Sun Jian

Sun Jian was the most aggressive commander in the coalition against Dong Zhuo, found the imperial seal in a well, and was killed in an ambush at thirty-six, leaving his sons to build the state he never held. He came from Fuchun in Wu, claimed descent from Sun Tzu, and made his name at seventeen by scattering a band of pirates on the river using a bluff, waving his sword as though directing troops who were not there. He put down the Xu Chang rebellion and served in the campaigns against the Yellow Turbans and against the Liang province revolt in the northwest, where he advised executing Dong Zhuo for insubordination and was overruled. When Dong Zhuo seized the capital and the coalition of warlords formed against him in 190, most of its members stayed in camp and drank; Sun Jian marched, was beaten once, and then defeated Dong Zhuo's generals and killed Hua Xiong, forcing the evacuation of Luoyang. Entering the burnt city, his men are said to have recovered the Imperial Seal from a well, an object his son Sun Ce later pledged to Yuan Shu in exchange for troops. He served Yuan Shu, who sent him against Liu Biao of Jing province in 191; scouting ahead near Xiangyang with a small escort, he was killed by an arrow or a rockfall from Liu Biao's officer Huang Zu, the accounts differ. He was posthumously honoured as Emperor Wulie when his younger son Sun Quan declared the state of Wu in 229. He held office as governor of Changsha before the coalition formed. His wife, Lady Wu, outlived him and held the family's authority during his sons' minority. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms gives the killing of Hua Xiong to Guan Yu instead, one of the clearest cases where the novel takes a real man's achievement and hands it to a more famous character.

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