A long overdue farewell to Dongwu’s military genius, who had the misfortune of being alive in the time of Zhuge Liang. Or at least, that’s how the novel tells it.

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Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. This is a supplemental episode.

It’s been awhile since I had time to put together a supplemental episode, so this is a long overdue farewell to Zhou Yu, the brilliant but not-quite-brilliant-enough Dongwu commander who, in the novel, was foiled time and again by Zhuge Liang, to the point where he became so aggravated that he died in episode 70. In this episode, we’ll delve into the differences between the real and fictional Zhou Yu, and as we will see, the real-life Zhou Yu may have a good case for a defamation suit against Luo (2) Guanzhong (3,4), the author of the novel.

 

The novel actually stays fairly true to reality for the part of Zhou Yu’s life leading up to the Battle of Red Cliff. During his youth, he became good friends with Sun Ce, the man who would go on to conquer much of the Southlands. The two became acquainted when Sun Ce’s father, Sun Jian, relocated his family to Zhou Yu’s hometown before going off to join the coalition against Dong Zhuo. Zhou Yu’s family was a distinguished one, having served key positions in the government for two generations. When Sun Jian’s family moved into town, Zhou Yu graciously allowed them to stay in his residence, and he and Sun Ce became very tight.

Later on, Zhou Yu’s uncle was appointed the governor of Danyang (1,2), and Zhou Yu followed him there, while Sun Ce served under Yuan Shu after his father was killed. Like in the novel, when Sun Ce decided to make his play for the Southlands and conquer himself a little piece of the empire, Zhou Yu rallied to his banner and helped him achieve victory.

But in the novel, we don’t really get any discussion of what Zhou Yu did after Sun Ce took over the Southlands. One might assume he just stayed on with Sun Ce, but this was not so. He actually returned to his uncle, at the behest of Sun Ce, who told Zhou Yu that he had plenty enough manpower to finish mop-up duties in the Southlands and that Zhou Yu should go back to hold down the fort at Danyang.

Not long after this, though, Yuan Shu sent his younger brother to replace Zhou Yu’s uncle as the governor of Danyang, and Zhou Yu and his uncle moved to Shochun (4,1), Yuan Shu’s seat of power. That kind of left Zhou Yu without a gig. Yuan Shu wanted to bring Zhou Yu into his service, but Zhou Yu deduced, correctly, that Yuan Shu wasn’t going to amount to anything. So Zhou Yu simply asked Yuan Shu to allow him to serve as a mere county head in a place called Juchao (1,2).

Yuan Shu granted this request, but he would soon regret it, because Zhou Yu had no intention of staying in Juchao (1,2). He just wanted permission to go there because it was a convenient place to hop across the Yangzi (2,3) River and enter the territory of Dongwu, which he did in 198 and was greeted personally by Sun Ce. Sun Ce appointed him to a key post and gave him 2,000 men and 50 horses.

At this time, Zhou Yu was just 24, and the people of Dongwu took to calling him Zhou Lang (2), which means the Young Zhou, or Zhou the Youth. This nickname, coined in adoration, would stick with Zhou Yu at least in the novel. But it would often come to be used dismissively, as a way to mock Zhou Yu as inexperienced.

In the year 200, just two years after Zhou Yu joined Sun Ce, Sun Ce died from wounds he suffered in an assassination attempt, but we could see Zhou Yu had already achieved a high standing in Dongwu at this point by t...