Zhuge Ke

Also known as Zi Yuanxun

Zhuge Ke, courtesy name Yuanxun, was the eldest son of Zhuge Jin and won Sun Quan's notice young with his quick retorts. In the Jiahe years he asked to govern Danyang, where over three years he starved the Shanyue hill peoples out of their strongholds and raised forty thousand soldiers from them. As Sun Quan lay dying in 252 he made Zhuge Ke Grand General and tutor to the heir, charged with guiding the boy emperor Sun Liang. When Wei forces attacked Dongxing in January 253, he led the relief army; Ding Feng's men charged through the snow and the Wei army broke, losing tens of thousands, many drowned. That spring, against all advice, he invaded Wei and besieged Hefei New City for months without success while disease killed half his troops, and he ruled more harshly after his return. In the tenth month Sun Jun and Sun Liang invited him to a banquet and killed him in the palace; he was fifty, and his clan was exterminated.