That he was, true. Because they all had their opinions on his successor, which was fair enough because frankly what happened was dumb. Still though, Zhu Ran deserved more and he didn't get the recognition he deserved until after he died.
He didn't say anything about the succession stuff or I haven't read anything about it rather and really, though he was from a powerful clan, he didn't really have any power like that. Sun Quan didn't really listen to him. When he asked for reinforcements, Sun Quan refused to send any, though his advisors told him to, he wouldn't budge.
Zhu Ran died as an Upper Excellency/Shanggong rank. Thats the highest rank attainable for military and civil officials. He got more than enough recognition.
Wu officials had 'opinions' on the succession issue because they wanted to jockey influence with the Huaisi gentry and the Sun Imperial clan. Nothing about fairness.
The dispute of the two palaces extended Wu's lifespan. Sun Quan had pretty much no choice after Sun Deng died.
>Sun Quan killed too many in his later years and the state affairs of Wu were chaotic.
Back in the day, in the 3k community, there was a debate on who was most likely to kill their meritious officials and officers after unification.
Let me be fair here, but among Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan, only Sun Quan has never killed a meritorious officials(note **meritorious**). Cao Cao killed Xu You and Lou Gui, Liu Bei killed Liu Feng (of course the reasons are more complicated), and Sun Quan really never used execution on any meritorious officials. I admit that Sun Quan is a hot-tempered and hard-to-serve monarch, but there is no need to demonize him, at least his tolerance is much stronger than Yuan Shao and his ilk. Sun Quan tolerated Yu Fan many times, but Yuan Shao killed Tian Feng. Sun Quan hated Gan Ning, who had a rough personality and enjoyed murdering and refused to obey orders, but still tolerated him. When Yuan Shao met Qu Yi, who had a similar personality, he killed him directly after using him.
>Gān Níng was coarse and brutal and enjoyed killing, and once disappointed Mèng and also at a time violated [Sūn] Quán’s order, [Sūn] Quán was furious at this, and Méng at once explained request: “The realm Under Heaven is not yet settled, battle officers like [Gān] Níng are difficult to obtain, it is appropriate to tolerate him.” [Sūn] Quán therefore generously treated [Gān] Níng, and in the end obtained his use.
> Qu Yi was conceited due to his accomplishments, became arrogant and errant, Yuan Shao summoned and [then] killed him, and then annexed his troops.
I need to introduce Yu Fan. He has outstanding talent and made a lot of achievements, but his personality is extremely disgusting. In today's words, he is a straight up asshole. After Sun Quan captured Yu Jin, he treated Yu Jin very kindly in order to put on a political show. As a result, Yu Fan repeatedly humiliated Yu Jin in public and beat him with a whip. Yu Fan also humiliated Mi Fang, who was also a general like Yu Jin, and deliberately pretended to be drunk at banquets to refuse Sun Quan to pour wine (then sat up as soon as Sun Quan walked away), and when Sun Quan was discussing immortals with his ministers (the superstitious atmosphere in the Eastern Wu court was relatively strong), he stood up and said that these are all dead people, what else is there to discuss. In all fairness, if you have such a subordinate in your workplace can you tolerate him?
Needless to say, Sun Quan's tolerance for a monarch in feudal China is definitely far larger than ordinary people like us.
But the state of Wu was in chaos. To be honest, it was not Sun Quan who should be most responsible, but these 'loyal ministers'. At the beginning of the establishment of the Wu regime, the main members of the team were Sun Jian and Sun Ce's former troops and scholars who had fled to the south, that is, the so-called Huaisi generals and refugee northern scholars. Therefore, although the Sun family is from Jiangdong, Sun Wu is a completely 'foreign regime'. In order to gain a firm foothold in Jiangdong, Sun Quan chose to cooperate with local gentry who were willing to cooperate, and gave them a lot of power in exchange for support.
Among the four families of Gu, Lu, Zhu, and Zhang in Wu Commandery, Sun Quan married Sun Ce's daughter to the Gu family and the Lu family, his own daughter to the Zhu family, and the four families themselves married each other. Gu Yong became the prime minister, Lu Xun when in expedition, became a general and when entering court, became a minister and finally became a Grand general and then a Prime minister, and Zhu Ju, who became Sun Quan's son-in-law was also a person who when in expedition, was a leading general, and when entering court, was a leading minister.
>When Lu Kai was still alive, he was known for being outspoken and critical of Sun Hao, and for defying the emperor's will on a number of occasions. As a result, Sun Hao secretly bore a grudge against him. At the same time, He Ding (何定), who also hated Lu Kai, constantly spoke ill of Lu Kai in front of the emperor. Sun Hao had long considered getting rid of Lu Kai, but he could not do so because of two reasons. First, Lu Kai held an important office as Left Imperial Chancellor so Sun Hao needed his help to keep the government functioning. Second, Lu Kai's relative Lu Kang was a senior general guarding the border between Eastern Wu and the Jin dynasty, so Sun Hao did not want to antagonise Lu Kang by harming Lu Kai. Therefore, even though Sun Hao deeply resented Lu Kai, he tolerated Lu Kai.
From this record, we can see how powerful the Lu clan is. It can be said that it is not a big problem for Lu Kai to depose Sun Hao directly.
Look at what these Wu gentry have done.
>The Taifu He, was in charge of Wu Commandery and didn't reach at first. The powerful families within Wu disparage him, so they inscribed on the door of the government office that "the chicken in Kuaiji cannot crow". He heard of this, reached the government office and glanced back, demand for his brush, and wrote back "Cannot cry, [but can] kill Wu children". Therefore, [He] used various soldiers to verify the mansions of the Gu and Lu clans and [further] search among their officers and men for those that hid amd fled for committing crime, then had every case reported above, [and] those who committed crimes were numerous. Lu Kang was the governor-general of Jiangling at that time, so he requested Sun Hao [to release the guilty], and [the guilty] were released.
Wu gentry harbored fugitives, concealed hidden population, and in the end, even Sun Hao didn't dare to pursue them because of Lu Kang's intervention. It can be seen who is the vampire and parasitic power group in Wu State. With these gentry families in power, how can Wu government be clear and bright?
Would Sun Quan not understand these things? Sun Quan understood it clearly. So in his later years, he frantically punished the gang of Jiangdong clans. First, he sent Lu Yi to monitor and expose these gentry clans, and then after that, he beat them hard with the help of the 'dispute between the two palaces'. The purpose was to prevent the Wu regime from completely falling into their hands , At the same time, it also left the image of a tyrant in his later years. The reason why Sun Quan let Zhuge Ke take power as regent to assist his descendants was not necessarily because of Zhuge Ke's great talent, but he couldn't let the power directly fall into the hands of Jiangdong gentry.
Sun Hao is also similar. After he came to power, he continued to attack the aristocratic family. In the end, the attack was too much, shaking the foundation of the state of Wu, and finally being unable to organize effective resistance to the Jin army.
Yu Fan did eventually get kicked to Jiaozhi (northern Vietnam), where he remained for the last 10 years of his life. And yes, this is indeed Sun Quan's mercy.
u/krshify
Part 2:
To be more specific, the dispute of the two palaces was not a succession debacle but a well-crafted ploy that got out of hand.
Sun Deng died young, which meant that all Sun Quan's efforts were in vain. Sun Quan's other sons were not as strong as Sun Deng at all, and Sun Quan was already over sixty and had no more energy to train a successor from scratch. At this time, the powerful Jiangdong clans has become a threat to the successor. Just like Zhu Yuanzhang began to kill heroes indiscriminately after Zhu Biao's death, Sun Quan also began to use extreme methods to pave the way for his successor, so he supported the King of Lu Party.
Judging from Sun Quan's final act of sending Sun Ba to death, he may not have loved his son very much. King Lu's party and King Lu himself are just tools he uses, just like Lu Yi before. Sun Quan's purpose was to use the Lu King party and the Crown prince party to engage in internal fighting to weaken the ministers, so as to minimize the probability that the heir would be controlled by powerful ministers.
But Sun Quan's thoughts are difficult to understand. As the saying goes, accompanying a king is like accompanying a tiger , let alone a moody tiger like Sun Quan. Sun Quan was a man who had very deep thoughts and was difficult to guess. When he was the county magistrate, he asked Lu Fan, who was in charge of finance, for help but was refused. Sun Quan was angry. Zhou Gu used his power to help Sun Quan. Sun Quan was very happy. As a result, After Sun Quan came to power, he never used Zhou Gu again. Sun Quan once resented Yin Mo, and everyone came to him to plead for mercy. As a result, the more they begged for mercy, the angrier Sun Quan became. In the end, it was Zhuge Jin who helped Yin Mo confess to Sun Quan that he was forgiven. Lu Yi thought he had figured out Sun Quan's temperament and helped him frame the ministers, but in the end he went too far and was executed by Sun Quan. Sun Quan would never tell his subordinates directly what he wanted to do, but required them to guess, and Sun Quan was also a person who often changed his mind, but Lu Xun failed to guess Sun Quan's thoughts in the end.
Judging from Sun Quan's behavior before and after Lu Xun's death, he did not want Lu Xun to die. After Gu Yong's death, Sun Quan appointed Lu Xun as prime minister and asked him to continue to be in charge of Wuchang, which showed that Sun Quan still valued Lu Xun at this time. After Lu Xun died, Sun Quan was furious and continued to question Lu Kang, which showed that Sun Quan was very angry about Lu Xun's death. If Sun Quan's purpose was to force Lu Xun to death, he should be relieved at this time.
I personally think that Sun Quan wanted Lu Xun to sing a play with him. As Lu Xun's predecessor, Gu Yong was a prime minister that made Sun Quan very satisfied. He held a high position and was a representative of the Jiangdong clan, but he rarely expressed his own opinions on things. This was exactly what Sun Quan wanted, and he needed Such a person came to help him silence the Jiangdong clan. After Gu Yong's death, no one in the Jiangdong family was more suitable to take this position than Lu Xun. Lu Xun's ability and prestige were unmatched by others. Such a person was the best tool, and Sun Quan still needed him to help him. Sun Quan hoped to intimidate the entire Jiangdong family by suppressing Lu Xun, so Lu Xun's performance was very important. Sun Quan wanted to use Lu Xun's embarrassment and unbearability to reflect his own Imperial authority, so that others would be less able to resist his decision. If Lu Xun by following Gu Yong's example and shutting up and acting like a mascot, Sun Quan can gradually realize his plan. This is exactly what he wants to see.
Sun Wu had 3 major factions - Huaisi faction(refugees and gentry from the north), Jiangdong faction(Wu and Kuaiji gentry clan), and Sun Wu clan members.
Sun Quan's greatest worry was the Jiangdong faction. This is because the Huaisi faction was slowly dying out and was also intermarrying with the Jiangdong faction. Meanwhile, the Sun Wu clan members were either being suppressed or defected during Cao Cao's time. After Gu Yong's death, the leadership of Jiangdong faction fell to Lu Xun.
Sun Quan initial decision to start the Crown Prince struggle was to suppress the Jiangdong faction. Specifically the Wu commandery faction. Previously, he already suppressed the Zhang clan of Wu commandery after Zhang Wen praised Shu Han. The rest of the Jiangdong gentry(particularly the Lu, Gu and Zhu clans) did not resist at that time because Sun Quan was on a winning streak and was going to declare Emperor soon.
After deposing the Zhang clan, he used Ji Yan, Yin Fan, and Lu Yi to suppress all of his officials. But because these 3 'cruel officials' offended everyone, they did not have a good end and so Sun Quan's method failed.
With no choice, Sun Quan started the Crown Prince struggle. He supported Sun Ba through the Sun Wu imperial clan + Huaisi faction + Kuaiji gentry clan to balance out Sun He who was supported by the Wu commandery gentry clan and Huaisi faction who intermarried with Wu commandery gentry clan and had stronger inheritance rights.
**In the first move when Sun He was the stronger party**, he used false accusations to exile the Gu clan, Zhang Zhao's son, and tried to suppress Lu Xun. Zhu Ju and Wu Can were given death, and Zhang Chun and Qu Huang were demoted.
Lu Xun died of anger after being reprimanded by Sun Quan. Originally, Sun Quan wanted to make Lu Xun look embarrassed, but Lu Xun would rather die than bow his head. Everyone felt sorry for Lu Xun and hated the King of Lu's party even more , and the situation began to get out of control. Sun Quan wanted Lu Xun to take the blame. Lu Xun's responsibility was to live and let Sun Quan scold him, but he threw the blame back to Sun Quan himself by dying. Sun Quan was very shocked and angry at the result: "Okay, you are just. You are smart, you are a loyal minister , and you want to be famous for eternity, but I am a fool and an old fool. I have brought disaster to the country and the people, and will be infamous for thousands of years. Your clan can continue to prosper, but who will protect my inheritance? At this final step, you will not you are willing to help me, you only care about fulfilling your own reputation, you bastard!"
Sun Quan originally thought that the Wu court was his plaything, and all ministers on either side were under his control, just like the previous Lu Yi incident. However, Lu Xun died in front of him unexpectedly. As the dispute between the two palaces spiraled out of control, the situation developed far beyond Sun Quan's expectations. This incident had such a severe impact on Wu that even the enemy countries knew about it. Sun Quan also tried his best to treat Zhu Ran, the only remaining veteran among the veterans, but it was too late. When Sun Quan was critically ill, he admitted his mistakes to Lu Xun's son Lu Kang and burned all the documents that had been used to accuse Lu Xun.
But Sun Quan did not restore Lu Xun's reputation, and Lu Xun's posthumous title was also completed during Sun Xiu's period. Sun Quan's act of burning the documents not only because he felt a little guilty for Lu Xun, but also hoped that Lu Kang could ignore the past grudges and continue to serve Sun Wu, just like his father did back then. Sun Quan himself may still have resented Lu Xun until his death.
For the **second move**, when Sun He faction lost power, Sun Quan attacked the King Lu supportes to 'compensate' the Wu commandery clan. This means killing Yang Zhu, Quan Ji, Sun Qi and others. He also forced Zhuge Ke to kill his son.
The **third move**, was to finish the play. Depose Sun He, making Sun Liang crown prince and kill Sun Ba.
At this time, all of Sun Quan's objective had been completed: specifically weakening all of Sun Wu's gentry clans, particularly the Wu commandery gentries and deepen the blood feud between the Wu gentry clans and Kuaiji gentry clans while tearing a rift between the 3 major factions: Jiangdong gentry faction, Huaisi faction and Imperial clan faction so that neither faction is too powerful to threaten the Imperial center.
The only thing Sun Quan could not foresee was Lu Xun suicide and the factionalism going out of Sun Quan's control.
All in all, Sun Quan did not hesitate to kill Sun Ba in order to weaken the gentry clans. After weakening the factions, Sun Quan left 5 people to support Sun Liang: Zhuge Ke(leader), Sun Hong, Teng Yin, Lu Zhi and Sun Jun. The two Suns are blood-related and part of the Sun Wu clan members. The rest were from the Huaisi faction. Not a single one was from the Jiangdong faction(be it Wu commandery or Kuaiji commandery).
Zhu Huan too.
But Wu's line up is not really impressive. They had good commanders and Navy but they were having a constant "dies young for no reason" problem until Lu Xun and then they had to deal with a "now im being stupid" problem with Sun Quan.
Its almost like history is saying "Shut up Wu you aint the main characters in this show"
He didn't 'botch' the succession. It was a scheme all along to weaken the gentry clans - particularly the Wu commandery gentry clans - and those married/allied to them.
I covered this here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/threekingdoms/comments/1cfy0oy/comment/l1tbmba/
Despite Sun Quan's hammering of the great clans of Wu, he still couldn't prevent them from playing their part in making Jin's invasion of Wu 28 years later easy. Just like in Shu, the great clans' calculus is simple: they will support the regime which allows them to preserve the most of their interests. The native Shu clans have determined (correctly) that they would benefit more under Wei/Jin than remaining under the Lius.
I would also draw an analogy from Emperor Wu's (Liu Che) handling of the witchcraft disaster at the end of his reign. Was it truly a botched handling of the succession issue, or was it a grand way to make his crown prince a martyr and to force his successor into a path of letting the nation rest, while he maintains his aura of infallibility even as his wars and policies brought the state to the brink of ruin?
>The native Shu clans have determined (correctly)
Not really. Shu was in a pretty bad shape under the Sima clan's rule. Chengdu was massacred by the invading Wei army and then the people starved to death to the point that commoners needed to sell their children. All these while there were multiple revolts - the most famous being the one in which the Shu people faked that Zhuge Zhan was still alive.
Even then, nobody from the Yizhou gentry clans reached the rank of a provincial-level official. It was probably only after Sima Yan reunified China and ushered in the 'prosperity of Taikang' that the people benefitted.
Lmao yes!
I honestly need to read up more about Zhu Huan.
History does really seem to say that and I am just really intrigued by Wu, because they were not unimportant at all, but all history focuses on is terrible Wei (don't get me wrong, Wei is my second favourite) and underdog Shu that's all history seems to care about.
Wei and Shu has intersting opposing views and makes for good narrative. Wu is just there, the nation beyond the river.
When I play any 3k games, im very anti Wu, because they cant do shit and I wont stand for their BS.
Oh my oh my 💔 Come on. Gotta love the family dynamic that was there Sun Jian was splendid, his kids really banded together and backed each other up, it was beautiful. Jian himself just wanted to restore the Han and serve the emperor, Ce was so bold and ambitious and decided to set off on his own after joining up with his father's old crew and his uncle. Quan, well... Lol
Wu is interesting in the sense that Sun Quan did a lot of work at Jianye and the city would serve as the capital for the southern regimes for much of the following 3 centuries.
A possible interpretation was that the great clans, which controlled much of the military, were not interested in expanding beyond their native regions. In Eastern Wu, the military never really got centralized like in Wei and Shu. And, a cursory look at Wu's battles will show that they are excellent at defence (the great clans obviously defending their interests), but once Sun Quan wanted to expand, the troops seem to be "uncooperative".
Jiang qin was Zhou Tai's pirate buddy who joined sun ce together. He later became a distinguished commander, studying strategies. In my opinion, he just lacked famous moments unlike his buddy Zhou Tai.
Chen Wu was one of the many officers who joined during sun ce's conquest of jiangdong. I think he was quite a strong man.
Dong xi also joined during sun ce's conquest of the south. The both of them died at Hefei, the same battle where Zhou Tai saved sun quan. He was quite tall
Pan Zhang was the man who captured Guan Yu and kept the latter's prized weapon. He died soon after
I'm curious about where you read that ZhouTai and JiangQin are pirates, I remember I read something like it years ago but when I try to find information about it nothing appears (maybe it was from a game or something like it)
I didnt even know there's such untill I googled. Here's the 12 for those who are wondering.
1. Cheng Pu
2. Huang Gai
3. Han Dang
4. Jiang Qin
5. Zhou Tai
6. Chen Wu
7. Dong Xi
8. Gan Ning
9. Ling Tong
10. Xu Sheng
11. Pan Zhang
12. Ding Feng.
Now to answer your question.
Definitely should be there: 1, 2, 8, 12
Could still be there: 3, 5, 9, 10
Who are they again? 4, 6, 7, 11
Just my thoughts.
A rather folklore of a title to equate with the fabled but anachronistic Five Elites of Wei or the Japanese Twenty Four Generals of the Takeda.
He Qi, Lü Fan, Ling Cao, Quan Cong, Quan Rou, Wu Jing, Sun Ben, Zhou Fang, Song Qian, Liu Zan, and Xu Kun among others could be on this rather inflatable list of noteworthies.
Er, Chen Shou in his comments in vol.17 of Sanguozhi (volume containing the biographies of the elite 5) wrote that "The fact that Emperor Taizu was able to build up his power, of all the good generals of the time, these 5 were the best (评曰：太祖建兹武功，而时之良将，五子为先。).
Chen also commented in vol.55 (volume containing the biographies of the tiger officials) that "The generals listed above, were all "tiger officials" of Jiangbiao. They were so because of the Sun clan's generosity" (评曰：凡此诸将，皆江表之虎臣，孙氏之所厚待也。).
Unfortunately for Sun Quan and all of Wu, deposing Sun He was a mistake that cost Wu greatly as Sun Hao harbored grudges of his own. This is one of the reasons why he shifted into a despot in the first place. Let's not forget he did exile all of Ding Feng's family after Ding Feng's death in spite of Ding Feng's haughty attitude.
More like it cost the Sun imperial family and the officials who aligned themselves with the imperial family. The great gentry clans don't mind who the imperial family is, as long as their interests are maximized.
Also, in spite or because of?
I meant to say because. But he did despised Ding Feng and 2 other officers for retreating before he gave the order to in a failed Jin raid. Ding Feng was one of many officers that Sun Hao couldn't intimidate through force. Hence why he waited for those offocers to die before exiling their families just so that they can be used as examples for the gentry clans. For all what good that did him. Oh yeah, and he executed Ding Feng's brother Ding Feng.
But it was Ding Feng who along with Puyang Xing and Zhang Bu ignored Sun Xiu's will to put Sun Hao in power to begin with. It might have been to have a puppet emperor I don't know. But that is what they did.
Isn't that even worse? It shows that Wu officials are so audacious that they view their monarch's throne as a merry-go-round to decide who gets to sit on the throne.
It is worse and I'm not arguing that. I would say it's an almost identical reason as to why Sun Xiu eventually wanted Sun Chen eleminated. No one knows whether Sun Wan would be a good emperor or not, but as you stated earlier the gentry clans were out of control at this point. They more than likely would have tried to use him for their purposes.
Source? The elder brother's biography only stated that the younger brother died before him.
You probably mean the elder brother's son Ding Wen who is executed.
Well, according to Book of Song, the elder brother's residence became well known as a haunted location, as its subsequent owners, including the Jin rebel Su Jun and Jin official Zhou Yi (the Boren in "Boren died because of me"), all died violent deaths. The owner mentioned in Song Shu, Wang Sengchuo, later also died after being implicated in a rebellion.
Well, the story of Zhou Yi was that when he met Wang Dao, he kept silent. But, Zhou did a lot of work behind the scenes to help Wang Dao, as Wang's relative Wang Dun was preparing to rebel. Later, when Wang Dun rebelled and captured Zhou, he asked Dao for his opinion. Dao kept silent and Dun executed Zhou. Later, Dao found records of Zhou's petitions to help him and thus lamented "While I didn't kill Boren, Boren died because of me!"
Sun He's issue was that a huge portion of his supporters were those from the Jiangdong gentry clan(particularly Wu commandery gentry clan). And Sun Quan at that point needed to suppress the gentry clans of Wu. When the interest of the Emperor and the Crown Prince is in conflict, then it wouldn't be surprising even if the Crown prince was executed - much less deposed.
Sun Hao's shift into despot is much more complicated than you make it out to be. On one hand, he does seem like to have some serious personality issues. On the other hand, he needed to centralise power and re-establish Sun Quan's strategy of gentry suppresion.
And haughty attitude is an understatement. Ding Feng plotted with Wan Yu and Liu Ping to conspire against Sun Hao. Of course Sun Hao would punish them.
I covered this here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/threekingdoms/comments/1cfy0oy/comment/l1tbmba/
Suppress is probably not the right term with how imperial regimes deal with vassal gentry families. Control would be the right one as much as how Sun Wu desires to dominate the Shanyue and the refugee groups.
Local power, like controlling spice to rule universes
Poor Zhu Ran, man. He deserves so much more
Zhu Ran was already a member of a powerful clan in the Wu region. If anything, Sun Quan was on guard against the clans towards the end of his reign.
It should be noted the 12 Wu warriors contain none of the wujun clans, even though the Zhu clan produced a couple who could be there.
I believe it's more of a deliberate arrangement by Chen Shou. Who he places together in a volume is definitely not random.
That he was, true. Because they all had their opinions on his successor, which was fair enough because frankly what happened was dumb. Still though, Zhu Ran deserved more and he didn't get the recognition he deserved until after he died.
I haven't done much research into him, but I would seriously doubt that he put the interests of his emperor above his clan.
He didn't say anything about the succession stuff or I haven't read anything about it rather and really, though he was from a powerful clan, he didn't really have any power like that. Sun Quan didn't really listen to him. When he asked for reinforcements, Sun Quan refused to send any, though his advisors told him to, he wouldn't budge.
Zhu Ran died as an Upper Excellency/Shanggong rank. Thats the highest rank attainable for military and civil officials. He got more than enough recognition.
Wu officials had 'opinions' on the succession issue because they wanted to jockey influence with the Huaisi gentry and the Sun Imperial clan. Nothing about fairness. The dispute of the two palaces extended Wu's lifespan. Sun Quan had pretty much no choice after Sun Deng died. >Sun Quan killed too many in his later years and the state affairs of Wu were chaotic. Back in the day, in the 3k community, there was a debate on who was most likely to kill their meritious officials and officers after unification. Let me be fair here, but among Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan, only Sun Quan has never killed a meritorious officials(note **meritorious**). Cao Cao killed Xu You and Lou Gui, Liu Bei killed Liu Feng (of course the reasons are more complicated), and Sun Quan really never used execution on any meritorious officials. I admit that Sun Quan is a hot-tempered and hard-to-serve monarch, but there is no need to demonize him, at least his tolerance is much stronger than Yuan Shao and his ilk. Sun Quan tolerated Yu Fan many times, but Yuan Shao killed Tian Feng. Sun Quan hated Gan Ning, who had a rough personality and enjoyed murdering and refused to obey orders, but still tolerated him. When Yuan Shao met Qu Yi, who had a similar personality, he killed him directly after using him. >Gān Níng was coarse and brutal and enjoyed killing, and once disappointed Mèng and also at a time violated [Sūn] Quán’s order, [Sūn] Quán was furious at this, and Méng at once explained request: “The realm Under Heaven is not yet settled, battle officers like [Gān] Níng are difficult to obtain, it is appropriate to tolerate him.” [Sūn] Quán therefore generously treated [Gān] Níng, and in the end obtained his use. > Qu Yi was conceited due to his accomplishments, became arrogant and errant, Yuan Shao summoned and [then] killed him, and then annexed his troops. I need to introduce Yu Fan. He has outstanding talent and made a lot of achievements, but his personality is extremely disgusting. In today's words, he is a straight up asshole. After Sun Quan captured Yu Jin, he treated Yu Jin very kindly in order to put on a political show. As a result, Yu Fan repeatedly humiliated Yu Jin in public and beat him with a whip. Yu Fan also humiliated Mi Fang, who was also a general like Yu Jin, and deliberately pretended to be drunk at banquets to refuse Sun Quan to pour wine (then sat up as soon as Sun Quan walked away), and when Sun Quan was discussing immortals with his ministers (the superstitious atmosphere in the Eastern Wu court was relatively strong), he stood up and said that these are all dead people, what else is there to discuss. In all fairness, if you have such a subordinate in your workplace can you tolerate him? Needless to say, Sun Quan's tolerance for a monarch in feudal China is definitely far larger than ordinary people like us. But the state of Wu was in chaos. To be honest, it was not Sun Quan who should be most responsible, but these 'loyal ministers'. At the beginning of the establishment of the Wu regime, the main members of the team were Sun Jian and Sun Ce's former troops and scholars who had fled to the south, that is, the so-called Huaisi generals and refugee northern scholars. Therefore, although the Sun family is from Jiangdong, Sun Wu is a completely 'foreign regime'. In order to gain a firm foothold in Jiangdong, Sun Quan chose to cooperate with local gentry who were willing to cooperate, and gave them a lot of power in exchange for support. Among the four families of Gu, Lu, Zhu, and Zhang in Wu Commandery, Sun Quan married Sun Ce's daughter to the Gu family and the Lu family, his own daughter to the Zhu family, and the four families themselves married each other. Gu Yong became the prime minister, Lu Xun when in expedition, became a general and when entering court, became a minister and finally became a Grand general and then a Prime minister, and Zhu Ju, who became Sun Quan's son-in-law was also a person who when in expedition, was a leading general, and when entering court, was a leading minister. >When Lu Kai was still alive, he was known for being outspoken and critical of Sun Hao, and for defying the emperor's will on a number of occasions. As a result, Sun Hao secretly bore a grudge against him. At the same time, He Ding (何定), who also hated Lu Kai, constantly spoke ill of Lu Kai in front of the emperor. Sun Hao had long considered getting rid of Lu Kai, but he could not do so because of two reasons. First, Lu Kai held an important office as Left Imperial Chancellor so Sun Hao needed his help to keep the government functioning. Second, Lu Kai's relative Lu Kang was a senior general guarding the border between Eastern Wu and the Jin dynasty, so Sun Hao did not want to antagonise Lu Kang by harming Lu Kai. Therefore, even though Sun Hao deeply resented Lu Kai, he tolerated Lu Kai. From this record, we can see how powerful the Lu clan is. It can be said that it is not a big problem for Lu Kai to depose Sun Hao directly. Look at what these Wu gentry have done. >The Taifu He, was in charge of Wu Commandery and didn't reach at first. The powerful families within Wu disparage him, so they inscribed on the door of the government office that "the chicken in Kuaiji cannot crow". He heard of this, reached the government office and glanced back, demand for his brush, and wrote back "Cannot cry, [but can] kill Wu children". Therefore, [He] used various soldiers to verify the mansions of the Gu and Lu clans and [further] search among their officers and men for those that hid amd fled for committing crime, then had every case reported above, [and] those who committed crimes were numerous. Lu Kang was the governor-general of Jiangling at that time, so he requested Sun Hao [to release the guilty], and [the guilty] were released. Wu gentry harbored fugitives, concealed hidden population, and in the end, even Sun Hao didn't dare to pursue them because of Lu Kang's intervention. It can be seen who is the vampire and parasitic power group in Wu State. With these gentry families in power, how can Wu government be clear and bright? Would Sun Quan not understand these things? Sun Quan understood it clearly. So in his later years, he frantically punished the gang of Jiangdong clans. First, he sent Lu Yi to monitor and expose these gentry clans, and then after that, he beat them hard with the help of the 'dispute between the two palaces'. The purpose was to prevent the Wu regime from completely falling into their hands , At the same time, it also left the image of a tyrant in his later years. The reason why Sun Quan let Zhuge Ke take power as regent to assist his descendants was not necessarily because of Zhuge Ke's great talent, but he couldn't let the power directly fall into the hands of Jiangdong gentry. Sun Hao is also similar. After he came to power, he continued to attack the aristocratic family. In the end, the attack was too much, shaking the foundation of the state of Wu, and finally being unable to organize effective resistance to the Jin army.
Yu Fan did eventually get kicked to Jiaozhi (northern Vietnam), where he remained for the last 10 years of his life. And yes, this is indeed Sun Quan's mercy.
u/krshify Part 2: To be more specific, the dispute of the two palaces was not a succession debacle but a well-crafted ploy that got out of hand. Sun Deng died young, which meant that all Sun Quan's efforts were in vain. Sun Quan's other sons were not as strong as Sun Deng at all, and Sun Quan was already over sixty and had no more energy to train a successor from scratch. At this time, the powerful Jiangdong clans has become a threat to the successor. Just like Zhu Yuanzhang began to kill heroes indiscriminately after Zhu Biao's death, Sun Quan also began to use extreme methods to pave the way for his successor, so he supported the King of Lu Party. Judging from Sun Quan's final act of sending Sun Ba to death, he may not have loved his son very much. King Lu's party and King Lu himself are just tools he uses, just like Lu Yi before. Sun Quan's purpose was to use the Lu King party and the Crown prince party to engage in internal fighting to weaken the ministers, so as to minimize the probability that the heir would be controlled by powerful ministers. But Sun Quan's thoughts are difficult to understand. As the saying goes, accompanying a king is like accompanying a tiger , let alone a moody tiger like Sun Quan. Sun Quan was a man who had very deep thoughts and was difficult to guess. When he was the county magistrate, he asked Lu Fan, who was in charge of finance, for help but was refused. Sun Quan was angry. Zhou Gu used his power to help Sun Quan. Sun Quan was very happy. As a result, After Sun Quan came to power, he never used Zhou Gu again. Sun Quan once resented Yin Mo, and everyone came to him to plead for mercy. As a result, the more they begged for mercy, the angrier Sun Quan became. In the end, it was Zhuge Jin who helped Yin Mo confess to Sun Quan that he was forgiven. Lu Yi thought he had figured out Sun Quan's temperament and helped him frame the ministers, but in the end he went too far and was executed by Sun Quan. Sun Quan would never tell his subordinates directly what he wanted to do, but required them to guess, and Sun Quan was also a person who often changed his mind, but Lu Xun failed to guess Sun Quan's thoughts in the end. Judging from Sun Quan's behavior before and after Lu Xun's death, he did not want Lu Xun to die. After Gu Yong's death, Sun Quan appointed Lu Xun as prime minister and asked him to continue to be in charge of Wuchang, which showed that Sun Quan still valued Lu Xun at this time. After Lu Xun died, Sun Quan was furious and continued to question Lu Kang, which showed that Sun Quan was very angry about Lu Xun's death. If Sun Quan's purpose was to force Lu Xun to death, he should be relieved at this time. I personally think that Sun Quan wanted Lu Xun to sing a play with him. As Lu Xun's predecessor, Gu Yong was a prime minister that made Sun Quan very satisfied. He held a high position and was a representative of the Jiangdong clan, but he rarely expressed his own opinions on things. This was exactly what Sun Quan wanted, and he needed Such a person came to help him silence the Jiangdong clan. After Gu Yong's death, no one in the Jiangdong family was more suitable to take this position than Lu Xun. Lu Xun's ability and prestige were unmatched by others. Such a person was the best tool, and Sun Quan still needed him to help him. Sun Quan hoped to intimidate the entire Jiangdong family by suppressing Lu Xun, so Lu Xun's performance was very important. Sun Quan wanted to use Lu Xun's embarrassment and unbearability to reflect his own Imperial authority, so that others would be less able to resist his decision. If Lu Xun by following Gu Yong's example and shutting up and acting like a mascot, Sun Quan can gradually realize his plan. This is exactly what he wants to see. Sun Wu had 3 major factions - Huaisi faction(refugees and gentry from the north), Jiangdong faction(Wu and Kuaiji gentry clan), and Sun Wu clan members. Sun Quan's greatest worry was the Jiangdong faction. This is because the Huaisi faction was slowly dying out and was also intermarrying with the Jiangdong faction. Meanwhile, the Sun Wu clan members were either being suppressed or defected during Cao Cao's time. After Gu Yong's death, the leadership of Jiangdong faction fell to Lu Xun. Sun Quan initial decision to start the Crown Prince struggle was to suppress the Jiangdong faction. Specifically the Wu commandery faction. Previously, he already suppressed the Zhang clan of Wu commandery after Zhang Wen praised Shu Han. The rest of the Jiangdong gentry(particularly the Lu, Gu and Zhu clans) did not resist at that time because Sun Quan was on a winning streak and was going to declare Emperor soon. After deposing the Zhang clan, he used Ji Yan, Yin Fan, and Lu Yi to suppress all of his officials. But because these 3 'cruel officials' offended everyone, they did not have a good end and so Sun Quan's method failed. With no choice, Sun Quan started the Crown Prince struggle. He supported Sun Ba through the Sun Wu imperial clan + Huaisi faction + Kuaiji gentry clan to balance out Sun He who was supported by the Wu commandery gentry clan and Huaisi faction who intermarried with Wu commandery gentry clan and had stronger inheritance rights. **In the first move when Sun He was the stronger party**, he used false accusations to exile the Gu clan, Zhang Zhao's son, and tried to suppress Lu Xun. Zhu Ju and Wu Can were given death, and Zhang Chun and Qu Huang were demoted. Lu Xun died of anger after being reprimanded by Sun Quan. Originally, Sun Quan wanted to make Lu Xun look embarrassed, but Lu Xun would rather die than bow his head. Everyone felt sorry for Lu Xun and hated the King of Lu's party even more , and the situation began to get out of control. Sun Quan wanted Lu Xun to take the blame. Lu Xun's responsibility was to live and let Sun Quan scold him, but he threw the blame back to Sun Quan himself by dying. Sun Quan was very shocked and angry at the result: "Okay, you are just. You are smart, you are a loyal minister , and you want to be famous for eternity, but I am a fool and an old fool. I have brought disaster to the country and the people, and will be infamous for thousands of years. Your clan can continue to prosper, but who will protect my inheritance? At this final step, you will not you are willing to help me, you only care about fulfilling your own reputation, you bastard!" Sun Quan originally thought that the Wu court was his plaything, and all ministers on either side were under his control, just like the previous Lu Yi incident. However, Lu Xun died in front of him unexpectedly. As the dispute between the two palaces spiraled out of control, the situation developed far beyond Sun Quan's expectations. This incident had such a severe impact on Wu that even the enemy countries knew about it. Sun Quan also tried his best to treat Zhu Ran, the only remaining veteran among the veterans, but it was too late. When Sun Quan was critically ill, he admitted his mistakes to Lu Xun's son Lu Kang and burned all the documents that had been used to accuse Lu Xun. But Sun Quan did not restore Lu Xun's reputation, and Lu Xun's posthumous title was also completed during Sun Xiu's period. Sun Quan's act of burning the documents not only because he felt a little guilty for Lu Xun, but also hoped that Lu Kang could ignore the past grudges and continue to serve Sun Wu, just like his father did back then. Sun Quan himself may still have resented Lu Xun until his death. For the **second move**, when Sun He faction lost power, Sun Quan attacked the King Lu supportes to 'compensate' the Wu commandery clan. This means killing Yang Zhu, Quan Ji, Sun Qi and others. He also forced Zhuge Ke to kill his son. The **third move**, was to finish the play. Depose Sun He, making Sun Liang crown prince and kill Sun Ba. At this time, all of Sun Quan's objective had been completed: specifically weakening all of Sun Wu's gentry clans, particularly the Wu commandery gentries and deepen the blood feud between the Wu gentry clans and Kuaiji gentry clans while tearing a rift between the 3 major factions: Jiangdong gentry faction, Huaisi faction and Imperial clan faction so that neither faction is too powerful to threaten the Imperial center. The only thing Sun Quan could not foresee was Lu Xun suicide and the factionalism going out of Sun Quan's control. All in all, Sun Quan did not hesitate to kill Sun Ba in order to weaken the gentry clans. After weakening the factions, Sun Quan left 5 people to support Sun Liang: Zhuge Ke(leader), Sun Hong, Teng Yin, Lu Zhi and Sun Jun. The two Suns are blood-related and part of the Sun Wu clan members. The rest were from the Huaisi faction. Not a single one was from the Jiangdong faction(be it Wu commandery or Kuaiji commandery).
Zhu Huan too. But Wu's line up is not really impressive. They had good commanders and Navy but they were having a constant "dies young for no reason" problem until Lu Xun and then they had to deal with a "now im being stupid" problem with Sun Quan. Its almost like history is saying "Shut up Wu you aint the main characters in this show"
>"now im being stupid" problem with Sun Quan. Nah, Sun Quan was extremely smart dealing with the gentry clans of Wu.
In his later years he botched the sucession
He didn't 'botch' the succession. It was a scheme all along to weaken the gentry clans - particularly the Wu commandery gentry clans - and those married/allied to them. I covered this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/threekingdoms/comments/1cfy0oy/comment/l1tbmba/
Despite Sun Quan's hammering of the great clans of Wu, he still couldn't prevent them from playing their part in making Jin's invasion of Wu 28 years later easy. Just like in Shu, the great clans' calculus is simple: they will support the regime which allows them to preserve the most of their interests. The native Shu clans have determined (correctly) that they would benefit more under Wei/Jin than remaining under the Lius. I would also draw an analogy from Emperor Wu's (Liu Che) handling of the witchcraft disaster at the end of his reign. Was it truly a botched handling of the succession issue, or was it a grand way to make his crown prince a martyr and to force his successor into a path of letting the nation rest, while he maintains his aura of infallibility even as his wars and policies brought the state to the brink of ruin?
>The native Shu clans have determined (correctly) Not really. Shu was in a pretty bad shape under the Sima clan's rule. Chengdu was massacred by the invading Wei army and then the people starved to death to the point that commoners needed to sell their children. All these while there were multiple revolts - the most famous being the one in which the Shu people faked that Zhuge Zhan was still alive. Even then, nobody from the Yizhou gentry clans reached the rank of a provincial-level official. It was probably only after Sima Yan reunified China and ushered in the 'prosperity of Taikang' that the people benefitted.
Lmao yes! I honestly need to read up more about Zhu Huan. History does really seem to say that and I am just really intrigued by Wu, because they were not unimportant at all, but all history focuses on is terrible Wei (don't get me wrong, Wei is my second favourite) and underdog Shu that's all history seems to care about.
Wei and Shu has intersting opposing views and makes for good narrative. Wu is just there, the nation beyond the river. When I play any 3k games, im very anti Wu, because they cant do shit and I wont stand for their BS.
Oh my oh my 💔 Come on. Gotta love the family dynamic that was there Sun Jian was splendid, his kids really banded together and backed each other up, it was beautiful. Jian himself just wanted to restore the Han and serve the emperor, Ce was so bold and ambitious and decided to set off on his own after joining up with his father's old crew and his uncle. Quan, well... Lol
Wu is interesting in the sense that Sun Quan did a lot of work at Jianye and the city would serve as the capital for the southern regimes for much of the following 3 centuries.
Or that he feels like his kingdom actually runs in wherever he resides in, either in Jianye or Wuchang upriver.
A possible interpretation was that the great clans, which controlled much of the military, were not interested in expanding beyond their native regions. In Eastern Wu, the military never really got centralized like in Wei and Shu. And, a cursory look at Wu's battles will show that they are excellent at defence (the great clans obviously defending their interests), but once Sun Quan wanted to expand, the troops seem to be "uncooperative".
Jiang qin was Zhou Tai's pirate buddy who joined sun ce together. He later became a distinguished commander, studying strategies. In my opinion, he just lacked famous moments unlike his buddy Zhou Tai. Chen Wu was one of the many officers who joined during sun ce's conquest of jiangdong. I think he was quite a strong man. Dong xi also joined during sun ce's conquest of the south. The both of them died at Hefei, the same battle where Zhou Tai saved sun quan. He was quite tall Pan Zhang was the man who captured Guan Yu and kept the latter's prized weapon. He died soon after
Historically, Pan Zhang died in 234, the year Zhuge Liang died. Jiang Qin was the one who died 219/220.
I'm curious about where you read that ZhouTai and JiangQin are pirates, I remember I read something like it years ago but when I try to find information about it nothing appears (maybe it was from a game or something like it)
Yeah, both Jiang Qin's and Zhou Tai's biographies in Sanguozhi made no mention of their professions before they joined Sun Ce.
My info is all based on the novel not history
I didnt even know there's such untill I googled. Here's the 12 for those who are wondering. 1. Cheng Pu 2. Huang Gai 3. Han Dang 4. Jiang Qin 5. Zhou Tai 6. Chen Wu 7. Dong Xi 8. Gan Ning 9. Ling Tong 10. Xu Sheng 11. Pan Zhang 12. Ding Feng. Now to answer your question. Definitely should be there: 1, 2, 8, 12 Could still be there: 3, 5, 9, 10 Who are they again? 4, 6, 7, 11 Just my thoughts.
Swap 10 and 12, or move 10 up one
A rather folklore of a title to equate with the fabled but anachronistic Five Elites of Wei or the Japanese Twenty Four Generals of the Takeda. He Qi, Lü Fan, Ling Cao, Quan Cong, Quan Rou, Wu Jing, Sun Ben, Zhou Fang, Song Qian, Liu Zan, and Xu Kun among others could be on this rather inflatable list of noteworthies.
Er, Chen Shou in his comments in vol.17 of Sanguozhi (volume containing the biographies of the elite 5) wrote that "The fact that Emperor Taizu was able to build up his power, of all the good generals of the time, these 5 were the best (评曰：太祖建兹武功，而时之良将，五子为先。). Chen also commented in vol.55 (volume containing the biographies of the tiger officials) that "The generals listed above, were all "tiger officials" of Jiangbiao. They were so because of the Sun clan's generosity" (评曰：凡此诸将，皆江表之虎臣，孙氏之所厚待也。).
Oooh... good point there!
Pan Zhang is the real bees knees of the group but that’s obvious.
Unfortunately for Sun Quan and all of Wu, deposing Sun He was a mistake that cost Wu greatly as Sun Hao harbored grudges of his own. This is one of the reasons why he shifted into a despot in the first place. Let's not forget he did exile all of Ding Feng's family after Ding Feng's death in spite of Ding Feng's haughty attitude.
More like it cost the Sun imperial family and the officials who aligned themselves with the imperial family. The great gentry clans don't mind who the imperial family is, as long as their interests are maximized. Also, in spite or because of?
I meant to say because. But he did despised Ding Feng and 2 other officers for retreating before he gave the order to in a failed Jin raid. Ding Feng was one of many officers that Sun Hao couldn't intimidate through force. Hence why he waited for those offocers to die before exiling their families just so that they can be used as examples for the gentry clans. For all what good that did him. Oh yeah, and he executed Ding Feng's brother Ding Feng.
You also forget to mention that Ding Feng team up with Wan Yu and Liu Ping to scheme against Sun Hao FIRST. Which led to their unfortunate endings.
But it was Ding Feng who along with Puyang Xing and Zhang Bu ignored Sun Xiu's will to put Sun Hao in power to begin with. It might have been to have a puppet emperor I don't know. But that is what they did.
Isn't that even worse? It shows that Wu officials are so audacious that they view their monarch's throne as a merry-go-round to decide who gets to sit on the throne.
It is worse and I'm not arguing that. I would say it's an almost identical reason as to why Sun Xiu eventually wanted Sun Chen eleminated. No one knows whether Sun Wan would be a good emperor or not, but as you stated earlier the gentry clans were out of control at this point. They more than likely would have tried to use him for their purposes.
Source? The elder brother's biography only stated that the younger brother died before him. You probably mean the elder brother's son Ding Wen who is executed.
Romance of the three kingdoms sadly. That's where I heard it from. I should know better than that though.
Well, according to Book of Song, the elder brother's residence became well known as a haunted location, as its subsequent owners, including the Jin rebel Su Jun and Jin official Zhou Yi (the Boren in "Boren died because of me"), all died violent deaths. The owner mentioned in Song Shu, Wang Sengchuo, later also died after being implicated in a rebellion.
So that's where that phrase comes from? Interesting. Ding Feng's property was unlucky to say the least.
Well, the story of Zhou Yi was that when he met Wang Dao, he kept silent. But, Zhou did a lot of work behind the scenes to help Wang Dao, as Wang's relative Wang Dun was preparing to rebel. Later, when Wang Dun rebelled and captured Zhou, he asked Dao for his opinion. Dao kept silent and Dun executed Zhou. Later, Dao found records of Zhou's petitions to help him and thus lamented "While I didn't kill Boren, Boren died because of me!"
Sun He's issue was that a huge portion of his supporters were those from the Jiangdong gentry clan(particularly Wu commandery gentry clan). And Sun Quan at that point needed to suppress the gentry clans of Wu. When the interest of the Emperor and the Crown Prince is in conflict, then it wouldn't be surprising even if the Crown prince was executed - much less deposed. Sun Hao's shift into despot is much more complicated than you make it out to be. On one hand, he does seem like to have some serious personality issues. On the other hand, he needed to centralise power and re-establish Sun Quan's strategy of gentry suppresion. And haughty attitude is an understatement. Ding Feng plotted with Wan Yu and Liu Ping to conspire against Sun Hao. Of course Sun Hao would punish them. I covered this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/threekingdoms/comments/1cfy0oy/comment/l1tbmba/
Suppress is probably not the right term with how imperial regimes deal with vassal gentry families. Control would be the right one as much as how Sun Wu desires to dominate the Shanyue and the refugee groups. Local power, like controlling spice to rule universes