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So they sent a trusty messenger to Sun Quan. On the day of the sacrifices Lady Xu called in her two friends and hid them in a secret chamber. Then the ceremonies were performed in the great hall. These over, she put off her mourning garb, bathed and perfumed herself, and assumed an expression of joy. She laughed and talked as usual, so that Gui Lan rejoiced in his heart, thinking of the pleasure that was to be his.

When night came she sent a servant girl to call her suitor to the Palace, where she entertained him at supper. When he had well drunk, she suggested that they should retire and led him to the chamber where her friends were waiting. He followed without the least hesitation. As soon as she entered the room, she called out, “Where are you, Generals?”

Out rushed Sun Gao and Fu Ying, and the drunken Gui Lan, incapable of any resistance, was dispatched with daggers.

Next Lady Xu invited Dai Yuan to a supper, and he was slain in similar fashion. After that, she sent to the houses of her enemies and slew all therein. This done, she resumed her mourning garb, and the heads of the two men were hung as a sacrifice before the coffin of her husband.

Very soon her brother-in-law came with an army, and hearing the story of the deeds of the two generals from the widow, gave them the commandership and put them over Dangyang. When Sun Quan left, he took the widow to his own home to pass the remainder of her days. All those who heard of her brave conduct were loud in praise of her virtue:

Full of resource and virtuous, few in the world are like her,

Guilefully wrought she and compassed the death of the lusty assassins,

Faithful servants are always ready to deal with rebellion,

None can ever excel that heroine famous in Wu.

The brigandage that had troubled the South Land had all been suppressed, and a large fleet of seven thousand battleships was in the Great River ready for service. Sun Quan appointed Zhou Yu to be the Supreme Admiral and Commander-in-Chief over all military forces.

In the twelfth year (AD 207), the Dowager Wu, feeling her end approaching, called to her the two advisers Zhou Yu and Zhang Zhao and spoke thus: “I came of a family of the old Wu, but losing my parents in early life; my brother Wu Jing and I went into the old Yue, and then I married into this family. I bore my husband four sons, not without premonitions of the greatness to be theirs. With my first, Sun Ce, I dreamed of the moon and with my second, Sun Quan, of the sun, which omens were interpreted by the soothsayer as signs of their great honor. Unhappy Sun Ce died young, but Sun Quan inherited, and it is he whom I pray you both assist with one accord. Then may I die in peace.”

And to her son she said, “These two you are to serve as they were your teachers and treat them with all respect. My younger sister and I both were wives to your father, and so she is also a mother to you, and you are to serve her after I am gone as you now serve me. And you must treat your sister with affection and find a handsome husband for her.”

Then she died and her son mourned for her that year.

The following year they began to discuss an attack upon Huang Zu.

Zhang Zhao said, “The armies should not move during the period of mourning.”

However, Zhou Yu, more to the point, said, “Vengeance should not be postponed on that account; it could not wait upon times and seasons.”

Still Sun Quan halted between two opinions and would not decide. Then came Commander Lu Meng who said to his master, “While I was at Dragon Gorge, one leader of Huang Zu, Gan Ning from Lingjiang, offered to surrender. I found out all about him. He is something of a scholar, is forceful, fond of wandering about as a knight-errant. He assembled a band of outlaws with whom he roamed over the rivers and lakes where he would terrorize everybody. He wore a bell at his waist, and at the sound of this bell every one fled and hid. He fitted his boats with sails of Xichuan brocade, and people called him the 'Pirate with Sails of Silk.'

“Then he reformed. He and his band went to Liu Biao, but they left him when they saw he would never accomplish anything, and now they would serve under your banner, only that Huang Zu detains them at Xiakou. Formerly when you were attacking Huang Zu, he owed the recovery of Xiakou to this same Gan Ning, whom he treated without liberality. When Commander Su Fei recommended Gan Ning for promotion, Huang Zu said, 'he is unsuited for any high position as, after all, he is no more than a pirate.'