Chapter 64: The Cause of Sun Ce's Death

  At the same time, Zhou Tai also brought news from the south, and Li Zhong hastily summoned everyone to listen.

  The news shocked everyone: Sun Jian had died in battle.

  Here is the translation:

  In April of the first year of Chuping, Yuan Shu sent Sun Jian to attack Liu Biao. The two sides clashed in a great battle at Deng County and Fancheng.

  Opposite Sun Jian was Liu Biao's general Huang Zu. As the two armies clashed, Sun Jian led by example, charging into the fray with his sword. The morale of Sun's army greatly shook, and they immediately broke through Huang Zu's formation. Unable to withstand this, Huang Zu could only gather his defeated troops and flee.

  Sun Jian took advantage of his victory to pursue and attack, crossing the Han River, and his army pressed on to Xiangyang. Liu Biao repeatedly led troops out of the city to fight him, but was defeated each time. In desperation, he could only shut the gates and defend, and sent a messenger to Huang Zu with a letter.

  After Huang Zu's defeat, he went to Liu Biao's military order and recruited soldiers everywhere to fight a decisive battle with Sun Jian.

  Both sides launched a major battle under the city of Xiangyang, and when the soldiers were in a state of anxiety, Sun Jian led his personal troops to charge into the formation. Huang Zu could not withstand it, and many soldiers died or were injured, and they could only flee to Mount Qi. It must be noted that Huang Zu was not pretending to lose, but really lost.

  Huang Zu was pursued by Sun Jian and became anxious, abandoning his soldiers and fleeing alone on horseback. Sun Jian also lost contact with his troops in the heat of the pursuit, but he was confident in his own martial arts skills and did not take Huang Zu seriously, pursuing him relentlessly.

  It so happened that Huang Zu had a defeated army stationed in the mountains, and when they heard the sound of killing from afar, they hastily lay in ambush in the dense forest, wanting to take advantage of the situation to shoot and kill the enemy.

  This army had just ambushed when they saw Huang Zu coming, Huang Zu was overjoyed to see the soldiers of this side and hastily shouted to release arrows, killing Sun Jian.

  Sun Jian's entire mind was focused on Huang Zu, and he didn't think that there were ambush troops in this place. He was caught off guard and shot to death by a hail of arrows, dying on the spot.

  Sun Jian died, and the whole army immediately fell into a state of leaderlessness, being counterattacked by Huang Zu, suffering a great defeat and returning.

  After listening to Zhou Tai's introduction, Li Zhong nodded secretly. Sun Jian was brave but lacked strategy, he was just one level lower than Lü Bu, his death in an ambush was normal, and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms also wrote it that way.

  Li Chong is now concerned about Sun Ce, the second-generation helmsman of the Sun family group.

  Zhou Tai heard that Li Chong asked about Sun Ce, shook his head and said: "Report to the lord, this humble general is really unclear, I just heard that Sun Ce led dozens of people to Jiangdong to surrender to Wu Jing, the governor of Danyang."

  "Hmm!" Li nodded his head in understanding. If history were to unfold as it should, Sun Ce would conquer Jiangdong and achieve great things, only to die young.

  Li Chong is now suspicious of two things: firstly, without the jade seal, what would Sun Ce use to exchange for troops and horses with Yuan Shu?

  Li Chong didn't know that Sun Ce had never exchanged the imperial seal for troops and horses. Sun Ce asked Yuan Shu to return his father's old troops, but Yuan Shu was reluctant to give them up, so he pushed Sun Ce away, telling him to go to his uncle Wu Jing, while he himself recruited soldiers and bought horses. With no other choice, Sun Ce left in dismay.

  Sun Ce brought his mother, accompanied by Yu Fan from Runan and his cousin Sun He, to Qu'e in Danyang. Relying on the strength of his uncle, Sun Ce soon recruited hundreds of soldiers. Unfortunately, he was attacked by Zu Lang, the Grand General of Jing County, and suffered a crushing defeat, barely escaping with his life.

  Sun Ce had no choice but to ask Yuan Shu again to return his father's old troops. To everyone's surprise, Yuan Shu suddenly showed a shred of conscience and returned Sun Jian's old troops, which ultimately led to Sun Ce dominating the eastern Jiangdong region.

  Secondly, Sun Ce would not die young, Li Zhong always felt that Sun Ce's death was not simple. The original words of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms are written like this... One day, Sun Ce led his army to hunt in the western mountains of Dantu, and chased after a large deer. As he was chasing, he saw three people standing inside the forest with guns and bows. Ce pulled the reins and asked: "Who are you?"

  He replied, "I am a soldier of the Han army. I came here to hunt deer." Just as he was about to leave, one man suddenly stabbed at his left leg with a spear. He was shocked and quickly drew his sword from his waist to chop it down, but the blade fell off, leaving only the hilt in his hand. Another man shot an arrow at him, hitting him right on the cheek. He pulled out the arrow from his face, took the bow and shot back at the person who had released the arrow, who fell as soon as he was hit. The two men charged at Sun Ce with their spears, shouting, "We are guests of Xu Gong's household, and we have come to avenge our master!" With no other weapons, Sun Ce could only use his bow to defend himself, retreating while defending. The two men fought fiercely without retreating. Sun Ce was hit by several spears, and his horse was also injured.

  At the critical moment, Cheng Pu led a group of people to arrive. Sun Ce shouted loudly: "Kill the thieves!" Cheng Pu led the crowd to rush up and chopped the guests at Xu Gong's house into minced meat. When looking at Sun Ce, blood was flowing all over his face, and he was seriously injured. He used a knife to cut off his robe, wrapped it around the wound, and rescued him back to Wu Hui to recover from his illness.

  Every time he saw this, Li Chong was puzzled in his heart. Sun Ce was a top-notch master, even if he couldn't compare to Lü Bu or Zhao Yun, the difference shouldn't be too great. Yet, he was actually injured by three unknown small soldiers. It wasn't as if they had launched a sneak attack; they had charged forward head-on. Even if he hadn't been on guard, it was still hard to justify.

  And that sword suddenly fell off, it's even more inexplicable. The soldiers under Li Chong knew to carefully inspect their blades before battle, didn't Sun Ce know this? What are Sun Ce's personal guards eating?

  Moreover, why didn't Cheng Pu and the others spare a life? Although Sun Ce shouted to kill the rebels, they could have captured them alive. Cheng Pu's swift killing seems somewhat suspicious of silencing witnesses.

  Li Chong thought that the person most suspicious was Sun Ce's brother... Sun Quan!

  Li Zhong decided that when the time was right, he would remind Sun Ce and see if he could save the life of the little overlord of Jiangdong. Although they would be enemies in the future, Li Zhong believed that the brave but impulsive Sun Ce would be easier to deal with than Sun Quan.

  The rightness or wrongness of this idea can only be verified in the future.

  Inviting everyone to have a drink together, it was considered letting Zhou Tai and the others get familiar with each other. After dinner, everyone dispersed on their own. The next morning, Li Zhong had nothing to do and his vanity rose, ordering a tour of inspection of the entire county.

  Summon Zhou Tai to put on his full suit of armor, and the personal soldiers under him also held their knives and guns. It has to be said that these water bandits looked extremely good, with broad shoulders and round waists, looking majestic and murderous. Li Chong suddenly felt that he had some capital for bullying men and women, and excitedly went out to patrol the streets...

  But Li Chong's luck wasn't very good, after circling around the county town, he didn't see any evil rascals bullying men and women, not giving Li Chong a chance to be a hero saving beauty.

  Li Chong had originally intended to play the villain, but little loli Cai Yan also came out, so Li Chong could only put aside his vicious thoughts and boast shamelessly about his political achievements, claiming that he was a paragon of virtue who kept his doors open at night and picked up everything on the road, without any shame. Little loli didn't understand what was going on and suddenly looked at Li Chong with new eyes, her big eyes shining brightly.

  After noon, Li was full of energy and returned to the county government office to take a big nap, having nothing to do with diligent governance or loving the people.