Novel scene
Ding Feng Plots the Execution of Sun Chen 丁奉定計斬孫綝
About this event
This scene is the episode named in the chapter title of Chapter 113 of the Romance, "Ding Feng settles on a plan and beheads Sun Chen," the passage in which Sun Chen, the overmighty minister of Wu, grows even more arrogant after deposing the emperor Sun Liang and installing Sun Xiu, and Sun Xiu plots with Zhang Bu and Ding Feng to seize and behead Sun Chen at the banquet of the La festival. Romance, Ch. 113 §10 · 12–13 · 17 · 20
Chen Shou recorded this in the account of Sun Chen in the Biographies of Zhuge, Teng, the Two Suns and Puyang, Records of Wu 19, in the Biographies of the Three Successor Rulers, Records of Wu 3, and in the account of Ding Feng in the Biographies of Cheng, Huang, Han, Jiang, Zhou, Chen, Dong, Gan, Ling, Xu, Pan and Ding, Records of Wu 10. Sun Chen deposed Sun Liang in the 9th month of the 3rd year of Taiping (258), and Sun Xiu beheaded him and exterminated his family to the third degree at the La gathering on the wuchen day of the 12th month of the 1st year of Yong'an, the era to which the name had been changed that same year. Records, Wu 19 §88–89 · 99–101Records, Wu 3 §18Records, Wu 10 §104–105
In the Romance
In Chapter 113 of the Romance, when Quan Duan, Tang Zi and others surrender to Wei, Sun Chen beheads every member of their families, and the sixteen-year-old Lord of Wu, Sun Liang, though clever enough to expose a eunuch's lie by the rat droppings in the honey, lives under Sun Chen's thumb. Sun Liang gives a secret edict to his maternal relative by marriage, the Gentleman of the Yellow Gate Quan Ji, intending to attack Sun Chen, and Quan Ji tells his father Quan Shang, but Quan Shang's wife, Sun Chen's sister, secretly informs Sun Chen. Sun Chen surrounds the palace, seizes and kills Quan Shang and Liu Cheng, cuts down with his own hand the Master of Writing Huan Yi, who rebukes him, and deposes Sun Liang as Prince of Kuaiji. Romance, Ch. 113 §2–10
Sun Chen brings in Sun Quan's sixth son, Sun Xiu, the Prince of Langya, and sets him up as sovereign, and five marquises from a single family command the palace troops. In the 12th month of winter, when Sun Xiu refuses his gift of beef and wine, Sun Chen drinks at Zhang Bu's house and pours out his resentment, and then has fifteen thousand picked troops go out to garrison Wuchang, handing over all the weapons in the arsenal to them. Wei Miao and Shi Shuo report that Sun Chen will soon rise in revolt. Romance, Ch. 113 §12–16
When Zhang Bu recommends the veteran general Ding Feng, a man of outstanding strategy, Ding Feng proposes summoning Sun Chen on the pretext of a banquet gathering the officials on the day of the La festival; he takes charge of matters outside with Wei Miao and Shi Shuo, and Zhang Bu takes charge inside. The next day, after a gale has blown all night, Sun Chen reluctantly enters the palace, having told his household to set fire to his mansion as a signal if anything happens; but when he is told a fire has broken out outside the palace and tries to rise, he is seized by the guards led by Zhang Bu. To Sun Chen, who begs to be banished to Jiao Province, Sun Xiu retorts by asking why he did not banish Teng Yin, Lü Ju and Wang Dun, and Zhang Bu beheads him east of the hall. Sun Xiu has Sun Chen's brothers beheaded in the marketplace and his family exterminated to the third degree, and has Sun Jun's tomb dug open and his corpse desecrated. Romance, Ch. 113 §17–21
Where the Romance differs
Who betrayed the plot: In Chapter 113 of the Romance, Sun Liang gives the secret edict to his relative by marriage Quan Ji, and when Quan Ji's father Quan Shang tells his wife, she, being Sun Chen's sister, secretly informs Sun Chen. In the account of Sun Chen in the Records, Sun Liang plotted to kill Sun Chen with Princess Sun Luban, the Minister of Ceremonies Quan Shang and the general Liu Cheng, and Sun Liang's consort, the daughter of Sun Chen's elder cousin, revealed the plot to Sun Chen. Romance, Ch. 113 §5–7Records, Wu 19 §88
The troops sent to Wuchang: In Chapter 113 of the Romance, fifteen thousand picked troops go out to garrison Wuchang. In the account of Sun Chen in the Records, when Sun Chen, through Meng Zong, asked to go out and garrison Wuchang, Sun Xiu permitted it, and ordered the more than ten thousand picked troops of the Central Camp under Sun Chen's command all to pack up, and had the weapons of the arsenal all handed over to them as well. Romance, Ch. 113 §16Records, Wu 19 §98
Written by 3KDEX (not yet reviewed) — The tags at the end of each paragraph link to the exact passage in the Records volume or Romance chapter it is based on.