Chapter 24 4. Road to Soochow

What Zhuge Liang didn't expect, Sun Quan did. The Soochow regime established by Sun Quan was the last of the Three Kingdoms to perish.Shu Han died in 263 AD, Cao Wei died in 265 AD, and Sun Wu died in 280 AD, fifteen years later than Cao Wei and seventeen years later than Shu Han. The subjugated kings of Wu and Shu behaved very differently. After Liu Chan surrendered and arrived in Luoyang, Sima Zhao entertained him with a banquet, during which they played music and dances from the Kingdom of Shu.It's a sad thing that the old Shu performers come to dance in front of the Wei Palace, but Liu Chan laughs and laughs freely.So Sima Zhao said to his subordinates, how can a person without a heart get to this point!

Another day, Sima Zhao asked Liu Chan: Do you miss Shu very much? Liu Chan replied: I am happy here, but I don’t think about Shu. This is too outrageous and unbelievable. So after a few days, Sima Zhao asked again. This time Liu Chan didn't say "I don't want to miss Shu" any more.He sat upright and shed tears according to what the old minister Quezheng (but it reads like a play) taught him: the tomb of the ancestors is there, and there is grief in his heart, and there is not a day that he does not miss. After speaking, he closed his eyes. Sima Zhao was very skeptical and said, "Why does this seem to be taught by Que Zheng?"

Liu Chan immediately opened his eyes and said: You guessed right, it's him! As a result, everyone laughed. Of course, Sima Zhao no longer guarded against Liu Chan. Sun Hao, the last emperor of the Eastern Wu Dynasty who descended to Jin Dynasty, did not fall down.He went to Luoyang to visit Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of Jin Dynasty. Sima Yan pointed to his seat and said to him: I have set up this seat and have been waiting for my step for a long time. Sun Hao actually retorted: "The minister also set up this seat in the south for His Majesty!" Unfortunately, this does not mean anything.That's right, Liu Chan may be a mediocre person (actually not necessarily), but Sun Hao is a tyrant.Under his reign of terror, the people of Wu State were precarious and everyone was in danger.As for his performance with Sima Yan, it was more about his arrogance than his backbone, because he was used to arrogance.

Sun Quan's level of governance is not as good as Zhuge Liang's.Before he was alive, his sons were fighting for the throne, and the country was almost split.As a result, the prince Sunhe was deposed, King Lu Sunba was given to death, and a large number of important officials were demoted, arrested, killed and beaten, and the prime minister Lu Xun died of anger on the hospital bed. As for Sun Quan's death, it was even more of a mess.The second emperor, Sun Liang, was the seventh son of Sun Quan. He was only ten years old when he succeeded to the throne. The third emperor, Sun Xiu, was the elder brother of the second emperor, Sun Liang.This person died normally, but he was only thirty years old.Moreover, he also suffered retribution for murdering his younger brother Sun Liang, and his queen and son were killed by the fourth emperor.

The fourth emperor is Sun Hao, the king of subjugation. Sun Hao is the son of Sun He, the deposed prince, and Sun He is the elder brother of Sun Xiu.In other words, what Sun Hao killed was his aunt and cousin.In addition, he also killed Sun Quan's fifth son, Sun Fen, his uncle.As for Sun Hao's father, Sun He, he was killed by Sun Jun, the great-grandson of Sun Jian's younger brother, Sun Jing. This is the Soochow regime: Father kills son (Sun Quan kills Sun Ba), elder brother kills younger brother (Sun Xiu kills Sun Liang), nephew kills uncle (Sun Hao kills Sun Fen), clan kills royal family (Sun Jun kills Sun He), Out-and-out fratricide.

strangeness!How could such a regime eventually perish? The reason is still Sun Quan. In fact, Sun Quan's succession was unexpected.At that time, Zhang Zhao and others thought that Sun Ce would hand over power to the third son, Sun Yi (read Ruyi), because Sun Yi was like Sun Ce.However, Sun Ce chose Sun Quan.He said to Sun Quan, you are not as good as me when you conquer the world, and you are not as good as you when you engage in politics to protect Jiangdong. What Sun Ce likes is that Sun Quan is not like himself. Even so, Sun Ce was still worried and asked Zhang Zhao for his loneliness.Sun Ce said, if Zhongmou can't take on the important task, please take over Jiangdong!

That's right, the original text is "you can take it yourself", just like Liu Bei Tuogu. Of course, Zhang Zhao is not Zhuge Liang, and Sun Quan is not Liu Chan.But Sun Ce and Liu Bei's worries are exactly the same. They are all worried about local forces. Like the Shuhan Dynasty founded by Liu Bei, Sun Ce established a foreign regime, which was established by force.In fact, although the Sun family is also from Wu, it is not a noble family but a Han family.The place where Sun Jian made his fortune was not in Jiangdong but in Jiangxi, and he himself was Yuan Shu's subordinate.Therefore, when Sun Ce returned across the river with Sun Jian's old troops, he encountered hostility almost everywhere.

Jiang Dong did not admit that Sun Ce was one of his own. The result of unpopularity was massacres, and the result of bloody suppression was rebellion everywhere, and Sun Ce himself was assassinated by his enemies.This "little overlord" finally realized that without changing policies and styles, the regime cannot be maintained. Therefore, he chose Sun Quan. Sun Quan chose a different path from Shu Han. In fact, just as there were three factions within the Shuhan (Jingzhou Group, Dongzhou Group, and Yizhou Group), the Soochow regime also had three major factions, namely the Huaisi Generals, the Northern Scholars in Exile, and the Jiangdong Scholars.Among them, General Huaisi was the former subordinate of Sun Jian and Sun Ce, and the exiled northern scholars were the northern scholars who avoided the chaos in the east of the Yangtze River.

Of course, they are all foreigners. Sun Ce established his political power by relying on these outsiders, especially Zhang Zhao and Zhou Yu.Zhou Yu is the leader of the Huaisi generals and the head of military generals; Zhang Zhao is the representative of the exiled northern scholars and the head of civil servants.Later, it was this Wen Yiwu who assisted Sun Quan, not only kept Jiangdong, but also continued to grow. General Huaisi and the exiled Beishi contributed a lot. However, if Sun Quan is satisfied with the status quo and stops here, then Soochow will always be an erratic regime without foundation, and the end will not be better than that of Shu Han.Because the antipathy, vigilance, suspicion and rejection of the Jiangdong gentry towards them is no less than or even far exceeds that of the Yizhou gentry to Liu Zhang and Liu Bei.

What's more, although the Huaisi general and the exiled Beishi had the guns and pens, the money bags were with the Jiangdong gentry. Of course, people's hearts, public opinion and vane are also there. Therefore, if Sun Quan, like Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, insisted on the organizational line of "self-centered and later come from behind", then they would only perish earlier than the Shu Han.You know, after the Battle of Chibi, Cao Wei always regarded Soochow as the number one enemy, and repeatedly sent troops to conquer Sun Quan. Sun Quan is fully aware of this.He also knew very well that the only way to protect himself and be self-reliant and self-reliant was to recruit the Jiangdong gentry into his group.This requires adjustments to the internal structure of the regime, and more importantly, it is necessary to cede power and interests.

The far-sighted Sun Quan really did this, and it was methodical.For example, the most important military command power was transferred step by step from Huaisi general Zhou Yu, exiled northern scholar Lu Su, and southern civilian Lu Meng, and finally handed over to Jiangdong gentry Lu Xun.After that, he partially handed over the administrative power and appointed Gu Yong as prime minister. Lu Xun and Gu Yong are representatives of the local gentry, representing not only the four major families in Jiangdong (Yu, Wei, Gu, Lu), but also the four major families in Wu County (Gu, Lu, Zhu, Zhang).After Lu Xun and Gu Yong became prime ministers, there were thousands of children from the four major families who became officials.General Huaisi, exiled northerners and their children were marginalized and gradually faded out or even withdrew from the Soochow regime. In this way, the Jiangdong gentry was bound together with the Sun Wu regime, forming a community of interests.The interests of the Sun Wu regime are the interests of the Jiangdong gentry.Even in order to protect their own political status and interests, the Jiangdong gentry had to defend the Sun Wu regime, because they were defending their home and country. Sun Quan successfully realized the Jiangdongization of the regime, and basically achieved "Wu people rule Wu".This is the key difference between Soochow and Shu Han, and it is also one of the reasons why their governance was the worst among the Three Kingdoms, but lasted the longest. So why did Soochow still perish? You might as well come and see Cao Wei.