Chapter 31 1. Sit off the southeast

In ancient China, emperors and generals were covered with a layer of mystery to symbolize their destiny.Sun Quan, Emperor Wu, was no exception. When Pei Songzhi wrote an annotation for "Three Kingdoms", when Sun Jian's wife, Mrs. Wu, was pregnant with Sun Quan, she dreamed that she embraced the sun in her arms, and she asked her husband in surprise: "When I was pregnant with Sun Ce, once dreamed I dreamed of holding the moon in my arms, and now I dream of holding the sun in my arms, what is the reason for this?" Sun Jian thought about it and said: "The sun and the moon are both the essence of yin and yang, and they are very precious symbols. His son will surely become a great success in the future."

People think that Sun Quan was born extraordinary. According to historical records, Sun Quan's appearance is indeed somewhat unusual.Sun Quan was born in the fifth year of Emperor Guanghe of the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 182). It is said that when he was born, "Fang Yi has a big mouth and bright eyes", with square cheeks, big mouth, bright eyes and full of vitality.In addition, the history books also record that he is "general purple bearded, with a long top and a short bottom", with a purple-yellow beard growing on both cheeks, with a long upper body and a short lower body.Some people speculate that Sun Quan's ancestors may have the blood of the northern nomadic peoples, and there is an atavism phenomenon in Sun Quan.In the book, Sun Quan is described as "blue eyes and purple beard", as if he is a mixed race with Caucasian ancestry.

From these records, people can imagine that Sun Quan has a typical Chinese character face, with purple-yellow beard, piercing eyes, power without anger, strong bones, full of vigor and vitality.In Su Shi's poems, the phrase "shoot the tiger by yourself, watch Sun Lang" is written by Sun Quan.Sun Quan liked to hunt, and he especially liked to shoot tigers on horseback. Sometimes the tigers would pounce on him, and the tiger's claws would reach the saddle.After Zhang Zhao heard about it, he taught him with a cold face, saying that a ruler should control heroes instead of horses, and deal with enemies instead of wild beasts.Sun Quan was also very obedient, so he quickly admitted his mistake and said, I'm young, I didn't think carefully, I'm sorry.It can be said that Sun Quan still couldn't control the wildness of fighting wild beasts in his blood. Instead of riding a horse to fight a tiger, he just rode a car to fight a tiger.He invented a tiger-shooting cart. There is no cover on the cart. He sits in the cart and shoots tigers with arrows. From time to time, tigers or other beasts pounce on the cart. Sun Quan just sits inside and beats the beasts with his hands. He is very happy. endlessly.Zhang Zhao went to nagging him again, but Sun Quan always smiled, neither talking back nor correcting him.

It can be seen from this that Sun Quan inherited the brave and sturdy character of the Sun family, but compared with the upright and domineering Sun Jian and Sun Ce, Sun Quan is more tactful and strategic.Therefore, when Sun Ce died, he did not pass his status to Sun Yi, who looked exactly like him, but to Sun Quan, who was both strong and soft. Zhengheng, you are not as good as me; but I am not as good as you in appointing talents, making soldiers do their best, and ensuring the stability of Jiangdong.” This is the conclusion drawn by Sun Ce's long-term observation of Sun Quan.When Sun Ce first crossed Jiangdong, he appointed 15-year-old Sun Quan as the magistrate of Yangxian County.At a very young age, Sun Quan showed his ability to govern political affairs, which Sun Ce once admired.

Although he was placed with high hopes by his elder brother, after Sun Ce's death, Sun Quan was inevitably worried.This year, Sun Quan was only 18 years old.The ancients regarded the age of 20 as the year of weak crowns. At this time, Sun Quan was just a teenager, and the responsibility he would bear on his immature shoulders was to develop and grow a local separatist regime that had begun to take shape.Can he restrain those old ministers and veterans?Can he develop his father and brother's foundation? Some people think that Sun Quan's takeover is a ready-made foundation, unlike Cao Cao and Liu Bei who need to start from scratch, his situation should be the easiest among the lords of the Three Kingdoms.The situation is not always the same. When Sun Quan took over, he faced many difficulties, both internal and external.

"Three Kingdoms" once used Sun Sheng's mouth to describe Sun Ce's foundation in this way: "A career is not the foundation of accumulated virtue, and a country is not solid as a rock." That is to say, the foundation created by Sun Ce is not a foundation of accumulated virtue, so it is not stable. When Sun Ce was alive, he liked to kill people, and he died at this point in the end.In fact, Sun Ce had his own reasons for killing people. "Three Kingdoms" said that Sun Jian was "lonely and humble". Although he was from Fuchun, Jiangdong, he came from a poor family and did not belong to the aristocratic family in Jiangdong.The place where he made his fortune was not in Jiangdong, but Jiangxi under the rule of Yuan Shu at that time (not the current Jiangxi Province, but the current northern Jiangsu and parts of Anhui).Sun Jian's teams were all recruited in the Huaihe and Sishui areas, and these teams were later handed over to Sun Ce.

When Sun Ce returned to Jiangdong with this team, the aristocratic families in Jiangdong agreed that Sun Ce was not going home, but an invasion, and they all took a resisting attitude towards him, so Sun Ce had to kill him.Relying on this kind of violence to deal with non-cooperation, thus establishing such a regime, so Sun Sheng said that this foundation is not a foundation of virtue, and it is not very popular.At that time, not only the aristocratic families in Jiangdong were unwilling to cooperate, but even some scholars who came in exile from the north also took a wait-and-see attitude.

In fact, as soon as Sun Ce died, Li Shu, the prefect of Lujiang, rebelled. He announced that he would no longer obey Sun Quan's orders, and blatantly took in those who rebelled against Sun Quan.Sun Quan asked him to hand over the traitor, but Li Shu said: "If you are virtuous and talented, everyone will obey you; if you are not, then everyone will leave you and go to another place. I can't hand over people now." Openly challenged Sun Quan. In addition, "Three Kingdoms" also mentioned that when Sun Quan took over, people in the remote areas of Soochow had not surrendered, and the ethnic minorities in Shanyue did not submit either.The Shanyue people are descendants of Baiyue during the Qin and Han Dynasties. They lived in Jiangnan, South China, and Guangxi and Yunnan in the southwest. "Vietnam" got its name because it was in the south of Baiyue.The Shanyue people fled to the mountains to avoid paying taxes. They became a whole group of their own and refused to pay taxes to Sun Quan.

The interior is not peaceful, and the exterior situation is also quite dangerous.At that time, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao were fighting at Guandu. No matter who lost this battle, the next step would be to deal with Sun Quan.What's more, next to Sun Quan lived an enemy who hated to kill his father. Liu Biao's Jingzhou was next to Jiangdong, and Sun Quan's father, Sun Jian, was killed by Liu Biao's general Jiangxia prefect Huang Zu. When Sun Quan took over, he was faced with such a predicament of internal and external troubles, near enemies and distant enemies. How could a young man with no achievements win the trust of others and survive the predicament?Sun Quan couldn't help crying when he thought of this.At this time, Zhang Zhao walked up to Sun Quan and advised him, is it time to cry?Now there are wolves everywhere around us. If the little general keeps crying, he will open the door and steal.What's more, what is important for you now is to inherit the inheritance of your father and brother and develop it, instead of crying endlessly like a couple.After speaking, he urged Sun Quan to change clothes, mount a horse, and go out with the guard of honor to inspect the three armies, to show people that Jiangdong had a new master, and Zhang Zhao himself led all his subordinates to make Sun Quan the master.

When Sun Ce was dying, he told Sun Quan: "Ask Zhang Zhao if you are not sure about internal affairs, and Zhou Yu if you are not sure about external affairs." Zhou Yu also rushed back to Wu County from other places at this time to assist Sun Quan.At that time, the etiquette of Jiangdong guests towards Sun Quan was relatively simple, and they still regarded him as a general. It was Zhou Yu who took the lead in performing the etiquette of a courtier and regarded Sun Quan as a monarch, and the others followed suit. Like the Shu Han, the Soochow regime also consisted of three political forces.The first group is the team left by Sun Jian and Sun Ce, that is, people from the Huaihe River and Surabaya. Zhou Yu belongs to this group; The three shares belong to the Jiangdong aristocratic family. There are four major families in Jiangdong, namely Yu, Wei, Gu, and Lu. Later Lu Xun was one of them.

Although the Jiangdong gentry group has not attached itself wholeheartedly to Sun Quan, each of the Huaisi group and the northern gentry group has a representative standing firmly by Sun Quan's side, which means that Sun Quan has the support of these two groups.With this foundation, the political situation in Jiangdong was initially stabilized. Immediately afterwards, Sun Quan took a series of measures to consolidate his position, the first of which was to get rid of Li Shu.Anticipating that Li Shu might ask Cao Cao for help, Sun Quan first wrote a letter to Cao Cao, mentioning the old story of Li Shu killing Cao Cao's governor of Yangzhou in order to arouse Cao Cao's hatred, and then said that Li Shu was cunning and innocent. Xin, I am going to raise troops to attack him now, please don't help him.Sun Quan first blocked Li Shu's retreat, and then led troops to surround Li Shu in Wancheng.Li Shu asked Cao Cao for help, but was rejected, so he became Sun Quan's ghost under the knife. Sun Quan mobilized heavy troops to encircle the Shanyue people, captured the leaders, sent young people into the army, managed the elderly and women in a unified way, and let them engage in agricultural production, thus completely solving the worries of Shanyue. After the internal troubles were resolved, Sun Quan turned his spearhead on the foreign enemy. This was the father-killing enemy Huang Zu who was close at hand.Huang Zu, the prefect of Jiangxia, rushed to the battle. He first lined up two large ships side by side on the river, and then tied them with huge stones. The two large ships were as indestructible as a city wall on the water. Nearly a thousand soldiers on board were waiting with bows.However, Sun Quan had an extremely brave death squad. Each of them wore double-layer armor equivalent to today's bulletproof vests. Under the leadership of General Dong Xi, they bravely rushed to the side of the big ship, cut off the ropes that tied the boulder, and broke Huang Zu. city ​​wall array.Afterwards, the troops of the Eastern Wu swarmed up, defeated the Huang army, and killed Huang Zu.Sun Quan avenged the killing of his father and included Xiakou in his territory. In the twelfth year of Jian'an, not only Sun Quan was able to stabilize the country, but Cao Cao even defeated Yuan Shao and pacified the north.In the thirteenth year of Jian'an, the smug Cao Cao swung his troops straight to Jingzhou. The menacing attack was as overwhelming as Mount Tai. Liu Biao died before he could meet the battle. The upheaval in Jingzhou shocked Jiangdong Group deeply.The Jiangdong Group has always pursued the policy of "protecting Jiangdong and observing success or failure". However, there are two kinds of law-abiding.When the news came from Jingzhou, most of the people headed by Zhang Zhao advocated keeping their own law and order and not causing trouble.There is only one person whose opinion fits Sun Quan's heart, and that person is Lu Su. Lu Su is a loyal, honest and almost pedantic person in Zaizhong.So, what kind of person was Lu Su in history? Both Sun Jian and Sun Ce's bravery and strategy are not inferior to Sun Quan's, but both of them are too rigid in character, so that they both died at this point in the end.The reason why Sun Quan has maintained Jiangdong's foundation for many years is precisely because he combines strength and softness, is flexible in handling things, and can bend and stretch.Laozi once used a good tongue and a missing tooth as a metaphor to Confucius. Only when we know how to be soft and flexible like the tongue, instead of being tough like the teeth, can our life be longer and full of vitality.Success is composed of tens of thousands of factors, but failure only needs one factor.If you want to lead a long life to a good place, you need to know how to go, but you need to know how to stop; you need to know how to advance, but you also need to know how to retreat;