Among the three monarchs of Cao Liusun, Sun Quan was undoubtedly the one with the lowest popularity and discussion, and was often mentioned as a negative teaching material because of military defeats such as Hefei and many mistakes in his later years. The reason for this is mainly because the public's favorite is Cao Cao and Liu Bei, who started their own businesses, and it is difficult to use Sun Quan, who inherited the family business, as a substitute object to motivate themselves. Therefore, as emperor Wu who pushed the family business to the peak, Sun Quan's popularity was far less than that of his brother Sun Ce, who died young.
Sit off Southeast Sun Quan
However, if it is because he is not an entrepreneurial monarch, it is a big mistake to think that Sun Quan lacks pioneering. In fact, Sun Quan is a peculiar figure in the entire history of ancient China, and he loves to do all kinds of things that are out of the ordinary, and it can be said that in many ways it is difficult to find people who can be compared. This article will abandon the clichéd military topic and show an interesting Sun Quan from the side.
Sun Quan's Eastern Wu regime was the only one in Wei Shu Wu that did not have a proper Han reason, so Eastern Wu's sense of succession to the Han Dynasty was very weak (having said that, Sun Quan used the era name Jian'an until twenty-seven years, longer than the Shu state). This is good and bad, the advantage is that you can flexibly carry out diplomatic activities, you can ally with Liu Bei when you fight against Cao Cao, you can negotiate peace with Cao Cao when you are tired, Liu Bei bites his teeth and calls Cao Pi a vassal, and finally even put forward the whimsical idea of honoring the second emperor and is recognized. However, there were also disadvantages, for example, except for the group of people from the north, the rest of the people in the imperial court were extremely low in their enthusiasm for the Northern Expedition, the country lacked a political program for integration and unity, and there was also a chaos such as the dispute between the two palaces. And it is Comrade Sun Quan, who rules this regime, who is exquisite and eclectic.
First of all, Sun Quan is not a person who keeps to himself, he loves to play, and he is very good at playing. He was once severely criticized by Zhang Zhao for his love of hunting and shooting tigers, and even in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Wu Lord's Biography", there was a tiger shooting incident that recorded a clear time and experience. Later, it was estimated that Zhang Zhao scolded a lot, plus he also felt that it was a little too dangerous to shoot tigers directly, so he specially designed and built a tiger shooting car to play. Although Cao Cao and Liu Bei also recorded that the two liked to play dog and horse music well, they could not play like Sun Quan and play with a heartbeat.
Sun Quan shoots the tiger
Sun Quan also likes to play quick wit games. This point should be the inheritance of the Sun family, Sun Ce has a record of "funny words", throwing a halberd to stab Yan Yu said that he was testing the special function of the other party, the last emperor tyrant Sun Hao cut down Lady Zhang's father and asked her father where to go, but the jokes of these two were a little too black and humorous... Sun Quan is a master of humor who has gathered the sun family's great achievements, if you ask Cao Liusun to host a talk show together, the result should be like this: Liu Bei was silent for a long time, all kinds of skins and meat did not laugh, occasionally surprising but the scene was embarrassing, and finally he was dismissed. Cao Cao laughed and scolded angrily, did not hide anything, and often punched himself in the face, and the reputation of a big mouth spread throughout the entertainment circle, and many big names stayed away. Sun Quan is humorous and funny, likes to joke with guests, and often wants to play live games on a whim, occasionally hurt face but is very measured, and finally becomes the most popular host. Of course, if the relationship between the guest and Sun Quan is not good, he is also prone to say some harsh words to embarrass the scene, so we must be careful.
Sun quan
Such Sun Quan left a lot of anecdotes at banquets and diplomatic occasions. From the original Zhuge Liang and Yi Yuan, to the later Deng Zhi, Fei Yi, Zhang Feng, Zong Qian and other people almost all have related stories left, the most famous is the one where Fei Yi and Zhuge Ke showed off. Initially, before Fei Yi entered the table, Sun Quan's playfulness came again, and he instructed the ministers to bow down and ignore Fei Yi and fold the prestige of the Shu state. After Fei Yi entered the table, he found that no one paid attention to it, only Sun Quan greeted him with a smile, and immediately understood it, so he read a few poems: The phoenix came to fly, and the unicorn spit and fed. The donkey mule is ignorant and eats as it pleases. These few words were of a very high level, and they not only fought back against the people to preserve the dignity of the Shu state, but also did not hurt Sun Quan's face. In contrast, Zhuge Ke's response later is only a more rhyming. Sun Quan also established close personal relations with many foreign ministers of the Shu state because of his approachable characteristics.
Portrait of Sun Quan
This is true externally, but it is also true internally. Whenever there was a banquet, Sun Quan always liked to make some big news, such as mocking Zhuge Jin with a real donkey, ordering Lu Xun to dance and dancing with him, and so on. There were also some unpleasantness in the middle, such as Sun Quan's bad habit of pouring wine on people, and his subordinate Yu Tuan just hated this behavior, once Yu Tuan did not give Sun Quan face, so that Sun Quan, who was drunk, was mad in public to cut people. This is probably the earliest incident in Chinese history to cause a small shoe incident because the boss who did not give the wine was not given face. What kind of leader there is, there will be what kind of subordinates, and the Wu court at that time also appeared as a quick-witted joke master represented by Zhuge Ke.
Zhuge Ke
Although people are more mischievous, Sun Quan is not ambiguous in opening up the territory and governing the country. The five counties of Jiangdong left by Sun Ce were greatly expanded by Sun Quan, not only suppressing all the parts north of yangzhou south of the Yangtze River and the entire territory of Jiaozhou, but also achieving remarkable results in the Jingzhou strategy. Judging only from the territory it actually controlled, the size of the State of Wu was even higher than that of the State of Wei. However, these three areas were relatively backward areas at that time, and large areas belonged to ethnic minority settlements. Strictly speaking, Sun Quan was the first emperor to establish political power in the Jiangnan region, so one of the most important things in front of him was the development of the Jiangnan region. The war against Shanyue alone took nearly forty years from the beginning of Sun Ce to the rough completion of Sun Quan. However, correspondingly, its effect is also more significant, and the area of Yangzhou on the south bank of the Yangtze River has developed from only four counties to ten counties at the beginning, which is considered to have paved part of the way for the later Eastern Jin Dynasty to cross the south.
Sun Jian, Sun Ce, Sun Quan
The affairs on the shore were very loud and colorful, and Sun Quan did a non-mainstream business - going to sea. Sun Quan is estimated to be the first emperor in Chinese history to form a navy, and unlike most emperors who value land and despise the sea, Sun Quan repeatedly sought breakthroughs on the sea route, a vision that was beyond the times at the time. For example, Sending Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhi led an army to the sea to find and contact Yizhou, Qizhou, the former is generally considered to be the island of Taiwan, the latter is slightly controversial, the conservative think it is about the Ryukyu Islands, and the brain is big that it is the Philippines or Kyushu. In addition, Sun Quan sent Kang Tai and Zhu Ying and others south to Buyeo (in present-day Vietnam and Cambodia), and accepted tribute from Buyeo, which was 1200 years earlier than Zheng He. On the issue of dealing with Liaodong, Sun Quan made good use of his magical brain hole, and actually sent a fleet of 10,000 people to contact Gongsun Yuan thousands of miles north through the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, which was breathtaking. However, Sun Quan's behavior is considered to be a mixed reputation, such as the huge loss of money and wealth of the people in Yizhou, Gongsun Yuan's repeated villains fell and rebelled (in fact, he planned to cheat Sun Quan of money from the beginning), and the return trip was also brushed by Tian Yu who was squatted when he came ashore because of the wind at sea. In summary, it can only be said that Sun Quan is not a successful One Piece.
Eastern Wu's mighty water army
In addition, Sun Quan was also an emperor who was very religious. The Sun family was almost all superstitious except for Sun Ce, the little bully who was not afraid of heaven, for example, Sun Jian's father and son were equipped with Taoist priests in the army when they went out on a campaign, and Sun Quan's crown prince Sun Deng, who was known for his virtuousness, wrote a letter to warn his father to respect the gods and immortals before his death. Sun Quan was once ruthlessly ridiculed by Yu Tuan for his faith when discussing immortals with Zhang Zhao, and in a fit of anger, he exiled Yu Tuan to Jiaozhou, and when Lü Meng was critically ill, Sun Quan also invited Taoist priests to continue his life, but it did not seem to have any effect... Before capturing Guan Yu, Sun Quan also hired Taoist priests to calculate the time and place of arrest.
If it was relatively common to believe in Taoist gods and immortals at that time, believing in Buddhism was more fashionable. Buddhism was introduced to China during the Eastern Han Dynasty and belonged to a new foreign religion. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Tao Qian's subordinate Zhen Rong built a large number of temples and attracted believers, but judging by his origins and deeds, it is difficult to believe that he really believed in Buddhism. But from an objective point of view, Jingrong had a great contribution to the spread of Buddhism, and Xuzhou also became one of the most prosperous areas of Buddhism at that time. Buddhism became a good spiritual sustenance, so it developed rapidly, and Yangzhou and Jiaozhou became two major places of Spread buddhism with the influx of northerners. Sun Quan himself was very fond of Buddhism, and with his support, the lay monk Zhiqian and the monk Kang would translate a large number of Buddhist scriptures and build a temple in the capital of the Wu kingdom. Under the impetus of Sun Quan, Wu officials also became popular for believing in Buddhism, such as Kan Ze, who converted his residence into a temple and named it Derun Temple (Kan Ze Zi Derun). After Sun Quan's death, there was an incident in which the powerful minister Sun Qiang destroyed the temple and killed monks, which was the earliest incident in Chinese history to destroy the Buddha, which allowed the powerful ministers under Sun Quan to intervene, indicating that the temple already had a certain influence on the politics of the Wu state at that time. The so-called Four Hundred and Eighty Temples of the Southern Dynasty can be said to have laid the foundation for Sun Quan at the earliest.
Sun Qiang
From the perspective of actively developing the maritime cause and accepting new religions, Sun Quan can be said to be an open and inclusive monarch, and correspondingly, in the originally backward land of Eastern Wu, a splendid civilization has also been opened. Among the ministers of the State of Wu were two excellent astronomers, Kan Ze and Lu Ji, who chose for Eastern Wu a more advanced Qianxiang calendar than the Quaternary Calendar of the Eastern Han Dynasty (shu Han had been using the Quaternary Calendar) (later Cao Wei developed a Jingchu calendar that was more accurate than the Qianxiang Calendar), and the progress of the calendar was inseparable from the development of mathematics. Lu Ji has works such as "Hun Tian Tu". In terms of culture, although the literary achievements of the State of Wu were far less than those of the State of Wei, folk culture led the way in the Three Kingdoms. At that time, there were eight strange people in the State of Wu collectively known as the "Eight Absolutes of Wu Zhong", namely Zheng Fei Shanxiang of Pucheng, Liu Weishan, Wu Fan Shanhou, Zhao Dashan, Yan Wushanqi, Song Shoushan Zhanmeng, Huangxiang Shanshu, Cao Buxing Shanshan Painting, which can be described as all-encompassing, and there is even a special article in the Book of Wu that writes about such people. Archaeological discoveries of the Eastern Wu tombs unearthed a large number of paintings and barns (a kind of funerary pottery), which further illustrates the development of this kind of technology at that time.