[Live Comment Barrage]
Cloud_Strife_97: Farewell, Second Lord!
History_Buff_666: Never forget the eternal Guan Gong. Farewell, Teacher Lu.
Pwnage_King: One cup of warm wine to slay the foe, one scroll of the Spring and Autumn Annals to prove loyalty. The Crescent Blade of valor, the lone horse traveling a thousand miles for his brother. This is a tragedy worth weeping for.
Iron_Soul_Reaper: This reminds me of Marshal Chen's calligraphy: "I depart for the Springs to summon my old troops; with a hundred thousand banners, I shall slay the King of Hell!"
Viper_Strike_00: Even at the dead end, he stood with his hands behind his back, proud as ever. No regrets for the Peach Garden oath. Truly a man of pure loyalty and righteousness.
The icy coldness on Guan Yu's face finally softened.
From betrayal to ambush, he had known this ending was coming. He had prepared himself long ago.
And yet—even so—watching the moment of his death replayed on the light screen still stirred something deep within him.
The old actor's monologue was steady, restrained, heavy in all the right places.
The words drifting across the screen carried grief, admiration, fury.
And then—
Guan Yu understood.
Even after a thousand years, his deeds were still praised.
Seventeen hundred years later, people still cried for him.
As a defeated general, his only regret was dragging his son, Guan Ping, into death alongside him.
Beyond that?
What regret could he, Guan Yunchang—an old soldier—possibly have left?
He glanced at the generals around him. Their eyes were full of envy, sorrow, awe.
Guan Yu laughed.
Loud, unrestrained laughter.
The frost finally vanished from his face.
[Wen Mang — Voiceover]
Now, take a step back.
Look at the Battle of Jing–Xiang as a whole.
Guan Yu:
Repelled Yue Jin.
Fought off Wen Pin.
Overcame Cao Ren.
Destroyed Yu Jin.
Suppressed Xu Huang.
Beheaded Pang De.
At his peak, he dragged one hundred and fifty thousand enemy troops into a siege around himself.
And then?
Lü Meng struck from behind.
Lu Xun smiled and flattered his way through deception.
Sun Quan threw every resource he had into a coordinated conspiracy.
The "Imperial Uncle" Mi Fang stabbed him in the back.
Comrades of thirty years opened the city gates.
With one commandery.
With thirty thousand men.
Guan Yu fought the world.
And here—the fire of the Great Han was extinguished.
A single hand could not stop the collapse of the heavens.
"These descendants really know how to write," Zhang Fei said, impressed. "I like it!"
"If only this battle… hadn't changed at that moment…" Zhao Yun shook his head. He couldn't even bring himself to properly judge Sun Wu.
Huang Zhong spoke calmly. "If nothing had changed, with thirty thousand naval troops relying on the Han River—even if Cao the Traitor brought one hundred and fifty thousand men, we would not have feared him."
Coming from Huang Zhong, this wasn't nostalgia.
It was professional judgment.
As for the phrase fighting the world—
Everyone tactfully ignored it.
They could all see Liu Bei's face turning dark.
[Wen Mang — Voiceover]
But history isn't just tragedy.
It's diagnosis.
As they say—problems must be viewed dialectically.
Chairman Mao once famously said:
"Make your friends many. Make your enemies few."
And even earlier, in 1925, he asked plainly:
"Who are our friends?
Who are our enemies?"
That question cuts straight to Shu-Han's core mistake.
Liu Bei and Kongming believed Sun Quan was an ally.
Sun Wu believed Liu Bei was simply too dangerous to tolerate.
That mismatch killed Guan Yu.
Zhuge Liang took out a sheet of Zhuge paper and carefully copied down the two sentences.
Liu Bei leaned in, reading slowly. He shook his head in awe.
"No ornate language. No decoration. Yet the meaning is crystal clear. The deeper one thinks, the more it feels as though the Great Dao itself is contained within."
"Perhaps it is the distance of more than a thousand years," Kongming said thoughtfully. "Food, clothing, speech, behavior—the future differs greatly from our time."
As he spoke, an image surfaced in his mind: crawfish floating in red oil.
…He really wanted to try them.
"Perhaps it is more than that," Liu Bei murmured. The answer felt close—so close—yet he couldn't quite grasp it.
Huang Yueying leaned over, read the lines, and sighed.
"This person speaks with the air of the High Ancestor—yet surpasses him."
The people of Han always remembered that the High Ancestor rose through strategists and fierce generals alike. The Chu–Han Contention itself was the truest annotation of these words.
"The words sound simple," Kongming continued,
"but how difficult they are to carry out."
Xu Huang appeared in his thoughts.
Old friendship used as bait.
The strike delivered without hesitation.
On this point, Xu Huang had seen more clearly than Yunchang.
The others stared at the rhetorical question that followed, still confused.
Ma Liang, just returned, asked softly, "Military Counselor… does the Marquis of Sun count as a friend?"
"Sometimes," Kongming replied.
After a pause—
"Sometimes not."
[Wen Mang — Voiceover]
There's also a modern theory that gets… interesting.
Some historians argue Sun Quan suffered from cognitive dissonance.
In simple terms?
His mind fought itself.
"A patient of what?" Jiang Wan doubted his ears.
Zhang Fei slammed the table. "I told you! That Marquis of Sun definitely has a disease!"
"A sickness of the mind?" Kongming frowned. Since the light curtain appeared, his sense of ignorance felt increasingly aggressive.
"Copy the next section separately," he ordered.
"Send it to Divine Physician Zhang Zhongjing."
…And if possible, also include that Exploitation of the Works of Nature.
Kongming sighed inwardly.
[Wen Mang — Voiceover]
Sun Quan wasn't born small.
He had ambition.
But Sun Ce saw through him early.
When entrusting the state, Sun Ce spoke bluntly:
"In contending for the world, you are not my equal.
In defending Jiangdong—I am not yours."
Before dying, he told Zhang Zhao:
"If he is not capable, you take over.
If that fails—surrender and return home to Huai-Si."
For the young Sun Quan, this was a blow to the head.
Worse still, Sun Ce's old veterans never stopped treating him like a junior placeholder.
Later, Zhu Baba—the emperor with the most legitimate rise—criticized Sun Quan sharply:
"Overly intimate with his subordinates, playful without restraint.
By trivializing ruler and minister, he disgraced his father's legacy and lost sovereign decorum."
The resentment shows clearly in what followed.
After proclaiming himself Emperor, Sun Quan posthumously granted Sun Ce the title:
Marquis Huan of Changsha.
Not Emperor.
Not King.
Just enough to honor.
Just little enough to diminish.
Without the foreign script, everyone understood.
"Loss of ruler–minister decorum," Kongming summarized quietly.
"Lacking sovereign majesty."
As for the love and hatred within the Sun family, no one wished to comment openly—though inwardly, they agreed. Sun Ce's valor was known to all. Granting him such a title would only make later generations laugh.
"Could A-Dou also be a… that-kind-of patient?" Zhang Fei suddenly shouted in alarm. "Brother, wasn't your deathbed entrustment to Kongming basically the same as Sun Ce's?"
Liu Bei nearly choked.
"That was private! I didn't say it in front of A-Dou!"
"You say private," Zhang Fei muttered,
"but people a thousand years later still know."
Liu Bei ignored him.
What bothered him was another phrase:
Most legitimate rise to power.
Was slaying the white snake and overthrowing Qin not legitimate enough?
At the same time, he couldn't help thinking that this later Emperor's name sounded like a child's nickname.
[Wen Mang — Voiceover]
Sun Wu's leadership structure only deepened the problem.
Zhou Yu and Lu Su wanted Sun Quan to swallow the world.
Lü Meng and Lu Xun wanted only one thing:
Protect Jiangdong.
These two extremes tore Sun Quan in half.
Ming and Qing historians didn't hold back:
"Repeatedly treacherous and dangerous, profit-seeking,
using softness to overcome strength, weaving dark schemes."
"The man who wished to preserve Jiangdong but dared not unify the world—that was Sun Quan.
The man who dared not unify the world but used grand words to cover himself—that was also Sun Quan."
Pulled between Swallowing the World and Protecting Jiangdong, Sun Quan became what history remembers.
Liu Bei exhaled slowly.
"…Did the Marquis of Sun truly offend everyone?"
Jiang Wan asked softly, "Military Counselor… does that mean as long as Lu Su lived, Sun Wu was a friend?"
Kongming smiled.
He did not answer.
Zhang Fei's laughter shook the roof beams. He tossed a bean into his mouth and crunched loudly.
"These future people," he said, delighted.
"They really know how to talk."