Zhou Yu

Also known as Zi Gongjin · Zhou Lang

Zhou Yu, courtesy name Gongjin, came from Shu county in Lujiang; two of his kinsmen had been Grand Commandant of the Han. The same age as Sun Ce and his friend from boyhood, he gave the Sun family his large house south of the road. He joined Sun Ce in 198 at twenty-four, and people in Wu called him young master Zhou; after they took Wan, Sun Ce married the elder daughter of Lord Qiao and Zhou Yu the younger. When Cao Cao came south in 208 and most advisers urged surrender, he and Lu Su argued for resistance; sharing command with Cheng Pu and allied with Liu Bei, he beat Cao at Red Cliffs with Huang Gai's feigned surrender and fire ships, then drove Cao Ren from Jiangling. In 210, while preparing to invade Yi province, he died at Baqiu aged thirty-six. His biography says he turned at any wrong note; Su Shi's lyric on Red Cliffs recalls Gongjin newly wed to the younger Qiao.