Chapter 161: A Massacre, Sun Ce is Stunned It can be said that Sun Ce's life was not going well after he went south to quell the rebellion. He first returned to Wujun, but had to stay in Shicheng because the bandits were so powerful. He wanted to mobilize troops to march south, but he was humiliated by Lu Bu, which led to the loss of his good adviser Qin Song. As a result, when Zhou Yu saw Sun Ce lamenting, he wanted to recommend Lu Su to give Sun Ce advice, but was intercepted by Liu Bei. After hearing that Lu Su was recommended to Liu Bei by Liu Ye, Zhou Yu sighed to Sun Ce: "Lu Zijing is a man of both civil and military talents, and Liu Ziyang is also a famous scholar in Huainan. Now that they have joined Liu Bei's army, they will surely become a formidable enemy to our army in the future!" When Sun Ce heard this, he secretly hated Liu Bei for stealing his talent. Thinking of the deteriorating situation in Jiangdong, he said with a bit of dejection: "When I went to Jiangdong in the past, I thought that all the princes in the world were no more than this." "Now that I'm facing Liu Bei, Lu Bu and others, I realize that I was just looking at the world from a well." "Now that Liu Bei is so powerful and has so many good assistants, what should we do with him?" In fact, Sun Ce's nature should not have been like this, but he had been fighting all the way, winning battles one after another, and had long since stopped taking the people of the world into consideration. After suffering a series of blows from Qin Zhen at this time, it is inevitable that his morale would be depressed. When Zhou Yu saw this, he hurriedly advised: "Brother, don't think that we can't control you. You must know that when God gives a man a great responsibility, he should be prepared for such a hard time!"

"My brother and I have been traveling across Jiangdong and have long been arrogant. Now that we have been defeated, it is just as the arrogant will be defeated!" "Although the situation is like this, you still have tens of thousands of soldiers." "My uncle Sun and General Wu are both talented, and they have many brothers to assist them." "On the outside, Zhang Zibu and Zhang Zigang are both talented people of the country, and there are also Chen Duan, Lu Fan, Zhu Zhi, Cheng Pu, Han Dang, Huang Gai, Jiang Qin and other civil and military supporters." "With a large number of troops and good assistants, they are no worse than Liu Bei, and are ten thousand times better than when he first started the army." "Now, many civil and military officials are still fighting in various places, and they all hope that you can lead the troops to quell the chaos. How can you be so depressed and lose the hope of all the officials?" His words of advice were sincere and intended to inspire Sun Ce to regain his ambition. When Sun Ce heard this, he suddenly remembered that no matter how chaotic the situation in Jiangdong was, it was a hundred times better than when he first went south. He was able to conquer the three counties of Jiangdong with only a thousand soldiers and horses. Now he still has so many soldiers and talents. Why is his morale so low? After all, it turned out that he had been developing too smoothly along the way, so he became a little arrogant, which led to his defeat! While thinking, his tiger eyes were already slightly red, and he looked at Zhou Yu with emotion and said: "Luckily I have you here, otherwise I would not have the heart to fight again!" "Just as you said, the current chaos is my fault." "There are still people with lofty ideals who are following me to quell the rebellion. How can I be depressed?" After these words, Sun Ce cheered up again and asked Zhou Yu about the strategy to defeat the enemy! After hearing this, Zhou Yu thought for a long time and then offered a suggestion to Sun Ce: "Although Jiangdong is in chaos right now, the source is in Guangling. The current chaos must be caused by Chen Dengyu behind the scenes." "First, we should send the navy to patrol along the Jiangcheng and Dantu areas to cut off the communication between the north and south banks." "Besides Chen Deng, we should worry about Liu Bei taking advantage of our absence to cause chaos in our rear. We can send more spies to Liyang and other places to find out the military situation in Jiujiang!" "Once these two troubles are gone, the source of the chaos in Jiangdong can be eradicated. The remaining troubles are only caused by Yan Baihu, Jiao Yi, Zu Lang and others." "We can first concentrate our forces to retake Wu County, then march south to wipe out all the tribes!"

"After we conquer the two counties, we will gather at Wanling, march into Jingxian, and destroy Zulang. Then we can conquer the three counties!" After hearing this plan, Sun Ce had a plan in mind. He first ordered his generals Ling Cao and Zhu Zhi to be responsible for patrolling along the river, completely blocking Chen Deng's interference. Then, under his order, Sun Ben, Sun Jing, Wu Jing and others led their troops to come. Sun Ce was able to gather an army of 20,000 and marched all the way to Qu'a, lifting the siege of Qu'a. He then went south to recapture Piling, Wuxi and other places, and surrounded Yan Baihu in Wu County. Yan Baihu was originally a defeated general under Sun Ce. Facing Sun Ce's army, he was naturally no match for him and suffered defeat after defeat. As for Wu County, he only had a few thousand soldiers under his command. Seeing this, he sent people out to prepare to surrender to Sun Ce! Faced with this situation, Zhou Yu suggested to Sun Ce: "Although Yan Baihu is a fickle person, he is now at the end of his rope." "If we continue to force him, he may put up a stubborn resistance. It is better to accept his surrender first and then find an opportunity to kill him!" Upon hearing this, Sun Ce directly objected: "Yan Baihu was originally a great thief in Wu County. He once allied with Xu Gong, but was defeated by me." "He later fled to Yuhang and took refuge with Xu Zhao. I thought Xu Zhao was a man of great ambition, so I did not pursue him." "I didn't expect this person to show no remorse and now contact the nobles in the city to cause chaos. How hateful!" "If I spare him first and then kill him, it would be unrighteous!" "Besides, although Yan Baihu is hateful, this Wujun family is even more hateful!" "Since I entered Wu County, I have not harmed anyone, and I have not allowed anyone to plunder. The chickens and dogs are not alarmed, and the people are all happy." "Once these people are incited, they will rebel. Forgiving Yan Baihu today is the same as forgiving them!" "Although Yan Baihu can be killed, it is difficult for them to kill him again!" "If we leave them here, they will surely rebel again if I go out to fight in the future." "We should take advantage of the current situation to attack and destroy all of them, torture those who have connected with them, and exterminate their clans one by one, so as to prevent us from suffering from your misfortune in the future!" If there was any fatal flaw in Sun Ce's reign in Jiangdong, it was only one: excessive slaughter. Starting with Liu Yao, Xu Gong, Sheng Xian and Zhou Xin were killed one after another. Especially Sheng Xian, Zhou Xin and others, their entire families were executed. Hence, there is a line written by Chen Lin: "The prosperous family of Zhou was killed innocently, and their descendants were displaced and buried in the woods. It is really heartbreaking to talk about it." However, this is unavoidable, because Sun Ce started out as a "bandit" in Jiangdong. They captured cities and territories along the way without any imperial edict to endorse them. Those killed and slaughtered were all orthodox officials appointed by the imperial court. As a result, Sun Ce had a very low reputation among the Jiangdong families.

If he doesn't kill a few of the ones who stand out, he won't be able to control the situation. At this time, facing the rebellion of the Jiangdong family again, Sun Ce naturally could not tolerate it. He simply refused to accept Yan Baihu's surrender and wanted to capture the city and settle accounts with Yan Baihu and the Jiangdong family together. Zhou Yu was shocked when he heard this, and hurriedly said to Sun Ce: "Most of the Jiangdong nobles are in Wujun. If you do this, brother, Yan Baihu will be implicated and will kill innocent people indiscriminately." He was born into a noble family and knew very well what Sun Ce's move meant. It’s satisfying to kill one now, but if you want to conquer the world later, you will have to face resistance from the gentry class. Such an action is tantamount to destroying the Great Wall! But when Sun Ce heard this, he smiled slightly and said comfortingly: "I will not get involved too much. I will only punish the main culprit to intimidate them. I will not touch the kind families like those!" After saying this, without waiting for Zhou Yu and others to continue persuading him, Sun Ce beheaded the messenger and ordered his men to intensify the siege on the city. As a result, Sun Ce surrounded Wu County, personally supervised the battle, climbed the city wall several times, and finally took back Wu County. Brothers Yan Baihu and Yan Xing were both beheaded by Sun Ce and displayed to the public. Afterwards, Sun Ce arrested all the scholars in the city on charges of treason, including members of the Xu and Wang families who had participated in the rebellion, as well as those who had criticized Sun Ce. In total, more than 500 people were involved. Seeing that Sun Ce was serious this time, the Wu gentry were naturally shocked. The heads of major families such as Gu, Lu, Zhu, and Zhang came forward to plead for mercy. One of them was named Lu Xun. He was only sixteen years old, but he had already supported the huge Lu family. Seeing these people coming, Sun Ce pointed at Lu Xun and said: "When I attacked Lujiang, most of your Lu clan members starved to death. You should have some resentment towards me!" "Why did the Xu and Wang families rebel this time, but the Lu family did not?" "If you don't want to rebel, then forget it. Why are you begging for mercy?" Seeing this, Lu Xun bowed and said respectfully: "Because the general attacked Lujiang, it was a public matter. Even if my people died, it was for the public!" "Now the Xu and Wang clans are rebelling, all for their own selfish reasons, so our Lu clan is unwilling to join them!" "As for why we came to advise you, it is because you are the ruler of Jiangdong. You should be benevolent and not kill too many people. So we came to advise you, not for personal reasons, but because you are concerned about me!" "I hope the general will forgive your sins for our sake!" After listening to Lu Xun's words, Sun Ce's expression changed, and he immediately praised: "You are such a good horse. With you as our successor, the Lu family will surely prosper in the future!" As he said this, he looked at everyone again and said; "Just as Bo Yan said, you all came to advise me out of public interest, I don't blame you!" "However, I was ordered by the court to temporarily manage Jiangdong. This time I went north to fight against the traitors and serve the court!" "Now that they have rebelled against me, it is like treason. I will exile their clan, and it will also be for the public!"

"Don't try to persuade me any more. Just go back home and tell the people in your family not to break the rules again!" Everyone felt sad after hearing this and had no choice but to return home. The next day, Sun Ce ordered the common people and nobles in the city to go out of the city to watch the ceremony, and brought out a group of criminals, both big and small, to line up outside the moat for beheading. Hundreds of people, regardless of age, gender or children, were killed one after another. The blood flowed, reflecting the dark water in the moat red. The nobles of Wu County were all terrified when they saw this, and the common people in the city were all terrified. After Sun Ce suppressed the Wujun rebellion with this iron-blooded method, he secretly thought that Wujun would be unlikely to rebel again in the future, so he prepared to lead his troops further south. Unexpectedly, at this time, news came from Danyang that Taishi Ci had made a comeback and captured Jingxian and Wanling counties. Sun Ce had just stabilized the situation in Wujun. When he saw the letter, he flew into a rage and said: "We failed to capture this man in the battle of Shenting. Later, I heard that Liu Zhengli was defeated and this man fled into the mountains. I thought he might have been killed by the Shanyue bandits." "Unexpectedly, due to a careless mistake, this person attacked our county again. We should attack him and bring him to justice!" If it were the original story, Sun Ce would probably be so happy to hear the news about Taishi Ci. Because he admired Taishi Ci very much, he wanted to recruit him to work for him. But in the current timeline, Taishi Ci's timing of appearance is really not good. Just as he had just conquered Wu County and was preparing to march south, Taishi Ci sent troops to Danyang and proclaimed himself the prefect of Danyang. If he goes south again, Danyang will probably be occupied by Taishi Ci! If Liu Bei took the opportunity to recruit him under his command, he would still be suppressed and beaten by Liu Bei even after he quelled the rebellion! While he was thinking, he hurriedly called Zhou Yu, Zhang Hong and others to ask for advice. Zhou Yu and others were worrying about how to stabilize the situation after Sun Ce started killing people, when they received the news that Taishi Ci had returned. They were shocked. However, Zhou Yu was still mature beyond his years. After learning the details, he said to Sun Ce: "Taishi Ci is indeed a good general, and he is also an old friend of Liu Bei. Now he occupies Wanling. If he is won over by Liu Bei, it will be disadvantageous to our army. We should attack him quickly." "However, Wujun is a long way from Danyang. If our army returns, Taishi Ci will get the news and either ally with Liu Bei or Zu Lang, which will be a big problem." "For now, we might as well pretend to march south to seize Kuaiji, then use the navy to support us and return by water to launch a surprise attack!" Although the ships of the Eastern Han Dynasty could not enter the deep sea, they could already travel along the coast. When Sun Ce heard this plan, he ordered his navy to go out to sea and prepare to board the ship from Kuaiji. He led more than 10,000 soldiers and horses, leaving Sun Jing and Wu Jing to guard Wu County. He went south through Quan to Haiyan, finally boarded a ship, and headed north along the coast. As a result, before they reached Dantu, they received news from the west that Liu Xun had dispatched his navy. Seeing this, Sun Ce was naturally puzzled. He thought that Liu Xun had been a coward for so long that he did not think of leading his army to resist when Liu Bei went south. Now that Liu Bei had established a firm foothold in Huainan, why did he mobilize the army at this time? Could it be that he had a sudden illness? Although he was quite smart, he was still confused by this sudden news. Then he called Zhou Yu over and asked him about his doubts: "At present, Liu Bei's army is in Huainan, stabilizing the people's hearts, and has a large number of troops. If Liu Xun does this, isn't he asking for trouble?" As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Yu's handsome face suddenly turned pale. "Brother, don't you know what Qin Zhen is planning? Liu Xun is asking for trouble by doing this."

"I'm afraid we have fallen into Qin Zhen's trap of luring the tiger away from the mountain!" "Now that Liu Xun has sent troops to Jiujiang, Lujiang will surely be taken by Liu Bei!" When Sun Ce heard this, he was stunned. What the hell? Liu Bei wants to capture Lujiang? His rebellion hasn't been put down yet, but Liu Bei is about to occupy Jiangbei? (End of this chapter)