The rise of Sun Ce

Three Kingdoms 10

In 195 A.D., Yuan Shu(袁术) appointed Sun Ce(孙策) as a Commandant, gave him more than 1,000 soldiers and dozens of horses, and ordered him to east of Yangtze River to attack Liu Yao, the governer of Yangzhou provoince, when he was only 20 years old.

The Yangtze River, between Wuhu and Nanjing, flows in a southwestern-northeastern direction, so people used to call the area on the right bank of the Yangtze River from here on as Jiangdong(dong means east in Chinese) , and the area on the left bank of the Yangtze River as Jiangxi(Xi means west in Chinese), which is not the same concept as the current Jiangxi Province.

Sun Ce was a brilliant and intelligent man, with great courage and skill in fighting skill, as well as a bold and uninhibited character, who enjoyed to make friends with heroes, and was already well known when he was young.

Sun Ce was not only mighty in battle, but also being handsome. Chen Shou(陈寿) said in the Record of Three Kingdoms that Sun Ce was handsome, loved to laugh and talk jokes, had an open and cheerful character with a sense of humor, and was open to advice and good at employing people, so his soldiers and subordinates were willing to die for him, and even Yuan Shu often sighed and said, "If only I, Yuan Shu, had such a son as Sun Ce, I would be able to rest in peace after my death".

Therefore, after Sun Ce set off with his troops, people kept coming to join him along the way, and by the time he reached Liyang(历阳), Sun Ce's troop strength had reached 5,000 to 6,000 men.

Zhou Shang(周尚), the governor of Danyang(丹阳), is Zhou Yu's(周瑜) uncle, and Sun Ce is Zhou Yu's close friend, so he sent a letter to Zhou Yu, inviting him to come and work with him. Zhou Yu, who was 20 years old, immediately extracted a troop of elite soldiers from his uncle, Zhou Shang, and traveled day and night to come to Sun Ce.

Sun Ce was overjoyed. After the two of them joined forces, gained a lot of momentum and soon captured Hengjiang(横江) and Dangli(当利), then they crossed the river, broke Niuzhu(牛渚), defeated Zuo Rong(笮融) and Xue Li(薛礼), captured Moling(秣陵later Jianye,today's Nanjing), and then took advantage of the victory and marched on, capturing Hushu(湖熟) and Jiang Sheng(江乘), Approaching the capital of Liu Yao's Yangzhou province, Qu'e(曲阿). Liu Yao was afraid, and chose to hold on to the city and didn't come out.

At this time, Liu Yao's fellow villager, Tai Shi Ci(太史慈), came to visit him. Someone advised Liu Yao to reuse TaiShi Ci as commander because he is both wise and courageous, he could definitely handle Sun Ce.

However, Liu Yao did not like TaiShi Ci and only gave him a job as a scout. During an outing for scouting, TaiShi Ci suddenly encountered with Sun Ce at Shenting(神亭).

At that time, Sun Ce had only 12 men with him, including such fierce generals as Huang Gai(黄盖) and Han Dang(韩当), while Taishi Ci had only one man with him, but Taishi Ci was not afraid to go up to Sun Ce and fight with him one on one, both of them were fierce generals at that period,It is hard to find out who is the stronger.

Sun Ce first stabbed TaiShi Ci's horse and took the halberd on his back, while TaiShi Ci took off Sun Ce's helmet, only after both sides' reinforcements arrived at the same time did they separate!

Sun Ce's bravery was well known to the world, since his debut, he had never been defeated, TaiShi Ci could fight with him to a draw, so it could be seen that his martial skill was exquisite , and TaiShi Ci was also good at governing the army, his timely appearance, to Liu Yao is simply a gift from heaven!

However, because of his humble background, Liu Yao still refused to reuse him!

In 196 AD, Sun Ce captured the city of Qu'e. Liu Yao fled to Yuzhang(豫章) and died a year later.

At this time, Sun Ce's strategists were Zhang Hong(张紘), Zhang Zhao(张昭), Qin Song(秦松) and Chen Duan(陈端) , his generals were Zhou Yu, Lyu Fan(吕范), Cheng Pu(程普), Huang Gai, Han Dang, Zhu Zhi(朱治), Jiang Qin(蒋钦), Zhou Tai(周泰), Chen Wu(陈武) and Ling Cao(凌操), as well as Sun Jing(孙静), Sun Ben(孙贲), Sun Fu(孙辅) and Sun Yi(孙翊) from Sun’s clan, so the core team of early Eastern Wu had been completed.

So Sun Ce took Qu'e as his base, and rapidly expanded to the six commaderies of Jiangdong, including Wu, Kuai ji , Danyang , Yuzhang , Luling , and Lujiang.