Sun Hao, the last emperor of Eastern Wu, was once regarded as a Ming monarch, but his governance of the country was in trouble. A few months before the total collapse, the prelude to demise had already begun.
In order to cater to Sun Hao's preferences, the East Wu up and down began to make auspicious rui, the first year of the Cullinan, the local report that there is a mountain stone in Liyang Mountain, its texture is natural into words, it is said that it is "Chu Kyushu Zhu, Wu Kyushu Capital, Yangzhou Shi, as the Son of Heaven, the fourth reign, the beginning of peace".
Then he found a hollow stone more than ten zhang long in Wuxingyang Xian Mountain, which was also said to be auspicious. These were all forgeries, but Sun Hao didn't care, he thought that these were instructions from the heavens, and the change of the Yuan Heavenly Era could correspond to this auspicious omen.
However, he didn't realize that this Tianji was the last era of Soochow. Sun Hao's degree of deafness has reached the point of no return, he is completely confused by false prosperity, and he has no clear understanding of the impending catastrophe.
According to the record of "Jiangbiao Biography", once Sun Hao was deceived by the auspicious rui concocted by his subordinates, and he was ecstatic: "From the emperor to catch the fourth generation of Gu, the Lord of Taiping, who is not alone!" ”
It can be seen that his arrogance has reached the point of no return. Sun Hao regarded any rumors that were detrimental to his rule as a beast of prey, as it would shatter his dreams.
According to the record of "Spring and Autumn of the Han Dynasty", there was a proverb circulating in Eastern Wu at that time, saying, "The defeat of Wu will lead to the rise of southern descendants, and the grandson of Wu will also die." There are two key words in this proverb, one is the southern descendant, and the other is the grandson.
Among them, the southern descent basically refers to the Jiaoguang area. So what does "Gongsun" refer to? It turned out that in addition to the four major families of Gu, Lu, Zhu, and Zhang in Jiangdong, there were eight second-class scholars.
Lu Ji wrote in "Wu Xing": "The eight clans are not extravagant, and the four surnames are real-name families." Therefore, these families are collectively known as the four surnames and eight clans. According to the annotations made by the Tang Dynasty scholar Li Shan for the "Selected Writings of Zhaoming", it can be known that these eight clans are Chen, Huan, Lü, Dou, Gongsun, Sima, Xu, and Fu, so although the Gongsun clan is not prominent in the court, it is also an influential local family.
After hearing this proverb, Sun Hao felt a little panicked, and he moved all the people surnamed Gongsun to Guangzhou in the civil and military **, not letting them stay along the Yangtze River.
However, Sun Hao misunderstood the true meaning of the proverb "Gongsun", and although the Gongsun clan was not prominent in the court, it was also an influential local family.
There are many people in the Gongsun clan who served in the Dongwu River Defense Army, and once they defected to the Jin State and became the leading party, it would be a big deal. Sun Hao drove the Gongsun family to Guangzhou, and waited until they launched a rebellion to wipe them out.
However, he did not realize that Jiaoguang Erzhou was a very unstable area for Soochow, and the imperial court's control over the area was very limited. Therefore, for the new turmoil in the two prefectures of Jiaoguang, Soochow was psychologically prepared, and at the same time formulated a corresponding plan, that is, the division of Jiaoguang.
Tao Huang once said that the two states are like each other's lips and teeth, and if one state has something, the other state can immediately go to support. Faced with the impending crisis, Sun Hao ordered an inventory of the Canton hukou to identify those who might rebel.
However, he did not anticipate that his "precautionary measures" would instead become the trigger for unrest. In the summer of the third year of Tianji (279), a general named Guo Ma used this as an excuse to incite the local military and civilians in Guangzhou to rebel, triggering the Second Lingnan Rebellion.
When Sun Hao learned the news, he fell into deep confusion. Didn't you say "the grandson of the dead Wu"? What does this have to do with the people of the Gongsun family? He began to wonder if his judgment had been completely wrong.
At this moment, he felt unprecedented fear, and he had a premonition that this time the country might really be destroyed, so there was a wail of "this day is also dead". Sun Hao's hunch was finally confirmed, because the Guoma Rebellion was not a simple local rebellion, and it was most likely related to the Jin Kingdom.
According to the Book of Jin, after Yang Ji was defeated, he and his generals were captured by Tao Huang. Among these people, there are hard bones like Mao Jiong who refuse to give in to death, and of course there are also people who endure humiliation and steal life.
And Meng Gan, Fu Neng, and Li Song are like this. Sun Hao originally wanted to execute these generals, but someone persuaded him: "These people are just the things that eat the king and are loyal to the king."
Both sides are their own masters, so there is no need to be too embarrassed, just let them make up for their mistakes. When Sun Hao heard this, he moved them to Linhai County (in present-day southern Zhejiang and northern Fujian) as a sign of leniency.
originally thought that he could pick up a life and live the rest of his life with peace of mind, but Meng Gan was unwilling. Over the years, he served the Jin Kingdom and fought in the wilderness, in order to have a good future.
Therefore, such an ending is naturally not what he wants. He vowed to get rid of Wu and return to Jin. After thinking about it, Meng Gan came up with a good idea. As we all know, Zhuge Liang once invented the Yuan Rong crossbow, which made Cao Wei very jealous.
Such a sharp weapon of the country was obviously what Dongwu longed for, but after the fall of Shu Han, the craftsmen who knew how to make it in China all descended to the Jin Kingdom, and Dongwu still could not explore the mystery of this powerful weapon.
So, Meng Gan seized the mind of Dongwu, claiming that he knew Yuan Rong *** When Sun Hao summoned him to go to the production, Meng Gan took the opportunity to flee and go to Luoyang, realizing his long-cherished wish to return to Jin.
Meng Gan wrote a letter stating the great plan to defeat Wu, and Sima Yan praised him and named him the Taishou of Rinan, although this was a false position of a remote leader, but it also showed the official affirmation of him.
The reason why Meng Gan's "plan to defeat Wu" was recognized may be because he proposed some strange plans, and these strategies involved Guo Ma. Meng Gan had had a series of battles with the father and son, so they must have understood each other.
As the generals of Yu Yun, Guo Ma and Meng Gan should be no strangers, and Meng Gan is likely to find that Guo Ma is restless and can fight for him in contact, so he will offer advice to use Guo Ma as a breakthrough to defeat Wu.
Although the Guoma Rebellion took place in the summer, and although the Battle of Jin and Wu took place in November, the large-scale mobilization of troops was certainly not a simple matter and required a long period of preparation, so the two could also correspond to each other in terms of time.
This may mean that there is a shadow of the Jin State behind the Guoma Rebellion, and it may be a conspiracy against Eastern Wu. While creating turmoil in the southern frontier of Soochow, attracting the attention of Soochow can achieve the goal of "striking the south and attacking the north".
Judging from the situation of the Jiaoguang battlefield, the strategy of dividing and ruling the Eastern Wu and Jiaoguang and relying on each other seems to have been successful, when Sun Hao ordered Teng Yu to be the general of Zhennan, the fake festival and the pastor of Guangzhou, and led 10,000 troops to attack from the East Road; Tao Huang commanded the troops of Jiaozhou and Hepu and Yulin counties to march from the west, and the two sides attacked from the east and west, and fought against Guo and Ma together.
However, Sun Hao may still feel that this is not safe enough, so he ordered Xu Ling to lead 7,000 troops to help in the war.
Jingkou, an important stronghold of Sun Wujiang's defense, was the goal of Cao Wei's three southern expeditions, which shows its strategic value. It stands to reason that the Jingkou garrison was the core of Sun Wu's national defense, but the Guangzhou Rebellion caused serious damage to the defense layout of Eastern Wu, which had a profound impact on the overall situation.
From a strategic point of view, the Jin State was the final winner, and although Soochow had a local advantage, it lost in the overall situation. According to the Book of Jin, Du Yu once pointed out that the defense forces of the Eastern Wu River were seriously insufficient, and it was necessary to make every effort to keep the east of Xiakou to delay the war, and it was impossible to transfer more troops to the west.
In the leap month of the third year of the Tianji, the defense of the Dongwu River began to be stretched, which is close to the time of the Guoma Rebellion, is it purely a coincidence? No, Sun Hao himself bears great responsibility for his erroneous deployment.
He once divided the kings on a large scale, and more than a quarter of his precious troops were distributed to his sons, which had serious consequences for national defense. At first, Lu Kang was very worried about this, and wrote a letter requesting an increase in troops to 80,000, but Sun Hao did not respond.
Lu Kang unfortunately passed away, and his worries finally came true. Imagine, if Sun Hao could reinforce these more than 60,000 people to Jingzhou, what would happen to the war situation? "Gongsun" actually refers to Sun Hao's sons, although they have 60,000 troops, but they are located in various places, unable to form an effective command, and failed to play a role when the country is destroyed, but wastes valuable mobile forces.
There is a saying in the art of war: "everything is all-encompassing", the Yangtze River defense line of Eastern Wu is like this, to be able to have the power of a battle when the Jin State launches a general attack, it is necessary to deploy the vast majority of troops on the defense line along the river, but Eastern Wu is facing the problem of Guo Ma Rebellion and the kings doing nothing, and the death of Lu Kang also exacerbated the difficulties.
Now, the war machine of the Western Jin Empire has been activated, and whether the Sun Wu regime can escape this catastrophe is about to be revealed.