King Wutugu

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King Wutugu

兀突骨

Transliterations

King Wutugu is a character in the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. He is the king of Wuguo, a southern Nanman state whose people are portrayed as living in caves rather than houses, during the Three Kingdoms era of China.

He is depicted as an extremely large man, "a giant of twelve spans". It is said that he didn't eat grain, preferring instead to dine on venomous serpents. He wore scale armor described as impenetrable to swords and arrows, and he rode a white elephant into battle.

King Wutugu commanded the elite spear troops of the Rattan Army. This army wore armor of dried and oiled rattan, which was light enough to allow them to float across water, yet hard enough that no weapon could penetrate it.

After the Nanman king Meng Huo had been defeated and released six times by Zhuge Liang during his Southern Campaign, he turned to King Wutugu for aid. Wutugu mustered his forces and marched against the Shu troops, winning an initial victory thanks to his army's impenetrable armor. He and his forces then pursued Wei Yan, forcing the Shu general to abandon fifteen separate camps.

Wei Yan's retreat, however, had been part of Zhuge Liang's plan. He led King Wutugu into Coiled Serpent Valley, where the Shu forces had planted gunpowder bombs beneath the ground. When the Shu forces ignited the bombs, the valley became an inferno, igniting the oil-soaked rattan armor and destroying the Wuguo army. Wutugu perished among the flames.