Tiger Owl

Chapter 255 The Last Fight

As night fell, inside Lü Fan's residence, Zhou Yu, who had just returned from Jingkou, Cheng Pu, who had just returned from Dantu, Huang Gai, who had just returned from Niuzhu, and Zhou Fang, who had just returned from Jiangcheng County, were all present.

These were the main proponents of war in Jiangdong. Of course, apart from them, most of the proponents of war were military generals, but they were all deployed to various places. Faced with this life-or-death struggle that concerned Jiangdong, these generals could only write letters to express their attitudes, which actually had little effect.

The two commanders stationed in Dantu County were Xu Kun and Chen Wu. Xu Kun was a centrist, while Chen Wu completely obeyed Sun Quan's decisions.

At the final moment of their fate, Lü Fan wrote a letter to bring back these core generals who advocated for war, urging them to collectively oppose reaching a compromise with Cao Cao. This was their last gamble.

The lobby was brightly lit. Cheng Pu asked in a deep voice, "Where are we in the peace talks now?"

Cheng Pu had only returned to Dantu County half an hour ago, and without even going home, he came directly to see Lü Fan.

"The peace talks have ended. Tomorrow morning, we will have a final discussion on the draft peace agreement, and then Lord Wu will sign and seal it, and send it to Ye City for Cao Cao to sign and seal."

Lü Fan distributed copies of the peace talks to everyone, saying, "Take a look!"

Everyone looked down and carefully examined the copy. Suddenly, Zhou Yu looked up and said, "Lord Wu has been tricked. Their real purpose is to disrupt the alliance between the Gan and Sun families against Cao Cao, and then solidify it in the form of a contract so that we dare not overstep the rules."

“Gongjin is right. This is Zhang Yi’s strategy of breaking the alliance by forming a horizontal alliance. Once we can no longer join forces with the Western Chu army, Cao Cao can defeat them one by one,” Zhou Fang said from the side.

Everyone fell silent; they all agreed that Cao Cao was utterly untrustworthy.

After a while, Cheng Pu asked again, "I heard that Lord Lü went to Chaisang. What was Gan Ning's attitude?"

Lu Fan shook his head. "Gan Ning's attitude is very positive. He is eager to join forces with us, but he cannot accept Wu Hou's conditions. Wu Hou wants him to hand over Bu Zhi to Jiangdong, but Gan Ning refused outright."

Bu Zhi was the fourth most important figure in Jiangdong, after Zhang Zhao, Lü Fan, and Zhou Yu. His defection did have a huge impact on Jiangdong, but people did not think he was wrong.

"Lord Wu should not have regarded Bu Zhi as a follower of Sun Ben; that was too hasty."

Cheng Pu said in a deep voice, "He is too suspicious and is willing to use self-destructive means to attack his opponents. He is very disappointing."

Cheng Pu's pent-up discontent over the past few months finally erupted at this moment. "Just like he thinks I'm part of Sun Ben's faction, I followed Bo Fu in his campaigns to the south and north, and laid the foundation for Jiangdong. How could I be Sun Ben's man? That's a huge joke. I think he just wants to eliminate all of us veteran generals to cover up his own breach of faith. He promised to our faces that he would make Bo Fu's son his successor."

"General Cheng, do not speak recklessly!" Zhou Yu said with a gloomy face.

Cheng Pu realized that what he had just said was a bit too much, so he fell silent.

Zhou Yu straightened his back and said, "Time is running out, let's start discussing countermeasures! How will we oppose peace talks and prevent Lord Wu from signing the treaty tomorrow!"

Lü Fan nodded. "Gongjin is right. There's no use talking about anything else now. We're in a crisis. We must focus on dealing with the immediate crisis and think about how to oppose the Wu Marquis's signing of the treaty!"

The following morning, outside Sun Quan's residence at the Wu Marquis's mansion sat three generals—Cheng Pu, Huang Gai, and Zhou Fang—along with civil officials such as Lu Ji, Yu Fan, and Yan Jun. All their expressions were grim, and they silently awaited the final outcome. Inside the residence sat seven people: besides Sun Quan, there were Lü Fan and Zhou Yu, the pro-war faction; Zhang Zhao, Gu Yong, and Xu Kun, the pro-peace faction; and Sun Jing, who had arrived from Qu'a the previous day.

Interestingly, there were no more surrender factions. The moment Jia Xu came to negotiate, all the surrender factions turned into centrists and advocates of peace. The two factions quickly merged and accounted for more than 80% of the power in Jiangdong.

Sun Quan was silently looking at the newly drafted negotiation documents on the table, including the appendix containing Sun Ben's proposed solutions.

"Lord Wu, please take a good look at this and listen to the opinions of the soldiers!" Lü Fan handed the petition to Sun Quan with trembling hands.

Sun Quan read the joint letter advocating war submitted by Lü Fan with a blank expression. There were more than thirty people who signed it, almost all of them generals. However, these generals were far from being influential. There were only seven or eight people with real influence, including Lü Fan, Zhou Yu, Cheng Pu, Huang Gai, Lü Meng, Zhou Tai, Jiang Qin, Pan Zhang, and so on.

But Sun Quan glanced at another joint letter, which had the signatures of more than 130 pro-peace factions, all of whom were powerful families from various prominent clans in Jiangdong.

In comparison, this pro-war faction is too weak and has too little say.

Sun Quan took a deep breath. Although he also had a slight thought of compromising with the pro-war faction, he was very clear about where the foundation of his rule over Jiangdong lay.

"So be it!"

Sun Quan's voice was a little hoarse, but he calmly said to Lü Fan and Zhou Yu, "I understand your feelings, but we should respect the opinions of the majority. When we fight against Sun Ben, I will listen carefully to and accept your suggestions."

Neither Lü Fan nor Zhou Yu spoke; they had nothing more to say. They had been defeated, utterly defeated by the powerful appeasement faction.

Sun Quan picked up his pen and signed his name on the agreement. Lü Fan and Zhou Yu silently walked out of the official residence. Looking at the people waiting outside, Zhou Yu said in an extremely tired voice, "Let's go! It's not our place to celebrate here."

The group left the official residence in silence.

The moment Lü Fan stepped out of the Wu Marquis's residence, he looked up at the sky, a tear glistening in his eye.

Perhaps he should follow Bu Zhi's example and go to another place to realize his ideals and ambitions.

In the afternoon, Jia Xu received the negotiation agreement signed and sealed by Sun Quan. He finally couldn't help but smile triumphantly, like a fisherman pulling a fish out of the water. However, Jia Xu also knew that there was still one last step before complete success.

That means Prime Minister Cao must sign and seal the document, returning Jiangdong's copy to them, and then the agreement between the two countries will officially take effect.

Jia Xu wrote a long letter to Cao Cao, along with two agreements, and handed them to his deputy Wang Xiu, instructing him: "Be careful on the road, and deliver the agreements to the Prime Minister as soon as possible. You must deliver them to him personally."

"Please rest assured, Mr. Jia, I will definitely handle things properly!"

Under the escort of a hundred soldiers, Wang Xiu left Dantu County by boat. Sun Quan was worried that Zhou Yu and others would intercept Cao Cao's envoy, so he specially sent Chen Wu with three thousand troops and more than a hundred warships to escort them across the Yangtze River and into the Zhongdu River. He watched the envoy's boat sail towards the Huai River before the escort fleet returned to Jiangdong.

(End of this chapter)