Zhong Hui 鍾會

The youngest son of the Grand Tutor Zhong Yao, he was clever and precocious from childhood. Jiang Ji, General of the Central Protecting Army (zhong hujun), who had written a treatise saying that one could know a person by looking into his pupils, saw Zhong Hui at the age of five and said he was no ordinary person. As an adult he studied widely, mastered the logic of names and principles (mingli), and won renown by studying day and night; at about twenty he became known alongside Wang Bi of Shanyang. Records, Wei 28 §94 · 138

In the Zhengshi era he became Gentleman of the Palace Library, then moved to Attendant Gentleman of the Secretariat, and when the Duke of Gaogui Village took the throne he became Marquis Within the Passes. When Guanqiu Jian rebelled, he accompanied Sima Shi and handled confidential matters. When Sima Shi died at Xuchang, the palace issued an edict keeping Sima Zhao at Xuchang and ordering only the Master of Writing Fu Gu to lead the army back. Zhong Hui plotted with Fu Gu to have him submit a memorial, then promptly returned with Sima Zhao to the south of the Luo River. Sima Zhao became General-in-Chief and assisted in the government, and Zhong Hui became Gentleman of the Yellow Gate and was enfeoffed as Marquis of Dongwu Village. Records, Wei 28 §95–97

In the 2nd year of Ganlu (257), when Zhuge Dan was to be summoned as Minister of Works, Zhong Hui, who was then in mourning, judged that Zhuge Dan would not obey the order and informed Sima Zhao. When Zhuge Dan rebelled, Zhong Hui again went along to Shouchun. Quan Yi of Wu and others had entered the city to rescue Zhuge Dan, and Zhong Hui forged a letter in the names of Quan Yi's nephews Quan Hui and Quan Yi, who had come over to Wei, reporting that the Wu court was so angry that it meant to put all the generals' families to death. Frightened, Quan Yi and the others opened the east city gate and surrendered, and the city fell apart. Most of the stratagems in taking Shouchun were Zhong Hui's, so people of the time called him Zifang. Records, Wei 28 §98–100

When the army returned he firmly declined the post of Minister Coachman and the rank of Marquis of Chen, and took charge of records in the office of the General-in-Chief, becoming Sima Zhao's trusted confidant. After he moved to Colonel-Director of Retainers, even while serving in an outer office, there was nothing in the gains and losses of the government of the day, or in the granting and withholding of favor, in which he was not involved, and the execution of Ji Kang and others was all Zhong Hui's scheme. Records, Wei 28 §100–101

When Sima Zhao wanted to conquer Shu, only Zhong Hui thought that Shu could be taken, and the two examined the terrain and the situation together. In the winter of the 3rd year of Jingyuan (262) he became General Who Guards the West, with the Tally (jiajie), and Area Commander of all military affairs in Guanzhong, while Sima Zhao had the various provinces build ships, pretending that he meant to attack Wu. When Shao Ti, Clerk of the Western Bureau, advised sending someone else because Zhong Hui was a man alone with nothing to tie him down, Sima Zhao replied that once Shu was destroyed, neither the people of the fallen state nor the soldiers of the Central Plains, who would think only of going home, would side with him. Records, Wei 28 §102 · 131–133

In the autumn of the 4th year of Jingyuan (263), Deng Ai and Zhuge Xu, each with more than 30,000 men, were sent to pin down Jiang Wei and cut off his way back, while Zhong Hui, with more than 100,000, entered by separate routes through the Xie Valley and the Luo Valley. When a bridge being repaired by the Gate General Xu Yi gave way and a horse's hoof sank through, Zhong Hui beheaded him even though he was the son of Xu Chu, and all the armies trembled. He had Hancheng and Lecheng besieged, went out through the Yang'an Pass, offered sacrifices at the shrine and tomb of Zhuge Liang, and forbade the cutting of fodder around the tomb. When Hu Lie took Guancheng, Jiang Wei held Jiange together with Zhang Yi and Liao Hua, and Zhong Hui sent a proclamation to Shu urging surrender. Records, Wei 28 §103–105Records, Shu 5 §43

Wanting to monopolize military command, Zhong Hui secretly reported that Zhuge Xu was too timid to advance, and had him recalled in a prisoner's cart. But he attacked Jiange without success, sent a letter to Jiang Wei that went unanswered, and, with the supply lines stretched too far, discussed withdrawing. Meanwhile Deng Ai came through a byway from Yinping and beheaded Zhuge Zhan at Mianzhu, and after Liu Shan surrendered to Deng Ai, Jiang Wei, following an imperial order, came to Zhong Hui at Fu County and surrendered. Records, Wei 28 §114–115Records, Shu 14 §46–47

Zhong Hui forbade his soldiers to plunder and humbled himself to receive the officials of Shu. With Jiang Wei he rode in the same carriage when going out and sat on the same mat when sitting, and he told his Chief Clerk Du Yu that if Boyue were compared with the famous gentlemen of the Central Plains, neither Gongxiu nor Taichu could surpass him. In the 12th month, an edict made him Minister over the Masses, raised him to county marquis with an additional fief of 10,000 households, and enfeoffed two of his sons as village marquises. Records, Wei 28 §119–120Records, Shu 14 §48

Harboring other ambitions, Zhong Hui secretly reported that Deng Ai was acting on his own authority in the emperor's name and showed signs of rebellion, and Deng Ai was seized by the Army Supervisor Wei Guan and placed in a prisoner's cart. Believing that his achievements and fame surpassed all others and that he could no longer serve beneath anyone, Zhong Hui planned to have Jiang Wei lead the Shu troops out through the Xie Valley and then, from Chang'an, divide his forces by water and by land to meet at Luoyang. But when he received a letter from Sima Zhao saying that he was sending Jia Chong to the Xie Valley and would himself lead 100,000 men to garrison Chang'an, Zhong Hui decided to act at once, saying that if he succeeded he would win the realm, and if he failed he could still hold Shu-Han and would not fall short of being a Liu Bei. Records, Wei 28 §121–124

Arriving at Chengdu on the 15th day of the 1st month of the 5th year of Jingyuan (264), Zhong Hui summoned the generals and the former officials of Shu the next day, held mourning rites for the Empress Dowager in the court hall of Shu, and displayed a forged testamentary edict of the Empress Dowager ordering him to depose Sima Zhao. He then confined the officials in government buildings. When Qiu Jian, Commander of the Headquarters Guard, took pity on his former superior Hu Lie and had his personal soldiers let in, Hu Lie spread word that Zhong Hui had prepared a great pit and white clubs to beat the soldiers outside to death. Even when urged to kill everyone of the rank of gate and cavalry commander and above, Zhong Hui hesitated. Records, Wei 28 §124–126

At noon on the 18th, Hu Lie's troops marched out beating drums together with Hu Lie's son, and all the armies rushed toward the city. Zhong Hui, who was handing out armor and weapons to Jiang Wei, asked what to do, and Jiang Wei said they had only to strike them. Jiang Wei killed five or six men, but the crowd cut him down and then vied to kill Zhong Hui; Zhong Hui was forty years old. His nephew Zhong Yong died with him, but Sima Zhao, citing the merits of Zhong Yao and Zhong Hui's elder brother Zhong Yu, had his nephews, the brothers Zhong Jun and Zhong Chan, pardoned. Records, Wei 28 §127–130

In his assessment, Chen Shou named him together with Wang Ling, Guanqiu Jian and Zhuge Dan, and wrote that Zhong Hui was refined and skilled in strategy and calculation, but that all of them, ambitious in heart and misguided in aim, failed to foresee disaster, so that upheaval sprang from them like a released crossbow and their clans were crushed into the earth. Records, Wei 28 §140