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Lu Meng (SGZ Biography)

translated by Battleroyale

LuMeng (178 A.D. – 219 A.D.) styled ZhiMing, hailed from Ru Nan, Fu Bei. Coming from a poor family and having lost his father since young, LuMeng had to relied on his sister’s husband DengDang whenever the war spread to his village. DengDang was actually SunCe’s subordinate. When LuMeng was 15-16 years old, he secretly followed the army (of SunCe) to battle. On knowing that, DengDang was greatly shocked and asked him to return. LuMeng refused and his mother wanted to punish him. However LuMeng said that since his family was poor, the only way to succeed in life was to take risk and he hoped to make a name for himself in the battlefield. Finally, his mother relented and LuMeng served officially under DengDang. In the army, LuMeng was constantly ridiculed and belittled by a certain junior officer. Finally, LuMeng got tired of his bullying ways and killed the officer. Following that, he escaped but eventually handed himself over to SunCe. Surprisingly, SunCe was very impressed with LuMeng’s courage and instead of punishing him, LuMeng was promoted to be a Shi Wei (bodyguard for the commander or ruler). While at it, LuMeng showed utmost respect to officials like ZhangZhao and displayed an exceptional amount of talent beyond that of an ordinary soldier. Several years later, DengDang passed away and LuMeng was recommended by ZhangZhao to take over DengDang’s post (which makes him a general).

After SunCe passed away, SunQuan assumed the helm of leadership for the forces in Jiang Dong. SunQuan was fond of reorganizing his troops by combining those poorer equipped units who were led by younger, inexperienced generals with units who were led by an experienced or older general. In order to avoid that from happening to his own unit, LuMeng equipped his troops with new weaponry and armors before a particular military inspection. As a result, SunQuan was very impressed with the state of LuMeng’s unit and instead of assigning his troops to others, more troops from other units were assigned to LuMeng’s unit. In the 9th year of Jian An (204 A.D.), LuMeng followed SunQuan to suppressed an uprising at Dan Yang. Even though LuMeng was not involved in the actual battle, he was commended and promoted to be the Chief Commandant who pacifies the North (Ping Bei Du Wei) as well as Guang De Zhang because his unit showed a high level of military discipline.

Subsequently in the 13th year of Jian An (208 A.D.), LuMeng participated in the offensive against HuangZhu. HuangZhu dispatched ChenJiu to lead a naval taskforce to meet the armies of Jiang Dong. LuMeng bravely urged his vanguard forward and personally decapitated ChenJiu. On the crest of the victory, his troops surged forward to lay siege to the castle. HuangZhu abandoned the castle and tried to retreat. However, he was captured and SunQuan gave the credit to LuMeng since he viewed the death of ChenJiu as the turning point of the battle that led to HuangZhu’s capture.

The battle of Chi Bi ensued and LuMeng was part of the effort that served Cao Cao his biggest defeat at Wu Ling. After the battle of Chi Bi, Wu started to launch offensives at the Nan prefecture of Jing Zhou. GanNing was surrounded at Yi Ling by Wei’s troops and seeked urgent reinforcement. However, the various commanders such as ZhouYu, ChengPu, etc. felt that the situation was very hard-pressed and were apprehensive about sending reinforcement (thus splitting their forces). LuMeng calmly analyzed the situation and presented his advice to his commanders. He managed to persuade ZhouYu to send reinforcement to GanNing and at the same time destroyed the tracks at the possible retreat routes of the enemies. True to his analysis, the soldiers of Wu managed to secure a victory and numerous horses were captured since the tracks of the retreat routes were destroyed earlier. Taking advantage of the situation, the Wu army crossed the river and attacked Cao Ren’s main forces. Cao Ren was forced to retreat and Wu acquired Nan prefecture. Lu Meng was promoted to Pian Jiang Jun for his contributions. When LuSu was tasked to replace ZhouYu for the defence of Lu Kou, he passed by LuMeng’s resident on his way and decided to pay him a visit. During their discussion, LuMeng offered LuSu five strategies pertaining to dealing with the threat of GuanYu. On hearing LuMeng’s advices, LuSu was greatly impressed. Before he left, LuSu paid homage to LuMeng’s mother and both LuMeng and LuSu became friends.

LuMeng was known to be a chivalrous person. When his three friends ChengDang, SongDing and XuGu passed away, SunQuan was contemplating to reassign their troops to LuMeng’s unit. However, LuMeng opposed to that (even though such a move would benefit him greatly) as he felt that his friends and their respective units had contributed much to Wu and it would not be fair to them to be reassigned. He sent petitioned to SunQuan thrice before it was finally accepted. In addition to that, he made it a point to find suitable tutors for his friends’ children and ensured that they were properly supervised.

Soon after, LuMeng made significant contributions by defeating XieQi of Lu Jiang (who was sent by Wei to disturbed Wu’s border). He also gave several brilliant advices to SunQuan to help him fend off CaoCao’s invasion at Ru Xu successfully. LuMeng also suggested SunQuan to occupy the fertile land at Wan and he orchestrated a great victory forcing ZhangLiao to retreat (on his arrival to take the same land, not on his defeat!). For his contributions, LuMeng was promoted to be the prefect of Lu Jiang and he went on to exterminate the bandits at Lu Ling thus pacifying the people there.

During then, GuanYu was appointed by LiuBei to defend Jing Zhou (those lands that were under Shu’s jurisdiction). SunQuan ordered LuMeng to attack the three southern prefectures of Jing Zhou namely Chang Sha, Ling Ling and Gui Yang. The prefects of Chang Sha and Gui Yang surrendered to LuMeng without a fight while the prefect of Ling Ling, HePu, put up a resistance. Seeing that, LiuBei moved to Gong An and ordered GuanYu to compete for those three prefectures. SunQuan was alarmed and he tasked LuSu with 10000 troops to resist GuanYu at Yi Yang while he sent letters to LuMeng asking him to give up the three prefectures and assist LuSu instead. At that time, LuMeng had successfully tricked HePu to surrender Chang Sha. On receiving SunQuan’s letter, LuMeng led his troops to Yi Yang. LiuBei requested for a truce and a meeting in which SunQuan conceded Xiang Shui and Ling Ling plus HePu while retaining the other lands.

The battle of He Fei took place next where SunQuan suffered a defeat due to a sneak attack by ZhangLiao. LuMeng and LingTong defended courageously to ensure a safe retreat for Wu’s armies. Not long after, CaoCao personally led a large-scale invasion at Ru Xu but his vanguard was repelled by LuMeng, forcing him to retreat. LuMeng was promoted to Zuo Hu Jun, and the Majestic Tiger General (Hu Wei Jiang Jun).

When LuSu passed away, LuMeng was situated at the west of Lu Kou. LuSu’s unit (troops and horses) was placed under LuMeng’s control and LuMeng was made the governor of Han Chang. LuMeng was skeptical about the trustworthiness of GuanYu. He suggested to SunQuan that the reason why GuanYu did not move his armies eastward (towards Wu) and aimed north was due to the fact that Wu was stable under the administration of SunQuan and was well defended by generals such as himself. Once these factors were non-existence, LuMeng felt that GuanYu might have other designs which might be detrimental to Wu. As such, LuMeng proposed that instead of relying on GuanYu to fend off CaoCao (from Jing Zhou’s direction, remember they were allies), it was possible that Wu exterminate GuanYu and occupied the whole of Jing Zhou. In this way, it would be easier for Wu to defend against a northern incursion as opposed to defending it from Xu Zhou’s direction (which was partially occupied by Wu then). SunQuan agreed to LuMeng’s plans and made efforts to befriend GuanYu again.

While GuanYu was attacking Fan, he left a substantial portion of his troops at Gong An and Nan prefecture. Seeing that, LuMeng decided to feign illness and asked SunQuan to replace him. At the same time, LuMeng was making plans to launch a night attack at strategic points of Jing Zhou. True to LuMeng’s prediction, GuanYu’s defence against a Wu attack became lax on knowing that LuMeng had been replaced and GuanYu sent some troops to assist the frontline at Fan. YuJin was dispatched by the Wei court to rescued Fan but he was captured and all their troops and horses were acquired by GuanYu. As a result, there were food shortages in GuanYu’s army and GuanYu proceeded to obtained rice from Xiang Guan (without authority). On knowing that, SunQuan urged LuMeng to proceed as planned. Disguised as merchants, LuMeng managed to launched a sneak attack and captured all the defensive points along the river without leaking a word to GuanYu. He proceeded to capture Nan prefecture when the defenders, FuShiRen and MiFang, surrendered. Upon entering the city, LuMeng imposed strict military orders to his troops, forbidding them to plunder or harass the populace. LuMeng even executed a fellow villager of his (who was serving as a soldier under LuMeng) for violating the rules. GuanYu’s and the Shu soldier’s families were also comforted by the invaders and LuMeng personally visited some of the elderly while his troops distributed free medicine and food to the poor. In addition, LuMeng ordered GuanYu’s treasury to be sealed and not to be opened without permission. Soon after, GuanYu returned from his campaign and dispatched a messager to LuMeng. LuMeng treated the messager with great respect and allowed him to interact with the families of GuanYu’s soldiers. As a result, many of the families passed letters to the messager describing their well-being and good treatment under LuMeng’s administration. On returning back to the camp, those letters were distributed to the soldiers who promptly lost their fighting spirits on reading them. By now, GuanYu knew that he could not recover the lost prefectures and decided to beat a retreat via Mai Cheng. SunQuan dispatched PanZhang and ZhuRan to waylay GuanYu on his retreat and they managed to capture him, together with GuanPing successfully. As a result, Jing Zhou was finally under Wu’s jurisdiction.

For his brilliant victory against GuanYu, LuMeng was made the prefect of Nan prefecture and rewarded with a huge sum of money. LuMeng refused to accept the monetary reward but SunQuan insisted. Not long after, LuMeng’s ailment arised again and SunQuan ordered him to be treated in the palace at Gong An (where SunQuan was residing then). SunQuan dispatched numerous doctors and put up handsome rewards in his bid to cure LuMeng’s illness. In order to avoid aggravating LuMeng’s condition (by waking him up), SunQuan often peeked at LuMeng from afar (instead of approaching his bed) and ordered the palace attendants to remain vigil all day and night. (It was said that SunQuan would be overjoyed during that period if LuMeng managed to consume a little food!). Nevertheless, all these actions were in vain and LuMeng passed away in the palace at the age of 42. SunQuan was completely devastated on knowing that and it sadden him more to know that LuMeng had not used any of the monetary rewards given to him for his meritorous deeds.

Note: LuMeng was not keen in studying when he was young but took up the books on the advice of SunQuan. His sudden improvement (in terms of thinking and actions) was noted by LuSu in Jiang Biao Zhuan.

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