Sun Hao 孫皓

Sun Hao was also named Pengzu, with the courtesy name Haozong. His mother, Lady He, was a woman whom Sun Quan had given to his son Sun He, and when she bore Sun Hao, Sun Quan was delighted and named him Pengzu. When Sun Xiu took the throne, Sun Hao was enfeoffed as Marquis of Wucheng and went to his fief. Jing Yang, a commoner of Xihu, read his physiognomy and said he would become greatly honored; Sun Hao was secretly pleased but did not dare let it show. Records, Wu 3 §48Records, Wu 5 §35

When Sun Xiu died, Shu had just fallen and Jiaozhi had broken away, and the realm, gripped by fear, wanted a sovereign of mature years. Wan Yu, Left Army Director (zuo dianjun), who had once been Prefect of Wucheng, repeatedly told the Chancellor Puyang Xing and the General of the Left Zhang Bu that Sun Hao's talent and judgment were clear and decisive, of the same kind as Prince Huan of Changsha (Sun Ce). The two persuaded Sun Xiu's consort, Empress Dowager Zhu, who said that it would be enough if the state of Wu suffered no loss and the ancestral temple had someone to rely on. Thus Sun Hao took the throne at the age of twenty-three, in the 1st year of Xianxi of Wei (264). Records, Wu 3 §48–49

In the 1st year of Yuanxing (264) he made Shi Ji and Ding Feng Grand Marshals of the Left and Right, and while demoting Empress Dowager Zhu to Empress Jing, he posthumously named his father Sun He Emperor Wen and elevated his mother, Lady He, to Empress Dowager. But once he had attained his ambition he became coarse and arrogant, with many things he would not tolerate, and fond of wine and women, so that high and low alike were disappointed. When Puyang Xing and Zhang Bu privately regretted what they had done, someone denounced them, and in the 11th month Sun Hao put the two to death. Records, Wu 3 §50–51

In the 1st year of Ganlu (265) he sent Xu Shao and Sun Yu, who had been dispatched by Emperor Wen of Jin, then Chancellor of State of Wei, back with a reply; but when someone reported that Xu Shao had praised the Central States, he recalled him from Ruxu and had him killed. In the 7th month of that year he hounded Empress Jing, Lady Zhu, to death; her funeral was held not in the main hall but in a small house in the park, so people knew she had not died of illness. He also sent Sun Xiu's four sons to the small city of Wu and then had the two eldest pursued and killed. In the 9th month, on a memorial from Bu Chan, Area Commander of Xiling, he moved the capital to Wuchang, and in the 12th month of the following year, the 1st year of Baoding (266), he returned to Jianye. In the 2nd year of Baoding (267) he built the Xianming Palace and moved into it. Records, Wu 3 §52–54 · 58–59

In the 1st year of Baoding, when Ding Zhong proposed a surprise attack on Jin's Yiyang, Lu Kai said that the powerful enemy had just annexed Ba and Shu and that one should not count on luck, while Liu Zuan proposed sending spies to observe the situation. Sun Hao privately accepted Liu Zuan's advice but did not act on it because Shu had only just been pacified; nevertheless he finally broke off relations himself. Campaigns against Jiaozhi followed, and in the 3rd year of Jianheng (271) Yu Si and Tao Huang crushed Jiaozhi, and Jiuzhen and Rinan returned to allegiance. On the last day of the first month of that same year he raised a great army and set out for Huali, taking even his mother and his consorts and concubines, but turned back when Hua He, Director of the Eastern Pavilion (Dongguan), and others remonstrated firmly. Records, Wu 3 §55–57 · 60–61 · 63

In the 1st year of Fenghuang (272), when Bu Chan, Area Commander of Xiling, refused a summons and surrendered to Jin, Sun Hao sent Lu Kang to capture him and exterminated the three kindreds of several dozen people who had conspired with him. That year the Right Chancellor Wan Yu was reprimanded and died of anxiety, and He Ding was executed when his wicked conduct came to light. The following year Chen Sheng, General of the Household in charge of Markets, who had punished by law a servant sent out by Sun Hao's favorite concubine, was put to death on the pretext of another matter by having his head cut off with a red-hot saw. Records, Wu 3 §64–66

He often relied on auspicious omens as well. Because silver was said to have been found in the ground, he changed the era name to Tiance; because Lake Linping was said to have opened again and a stone inscribed with the characters 'Emperor' had been found, he changed it to Tianxi; and declaring the characters on a rock of Mount Liyang and the stone chamber of Mount Yangxian to be great omens, he had the feng and shan sacrifices performed at Mount Guo. In the 3rd year of Tianji (279), after the Eastern Pavilion consulted its charts, the plants that had grown at the houses of craftsmen were named the magic fungus and the Pinglü plant, and the owners of those houses were made Gentleman Attendant of the Fungus and Gentleman of the Pinglü Plant. Records, Wu 3 §69–71 · 77

At every banquet Sun Hao made his ministers thoroughly drunk and had ten Gentlemen of the Yellow Gate, who were given no wine, watch for faults, treating even a disrespectful glance or a slip of the tongue as a crime. Palace women who displeased him were killed and their bodies sent down the water channeled into the palace, and he would sometimes flay people's faces or gouge out their eyes. The flatterer Cen Hun rose to the rank of the Nine Ministers and launched building works and corvée labor. Chen Shou wrote that because of this, high and low became estranged and no one would exert himself for Sun Hao. Records, Wu 3 §79–80

In the winter of the 3rd year of Tianji (279), Jin sent Sima Zhou, Wang Hun, Wang Rong, Hu Fen and Du Yu by several routes and had Wang Jun and Tang Bin sail down the river. In the 4th year of Tianji (280) the Wu forces collapsed like crumbling earth wherever Wang Jun and Tang Bin arrived, and the Chancellor Zhang Ti was also killed by Wang Hun. On the bingyin day of the 3rd month several hundred of his close attendants knocked their heads on the ground begging him to kill Cen Hun, and Sun Hao, frightened and bewildered, complied. When Tao Jun returned from Wuchang and proposed fighting from large ships with 20,000 troops, Sun Hao gave him the insignia of command, but on the night before departure his men all ran away. Records, Wu 3 §78 · 81–83

Following the plan of Xue Ying, Hu Chong and others, Sun Hao sent envoys to Wang Jun, Sima Zhou and Wang Hun with a letter saying that he had failed to understand the Mandate of Heaven, and had the Minister of Ceremonies Zhang Kui and others present his seal and ribbon and beg for his life. On the renshen day Wang Jun arrived first and accepted the surrender; he untied Sun Hao's bonds, burned the coffin and received him in audience. Sun Hao moved west with his whole family and reached Luoyang in the 5th month of the 1st year of Taikang (280), and Jin, in keeping with its earlier edict promising not to put him to death, granted him the title Marquis Guiming along with land, grain, money and silk. Sun Hao died at Luoyang in the 5th year of Taikang (284). Records, Wu 3 §83–86

In his assessment, Chen Shou said that those killed or banished through Sun Hao's excessive punishments were beyond counting, so that his ministers could not plan in the morning for the evening. He wrote that Sun Hao was vicious and obstinate, put loyal remonstrators to death and promoted flatterers, oppressed his people and indulged in every extravagance, so that he ought to have been cut in two at the waist and neck to atone to the people; yet he received an edict sparing his life and was further favored with the title Marquis Guiming, a grace excessively generous. Records, Wu 3 §88–90