Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms podcast.

This is episode 77.

Last time, Sun Quan used a little dirty trick to bring his sister, who was married to Liu Bei, back from Jing province

so that he could launch a war to take the province without putting her life at risk and, more critically,

drawing their mother's ire. But, just as he was preparing for war, he received two pieces of bad news.

First, he got word that Zhang Hong, a long-time advisor who had retired due to illness, had died.

As he lay dying, Zhang Hong wrote one last letter to Sun Quan, in which he advised Sun Quan to relocate his seat of power to Mo Ling, where, Zhang Hong said,

the mountains had an imperial air. Zhang Hong told Sun Quan that he should move there at once and make this

auspicious location, the base of his empire. Upon reading this letter, Sun Quan wept loudly in front of his officials and said,

How can I dare to not follow Zhang Hong's advice?

And so, he ordered a city of stone to be built at Moorling.

In the meantime, he had to deal with a second piece of bad news.

It was no biggie, just a report that Cao Cao was marching south with 0,400,000 troops

to avenge the defeat at Redcliffe.

As Sun Quan discussed this matter with his staff, the general Lu Meng told him that they needed to build

ramparts at the mouth of the Rue Xu River to hold off Cao Cao's troops. But all the other

generals were like, why would you need ramparts? We can just attack from shore or retreat into our

boats. To that, Lu Meng answered,

The fortunes of war are never constant. Victory is never assured. If we have a sudden run-in with the enemy, with infantry and cavalry jostling together, we might not make it back to the water

and our boats. Sun Quan was quite impressed by Lu Meng's foresight, and he ordered several tens of thousands

of men to build the ramparts. Meanwhile, in the capital, Xu Chang, Cao Cao's power and

fortune were growing by the day, and his men were suggesting that maybe he was due for a promotion.

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