In 207, the warlord Liu Bei went to Longzhong to visit the scholar Zhuge Liang. The Records of the Three Kingdoms says: “He went three times in all, and only then did he see him.” (凡三往，乃见) The first two visits failed.
At the third meeting, Zhuge Liang set out the plan for Liu Bei’s future that became known as the Longzhong Plan. Years later, in his Memorial on Sending Out the Troops, Zhuge Liang recalled that the late ruler had “visited me three times in my thatched cottage.”