted toward and sexually interact with female humans, and vice-versa. From that fact we easily jump to the conclusion that male humans should only interact sexually with female humans and vice-versa. That false conclusion causes a great deal of self doubt and anguish when one finds oneself reacting sexually to an "inappropriate" counterpart.

John Money gives an example that helped me a great deal to understand what is really going on. I was a bit surprised to learn that female rats would take over the care of orphaned rat pups. I was even more surprised to learn that male rats would do the same thing. (If I had been asked what a male rat would do if it found a mewling rat pup at the entrance to its burrow, I would have surely said, "Kill it and eat it!") If a rat pup is separated from its mother and placed in the cage of a female rat, it will make a lot of noise about being separated from mother, warmth, and food. The resident female rat needs almost no encouragement to start trying to take care of it. If a rat pup is placed in the cage of a male rat, the mature rat will remain unmoved by its squeals for a long time, but eventually it will take over the nurturing tasks. The response is the same, but male rats take a lot more "encouragement" to make the response. (Have you every tried to ignore a human baby that is crying in real distress?)

The question of sexual orientation is not answered by yes and no. Humans who are ordinarily sexually attracted to females and oblivious to males will, when isolated from females, begin to react sexually toward males when they reach some individually determined level of deprivation. Humans who are ordinarily sexually attracted to males and oblivious to females will, when isolated from males, begin to react sexually toward females when they  reach some individually determined level of deprivation. Since it is socially costly to admit to homosexual attraction, and since individuals may repress their own feelings of attraction for that reason, it may well be very difficult to get objective information on what it takes to get any given individual sexually aroused by an individual of the same sex. A female human who appears to be easily drawn into sexual interactions with female humans is socially constructed as a "lesbian." A female human who appears to be easily drawn into sexual interactions with male human being is socially constructed as a "normal woman." The same reasoning applies to male humans. So the idea that homosexuality is a social construct has some level of objectivity. At the same time, it risks obscuring the importance of the biological components of this issue.

John Money originally believed that gender identities and sexual preferences were very plastic. He might be interpreted (wrongly, I think) as accepting the view that one's identity as a heterosexual or a homosexual is socially engineered. The relevance of the Colapinto book is that an infant whose penis was totally destroyed in a botched circumcision attempt was "surgically assigned" to be a female on Money's advice, and every attempt was made to socialize that individual as a female, yet the person who had been castrated soon after his penis was destroyed, and who had been given a surgically created vagina, and who had been raised as a female, nevertheless recognized himself, identified himself, as being male. What remained of the biological male at that point? It seems clear that there was something undeniably male about the brain, and that it acted more powerfully in determining the individual's sexual identity and gender identity than did all of the manipulations of information, conditioning, etc. that were used to try to socialize the individual as a  female human.

As a person whom society had defined as female, his attraction to females was "homosexual." As a person whose genetic characteristics were male and whose brain was grown under male hormonal inputs, his attraction to females was "heterosexual."

Except for the individual whose happiness is at stake, and those to whom he may appeal for aid or guidance, it would seem to me to be nobody's business what a given human being's sexual orientation may be. That being said, if someone wants or needs to know, "What is going on here?" then it seems to me that sexual identity, gender identity, and sexual orientation all have to be understood.

If the answer to "What is that person's sexual orientation?" is "That person prefers male humans," or "That person prefers female humans," then the discussion has nothing to do with homosexuality. To make the question relevant to homosexuality, we have to ask, "What is that [XX, XY, XYX, XYY...] person's sexual orientation?" (Presumably an XYY person would have to have a preference for XYY individuals to be a homosexual.)

So we cannot discuss homosexuality without dealing with both sexual identity and sexual orientation.

For practical reasons it would not make much sense to talk about homosexuality without bringing in gender identity. First, because it may matter a great deal to the individual if he or she perceives his or her gender identity as being inappropriate to his or her sexual identity. If a person self-identifies as male and is attracted to males, this may be a source of great pain and shame. The same would apply to someone who self-identifies as female and is attracted to females. If such a person was given the same gender identity by society, then the sexual orientation would in many societies be a great source of social opprobrium and even might incur severe social and/or legal sanctions. On the other hand, in some societies their gender identities might define males having sexual interactions with males and females having sexual interactions with females as normal behavior. So gender identity definitions in one society may make homosexuality normal and in another society may make homosexuality abnormal.

People need to understand that sexual preferences are not a matter of choice. An adult may be able to modify or moderate a preference somewhat, but whether one is attracted to males, to females, to both equally or in some other proportion, or even terrified of the whole lot of them is dependent on a complex chain of causation that may go back even months before that individual's conception when the mother was choosing a mate, deciding whether to permit her body to contain significant amounts of toxic chemicals during pregnancy, etc., etc.

Maybe the encyclopedia page on homosexuality needs to be reorganized, something like:

Definition: Homosexuality, the state of being preferentially attracted to someone of the same sex as an object of romantic, amorous, sexual behavior.

Link to sexual orientation, i.e., sexual preference. Including: Are preferences typically 100%?)

Link to sexual identity. What does it mean to be XX, XY, XXY, etc.

Link to gender identity. What does it mean, within a given culture, to conceive of oneself as male or female? Are there other choices? What does it mean, within a given culture, to conceive of another person as male, female, etc.? Why do so many cultures believe in a "truth in advertising" standard -- It is wrong to advertise yourself falsely by word, act, clothing, etc., as being of one sex or another?

Link to causes of sexual preferences/orientations.

Link to causes of homosexual preferences/orientations.

One other thing I forgot to mention. One's self-perceived sexual orientation (e.g., "I am attracted to people of the opposite sex.") will quite naturally form a part of one's gender identity, the gender identity that one perceives for oneself. If other people perceive one's gender identity in some other way (e.g., "That woman who is trying to pass as a man."), that could add a wrinkle to one's own gender identity, e.g., "I am a male whom many other people identify as a female and I happen to prefer females so I have the burden of being a male who is regarded as a lesbian by many troublesome people.")
 * Patrick0Moran 01:00 26 Jul 2003 (EDT)

I'll take a stab at tweaking the article, but "If we want to know whether some person is male or female, we examine a cell and count the X and Y chromosomes. " isn't exactly correct. Being male and female is much more than that. (Cf transsexual) Dysprosia 05:02 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Just change "we examine a cell " to "we think we can just examine a cell", sorry, I thought that part was clearer than it actually is.

 * Patrick0Moran 02:30 26 Jul 2003 (EDT)

Also, I just added a modified version of a couple of paragraphs from the above long posting to fill in the page created for sexual identity.
 * Patrick0Moran 02:30 26 Jul 2003 (EDT)

Hi Patrick0Moran, I am still having a very hard time getting to the bottom of what is the difference between sexual identity and the separate but connected discussions of sex, sexual dimorphism, heteronormativity, gender identity and intersexual. Can you possible clear this up a bit further? I think this article tries to use Brown's four-part composition of sex, gender, sexual orientation and gender role and discuss it in terms of purely physical aspects, is this correct?

Also, I'm having a hard time finding this term in the relavent literature used as anything other than a synonym for sexual orientation. Could you please site other sources where this phrase is used in this manner and if possible, who originated this use of the term? Thanks,Paige 15:11 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yikes! Hours of work and it all went away somewhere. I'll try again later, but using a text editor.

A quick reaction: Why does sexual dimorphism redirect to sex? The sex article does not discuss sexual dimorphism, and dimorphism is an important topic. Patrick0Moran 20:19 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * “I'm having a hard time finding this term (sexual identity) in the relevant literature used as anything other than a synonym for sexual orientation. Could you please site other sources where this phrase is used in this manner and if possible, who originated this use of the term?”

I’ll try to handle this part first. If we can gain some clarity on this point, then the rest should be easy to clear up.

I’ve checked my old standby texts. None of them have an index entry for “sexual identity”. Mondimore, A Natural History of Homosexuality, p. 161, has a discussion of “homosexual identity development.”

 * People can observe a “sexual orientation” in themselves or others without having to identify the sex of the person with that orientation.

 * To judge that someone is a homosexual, one has to identify the sex of the person and the sex of the people that most frequently occasion sexual arousal in that person.

 * Sex is what we identify, and sexual identity is what we write on the identity card, the demography survey, etc. Think of the entries you are requested to make on an I.D. form: Family name, Given names, address... and then comes the place where you are expected to circle “M or F”.

If Francis Bacon circles F, goes to the convent, and prevents himself as Frances Bacon, all hell will break lose when the nuns get a look at his genitals. Sheriffs will not easily forgive another “Francis Bacon” who is caught after thirty years of search and who turns out to be the mother of 7 children living in obscurity is some forgotten corner of the kingdom. So an important part of the identity for each of us is what kind of genitalia we have. If you don’t believe that, address a little girl as “Sonny,” or a little boy as “Sis.”

 * Whatever you take to be your sexual identity will determine whether you assign to yourself a homosexual identity. Whatever other people take to be your sexual identity will determine whether or not they assign a homosexual identity to you.

As a person grows up s/he wants to know, “What am I?” Am I a brave person, a coward, a person who is suited to be a doctor, someone who can only live by continually playing music, a bum, a fool? People call me all these things, tell me I am all these things.” Society may force them into the view that they are cowards. Then a crisis occurs that shows that the teachers and the hotshot students can only stand and stare, and the “chicken shit” is the one who stays calm and takes control of the entire situation. That telling event becomes a very salient part of that person’s identity -- at least his or her personal, internal, identity. The same kind of thing can happen with regard to sexuality, and the revelation can go either way.

 * Gender identity involves signs and behaviors that give information on whether one is male or female when the genitalia are covered by clothing. Along with the obvious signs, e.g., the two cloth balls that hang from the belt buckle area of a kilt, occupations can also be gender coded. With no breasts to give milk, how can a man ever be a nurse? (Ridiculous, no?)

When gender identity is incongruent to sexual identity, interpersonal conflicts will arise. (You announced yourself as a woman, I wined and dined you and got you in bed. Now I find you have male genitalia. I feel deceived. I am angry...)

The equation of sexual identity and sexual orientation is a result of the predominant ideological way of thinking about things. (In this case it seems to have gone backwards from sexual orientation to sexual identity.) The idea is that if one has a male sexual identity (he is in truth the possessor of penis and testicles, can inseminate women successfully, etc.), then one ought to have the “appropriate” sexual orientation toward females. And vice-versa.

We need to go beyond that, somehow, to say that the full set of relevant physiological characteristics of the individual (from genotype to phenotype) plus the relevant learning of the individual all exert strong influences on the preferred erotic objects of the individual.

Are there any problems with the following as an outline?

Causal factors involved in becoming a homosexual.

 * Genetic factors:

 * Prenatal factors:
 * hormonal and any other such inputs
 * information (music, etc.) that may affect fetal development
 * Postnatal factors:
 * nutritional, surgical, and other inputs of a material nature
 * information and experiences that educate the growing individual

The terminology in this discussion is more crucial than I would have imagined. There are all sorts of problems involved the possible differenced between what is really there and what either the individual or the society concludes is there. I am now thinking that "sexual identity" may not be the best term to use, but "sex" is not acceptable either because it seems to point to the "thing in itself". So any suggestions on alternatives to terms used in this article would be very helpful.

Patrick0Moran 03:55, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Yes - the problem is here that we have to use proper terminology - if the relevant literature doesn't talk of "sexual identity", then neither should we. It does seem that you are using the term as a straight synonym for sex, though. Martin 08:32, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * I've got to agree here. An encyclopedia is not the place to coin new terms.  The title of the article is clearly problematic.  Which leads us naturally to...the content.  What this article seems to be attempting to discuss is simply too broad in its range.  The separate ideas need to be placed into the correct articles (and NPOV'd...and edited...and backed up with support wherever possible).  Perhaps if some one could outline the article using all of the correct Wiki-accepted headings and begin to reduce the scope by merging sections into the apropriate articles, then the main thrust of it could be used to undo the re-direct of sexual dimorphism.  I don't think it's unrealistic to fully expect the article on sex to be huge, considering how much time and energy is devoted to the surrounding topics.  However, creating new meanings for old phrases and just starting a new topic because you do not wish to edit/join the previous discussion is probably a very negative thing for the Wikipedia.  It is the type of thing which I think most Wikipedians would like to see avoided.  To that end, my own suggestions are above, after wich I can only propose adding this page to the list for suggested deletion.  Paige 15:30, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think that ordinarily, discussions of sexual dimorphism have to do with things like the males of one species being markedly smaller than the female, or vice-versa. For instance, just looking at them you would never be able to tell a male Carolina wren from a female. But when you put them side by side they hardly seem to belong together because the male is so very much larger. The colors of cardinals, the singing vs. non-singing of canaries, the sizes of male and female dogs of the same species, etc. See, for instance, [].

With regard to the "causes of sexual identity" article, the main reason I started it was that the parent page has scattered mentioned of etiological factors with nothing to unify them, and I wanted to draw them together somehow. If people are willing to try to outline that article and bring at least the three forms of explanation offered in different places into some kind of connection that people can understand, then I think that would be a good idea. By all means, delete the page I wrote if you want.

Patrick0Moran 22:20, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC) "if the relevant literature doesn't talk of "sexual identity", then neither should we. "

If the above dictum be taken as a general rule of procedure, then the article on sex should be changed so that it does not use that term either. That is, of course, assuming that someone has checked all the "relevant literature" to see whether or not the term is used. Somebody writing in this body of discussion appears to believe that it is a term that has a recognized meaning, and that the recognized meaning is "sexual orientation."

Patrick0Moran 04:48, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Causes of sexual identity


text:
Pholisma

The genus Pholisma (Nutt. ex Hook.) consists of three to five species of desert-dwelling, primarily subterranean plants.

Most notable of the genus is Pholisma sonorae, native to the Southwestern United States and Mexico. The species is without chlorophyll and lives as a parasite on the roots of a number of desert species. Pholisma belongs to the family Boraginaceae. Other species include Pholisma arenarium, the "desert Christmas tree".

title: Pholisma


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Talk:Grid network

It should be noted that "Grid network" is an overloaded term, with the emerging connotation being a large number of desktop computers contributing their screen saver time to accomplish a task requiring large computational resources. Instances of grid computing include projects such as SETI@Home (analyzing radio signals for communication from extra-terrestrials), GIMPS (searching for a particular class of prime numbers known as Mersenne primes), and the Oxford Anthrax search (searching for molecules which bind particularly well to the anthrax toxin, thus preventing the disease).

An alternative title for the "Grid network" page might be "Interconnection networks for parallel processing"

Comment
I disagree with the description of the Grid Network presented in this wiki. It does not cover any aspect of the Grid and the networking needs of it. (Comment by copied from the article) Fred Talk 16:44, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I would concur with that characterization. Serious rewriting is needed. Kbrose (talk) 18:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Comment
Grid computing in common language today has changed. It has multiple meanings and continues to change. High Performance computing now interconnects with multidimensional or torus networks interconnections no longer analogous to a two D grid. Grid networks still exist inside semiconductors with many core because of the 2D nature of the chip nearest neighbor connectivity is constricted. Grid Computing according to the national science foundation publication is probably the best understood description. The Grid 2: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure. Scottprovost (talk) 15:28, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

title: Talk:Grid network


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Remigius

Remigius may refer to:

 * Saint Remigius (c. 437–533), bishop of Reims; converted Clovis I, king of the Franks
 * Remigius of Rouen (755–771), archbishop of Rouen and illegitimate son of Charles Martel
 * (died 783), bishop of Strasbourg
 * Remigius of Lyon (died 875), archbishop of Lyon
 * Remigius of Auxerre (c. 841–908), theologian and teacher
 * Remigius de Fécamp (died 1092), bishop of Lincoln from 1072

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Masters of Deception

Masters of Deception (MOD) was a New York–based group of hackers, most widely known in media for their exploits of telephone company infrastructure and later prosecution.

Origin of Masters of Deception

MOD's initial membership grew from meetings on Loop-Around Test Lines that led to legendary collaborations to hack RBOC phone switches and the various minicomputers and mainframes used to administer the telephone network. They successfully remained underground using alternative handles to hide even their true hacker identities.

Acid Phreak founded the Masters of Deception with Scorpion and HAC. The name itself was, among other things, a mockery of Legion of Doom (LOD), as 'M' is one letter up in the alphabet from 'L', although the name originally was a flexible acronym that could be used to identify membership in situations where anonymity would be the best course of action. It could stand for "Millions of Dollars" just as easily as "Masters of Deception."

It is claimed that the mockery of the LOD name was a statement to the underground that LOD had lost its direction. Several LOD members were close friends of MOD who had been raided and indicted by the government, causing the majority of those who remained to drop out of the underground for safety reasons. In their absence, LOD largely fell into disarray causing the disagreement and disillusionment that led Phiber Optik to align himself with MOD in an effort to restore the direction of the spirit of underground hacking.

Members of MOD
The original Masters of Deception included: Mark Abene ("Phiber Optik"), Paul Stira ("Scorpion"), Elias Ladopoulos ("Acid Phreak"), HAC, John Lee ("Corrupt") and Julio Fernandez ("Outlaw").

Additional members who have remained anonymous include: Supernigger (also of DPAK), Wing, Nynex Phreak, Billy_The_Kid, Crazy Eddie, The Plague, ZOD, Seeker, Red Knight (who was also a member of Cult of the Dead Cow), Lord Micro, n00gie and peaboy (a.k.a. MCI Sprinter).

Philosophy
Masters of Deception operated differently in many respects to previous hacking groups. Although they openly shared information with each other, they took a controversial view on sharing information outside the group. It was believed that access to MOD's knowledge should be earned via degrees of initiation and a proven respect for the craft, rather than releasing powerful information into the wild where it could be used for nefarious purposes. A demonstration of responsibility on the part of the initiate was required. This informal compartmentalized protection of more sensitive knowledge was a structure originally employed by LOD in the 1980s, rather successfully. According to Lex Luthor, "I realized early on that only certain people can be trusted with certain information, and certain types of information can be trusted to no one. Giving out useful things to irresponsible people would inevitably lead to whatever thing it was being abused and no longer useful.  I was very possessive of my information and frequently withheld things from my articles."

Fall of MOD
As a result of a major nationwide investigation by a joint FBI/Secret Service task force, five of MOD's members were indicted in 1992 in federal court. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stephen Fishbein and Geoffrey S. Berman. Within the next six months (in 1993), all five pleaded guilty and were sentenced to either probation or prison. After the sentencing of Abene, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, Winter 1993-94, had on its cover a rag doll labeled "BERMAN" stabbed by a dagger.

In popular culture

 * Singer/songwriter Poe referenced the MOD with the phrase "MOD are you out there?" from her 1995 song "Hello".

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Euchites

The Euchites or Messalians were a Christian sect from Mesopotamia that spread to Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) and Thrace. The name 'Messalian' comes from the Syriac ܡܨܠܝܢܐ, mṣallyānā, meaning 'one who prays'. The Greek translation is εὐχίτης, euchitēs, meaning the same.

History
They are first mentioned in the 370s by Ephrem the Syrian, Epiphanius of Salamis, and Jerome, and are also mentioned by Archbishop Atticus, Theodotus of Antioch, and Archbishop Sisinnius. They were first condemned as heretical in a synod of 383 AD (Side, Pamphylia), whose acta was referred to in the works of Photius. Their leader was supposedly a man named Peter who claimed to be Christ. Before being stoned to death for his blasphemies, he promised his followers that after three days he would rise from his tomb in the shape of a wolf, attracting the title of Lycopetrus or Peter the Wolf. Christians believed it was not Peter who would come out of the grave, but a devil in disguise.

They continued to exist for several centuries, influencing the Bogomils of Bulgaria, who are called Lycopetrians in an abjuration formula of 1027. and, thereby, the Bosnian Church and Catharism. By the 12th century the sect had reached Bohemia and Germany and, by a resolution of the Council of Trier (1231), was condemned as heretical.

Michael Psellos, a Byzantine monk, accused Bogomils and Euchites of orgiastic practices, incest, and homosexuality. Furthermore, he argued that children born from these promiscuous activities were brought before a Satanic assembly after eight days, offered up to Satan and then cannibalistically eaten. This cannibalistic act was supposedly a parody of baptism. Euthymios Zigabenos, a later Byzantine monastic writer, would make the same accusations. Such charges have a long history, and historians debate whether they are truthful to any degree: the idea of these unholy acts can be traced back further to alleged practices of certain Gnostic sects; indeed, a similar literary tradition regarding heresies seems to have been brought into existence well before the Christian era, during the reign of the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Modern scholarship has also questioned whether a coherent heretical movement existed behind these condemnations, and has emphasised instead the friction in the Eastern Church caused by Messalianism's "ascetical practices and imagistic language far more characteristic of Syriac Christianity than of the imperial Church centred on Constantinople".

Teachings
The sect's teaching asserted that:

Messalians taught that once a person experienced the essence of God they were freed from moral obligations or ecclesiastical discipline. They had male and female teachers, the "perfecti", whom they honored more than the clergy. The condemnation of the sect by John Damascene and Timothy of Constantinople, expressed the view that the sect espoused a sort of mystical materialism. Their critics also accused them of incest, cannibalism and "debauchery" (in Armenia, their name came to mean "filthy") but scholars reject these claims.
 * 1) The essence (ousia) of the Trinity could be perceived by the carnal senses.
 * 2) The Threefold God transformed himself into a single hypostasis (substance) in order to unite with the souls of the perfect.
 * 3) God has taken different forms in order to reveal himself to the senses.
 * 4) Only such sensible revelations of God confer perfection upon the Christian.
 * 5) The state of perfection, freedom from the world and passion, is therefore attained solely by prayer, not through the church, baptism and or any of the sacraments, which have no effect on the passions or the influence of evil on the soul (hence their name, which means "Those who pray").

In Mandaean texts
Gelbert (2013, 2023) suggests that in the Ginza Rabba (Right Ginza 9.1), the Mandaic term minunaiia ("Mnunaeans" or "Minunaeans") is actually a reference to the Messalians or Euchites.

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Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

The "Letter to The Grand Duchess Christina" is an essay written in 1615 by Galileo Galilei. The intention of this letter was to accommodate Copernicanism with the doctrines of the Catholic Church. Galileo tried to use the ideas of Church Fathers and Doctors to show that any condemnation of Copernicanism would be inappropriate.

Background
Christina was the daughter of Charles III of Lorraine and granddaughter of Catherine de' Medici.

In 1611 Galileo was informed by a friend, Cigoli, that "ill-disposed men envious of your virtue and merits met [to discuss]... any means by which they could damage you." The number of scholars who disagreed with his Discourse on Floating Bodies, or were simply ill-disposed toward Galileo grew, but other than one letter from Niccolò Lorini there was not much discussion about the issue for the remainder of the year.

Late in 1613, Galileo's former student Benedetto Castelli, a Benedictine monk and lecturer in mathematics at the University of Pisa, wrote to Galileo about the events at a recent breakfast in Pisa with the Grand Duke Cosimo II de' Medici. In the course of conversation at the breakfast Cosimo Boscaglia, a professor of philosophy, argued that the motion of the Earth could not be true, being contrary to the Bible. After breakfast ended, Castelli was called back to answer scriptural arguments against the motion of the Earth from Christina. Castelli took on the role of theologian in response, and convinced everyone there except the Duchess (whom he thought was arguing mainly to hear his answers) and Boscaglia (who said nothing during this dialogue). Galileo decided to address Christina because of her desire to learn more about astronomy. Christina's position of power would also give the letter more exposure to other nobles and Church leaders.

Galileo replied to Castelli with a long letter laying out his position on the relation between science and Scripture. By 1615, with the controversy over the Earth's motion becoming more widespread and increasingly dangerous, Galileo revised this letter and greatly expanded it; this became the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. The letter circulated in manuscript but was not printed until much later, after the Inquisition had condemned Galileo. It appeared in Strasbourg in 1636 with both Italian and Latin text. It was suppressed in Catholic jurisdictions, as were all works of Galileo at that period which dealt with that subject.

Contents of letter
Galileo establishes two main premises before addressing his conclusion.

 * 1) God has created Scripture and nature. They cannot contradict each other.
 * 2) Nature is independent of accommodation, but Scripture is produced to accommodate.

Galileo argued that the Copernican theory was not just a mathematical calculating tool, but a physical reality. The letter includes a direct paragraph in which Galileo wrote: "I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs while the earth rotates on its axis and revolves about the sun. They know also that I support this position not only by refuting the arguments of Ptolemy and Aristotle ... especially some pertaining to physical effects whose causes perhaps cannot be determined in any other way, and other astronomical discoveries; these discoveries clearly confute the Ptolemaic system, and they agree admirably with this other position and confirm it." This approach caused some, including Dominican friar Niccolò Lorini, to complain to the Inquisition, which in 1616 condemned Copernicanism as philosophically absurd and contrary to scripture. Much later the Inquisition tried Galileo himself and in 1633 condemned him of suspicion of heresy.

Throughout the letter, Galileo includes quotes from St. Augustine. For example, he cites, "If anyone shall set the authority of Holy Writ against clear and manifest reason, he who does this knows not what he has undertaken; for he opposes to the truth not the meaning of the Bible, which is beyond his comprehension, but rather his own interpretation, not what is in the Bible, but what he has found in himself and imagines to be there."

Doctrine of Accommodation
Galileo argues that the Bible is written in a way that is accessible to even uneducated people. Therefore, every word in the Bible cannot be taken literally. He cites an example in which God is described as having hands, which St. Augustine elucidated as not being literal. Further, Galileo cites Cardinal Baronio: "[The] intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven and not how heaven goes."

Queen of sciences
Galileo was writing this letter in the context of an ongoing debate about the relationship between theology and philosophy. From medieval times, theology was known as the queen of sciences. Galileo reinterprets this phrase to distinguish the areas of theology vs philosophy. He rejects the belief that theology is the queen because it includes knowledge of all scientific fields. Instead, he says that theology is the queen because it is a vehicle to the highest knowledge of attaining salvation.

Methodology of the letter
Galileo starts the letter with a little flattery of the Grand Duchess. He tries to build her up as an authority figure and then presents his own credentials to show that he has similar authority. Since the Grand Duchess was a person of high authority but did not have much knowledge in the field of astronomy, Galileo wrote the letter in a manner understandable to a layperson. He attempts to attain the sympathy of the Duchess by mentioning the unfair attacks made against his honor. He tried to portray "himself as a man of good will who seeks only to disclose the truth." He states he was motivated to write the letter to justify himself to men of religion he holds in great esteem. The letter can also be seen as a political move for Galileo since having a highly influential and powerful figure on his side would benefit him.

Joshua argument
Critics of the Copernican system used the Battle of Gibeon from the tenth chapter of the Book of Joshua as scriptural evidence against heliocentrism. In the chapter, Joshua asks God to stop the Sun in order to lengthen the day and allow the Israelites to win the battle. When taken literally, this story implies that the Sun is mobile.

Galileo adopts an Augustinian perspective, while also marginalizing it later. In the Letter to the Grand Duchess he references Augustine of Hippo’s work De Genesi ad Litteram, which calls for either a compromise between literal translation of scripture and astronomy or an allegorical standpoint, which could resolve future astronomical conflicts arising that could jeopardize the validity of the Bible.

Whereas his critics took the stopping of the Sun to mean that Sun halts its orbit around the Earth, Galileo interpreted it with a different astronomical viewpoint. He claimed that God stopped the rotation of the Sun rather than its supposed orbital motion. Arguing that the rotation of the Sun drives the entire planetary system, including the daily rotation of the Earth on its axis, he concluded that when God stopped the Sun from spinning, this also stopped the Earth's rotation and so lengthened the day, as Joshua wished. Galileo thus argued that his Copernican reading of the Joshua passage was in fact more literal than the traditional geocentric reading. Galileo did not, however, see this as real evidence in favor of Copernicanism, but simply as a debating point: even if we played by his opponents' rules and gave scientific weight to literal readings of scripture, Copernicanism still won out.

In summary, Galileo accepted the authority of scriptural passages, as long as they are properly interpreted.

Reception
Galileo wrote the letter to the Grand Duchess in an effort to convince her of the compatibility of Copernicanism and Scripture. This served as a treatise under the disguise of a letter, with the purpose of addressing the politically powerful, as well as his fellow mathematicians and philosophers. The goal of the secondary audience was targeted to whom he believed was condemning Copernicus. The failure of this stratagem was that he used Christina as his titular audience, instead of the shadow audience he truly sought to persuade. The result was that he was attempting to move an audience unfamiliar with his chosen topic, instead of those who were already disposed on the topic of the movement of the heavens.

"With his deprecating tone Galileo effectively marks off a group of philosophers and theologians as adversaries whose faults he proceeds to define". Within that group were progressive Aristotelians, including Bishop Dini, Cardinals Bellarmine and Barberini, as well as famous Jesuit astronomers at the Collegio Romano (Roman College). These men were open to scientific demonstration to progress Copernicus' theories, however Galileo attacks them stating that they "determine in 'hypocritical zeal' to preserve at all costs what they believe, rather than admit what is obvious to their eyes." This compounds his problems rather than aiding him. Moreover, his letter misses out on key facts that include the Church's non-attacking stance on Copernicus when the canon proposed his heliocentric model. A Dominican theologian Tolosani made an unpublished attack on the Copernican system as early as 1544.

Furthermore, the tone of the letter was combative and overly proud. "Many resented his arrogant tone, his presumption for speaking on theological matters, and for crossing over from the world of mathematical astronomy into the world of natural philosophy." "But he has ruined himself by being so much in love with his own genius and having no respect for others. One should not wonder that everyone conspires to damn him."

title: Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina


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Zhang He

Zhang He (died July or August 231), courtesy name Junyi, was a military general serving under the warlord Cao Cao in the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. He continued serving in the state of Cao Wei under its first two rulers, Cao Pi and Cao Rui, during the Three Kingdoms period until his death.

Zhang He began his career under Han Fu, the governor of Ji Province, in the 180s when he joined the Han imperial forces in suppressing the Yellow Turban Rebellion. He became a subordinate of the warlord Yuan Shao in 191 after Yuan Shao seized the governorship of Ji Province from Han Fu. Throughout the 190s, Zhang He fought in the battles against Yuan Shao's northern rival, Gongsun Zan. In 200, Zhang He initially fought on Yuan Shao's side at the Battle of Guandu against Cao Cao, a warlord who controlled the Han central government. However, he defected to Cao Cao after Yuan Shao's defeat at Guandu in the same year. Since then, he had fought in several wars under Cao Cao's banner, including the campaigns against Yuan Shao's heirs and allies (201–207), the expeditions in northwestern China (211–214), and the battles around Hanzhong (215–219). After Cao Cao's death in 220, Zhang He served in Wei and fought in battles against Wei's rival states, Shu Han and Eastern Wu. His best known victory was at the Battle of Jieting in 228, in which he defeated the Shu general Ma Su by cutting off the enemy's access to water supplies and then attacking them. In 231, he was killed in an ambush laid by Shu forces during the Battle of Mount Qi while he was reluctantly pursuing a retreating enemy force.

Chen Shou, who wrote the third-century historical text Sanguozhi, named Zhang He as one of the Five Elite Generals of his time, alongside Yu Jin, Yue Jin, Zhang Liao and Xu Huang.

Service under Han Fu and Yuan Shao
Zhang He was from Mao County (鄚縣), Hejian State (河閒國), which is in present-day Maozhou, Hebei. Towards the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, when the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out, he responded to the Han government's call for volunteers to serve in the army and help to suppress the revolt. He was commissioned as a Major (司馬) and placed under the command of Han Fu, the Inspector of Ji Province (present-day southern Hebei).

In 191, after Han Fu relinquished his control of Ji Province to the warlord Yuan Shao, Zhang He came to serve Yuan Shao and was promoted to the rank of Colonel (校尉). Between 191 and 199, Zhang He fought on Yuan Shao's side in the war between Yuan Shao and his rival Gongsun Zan. In 199, after Yuan Shao had eliminated Gongsun Zan at the Battle of Yijing, Zhang He was further promoted to General of the Household Who Brings Peace to the State (寧國中郎將) for his achievements in battle.

Battle of Guandu
In the year 200, Yuan Shao fought the Battle of Guandu with Cao Cao, a warlord who controlled the Han central government and the figurehead Emperor Xian. When Yuan Shao having a few advantages like a far larger army in the initial stages of the campaign, Zhang He suggested that he avoid direct confrontation with Cao Cao and instead send a light cavalry force south to attack the rear of Cao Cao's camp. Yuan Shao did not heed Zhang He's suggestion and attacked his foe's main force instead. In the first few battles of the campaign, Cao Cao's forces won several victories in which two of Yuan Shao's generals, Yan Liang and Wen Chou, were killed and no progress was made in overrunning Cao Cao's defenses.

Raid on Wuchao
Yuan Shao had sent his general Chunyu Qiong to guard his army's supply depot at Wuchao (烏巢; southeast of present-day Yanjin County, Henan). One night, Cao Cao led a raid on Wuchao to destroy Yuan Shao's supplies.

When news of the attack on Wuchao reached Yuan Shao's camp, Zhang He advised Yuan Shao: "Cao Cao's forces are well-trained so they will definitely defeat Chunyu Qiong. If Chunyu Qiong is defeated, all is lost for you, General. You should immediately dispatch forces to reinforce Wuchao." Yuan Shao's adviser Guo Tu disagreed with Zhang He: "Zhang He's idea isn't right. Why don't we attack Cao Cao's main camp instead? He will definitely head back to defend his camp. In this way, we can stop the attack on Wuchao without having to send reinforcements there." Zhang He replied: "Cao Cao's camp is well-defended and can't be conquered easily. If Chunyu Qiong is taken captive, we will all become prisoners-of-war."

Yuan Shao dispatched a detachment of light cavalry to reinforce Wuchao and sent heavily armed forces to attack Cao Cao's main camp. Cao Cao succeeded in destroying Yuan Shao's supplies at Wuchao, while his main camp successfully resisted Yuan Shao's attacks. Cao Cao scored an overall decisive victory over Yuan Shao in the battle.

Defecting to Cao Cao's side
Guo Tu felt embarrassed after seeing that his suggestion had resulted in Yuan Shao's defeat, so he attempted to divert attention away from himself by accusing Zhang He of displaying schadenfreude upon learning of their defeat. Zhang He became afraid when he heard about this, so he defected to Cao Cao's side.

Cao Cao was very pleased when Zhang He came to join him and he told Zhang He: "In the past, Wu Zixu failed to understand the situation and met his downfall. What if he had abandoned Yin like Weizi and defected to Han like Han Xin?"

The fifth-century historian Pei Songzhi pointed out a discrepancy between Zhang He's biography and the biographies of Cao Cao and Yuan Shao about the time when Zhang He defected to Cao Cao's side. According to Cao Cao and Yuan Shao's biographies, Yuan Shao sent Zhang He and Gao Lan (高覽) to attack Cao Cao's main camp per Guo Tu's suggestion. They defected to Cao Cao when they learnt that Wuchao was lost, and their defection resulted in Yuan Shao's defeat. Based on these two accounts, Zhang He defected to Cao Cao before Yuan Shao's defeat at the Battle of Guandu. On the other hand, Zhang He's biography mentioned that Zhang He defected to Cao Cao after Yuan Shao's defeat at Guandu and after Guo Tu slandered him.

Service under Cao Cao
After his defection, Zhang He was appointed by the Han imperial court (under Cao Cao's control) as a Lieutenant-General (偏將軍) and enfeoffed as a Marquis of a Chief Village (都亭侯). Between 200 and 207, he fought on Cao Cao's side against Yuan Shao's heirs and allies at the battles of Ye (204), Bohai (205) and Liucheng (207). He was promoted to General Who Pacifies the Di (平狄將軍) for his contributions.

In 206, Zhang He participated in the campaign against pirate forces led by Guan Cheng (管承) in Donglai Commandery (東萊郡; around present-day Yantai and Weihai, Shandong).

In 209, after the Battle of Red Cliffs, Chen Lan (陳蘭) and Mei Cheng (梅成) started a rebellion in Lu County (六縣; in present-day Lu'an, Anhui). Cao Cao ordered Zhang Liao to lead a force to suppress the revolt. Zhang He and Niu Gai (牛蓋) served as Zhang Liao's deputies and succeeded in eliminating the rebels.

Campaigns in northwestern China
In 211, Zhang He participated in the Battle of Weinan against a coalition of warlords from the Guanzhong region led by Ma Chao and Han Sui. The coalition broke up after Cao Cao defeated the warlords in the battle. Cao Cao sent Zhang He to lead a force to attack one of the warlords, Yang Qiu, at Anding Commandery (安定郡; covering parts of present-day Ningxia and Gansu), and Zhang succeeded in forcing Yang Qiu to surrender.

In 212, Zhang He accompanied Xiahou Yuan on a campaign against another of the warlords, Liang Xing (梁興), and the Di tribes in Wudu Commandery (武都郡; in present-day Longnan, Gansu). In 214, Xiahou Yuan and Zhang He defeated Ma Chao, who had borrowed troops from the warlord Zhang Lu in Hanzhong Commandery after being driven out of Guanzhong. They also eliminated rebel forces led by Song Jian (宋建).

Battles in Hanzhong
In 215, when Cao Cao launched a campaign against Zhang Lu in Hanzhong Commandery, he first sent Zhang He to lead an army ahead to attack Liang Xing (梁興) and the Di tribal king, Dou Mao (竇茂). He ordered Zhang He to lead 5,000 infantry to clear the path after entering Hanzhong via San Pass (散關; southwest of present-day Baoji, Shaanxi). After receiving Zhang Lu's surrender, Cao Cao headed back and left behind Xiahou Yuan, Zhang He and other generals to defend Hanzhong from his rival Liu Bei, who controlled Yi Province (covering present-day Sichuan and Chongqing) directly south of Hanzhong.

Later that year, Zhang He tried to relocate the residents of Ba to Hanzhong. He was defeated by Liu Bei's general Zhang Fei at Dangqu (宕渠; in present-day Qu County, Sichuan) and abandoned his horse and escaped on foot via a shortcut with only a few of his men. He retreated back to Nanzheng County with his remaining troops. He was promoted to General Who Defeats Bandits (盪寇將軍) later.

In 218, Liu Bei launched a campaign to seize control of Hanzhong from Cao Cao's forces. He garrisoned his forces at Yangping Pass (陽平關; in present-day Ningqiang County, Shaanxi) while Zhang He stationed his troops at Guangshi (廣石). Liu Bei divided his thousands of elite soldiers into ten groups and ordered them to attack Zhang He's position at night. Zhang He personally led his men to resist Liu Bei's forces and succeeded in holding off the enemy. In the meantime, Liu Bei set fire to the fences at Zhang He's camp in Zouma Valley (走馬谷). Xiahou Yuan led some soldiers to put out the fire and encountered Liu Bei's force along the way and engaged the enemy. Xiahou Yuan was killed in action while Zhang He retreated. According to the Weilüe, Liu Bei was fearful that Xiahou Yuan would be replaced by Zhang He as the commander of Cao Cao's forces in Hanzhong. He also expressed disappointment after learning that it was Xiahou Yuan, and not Zhang He, who was killed in battle.

Cao Cao's forces in Hanzhong were shocked when they learnt of their commander's death and became worried that Liu Bei might take advantage of the situation to press on the attack. Guo Huai, a Major who served under Xiahou Yuan, expressed support for Zhang He to be the new commander. He said: "General Zhang (He) is a famous general in the Empire. Even Liu Bei is afraid of him. He is the only person capable of restoring stability in this hour of peril." Zhang He assumed the role and reorganised his forces. The other officers were all willing to submit to his command. Stability was restored.

Cao Cao, who was then in Chang'an, sent a messenger to Hanzhong to approve Zhang He's command. In the following year, he personally led an army to Hanzhong to reinforce Zhang He. Liu Bei ordered his forces to remain in their positions in the mountainous regions and refused to engage Cao Cao in battle. Cao Cao eventually gave up on Hanzhong and led his forces out. Zhang He was relocated to a garrison at Chencang (陳倉; present-day Chencang District, Baoji, Shaanxi).

Service under Cao Pi
Cao Cao died in March 220 and was succeeded by his son Cao Pi as the King of Wei (魏王). Cao Pi promoted Zhang He to General of the Left (左將軍) and increased his marquis rank to Marquis of a Chief District (都鄉侯). Later that year, Cao Pi usurped the throne from Emperor Xian, ended the Eastern Han dynasty and established the state of Cao Wei with himself as the new emperor. After his coronation, he promoted Zhang He from a district marquis to a county marquis under the title "Marquis of Mao" (鄚侯).

In 221, Cao Pi ordered Zhang He and Cao Zhen to lead forces to attack the Lushui and Eastern Qiang tribes in Anding Commandery (安定郡; covering parts of present-day Ningxia and Gansu).

Battle of Jiangling
In 222, Cao Pi summoned Zhang He and Cao Zhen for an audience with him in the Wei capital Luoyang, and then ordered them, Xiahou Shang and other generals to lead armies to attack Jiangling County, which was controlled by Wei's rival state, Eastern Wu. During the battle, Zhang He supervised the Wei forces as they captured an island on the Yangtze River and started constructing a small castle on it. The battle had an inconclusive overall result because the Wei forces withdrew on their own without making any significant gains.

Service under Cao Rui
Cao Pi died in 226 and was succeeded by his son Cao Rui as the emperor of Wei. Cao Rui ordered Zhang He to garrison in Jing Province to defend Wei's southern border from Eastern Wu. Later on, Zhang He and Sima Yi led troops to attack Wu forces commanded by Liu E (劉阿) and defeated them at Qikou (祁口).

Repelling the first Shu invasion
In 228, Zhuge Liang, the regent of Wei's rival state Shu Han, led the Shu forces on the first of a series of campaigns to attack Wei. Zhang He was recalled back from Jing Province to defend Wei's western borders in the Guanzhong region (covering areas in present-day Gansu and Shaanxi) from the Shu armies. Later that year, he defeated the Shu general Ma Su at the Battle of Jieting by first cutting off the enemy's access to water supplies and then attacking them.

Earlier that year, three Wei-controlled commanderies – Nan'an (南安; in present-day Dingxi, Gansu), Tianshui and Anding (安定; covering parts of present-day Ningxia and Gansu) – had responded to Zhuge Liang's call and defected to Shu. Zhang He attacked the three commanderies and took them back for Wei. Cao Rui issued an imperial decree to praise Zhang He for his success in repelling the Shu invasion and reward him by adding 1,000 taxable households to his marquisate. Zhang He had 4,300 households in his marquisate after the increment.

Aborted campaign against Wu
Around the time, the Wei general Sima Yi, who was training naval forces in Jing Province, planned for an invasion of Wu via the Han River, which links to the Yangtze River. Cao Rui ordered Zhang He to lead forces from the Guanzhong region to Jing Province to support Sima Yi. However, when they arrived in Jing Province, it was already in winter and the waters were unsuitable for the larger ships to sail on, hence the campaign was aborted. Zhang He then returned to his garrison at Fangcheng County (方城縣; present-day Gu'an County, Hubei).

Predicting the outcome of the Siege of Chencang
In late 228, Zhuge Liang launched a second campaign against Wei and besieged the Wei fortress at Chencang (陳倉; present-day Chencang District, Baoji, Shaanxi), which was defended by Hao Zhao. Cao Rui summoned Zhang He back to the capital Luoyang to discuss plans to counter the Shu invasion but they met in Henan instead. Cao Rui placed Zhang He in command of 30,000 troops and reassigned some of the Imperial Guards to serve as Zhang's bodyguards. He asked Zhang He: "General, if you're late, will Zhuge Liang have already captured Chencang?"

Zhang He predicted that Zhuge Liang's forces could not maintain the siege on Chencang for long because they lacked supplies. He replied: "Zhuge Liang will have already left before I even reach Chencang. I estimate he has less than 10 days worth of supplies." He then led his troops towards Nanzheng County, travelling day and night. The Shu forces retreated. Cao Rui summoned Zhang He back to Luoyang and commissioned him as General of Chariots and Cavalry Who Attacks the West (征西車騎將軍).

Death

In 231, when Zhuge Liang launched his fourth invasion of Wei, Cao Rui ordered Sima Yi and Zhang He to lead Wei forces west to counter the invasion. When Zhang He's army arrived in Lueyang County, Zhuge Liang retreated to Mount Qi (the mountainous regions around present-day Li County, Gansu) to defend his position. When Sima Yi ordered Zhang He to pursue the enemy, Zhang He refused and said that according to classical military doctrine, they should not pursue an enemy force returning to its base. Sima Yi insisted, so Zhang He had no choice but to pursue the retreating Shu forces. He fell into an ambush at Mumen Trail (木門道; near present-day Mumen Village, Mudan Town, Qinzhou District, Tianshui, Gansu) and died after a stray arrow hit him in the thigh. Cao Rui granted him the posthumous title "Marquis Zhuang" (壯侯), which literally means "robust marquis".

Family
Zhang He had four sons, who were all enfeoffed as marquises by Cao Rui in recognition of their father's contributions to Wei. The eldest, Zhang Xiong (張雄), inherited his father's title and became the next Marquis of Mao (鄚侯). The youngest son, whose name is unknown, received the peerage of a Secondary Marquis (關內侯).

Appraisal
Zhang He was described to be a resourceful and proficient military leader who was well versed in geography and capable of making accurate predictions about war situations, to the point where even Zhuge Liang was wary of him. Even though he served in the military, he highly respected Confucian scholars. He once recommended Bei Zhan (卑湛), a learned scholar who was known for his good moral conduct and who was from the same hometown as him, to serve in the Wei government. Cao Rui accepted Zhang He's suggestion and appointed Bei Zhan as an Academician (博士). He also issued an imperial decree to praise Zhang He for not only defending Wei's borders, but also showing concern for the internal preservation of Wei.

In popular culture
Zhang He is a playable character in Koei's Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi video game series. He also appears in all instalments of Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy game series.

In the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering there is a card named "Zhang He, Wei General" in the Portal Three Kingdoms set.

He appears as a unique character in Total War: Three Kingdoms.

title: Zhang He


text:
Gan Ning

Gan Ning (c. early 170s - c. 220), courtesy name Xingba, was a Chinese military general serving under the warlord Sun Quan in the late Eastern Han dynasty. Originally a notorious pirate, he gave up the life of a marauder in the late 190s and became a subordinate of Huang Zu, the Administrator of a commandery in present-day east-central Hubei. Disheartened by Huang Zu's indifferent attitude towards him, Gan Ning eventually left Huang and made his way into Wu territory (present-day eastern and southeastern China), where he found his calling and became a military officer under the warlord Sun Quan. Throughout his years of service under Sun Quan until his death, Gan Ning fought in numerous battles for his lord, including the battles of Jiangxia (208), Red Cliffs (208–209), Xiaoyao Ford (214–215) and Ruxu (217).

Early life
Gan Ning was from Linjiang County (臨江縣), Ba Commandery (巴郡), which is in present-day Zhong County, Chongqing. His ancestral home was actually in Nanyang, Henan; his ancestors migrated to Ba Commandery and settled there. When he was still a youth, he accepted an offer to serve as an accounting assistant in the local commandery office. He resigned and went home after serving for a short period of time.

In his younger days, Gan Ning was known to be very energetic and eager to behave like a youxia or vigilante. He gathered a group of wayward young men under his leadership to rob and plunder for a living. They armed themselves with bows and crossbows, wore feathers in their hats and tied bells on their bodies. The ringing of the bells alerted people to the presence of Gan Ning and his gang. Gan Ning's plundering and murderous ways made him infamous throughout Ba Commandery. On land, he and his gang travelled by riding on horses or in chariots in a certain formation; on water, they sailed on light vessels linked together. They also wore elaborate and flamboyant garments to attract attention. When they stopped at a certain location, they used silk to tie their boats to the jetties; when they were departing, they cut the silk and abandoned it as a display of their extravagance.

Among those who had dealings with Gan Ning were some local officials. They treated Gan Ning generously. In return, he befriended them and showed genuine feelings towards them. On the other hand, those who treated him badly suffered the fate of being robbed of their possessions by him and his gang. Even government officials were not spared. Gan Ning led the life of a marauder until when he's over 20 years old.

After Liu Yan, the governor of Yi Province (covering present-day Sichuan and Chongqing), died in 194, Gan Ning rebelled against his son and successor, Liu Zhang. He received support from Liu He (劉闔), an official from the neighbouring Jing Province (covering present-day Hubei and Hunan), and Liu Zhang's subordinates Shen Mi (沈彌) and Lou Fa (婁發). However, they failed and were forced to flee to Jing Province.

Service under Liu Biao and Huang Zu
Gan Ning eventually decided to stop plundering and pillaging. He read some books and picked up ideas from the Hundred Schools of Thought. Later, he brought along 800 men to join Liu Biao, the Governor of Jing Province (covering present-day Hubei and Hunan), and was stationed in Nanyang Commandery. Liu Biao had a scholarly background and was not proficient in military affairs. Around the time, chaos had broken out all around China as contending warlords fought each other for territorial gains and hegemony over the empire. Gan Ning observed that Liu Biao was doomed to failure and was worried that he would be affected, so he and his followers planned to head east towards the Wu (or Jiangdong) region, which was under the control of the warlord Sun Ce and later Sun Quan. When they reached Jiangxia Commandery (江夏郡; present-day eastern Hubei) in eastern Jing Province, they could not cross the border into Wu territory as Sun Quan was at war with Liu Biao at the time. Gan Ning thus remained at Jiangxia and became a subordinate of the commandery administrator, Huang Zu, who did not recognise his talent and treated him coldly for three years.

In 203, Sun Quan led his forces to attack Huang Zu and defeated him at the Battle of Xiakou. Gan Ning, a skilled archer, led a detachment of troops as backup and came to Huang Zu's rescue. He fired an arrow which killed Ling Cao, a colonel under Sun Quan, thus saving Huang Zu's life. Huang Zu did not change his attitude towards Gan Ning after the incident. Su Fei (蘇飛), an area commander under Huang Zu, recommended Gan Ning as a talent but Huang Zu ignored him. Huang Zu even attempted to induce Gan Ning's followers to abandon their leader and join him instead; some of them agreed.

Gan Ning was very unhappy with Huang Zu and wanted to leave him, but was worried that Huang Zu would not allow it so he felt very frustrated. Su Fei understood Gan Ning's frustration so he invited him for drinks and said: "I recommended you to Huang Zu many times, but he doesn't want to make good use of your talents. As days pass, people grow older. You should make plans for your future and find someone who truly appreciates your talents." Gan Ning paused for a moment before replying: "That's what I have in mind, but I can't find an excuse to leave." Su Fei then said: "I will suggest to Huang Zu to appoint you as the chief of Zhu County (邾縣; northwest of present-day Huanggang, Hubei). Although it may be a difficult start, it will eventually become easier for you to decide where to go from there." After Huang Zu approved Su Fei's suggestion, Gan Ning gathered a few hundred men who were willing to follow him and headed towards Zhu County. From there, they crossed the border into the Jiangdong territories.

Battle of Jiangxia
When Gan Ning brought his followers to Jiangdong, Zhou Yu and Lü Meng recommended him as a talent to their lord, Sun Quan. Sun Quan felt that Gan Ning was an extraordinary man and treated him like an old friend. Gan Ning proposed: "'The Han Empire is declining day by day. Cao Cao is becoming increasingly arrogant and he will eventually usurp the throne. The southern territories in Jing Province are accessible in terms of travelling by land or water. The western domain of the Empire lies there. Based on my observation of Liu Biao, he won't last long while his sons are incapable of inheriting his jurisdiction. My lord, you should take control of these lands soon, lest Cao Cao seizes them later. The best plan now is to attack Huang Zu first. Huang Zu is old and muddleheaded. He lacks funding and supplies, cheats those around them, and is only concerned with making personal gains. His subordinates are already unhappy with him because of his overbearing demands. His warships and military equipment are damaged and haven't been repaired; he neglects agriculture; his army is ill-disciplined. If you attack him now, you will surely win. After defeating him, you can move west further and take control of Chu Pass and expand your domain and influence. After that, you can prepare to attack Bashu.'"

Sun Quan wanted to follow Gan Ning's plan, but his adviser Zhang Zhao strongly objected: "The territories in Wu have not been completely pacified yet. If we proceed with this campaign, I am afraid there will be chaos." Gan Ning rebuked Zhang Zhao: "Our lord has entrusted responsibilities to you as if you were Xiao He. If you can't even be confident that there won't be chaos under your watch, how can you expect to be like Xiao He?" Sun Quan then raised his glass to Gan Ning and said: "Xingba, I have decided to put you in charge of the campaign this year just as I offer this drink to you. You should strive your best to come up with a strategy to defeat Huang Zu. Once you have proven yourself, you won't need to take Zhang Zhao's words to heart."

In the spring of 208, Sun Quan led his forces west to attack Huang Zu at Jiangxia Commandery (江夏郡; around present-day Xinzhou District, Wuhan, Hubei) and succeeded in defeating and capturing Huang Zu alive, as well as taking control over his troops. Gan Ning was placed in command of some soldiers and ordered to garrison at Dangkou (當口).

Sometime in the late 200s to early 210s, Gan Ning were involved in a revolt orchestrased by some officials against the newly ascended Liú Zhāng, who replacing his father who has just passed away. Liú Zhāng sent Zhào Wěi (趙韙), a key ally of his late father, to march on the rebels and managed to suppress the rebels and forced them to flee into Jīngzhōu (荊州) in the east.

Saving Su Fei
Before the campaign, Sun Quan had prepared two boxes for containing the heads of Huang Zu and Su Fei (蘇飛). After the battle, Su Fei, who had become a prisoner-of-war, immediately asked someone to inform Gan Ning. Gan Ning said: "If Su Fei didn't say anything, I would have forgotten about him." Later, when Sun Quan and his officers were celebrating the victory, Gan Ning left his seat and knelt down before Sun Quan. He kowtowed until his face was covered in blood and, with tears in his eyes, he pleaded with Sun Quan: "I owe Su Fei a favour. If not for him, I'd have been dead and my body abandoned in a ravine. I'd not have been able to serve under you. Now, even though Su Fei's actions warrant death, I still hope you can spare him." Sun Quan was moved and he asked: "What if he leaves after I spare his life?" Gan Ning replied: "Su Fei will be grateful if he is spared from death. He won't leave even if you try to chase him away. Why would he still court his own doom? If he really does that, I am willing to use my head to replace his in the box." Sun Quan then pardoned Su Fei.

Red Cliffs campaign
In the winter of 208–209, Gan Ning fought in the Battle of Red Cliffs under Zhou Yu's command against the forces of Cao Cao, and defeated the enemy at Wulin (烏林). He also participated in the subsequent Battle of Jiangling. Sun Quan's forces, led by Zhou Yu, attacked Cao Cao's general Cao Ren at Nan Commandery (南郡; around present-day Jiangling County, Hubei) but were unable to conquer the city. Gan Ning suggested that he lead a separate force to capture Yiling (夷陵; around present-day Yichang, Hubei). He had only a few hundred soldiers with him when he reached Yiling but the strength of his army increased to around 1,000 after he recruited some men in the area. Cao Ren sent 5,000 to 6,000 troops to besiege Gan Ning at Yiling. Cao Ren's men built high towers, from which they rained arrows upon Yiling. Gan Ning's men were terrified but their commander remained calm. He sent a messenger to request aid from Zhou Yu, who heeded Lü Meng's plan and led reinforcements to help Gan Ning while leaving behind Ling Tong to defend their position. Zhou Yu, Lü Meng and the others succeeded in lifting the siege at Yiling, while Ling Tong managed to hold his ground well for that period of time. Eventually, Cao Ren was ordered to abandon Nan Commandery because the prolonged war had drained much manpower and resources on Cao Cao's side, and this resulted in the capture of the commandery by Sun Quan's forces.

Guan Yu's shallows
In 215, Sun Quan had disputes with his ally Liu Bei over the division of southern Jing Province between their respective domains. Sun Quan sent Lü Meng and Ling Tong to seize the three commanderies of Changsha (長沙), Lingling (零陵; around present-day Yongzhou, Hunan) and Guiyang (桂陽; around present-day Chenzhou, Hunan) from Liu Bei, and then ordered Lu Su to station at Yiyang as a precaution against any retaliation by Liu Bei's general Guan Yu, who was in charge of his lord's territories in southern Jing Province. Gan Ning joined Lu Su at Yiyang. Guan Yu claimed he had 30,000 troops as he selected 5,000 elite troopers to the upstream shallows located some 10 li away from Yiyang, and planned to cross the shallows at night. Lu Su held a discussion with his subordinates on how to deal with Guan Yu. At the time, Gan Ning had only 300 men under him and he told Lu Su,

"If you give me another 500 troops, I will go to confront Guan Yu. I assure you that Guan Yu won't dare to cross the waters when he hears of my approach. But if he does, I will capture him."

Lu Su then chose 1,000 troops and put them under Gan Ning's command. Gan Ning headed towards Guan Yu's position at night. As Gan Ning expected, Guan Yu did not cross the shallows and instead set up camps there. That place was thus named 'Guan Yu's Shallows' (關羽瀨).

Sun Quan was so pleased with Gan Ning's achievement that he appointed him as the Administrator (太守) of Xiling Commandery (西陵郡) and let him oversee the counties of Yangxin (陽新) and Xiazhi (下雉; east of present-day Yangxin County, Hubei).

Battle of Xiaoyao Ford
In early 215, Gan Ning was involved in an attack on Cao Cao's garrison at Wan County (皖縣; in present-day Qianshan County, Anhui) and was in charge of the unit assigned to scale the fortress's walls. Armed with a chain, he was the first to climb up the walls and his men captured Wan County's defending commander, Zhu Guang (朱光). Lü Meng earned the top credit while Gan Ning received the second highest credit for the victory. Gan Ning was promoted to General Who Breaks and Charges (折衝將軍).

Later that year, Gan Ning participated in Sun Quan's campaign to seize control of Hefei, which was defended by Cao Cao's general Zhang Liao. Sun Quan was unable to capture Hefei after besieging the city for days and suffering defeats in the initial skirmishes, and he eventually withdrew his forces when a plague broke out in his army. Sun Quan's other units retreated first, while Sun Quan himself remained behind at Xiaoyao Ford (逍遙津) with only about 1,000 men and a few officers (including Lü Meng, Jiang Qin, Ling Tong and Gan Ning). When Zhang Liao saw that, he seized the opportunity to launch a devastating counterattack and throw the enemy into confusion. Gan Ning led a group of archers to fire arrows at the enemy while Ling Tong and the others fought fiercely to protect their lord. Gan Ning shouted at the men to beat the war drums and blow the horns loudly to raise the army's morale. Sun Quan eventually succeeded in escaping but his forces sustained heavy losses. He praised Gan Ning for his acts of courage after the battle.

Battle of Ruxu
Two years later in 217, Cao Cao personally led an army, said to be 400,000 strong, to attack Sun Quan's garrison at Ruxu (濡須). Sun Quan led about 70,000 troops to counter the enemy. Gan Ning commanded the 3,000 strong vanguard. Sun Quan gave a secret order for Gan Ning to attack the enemy under the cover of nightfall, so Gan Ning selected 100 elite soldiers. Before the battle, Sun Quan sent food and wine to Gan Ning and his men. After the feast, Gan Ning poured wine into a silver bowl and drank two bowls before offering it to an officer. The officer knelt down and did not dare to take the bowl, so Gan Ning drew his sword, placed it on his lap and said: "You respect our lord but not me? I don't fear death. Why do you fear death?" The officer saw that Gan Ning was very stern so he obliged and drank from it and then ordered each soldier to drink one bowl of wine."

When it was nearing midnight, Gan Ning and his 100 men raided Cao Cao's camp and destroyed some defensive structures and killed dozens of enemy soldiers. Cao Cao's troops were shocked so they sounded the alarm and lit up the entire camp with torches. By then, Gan Ning and his men had already returned safely to their own camp, where they beat their drums, blew their horns, and shouted "wansui!"

Later that night, Gan Ning went to see a delighted Sun Quan, who told him: "Were your actions enough to frighten the old man (Cao Cao)? I had the opportunity of witnessing your valour." Sun Quan then rewarded Gan Ning with 1,000 rolls of silk and 100 swords. He also remarked, "Mengde (Cao Cao) has Zhang Liao while I have Xingba. I can match him." Cao Cao withdrew his armies from Ruxu after slightly more than a month. Gan Ning commanded even greater respect among Sun Quan's forces and the number of troops under his command increased by 2,000.

Death
When Gan Ning died, Sun Quan deeply lamented his death. No further details about Gan Ning's death were provided in his biography in the Sanguozhi. However, the Jiankang Shilu recorded that Gan Ning died in the winter of 215–216, while the Australian sinologist Rafe de Crespigny estimated that Gan Ning died around 220.

Family
Gan Ning's ancestor was Gan Mao (甘茂), a chancellor of the Qin state in the Warring States period.

Gan Ning's son, Gan Gui (甘瓌), was exiled to Kuaiji Commandery (around present-day Shaoxing, Zhejiang) for committing an offence and died not long later.

Gan Shu (甘述), another son of Gan Ning, served as a Master of Writing (尚書) in the state of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period. Gan Shu's son, Gan Chang (甘昌), served as the Crown Prince's Tutor (太子太傅) in Wu. Gan Chang had a son – Gan Zhuo (甘卓), whose courtesy name was Jisi (季思). Gan Zhuo served as Senior General Who Guards the South (鎮南大將軍) and Governor of Jing Province (荊州牧) during the Jin dynasty.

Appraisal
Gan Ning was rough and violent; moreover he took pleasure in killing. However, he was also jovial, gregarious and capable of using strategy. He respected virtuous persons and had little regard for monetary wealth. He treated his men well and they were also willing to fight for him with their lives.

Conflict with Ling Tong
Ling Tong (Ling Cao's son) never forgave Gan Ning for killing his father at the Battle of Xiakou in 203. Gan Ning was always on the defensive against Ling Tong and deliberately avoided meeting him. Sun Quan also ordered Ling Tong to not seek vengeance on Gan Ning. There was one incident during a banquet held in Lü Meng's house, where both Gan Ning and Ling Tong were present. When Ling Tong was performing a sword dance to entertain the guests, Gan Ning stood up and said, "I can also perform with my pair of jis." Lü Meng told Gan Ning: "You may be good in performing, but you're not as good as me." He then drew his sword and carried a shield and stood between Ling Tong and Gan Ning to separate the two of them. When Sun Quan heard about the incident, he relocated Gan Ning to a garrison at Banzhou (半州).

Dispute with Lü Meng
One of Gan Ning's servants committed an offence and was afraid of being punished so he sought shelter under Lü Meng. Lü Meng feared that Gan Ning would kill the servant so he did not send the servant away. Later, when Gan Ning visited Lü Meng's house and brought along gifts for the latter's mother, Lü brought the servant out to meet Gan, and Gan promised to spare the servant. However, Gan Ning reneged on his word later as he tied the servant to a tree and personally killed him by firing arrows at him. After that, he went back to his boat and ordered his men to lengthen the hawsers while he undressed and rested inside the cabin.

Lü Meng was furious when he heard that Gan Ning had killed the servant so he gathered his own men and prepared to confront Gan. Gan Ning continued resting when he heard Lü Meng approaching. Lü Meng's mother came out of the house barefooted and chided her son: "The lord (Sun Quan) treats you like his family and entrusts you with important responsibilities. How can you kill Gan Ning just because you have a private feud with him? If Gan Ning dies, even if the lord does not inquire into the incident, you have already overstepped your role as a subject." Lü Meng was a filial son so his anger subsided after listening to his mother. He then went to Gan Ning's boat, laughed and said: "Xingba, my mother is treating you to a meal. Come up quickly!" Gan Ning wept and replied: "I have let you down." He followed Lü Meng to meet his mother and they feasted for the whole day.

In Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Gan Ning appears as a character in the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which romanticises the historical events before and during the Three Kingdoms period. Some of the actual events in his life are exaggerated or dramatised in the novel.

The description of Gan Ning's night raid on Cao Cao's camp at the Battle of Ruxu in the novel is more vivid as compared to that mentioned in his biography. Before the raid, Ling Tong leads 3,000 troops to engage the enemy and duels with Zhang Liao before he receives orders to retreat. When Gan Ning sees that, he tells Sun Quan: "Tonight I'll bring only 100 men to raid Cao Cao's camp. If I lose a single soldier, this won't count as a contribution." That night, he leads 100 horsemen to attack Cao Cao's camp and all of them return alive after inflicting heavy damage and casualties on the enemy.

Gan Ning kills Ling Tong's father, Ling Cao, at the Battle of Xiakou in 203. Since then, even after Gan Ning comes to serve Sun Quan, Ling Tong still holds a grudge against him. Their conflict is dramatised in chapters 67–68 of the novel, and is eventually resolved after Gan Ning saves Ling Tong's life.

Gan Ning's death is described in Chapter 83. He is killed at the Battle of Xiaoting by the tribal king Shamoke, an ally of Liu Bei.

Modern era depictions
Gan Ning is featured as a playable character in Koei's Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi video game series.

Chen Shou

 * Chen, Shou (3rd century). Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi).

Pei Songzhi

 * Pei, Songzhi (5th century). Annotations to Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi zhu).

title: Gan Ning