Wu Strategist
Sun Quan, the Green-Eyed Lord
孫權182 to 2524 star
In short
Sun Quan (182 to 252) was the founder of the state of Wu. He inherited the lands south of the Yangtze from his brother Sun Ce in 200, at eighteen. He chose to fight Cao Cao at Red Cliffs in 208, took Jing Province from Guan Yu in 219, and beat Liu Bei at Yiling in 222. He declared himself emperor in 229 and ruled until 252, longer than any other ruler of the Three Kingdoms.
| Lived | 182 to 252 |
|---|---|
| Name in Chinese | 孫權 |
| Courtesy name | Zhongmou |
| Served | himself, as ruler of Wu |
The history
Sun Quan was eighteen when Sun Ce died in 200 and left him five commanderies and a staff of older men. Zhang Zhao got him out of mourning and onto a horse to show himself to the army. Zhou Yu and Lu Su stayed, and the country held.
In 208 Cao Cao came down the Yangtze. Sun Quan heard out the advisers who wanted to submit, then drew his sword, cut the corner off the table in front of him, and said the next man to speak of surrender would be like the table. He gave Zhou Yu the army, and Zhou Yu won at Red Cliffs.
After that he spent forty years refusing to be anyone’s junior. He married his sister to Liu Bei and took her back. He fought Cao Cao to a standstill at Ruxu. He was nearly captured by Zhang Liao at Hefei in 215. In 219 he let Lu Meng take Jing Province and Guan Yu’s head, and then sent the head to Cao Cao. He accepted the title King of Wu from Cao Pi in 221, beat Liu Bei at Yiling in 222, and dropped the pretense of submission the same year.
He became emperor in 229. He sent fleets to Liaodong and to the islands of the eastern sea, and opened the south to settlement. His last years were poor ones. A quarrel over the succession destroyed two of his sons, and his rebukes drove Lu Xun to his death in 245.
He died in 252, aged seventy. Chen Shou says he could bend and endure shame like Goujian of Yue, and that he grew suspicious and cruel with age.
The novel
Romance of the Three Kingdoms gives him green eyes and a purple beard and leaves him in the background of other men’s stories. He was the one founder of the three who inherited his state young, kept it, and died in bed as its emperor.
Sun Quan in the game
In Warlords of the Three Kingdoms Sun Quan is the Green-Eyed Lord: a 4 star strategistof Wu. The game's line for him: “He inherited Jiangdong at eighteen and held it for fifty-two years against every rival who tried.”
| Kingdom | Wu |
|---|---|
| Role | Strategist |
| Rarity | 4 star |
| Base attack and defense | 20 and 25 |
| Where from | Summoned at the Imperial Summon, for Jade. The odds are shown before every summon. |
A warlord sworn to Wu fields him 10% stronger, as every General of their own Kingdom. Wei, Shu or Wu has what the choice changes.
Four star is where he starts. Duplicates become shards, shards add stars, and each star adds a tenth to both numbers.
Questions
What did Cao Cao say about Sun Quan?
That a man should have a son like Sun Zhongmou. He said it at Ruxu in 213, looking at the order of Sun Quan's fleet, and added that the sons of Liu Biao were pigs and dogs beside him.
When did Sun Quan become emperor?
In 229, at Wuchang, after eight years as King of Wu. He moved the capital back to Jianye, the modern Nanjing, later that year.
Why did Sun Quan kill Guan Yu?
Guan Yu held Jing Province, which Wu believed it had lent to Liu Bei and never got back. In 219, while Guan Yu was attacking Fancheng, Sun Quan's generals took the province, and Guan Yu was captured and executed.
How do you get Sun Quan in Warlords of the Three Kingdoms?
Summoned at the Imperial Summon, for Jade. The odds are shown before every summon.
Sources
The history follows Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms, written in the third century, with Pei Songzhi's annotations of the fifth, and Fan Ye's Book of the Later Han for the years before the Han court fell apart. What the page calls the novel is Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, of the fourteenth century. Where the two disagree, the page says which is speaking. For more on him, see Sun Quan on Wikipedia.
Written by Gitkonek Studio, .
Keep reading
- Sun Shangxiang, the Lady of the BowSun Quan's sister, whose hundred armed maids made her husband Liu Bei nervous in his own chambers.
- Lu Xun, the Scholar GeneralDismissed by the veterans as a bookish youth, he burned Liu Bei's forty camps at Yiling in a single night.
- Sun Ce, the Little ConquerorHe crossed the Yangtze with a few thousand men, took Jiangdong in five years, and died at twenty-five.
- Zhou Yu, the Handsome CommanderHe was thirty-three when he burned Cao Cao's fleet at Red Cliffs, and could hear a wrong note across a banquet hall.
- Gan Ning, the Belled RaiderA river pirate whose men wore bells, he raided Cao Cao's camp at Ruxu with a hundred riders and lost none.