Chen Wu from the Three Kingdoms Good Generals series
Discuss heroes over wine and talk about the characters of the Three Kingdoms.
The popularity of historical figures of the Three Kingdoms is closely related to the number of roles in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Cao Wei As the most powerful among the Three Kingdoms, there are many civil servants and military generals. Except for the obvious derogatory attitude towards Cao Cao, the main characters are basically written according to historical facts. Although the Shu Han is the weakest and has the fewest historical records, as the righteous party in the novel, the few elite characters are treated as protagonists. Precisely because there are minimal historical materials, it has a high degree of freedom when creating the story of Shu Han. The most embarrassing thing is the Soochow Group, which is isolated from the two major groups and reduced to a supporting role.
In history, Soochow not only had a group of fierce generals who were not inferior to Cao Liu, but many of them were young heroes. Sun Jian and Sun Ce both became famous at a young age, and their generals also had young talents. This time the author is talking about neither Zhou Yu nor Lu Xun, but a Jiangdong general who you may have heard of but may not be familiar with, Chen Wu.
Chen Wu (177-215), courtesy name Zilie, was a native of Songzi County, Lujiang County (now Susong, Anhui). According to the "Three Kingdoms·Chen Wu Biography", Chen Wu was "seven feet seven inches" tall, which converted to today's standards is about 1.85 meters, which can be said to be quite tall at the time. The novel described his appearance as "seven feet tall, with a yellow face and red eyes, and a strange appearance." This kind of appearance is standard for a strong man with a supporting role in the novel. There is no record of his appearance in the history books, so he should not be so ferocious.
One of the major events of Chen Wu - A Hero Emerges as a Young Man
In the previous chapters of Zhu Zhi and Lu Fan , the author has talked about Sun Ce's experience under Yuan Shu. In the second year of Xingping (195), after Sun Ce conquered Lujiang for Yuan Shu, Yuan Shu broke his promise and did not appoint Sun Ce, but instead appointed Liu Xun as the prefect of Lujiang. Sun Ce had the intention of leaving, so he asked for Sun Jian's old troops on the pretext of capturing Jiangdong for Yuan Shu. Yuan Shu agreed to let them go and allowed some guests who were willing to go with Sun Ce to leave. During Sun Ce's stay in Shouchun, Chen Wu, who was only eighteen years old, took the initiative to visit and ask for his services. Sun Ce was only twenty years old at the time. If it were anyone else, he might not care about Chen Wu. Sun Ce, who was similar in age, admired the tall Chen Wu very much and kept him.
Chen Wu followed Sun Ce across the Yangtze River from Liyang , defeated Yangzhou governor Liu Yao's generals, and successfully landed in Jiangdong. Eighteen-year-old Chen Wu performed outstandingly and made great contributions, so he was worshiped by Sun Ce as a commander of the other divisions. He then followed Sun Ce to conquer various places in Jiangdong.
There is no record of Chen Wu's origin in history books. The author believes that Chen Wu was also one of many people who "liked knights" when they were young. The Chen family is a common surname in the Jianghuai area, such as Chen Gui, Chen Deng and his son, and Chen Yu, , Chen Jiao, , etc. are all active here. Since there is no record of Chen Wu's origin, it can be speculated that he relied on his own skills to gather a small team and then defected to Sun Ce. Considering that after crossing the river in Liyang, Chen Wu became the Sima of the other divisions, it would be more reasonable for him to bring his team with him when he defected. In other words, this young hero Chen Wu did win Sun Ce's recognition for his strong martial arts skills and bold personality. Chen Wu’s character will be mentioned later.
The second major event of Chen Wu - Lujiang Shangjia
In the fourth year of Jian'an (199), Yuan Shu was defeated. Fearing Cao Cao, Yuan Shu's remaining troops did not dare to stay in Shouchun and gathered under the command of Liu Xun, the prefect of Lujiang. For a time, Liu Xun's troops suddenly increased to tens of thousands, becoming a new powerful force in the Jianghuai region, posing a threat to Sun Ce in Jiangdong. In addition, Liu Xun's Lujiang governor was originally promised to Sun Ce by Yuan Shu, so Sun Ce became even more hostile to Liu Xun and determined to eradicate him.
Yuan Shu's defeat was due to poor governance that led to severe food shortages. These soldiers had to eat when they fled to Liu Xun, so Liu Xun's food and grass were also very scarce. At this time, Sun Ce took the initiative to send an envoy to hand over a letter, respecting Liu Xun as his boss, and said that the people in Shangliao City were bullying him, and asked Liu Xun to send troops to help him attack Shangliao. This would not only help his younger brother vent his anger, but more importantly, he could seize food and grass. Sun Ce also asked the envoy to hand over a large sum of money to show his sincerity.
At that time, Liu Ye was still Liu Xun's adviser and advised him to be careful of fraud. Liu Xun refused to listen and personally led his army to attack Shangliao.After hearing the news, Sun Ce immediately sent troops to attack Liu Xun's rear. Liu Xun was caught off guard and defeated, Lujiang was lost, and he defected to Cao Cao alone.
In this battle, Sun Ce not only captured Lujiang County, but also gained many elite Lujiang soldiers. In the Cao Hong article, the author introduced that when the Kwantung Allied Forces attacked Dong Zhuo, Sun Jian won and Cao Cao was defeated. Afterwards, Cao Cao asked Cao Hong to go to Yangzhou to recruit troops. "Three Kingdoms: Biography of Cao Hong" records that "Chen Wensu and Hong Shan, the governors of Yangzhou, and General Hong's family, had more than a thousand soldiers. They went to Wen to recruit troops, and they got 2,000 people from Shangjia on the Lujiang River, and thousands more from Danyang in the east." The Lujiang soldiers were called "Shangjia", which means superior soldiers. At that time, it was recognized that the Lujiang area produced elite soldiers.
Someone may have noticed when seeing this, Chen Wu is from Lujiang. Yes, Sun Ce did not forget this, so he carefully selected the soldiers left by Liu Xun to form an elite force and gave it to Chen Wu to command.
The Lujiang Shangjia, commanded by Chen Wu, has a very strong combat effectiveness. Chen Wu's biography uses four words to describe it: "Indomitable". At this time, Chen Wu was only in his early twenties. We often say that Sun Ce's heroes come from youth, but few people know that Sun Ce also has a younger general than him, but he commands the most elite troops.
The third major event of Chen Wu - Supervising the Five Schools
In the fifth year of Jian'an (200), Sun Ce died shortly after being assassinated. Sun Quan succeeded him, and Chen Wu was transferred to supervise the Five Schools. The so-called five schools refer to the five divisions of Tunqi, Infantry, Yueqi, Changshui and Shesheng, which were established during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. The troops of the Five Schools are permanently stationed in the capital and are the central army that surrounds the emperor and the capital. Sun Quan's Five Schools should also be directly under Sun Quan's troops. Considering that most of the soldiers of the Jiangdong Group are owned by local wealthy families, there are not many troops under Sun Quan's direct command, so this position is very critical.
Sun Quan naturally did not have a so-called capital at that time, and the scale of the five schools was far less than that of the Han Dynasty. Therefore, Chen Wu's supervision of the five schools should actually be responsible for Sun Quan's bodyguard and security work, similar to Cao Cao's Dian Wei , Xu Chu. Although people in later generations often compared Zhou Tai with Dian Wei, in fact Zhou Tai once served as county magistrate, and later served as Ruxu governor, playing the role of an ordinary general. It was Chen Wu who was really responsible for Sun Quan's security work.
It is precisely because Chen Wu's troops are directly under the leadership of Sun Quan that they do not easily go to the front line and basically do not lead troops alone in battle. Although Chen Wu was very young, he was kind-hearted and charitable. Many people in the Jianghuai area fled to Jiangdong to escape the war, and many of them from Lujiang took refuge with Chen Wu. Sun Quan also loved Chen Wu very much. Despite his busy schedule, he often visited Chen Wu's home. Chen Wu's biography records that "he was especially loved by Quan and counted in his family."
Looking at the generals in the early period of Soochow, only Chen Wu has no record of commanding an army alone, nor has he ever served as a local governor. Perhaps there is no historical record, but Chen Wu commanded the elite troops of Lujiang from the very beginning. It seems a waste of resources for Sun Ce to send such an elite force to the local area to clear out Shanyue. Therefore, the author speculates that Chen Wu was a general of Suwei directly under Sun Ce during Sun Ce's period.
There are not many historical records about Chen Wu. Chen Wu's biography only says that later "he was promoted to general due to his hard work." Compared with Cao Cao, who had many miscellaneous generals, Sun Quan was limited by his official position, and his generals did not hold high positions for a long time. Zhou Yu could only act as a partial general. Therefore, Sun Quan appointed important generals as governors to show distinction.
The fourth major event of Chen Wu - the Battle of Hefei
In August of the 20th year of Jian'an (215), Sun Quan assembled an army of 100,000, and all Jiangdong generals went out to kill Hefei. Chen Wu also went with the army. The author has already introduced the process of this battle in detail in the chapter on the battle of many generals in Wei and Wu, so I will not go into details here. Zhang Liao first led eight hundred dead men to rob the camp, and then took advantage of Sun Quan's withdrawal to seize the flaw and pursue them aggressively. Seven thousand men were defeated by one hundred thousand men.
Sun Quan witnessed the unstoppable Zhang Liao in battle, and was hunted down twice in danger. Thanks to Gan Ning , Ling Tong , Pan Zhang , He Qi and other Soochow generals, they escaped. This defeat caused a lifelong psychological shadow for Sun Quan, and also affected the entire Jiangdong to fear Zhang Liao.
Sun Quan finally saved his life, and the other generals were defeated. It was Chen Wu who was in charge of the five schools and responsible for defending Sun Quan and died fighting at the age of thirty-eight. We often lament that Jiangdong's talents became famous early and died early. There were Sun Jian, Sun Ce, and Zhou Yu before them. In fact, Chen Wu also died young, which is a pity.
Chen Wu's death made Sun Quan very sad. Not only did he attend the funeral in person, he also allocated 200 return customers to the Chen family. The author has mentioned before that many of Soochow's soldiers only serve their own generals and are private soldiers of wealthy families. Sun Quan cannot mobilize these private soldiers directly. The so-called Fuke refers to these private soldier families. The soldiers of Soochow were actually serfs of their generals. They had both land dependence and personal dependence. These soldiers did not need to pay taxes to the country, but had to pay land rent and perform military service to the generals. Most importantly, these soldiers can be hereditary, which means that if a general dies in battle, the soldiers must be loyal to their sons. The author mentioned in the article Han Dang that Han Dang once served as a subordinate general of other generals. He had such a personal dependence relationship, which caused his status to be low for a long time. In essence, this is a kind of serfdom or slavery, the purpose is to unite powerful generals and deep-rooted local families. Because Sun Quan's foundation is still shallow, he has to take this method to win support. At the same time, Cao Cao and Liu Bei had stronger personal abilities, and they all relied on their long-term core teams, so the problem of hereditary private soldiers was not as serious as Soochow. Due to the hereditary private soldiers, the generals of Soochow were extremely effective in defensive operations, and they were unwilling to be the vanguard when attacking, for fear of losing their own strength. This was also an important reason why Soochow took the initiative to attack Cao Wei without any results.
Sun Quan not only allocated 200 households to the Chen family for return visits, but also did a very controversial thing. He even ordered Chen Wu's concubine to be buried. Sun Quan has always been very high-profile in commending his generals, and he knows how to motivate his soldiers. For example, Sun Quan once praised Gan Ning, " Meng De has Zhang Liao, and alone he can become a hegemon, and he is enough to rival him." When attending Dong Xi's funeral, "I changed my clothes for the funeral, and the supplies were generous." As a necessary commendation for the lord, it is understandable, but This time I think it was done inappropriately. To borrow the words of Sun Sheng, a historian of the Western Jin Dynasty who lived not long after the Three Kingdoms: "The retribution of misfortunes and blessings is so effective. Power depends on planning and appointment, and life is followed by death. It is not appropriate to promote the advancement of the world!" It is said that Sun Quan allowed the living to be buried with the dead, which was the retribution for the short-lived founding of Soochow.
The author believes that Sun Quan's behavior is certainly to praise Chen Wu, but its original intention is to increase Chen Wu's glory and encourage other generals to work harder. However, the negative effects of this behavior far outweigh the positive effects. During the Three Kingdoms period, it was extremely rare for people to be buried alive, and even in the late Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was already rare. Although this incident can make a few military generals more loyal in the short term, it will undoubtedly greatly lose the support of the people in the long run. This bloody method appeared more often in Sun Quan's later years, and it seems that he had a tendency when he was young.
In the novel, Chen Wu's sleeve was scratched by a branch during the battle with Pound . He couldn't use it and died at the hands of Pound. His body was found by Lu Xun. However, it is very nonsensical that Chen Wu and Dong Xi were buried together by Sun Quan. I don’t know why Luo Guanzhong handled it this way. The two grown men were buried together...
Chen Wu, as a trusted general of Sun Ce and Sun Quan, led the Lujiang elite soldiers to guard and guard, and finally for protection Sun Quan died on the battlefield, which can be said to be a worthy death. His sons Chen Xiu and Chen Biao were also Jiangdong tiger generals. In particular, the concubine Chen Biao, together with Zhuge Ke, Zhang Xiu, and Gu Tan, is known as the "Four Friends of the Prince" in the Soochow version. His status is very important. I will tell you the story of Chen Biao when I have the opportunity in the future.
After hearing the news, Sun Ce immediately sent troops to attack Liu Xun's rear. Liu Xun was caught off guard and defeated, Lujiang was lost, and he defected to Cao Cao alone.In this battle, Sun Ce not only captured Lujiang County, but also gained many elite Lujiang soldiers. In the Cao Hong article, the author introduced that when the Kwantung Allied Forces attacked Dong Zhuo, Sun Jian won and Cao Cao was defeated. Afterwards, Cao Cao asked Cao Hong to go to Yangzhou to recruit troops. "Three Kingdoms: Biography of Cao Hong" records that "Chen Wensu and Hong Shan, the governors of Yangzhou, and General Hong's family, had more than a thousand soldiers. They went to Wen to recruit troops, and they got 2,000 people from Shangjia on the Lujiang River, and thousands more from Danyang in the east." The Lujiang soldiers were called "Shangjia", which means superior soldiers. At that time, it was recognized that the Lujiang area produced elite soldiers.
Someone may have noticed when seeing this, Chen Wu is from Lujiang. Yes, Sun Ce did not forget this, so he carefully selected the soldiers left by Liu Xun to form an elite force and gave it to Chen Wu to command.
The Lujiang Shangjia, commanded by Chen Wu, has a very strong combat effectiveness. Chen Wu's biography uses four words to describe it: "Indomitable". At this time, Chen Wu was only in his early twenties. We often say that Sun Ce's heroes come from youth, but few people know that Sun Ce also has a younger general than him, but he commands the most elite troops.
The third major event of Chen Wu - Supervising the Five Schools
In the fifth year of Jian'an (200), Sun Ce died shortly after being assassinated. Sun Quan succeeded him, and Chen Wu was transferred to supervise the Five Schools. The so-called five schools refer to the five divisions of Tunqi, Infantry, Yueqi, Changshui and Shesheng, which were established during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. The troops of the Five Schools are permanently stationed in the capital and are the central army that surrounds the emperor and the capital. Sun Quan's Five Schools should also be directly under Sun Quan's troops. Considering that most of the soldiers of the Jiangdong Group are owned by local wealthy families, there are not many troops under Sun Quan's direct command, so this position is very critical.
Sun Quan naturally did not have a so-called capital at that time, and the scale of the five schools was far less than that of the Han Dynasty. Therefore, Chen Wu's supervision of the five schools should actually be responsible for Sun Quan's bodyguard and security work, similar to Cao Cao's Dian Wei , Xu Chu. Although people in later generations often compared Zhou Tai with Dian Wei, in fact Zhou Tai once served as county magistrate, and later served as Ruxu governor, playing the role of an ordinary general. It was Chen Wu who was really responsible for Sun Quan's security work.
It is precisely because Chen Wu's troops are directly under the leadership of Sun Quan that they do not easily go to the front line and basically do not lead troops alone in battle. Although Chen Wu was very young, he was kind-hearted and charitable. Many people in the Jianghuai area fled to Jiangdong to escape the war, and many of them from Lujiang took refuge with Chen Wu. Sun Quan also loved Chen Wu very much. Despite his busy schedule, he often visited Chen Wu's home. Chen Wu's biography records that "he was especially loved by Quan and counted in his family."
Looking at the generals in the early period of Soochow, only Chen Wu has no record of commanding an army alone, nor has he ever served as a local governor. Perhaps there is no historical record, but Chen Wu commanded the elite troops of Lujiang from the very beginning. It seems a waste of resources for Sun Ce to send such an elite force to the local area to clear out Shanyue. Therefore, the author speculates that Chen Wu was a general of Suwei directly under Sun Ce during Sun Ce's period.
There are not many historical records about Chen Wu. Chen Wu's biography only says that later "he was promoted to general due to his hard work." Compared with Cao Cao, who had many miscellaneous generals, Sun Quan was limited by his official position, and his generals did not hold high positions for a long time. Zhou Yu could only act as a partial general. Therefore, Sun Quan appointed important generals as governors to show distinction.
The fourth major event of Chen Wu - the Battle of Hefei
In August of the 20th year of Jian'an (215), Sun Quan assembled an army of 100,000, and all Jiangdong generals went out to kill Hefei. Chen Wu also went with the army. The author has already introduced the process of this battle in detail in the chapter on the battle of many generals in Wei and Wu, so I will not go into details here. Zhang Liao first led eight hundred dead men to rob the camp, and then took advantage of Sun Quan's withdrawal to seize the flaw and pursue them aggressively. Seven thousand men were defeated by one hundred thousand men.
Sun Quan witnessed the unstoppable Zhang Liao in battle, and was hunted down twice in danger. Thanks to Gan Ning , Ling Tong , Pan Zhang , He Qi and other Soochow generals, they escaped. This defeat caused a lifelong psychological shadow for Sun Quan, and also affected the entire Jiangdong to fear Zhang Liao.
Sun Quan finally saved his life, and the other generals were defeated. It was Chen Wu who was in charge of the five schools and responsible for defending Sun Quan and died fighting at the age of thirty-eight. We often lament that Jiangdong's talents became famous early and died early. There were Sun Jian, Sun Ce, and Zhou Yu before them. In fact, Chen Wu also died young, which is a pity.
Chen Wu's death made Sun Quan very sad. Not only did he attend the funeral in person, he also allocated 200 return customers to the Chen family. The author has mentioned before that many of Soochow's soldiers only serve their own generals and are private soldiers of wealthy families. Sun Quan cannot mobilize these private soldiers directly. The so-called Fuke refers to these private soldier families. The soldiers of Soochow were actually serfs of their generals. They had both land dependence and personal dependence. These soldiers did not need to pay taxes to the country, but had to pay land rent and perform military service to the generals. Most importantly, these soldiers can be hereditary, which means that if a general dies in battle, the soldiers must be loyal to their sons. The author mentioned in the article Han Dang that Han Dang once served as a subordinate general of other generals. He had such a personal dependence relationship, which caused his status to be low for a long time. In essence, this is a kind of serfdom or slavery, the purpose is to unite powerful generals and deep-rooted local families. Because Sun Quan's foundation is still shallow, he has to take this method to win support. At the same time, Cao Cao and Liu Bei had stronger personal abilities, and they all relied on their long-term core teams, so the problem of hereditary private soldiers was not as serious as Soochow. Due to the hereditary private soldiers, the generals of Soochow were extremely effective in defensive operations, and they were unwilling to be the vanguard when attacking, for fear of losing their own strength. This was also an important reason why Soochow took the initiative to attack Cao Wei without any results.
Sun Quan not only allocated 200 households to the Chen family for return visits, but also did a very controversial thing. He even ordered Chen Wu's concubine to be buried. Sun Quan has always been very high-profile in commending his generals, and he knows how to motivate his soldiers. For example, Sun Quan once praised Gan Ning, " Meng De has Zhang Liao, and alone he can become a hegemon, and he is enough to rival him." When attending Dong Xi's funeral, "I changed my clothes for the funeral, and the supplies were generous." As a necessary commendation for the lord, it is understandable, but This time I think it was done inappropriately. To borrow the words of Sun Sheng, a historian of the Western Jin Dynasty who lived not long after the Three Kingdoms: "The retribution of misfortunes and blessings is so effective. Power depends on planning and appointment, and life is followed by death. It is not appropriate to promote the advancement of the world!" It is said that Sun Quan allowed the living to be buried with the dead, which was the retribution for the short-lived founding of Soochow.
The author believes that Sun Quan's behavior is certainly to praise Chen Wu, but its original intention is to increase Chen Wu's glory and encourage other generals to work harder. However, the negative effects of this behavior far outweigh the positive effects. During the Three Kingdoms period, it was extremely rare for people to be buried alive, and even in the late Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was already rare. Although this incident can make a few military generals more loyal in the short term, it will undoubtedly greatly lose the support of the people in the long run. This bloody method appeared more often in Sun Quan's later years, and it seems that he had a tendency when he was young.
In the novel, Chen Wu's sleeve was scratched by a branch during the battle with Pound . He couldn't use it and died at the hands of Pound. His body was found by Lu Xun. However, it is very nonsensical that Chen Wu and Dong Xi were buried together by Sun Quan. I don’t know why Luo Guanzhong handled it this way. The two grown men were buried together...
Chen Wu, as a trusted general of Sun Ce and Sun Quan, led the Lujiang elite soldiers to guard and guard, and finally for protection Sun Quan died on the battlefield, which can be said to be a worthy death. His sons Chen Xiu and Chen Biao were also Jiangdong tiger generals. In particular, the concubine Chen Biao, together with Zhuge Ke, Zhang Xiu, and Gu Tan, is known as the "Four Friends of the Prince" in the Soochow version. His status is very important. I will tell you the story of Chen Biao when I have the opportunity in the future.
![Deep Forest - Freedom Cry [Live from Image concert, Japan] - DayDayNews](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/B9E67bxEOks/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEcCOADEI4CSFXyq4qpAw4IARUAAIhCGAFwAcABBg==&rs=AOn4CLBerz2pIZSB66F69MdQ85HNe3uE5w)
![Celtic Forest Music - The Forest Kingdom - Peter Crowley Fantasy Dream - [HD] - DayDayNews](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/qv5mnIioCxE/hq720.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEcCNAFEJQDSFXyq4qpAw4IARUAAIhCGAFwAcABBg==&rs=AOn4CLAK1x42YpuY38F0fslb8AqSBGcNsw)
