Sun Kuang

Chinese
t=孫匡
s=孙匡

Sun Kuang, styled Jizuo (季佐), was the fourth son of Sun Jian and part of the Sun clan that founded and ruled the Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period of China. Upon his father's death, he fled to Jiangnan with his elder brother, Sun Ce, who was given succession as Marquis of Wucheng (烏程侯), but instead chose to give the position to Kuang in order to further his own military ambitions.

In order to cement an alliance with Sun Ce, then a rising power in the south and one of the most powerful warlords in the Han Dynasty, Cao Cao proposed marriages between the Sun and Cao clans. Sun Kuang was thus wed to the daughter of Cao Cao's general Cao Ren, while the daughter of his and Ce's older cousin, Sun Ben, was betrothed to a son of Cao Cao, Cao Zhang. Thus, Sun Kuang played a role in the politics of the tumultuous era, though he had no significant military accomplishments or appointments to his name.

According to Sun Kuang's biography in the "Records of the Three Kingdoms", he was not tested militarily and died at a young age, though he did live long enough to father a son, Sun Tai (孫泰), who in turn fathered Sun Xiu (孫秀) (not to be confused with the emperor of Wu, Sun Xiu (孫休)). Sun Tai was shot by an arrow during Sun Quan's siege of Hefei in 234. Xiu defended Xiakou (夏口) against the invading armies of Sima Yan and the Jin Dynasty, but eventually, he grew weary of the various atrocities of Sun Hao, the despotic emperor of Wu at the time, and defected to Jin, serving them until his death.

It is worth noting that there are inconsistencies in the official histories of the era regarding an incident that occurred pertaining to Sun Kuang's younger half-brother, Sun Lang. The source "Jiangbiao Zhuan" (江表傳) suggests that, while defending Dongkou (洞口) from the Wei general Cao Xiu, Sun Kuang accidentally burnt his camp and would have surely brought destruction upon Wu had the able generals Lü Fan and Xu Sheng not been there to make up for his blunder. However, as Pei Songzhi (裴松之) argues in his annotations of the "Records of the Three Kingdoms", Sun Kuang had died several years earlier to the incident and confirms that it was Sun Lang who had committed the blunder.

Family

* Father
** Sun Jian
* Mother
** Lady Wu (吳夫人) (d. 202)
* Brothers
** Sun Ce
** Sun Quan
** Sun Yi
** Sun Lang
* Sister
** Sun Shang Xiang
* Son
** Sun Tai

References

*cite book|author=Chen Shou|title=San Guo Zhi|publisher=Yue Lu Shu She|year=2002|id=ISBN 7-80665-198-5
*cite book|author=Lo Kuan-chung; tr. C.H. Brewitt-Taylor|title=Romance of the Three Kingdoms|publisher=Tuttle Publishing|year=2002|id=ISBN 0-8048-3467-9
*cite book|author=de Crespigny, Rafe|title=Generals of the South: the foundation and early history of the Three Kingdoms state of Wu|publisher=The Australian National University, Canberra|year=1990|id = ISBN 0-7315-0901-3

ee also

*Three Kingdoms
*Personages of the Three Kingdoms
*"Records of Three Kingdoms"
*"Romance of the Three Kingdoms"