Sun Shangxiang is the younger sister of Sun Quan of Eastern Wu, and also one of the wives of Liu Bei of Shu Han, however, the name Sun Shangxiang only exists in all kinds of romance and folk opera, and her name is not recorded in the official history, only replaced by Mrs. Sun.
When Sun Shangxiang married Liu Bei, he was at the age of twenty-eight, and Liu Bei at that time was already a "bad old man" who was nearly half a hundred years old, and the age difference between the two was said to be more than 20 years.
However, this marriage of "old and young" only lasted less than three years, and in the sixteenth year of Jian'an, Sun Shangxiang boarded the big ship of Eastern Wu, and since then he has left Liu Bei and never returned to him.
So, why didn't Sun Shangxiang return to her husband Liu Bei? In fact, it was very simple, because she did a "stupid thing" that she had no face to come back.
This stupid thing has to start with why Sun Shangxiang married Liu Bei.
In the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208 AD), after Cao Cao pacified the north, he quickly launched a military campaign against the south, and in July of that year, he personally led his troops to the south.
In the face of Cao Wei's army pressuring, Liu Cong, who was guarding Jingzhou, was persuaded by Kuai Yue, the Taishou of Zhangling County, and others, and finally surrendered to Cao Cao, and Liu Cong's surrender caused great trouble to Liu Bei at that time.
Liu Bei was stationed in Fancheng at that time, and Liu Bei knew nothing about Liu Cong's surrender, and he didn't know the news until Cao Cao was about to surrender his troops to the city.
In desperation, Liu Bei had to abandon Fancheng and flee south, and this escape put him on the line with Sun Quan of Eastern Wu.
Later, under Zhuge Liang's lobbying and Lu Su's side knock, Sun Quan of Eastern Wu judged the situation and formulated the strategic policy of "Lianshu and Cao", and since then, the Sun-Liu alliance has been formed.
After the formation of the Sun-Liu Alliance, Sun Quan and Liu Bei really lived a period of "glue-like" days.
It was during this period that Sun Quan's sister Sun Shangxiang married Liu Bei.
According to the records of "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms", Sun Shangxiang at that time was at the age of twenty-eight, you must know that this age can be said to be the best time period in a girl's life, and Liu Bei at that time was already nearly fifty years old.
In other words, there is a difference of more than 20 years between Sun Shangxiang and Liu Bei.
Of course, marrying Liu Bei was not Sun Shangxiang's own idea, but one of his elder brother Sun Quan's plans, and its purpose was very simple, which was to win over and control Liu Bei.
The reason why Sun Quan has this plan is not difficult to understand, first, the situation at that time, belonging to the honeymoon period between Sun and Liu, Sun Quan is very optimistic about Liu Bei, so it is natural for him to become a relative with Liu Bei in order to be close to each other.
Second, after Sun Quan married his sister, he could use his sister to get a lot of information about Liu Bei, and if Sun Shangxiang gave birth to a son in the future, maybe he could inherit Shu Han, so that the future monarch of Shu Han would be Sun Quan's nephew, which would undoubtedly be extremely beneficial to the future of Eastern Wu.
In the end, marrying his sister to Liu Bei is more beneficial than disadvantageous to Sun Quan.
This point, whether in the official history or in a romance novel similar to "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the description of this matter is basically the same, in addition, in "Three Kingdoms Zhiping", there is also the statement that Sun Quan plans to assassinate Liu Bei after his sister marries.
To put it bluntly, Sun Quan's marriage to a sister is actually a "beauty plan".
So, how did Sun Shangxiang react to this? Her reaction was not important, after all, at that time, "the eldest brother is like a father", so Sun Shangxiang could only obey the arrangement of his elder brother Sun Quan.
But Liu Bei accepted this calmly, and generously married Sun Shangxiang, and the marriage between the two began from then on.
Not to mention why Liu Bei agreed to marry Sun Shangxiang, but judging from why the two got married, we know that the combination of Sun Shangxiang and Liu Bei is a typical political marriage, and political marriage is based on being able to use each other.
Therefore, this lays a hidden danger for the breakdown of the marriage between the two in the future.
In addition to being a political marriage, Liu Bei and Sun Shangxiang's married life is also a little different from others, what is the difference? The main thing is that this Mrs. Sun is really too strong.
According to historical records, Mrs. Sun was famous for her intelligence and agility when she was in the boudoir, not only that, but she also did not love women's clothes and military clothes, and her personality was like that of a man, quite her brother's demeanor, quite strong and brave.
And after she married Liu Bei, it really made Liu Bei live a frightened life.
The specific method is that Mrs. Sun arranged more than 100 female guards wearing armor and holding swords by her side, day and night, regardless of the occasion.
In other words, if Liu Bei wants to enter Mrs. Sun's inner room, then he must accept the "admiration" of more than 100 heavily armed female guards.
"At the beginning, Sun Quan took his sister's wife first, and his sister was fierce and fierce, with the style of brothers, and more than 100 servants, all of whom held the sword and served. --- "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"
For this reason, Liu Bei couldn't sleep at night and didn't know the taste, for fear that one day Mrs. Sun would be "accidental" and kill herself under her sword, and then she would be laughing and generous.
This kind of worry is not only shared by Liu Bei, but also by his subordinates, and the strategist Fa Zheng persuaded Liu Bei many times at that time, asking him to keep his distance from Mrs. Sun as much as possible.
In this case, the married life of Liu Bei and Mrs. Sun and the relationship between the two are naturally not much better.
It can be said that the period after marrying Mrs. Sun was one of the saddest stages of Liu Bei's life, and Zhuge Liang also sighed sympathetically for Liu Bei's "miserable experience".
"The lord is afraid of Cao Gong's strength in the north, and he is afraid of Sun Quan's pressure in the east, and he is afraid that Mrs. Sun will change under her elbows. --- "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"
So, why did Mrs. Sun do this in such disregard for the status of husband and wife, let alone Liu Bei's face? There is no record in the historical data, but it is most likely because Mrs. Sun was extremely dissatisfied with this marriage.
As mentioned above, when Mrs. Sun married Liu Bei, she was only twenty-eight years old, while Liu Bei was close to fifty, and the age gap between the two was quite large.
Although in the world of relationships, sometimes age is not a problem, but the premise is that both parties have to look at each other.
Obviously, Mrs. Sun didn't catch eye with Liu Bei, but she was forced by the pressure of her brother Sun Quan to marry Liu Bei, so it was inevitable to have resentment in her heart.
In addition, this marriage itself is a political marriage, and Mrs. Sun also married Liu Bei with a clear purpose, so there is no need for her to show "husband and wife affection" with Liu Bei.
What's more, Mrs. Sun may not look down on Liu Bei at all from her heart.
You must know what kind of identity Madame Sun is? She was the sister of Sun Quan, the lord of Eastern Wu, and what about Liu Bei at that time? She was just a person who sent people under the fence in the name of "imperial uncle" who did not know whether it was true or not.
Coupled with the age gap, this led to the arrogant Mrs. Sun, who was quite contemptuous of Liu Bei, so it was normal for Mrs. Sun to do this.
Therefore, between Liu Bei and Mrs. Sun, the husband and wife life is obviously disharmonious, which is the main reason why she has been married to Liu Bei for nearly three years, but she failed to give birth to a son and a half daughter for Liu Bei.
In order to avoid "encountering accidents" for himself, Liu Bei decided to separate from Mrs. Sun.
According to the records of the "Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms", Liu Bei was forced by Mrs. Sun's arrogance, in order not to embarrass himself too much, he followed the advice of his subordinates and built a castle for Mrs. Sun in the west of Gong'an City (Gong'an County, Jingzhou, Hubei).
After the castle was built, Mrs. Sun moved in with her armed female guards, and there is a theory about this castle that Mrs. Sun built the city by herself because she was suspicious of Liu Bei, and no longer lived with Liu Bei.
No matter which way it is said, in short, the separation life of Liu Bei and Mrs. Sun has begun.
During this time, Madame Sun took her arrogance to the extreme, conniving at her subordinates to disobey the law and behaving recklessly in the city, so that the people complained.
For this reason, Liu Bei had an extremely headache, and after several considerations, he arranged for the steady Zhao Yun to take charge of the security of this castle.
It's just that not long after Zhao Yun took office, Mrs. Sun returned to Soochow and never came back.
The reason why Mrs. Sun returned to Soochow had a lot to do with the overall situation at that time.
At that time, Liu Bei had already occupied Yizhou in various actions, and before he occupied Yizhou, there was friction with Sun Quan.
This friction occurred not long after Liu Bei borrowed Nanjun, when Sun Quan wanted to go up the river to attack Liu Zhang in Yizhou, but was stopped by Liu Bei.
The reason given by Liu Bei was that Liu Zhang was his fellow clansman, and Sun Quan was now going to beat him, which made Liu Bei feel uneasy.
When Sun Quan heard this, Liu Bei was reasonable, so he had to give up, but it didn't take long for him to say that Liu Zhang was Liu Bei of his own clan, and when he turned around, he led his troops into Sichuan and took Yizhou.
You didn't let me beat Liu Zhang, it turned out that you wanted to fight yourself.
In other words, Sun Quan was firmly pitted by Liu Bei, and the Sun-Liu alliance has also cracked since then.
For this reason, Sun Quan was quite angry, so he sent someone to send a message to Liu Bei, asking him to return to Jingzhou, and at the same time, sent someone to take a big ship to Xiaoling to take his sister Mrs. Sun back.
Of course, picking up Mrs. Sun is just a reason, what Sun Quan really wants to do is actually take hostages, and this hostage is Liu Bei's son Liu Chan, that is, Adou.
This is the stupid thing that Mrs. Sun did as mentioned above, after receiving a notice from her brother, she secretly took Adou on board the big ship of Soochow.
The reason why she took Adou away so smoothly was because after Adou's biological mother, Mrs. Gan, died in the Battle of Nagasakapo, Adou had been raised by Mrs. Sun, so this created convenient conditions for her.
It's just that this hostage-taking plan did not succeed in the end.
Just after Mrs. Sun boarded the big ship with Adou, Zhuge Liang, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun, who got the news, arrived in time and stopped them, and finally, Mrs. Sun returned to Jiangdong by herself.
"Quan Da sent a boat to welcome his sister, and Mrs. Nei wanted to return the queen to Wu, Yun and Zhang Feile intercepted the river, but the queen returned. --- "Information Governance Tongjian"
This section of the record is basically the same in the official history and various romances, Adou was recaptured, and in the end, Mrs. Sun was the only one who returned to Soochow.
It was from this time that Mrs. Sun and Liu Bei never met again, and she did not return to Liu Bei is side.
There are three reasons for this.
One of them is the incident of snatching Adou, so that Mrs. Sun has no face to come back.
If before this, Liu Bei was tolerant of Mrs. Sun in terms of the love between husband and wife, and allowed her to act arbitrarily, then after snatching Adou, Liu Bei had no need for this at all.
After all, Adou is Liu Bei's son and the heir of the future Shu Kingdom, but Mrs. Sun blatantly wants to take him away, which obviously has torn the bottom line of both sides.
Therefore, Liu Bei will not regard Mrs. Sun as his wife, and the people in Shu will not regard Mrs. Sun as his mother.
In this case, if Mrs. Sun came back, not to mention whether Liu Bei agreed or not, the advisors and generals of Shu would not agree.
The second is the reason why Mrs. Sun did not come back
As mentioned above, Sun Quan arranged for Mrs. Sun to marry Liu Bei with an obvious purpose, in order to win over and control Liu Bei, otherwise, he would not be willing to let his sister marry Liu Bei, who was nearly fifty years old.
At that time, the Sun-Liu alliance was in the honeymoon period, and the two sides were "like glue" and had a very good relationship.
But now, the alliance has broken down, and it is absolutely impossible for Sun Quan to swallow this breath in the matter of Yizhou, so he wants to borrow the name of picking up his sister to kidnap Adou.
Therefore, whether the kidnapping of Adou succeeds or fails, since it has been done, there is no turning back.
There is no turning back, which means that the relationship between Sun and Liu has completely deteriorated, in this case, if Mrs. Sun goes back again, how should she deal with herself?
Third, Mrs. Sun herself was unwilling to go back
The union between Mrs. Sun and Liu Bei is a political marriage, and as mentioned above, the two have no feelings, and now they can return to Soochow is exactly what she can't ask for.
Therefore, if you can go back, you won't come back, after all, this is also a relief for Mrs. Sun.
It's just that in this way, Mrs. Sun put herself in a very embarrassing situation, her mother's family is no longer her mother's home, and the task of taking Adou away has also failed, so after going back, Sun Quan will definitely not treat this sister like she did before marriage.
And the husband's family, not to mention, after doing something that intended to kidnap Adou, Mrs. Sun couldn't go back.
Therefore, Mrs. Sun has also spent the embarrassing and uncomfortable second half of her life in Soochow since then, and there is no record of her in historical materials.