Study On The Politics Of The Sun Wu Clan

Since Sun Jian’s uprising at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty,the descendants of the Sun family have been involved in the struggle,but at that time,the number of Sun family descendants was still small and their status was not prominent in Sun Jian’s armed forces.After Sun Ce crossed the Yangtze River,he had the power to control a region,and the descendants of the Sun family became one of the pillars of the Sun family’s government at this time,until the fall of the state of Wu.After the Sun family established their power in the Jiangdong region,they began to appoint a large number of descendants of the family to official positions,which were mostly county magistrates,imperial guards,and family members who oversaw the military.These were almost all military positions,which were closely related to the martial spirit of the Sun family.Generally speaking,in the early stage of the Sun family’s government,the rulers trusted the descendants of the family,and the family members were appointed as county magistrates immediately upon acquiring a county.Family members who served as imperial guards had the power to command troops for expeditions,and some family members could inherit the position of a commander appointed by their father or brother.The policy of privileging the descendants of the Sun family was also evident in the granting of titles.Regardless of the system of fiefdoms or titles of nobility,members of the Sun family were more likely to receive them than ministers of different surnames,and the fiefs and titles of nobility were mostly located in economically developed regions.Within the fiefdoms,they could enjoy the right to appoint their own long-term officials,which was not available to military commanders of different surnames.However,it was difficult for family members to pass on their titles and positions to their descendants.The attitude towards fiefdoms underwent a process of change.Both Sun Quan and Sun Hao granted titles of nobility to their sons,but in the period of Sun Hao,the power of feudal lords was significantly greater than that in the period of Sun Quan.The political careers of the descendants of the Sun family in the later generations of Sun Qiang and Sun Jing also reveal the government ideology of different periods in Wu.The descendants of Sun Qiang had outstanding military prowess and could serve on the battlefield during the struggle for hegemony.Therefore,they were highly valued during the period of Sun Ce.Sun Quan maintained control in Jiangdong and selected capable officials,so descendants of Sun Jing with deeper cultural cultivation stood out.Moreover,because Sun Quan advocated the arts of Sheng and Han and needed authoritarian politics,he often oppressed the descendants of Sun Qiang.This continued until the end of Wu,when the political status,military status,and the number of noble titles representing the economic status of the descendants of Sun Jing were higher than those of the descendants of Sun Qiang.In imperial politics,descendants of the family played different roles at different times.Sun Quan,when he proclaimed himself emperor,once attempted to separate the imperial power into "Jianye" and "Wuchang." He left his son Sun Deng in Wuchang to cultivate his military and political talents,in order to prepare him to become a qualified monarch a hundred years later,while also attempting to restrain Lu Xun and prevent him from becoming too powerful in Jingzhou.During the reigns of Sun Liang and Sun Xiu,Sun Jun and Sun Chen,two brothers,successively wielded power with their status as members of the family,causing the imperial power of Wu to fall by the wayside.Although Sun Xiu eventually succeeded in killing Sun Chen,the imperial power did not recover until the reign of Sun Hao.However,the resurgence of imperial power under Sun Hao was based on the bloody oppression of the descendants of the family,which in turn led to the disaffection of the large clans that had previously cooperated with the Sun family.Faced with such a dilemma,Sun Hao had to use some descendants of the family again,but as the Sun family’s power in Jiangdong had declined for a long time,the descendants of the family no longer possessed the abilities of their predecessors and were powerless to protect the country.Wu was eventually destroyed by the combined forces of the enemy.