Ravages of Time - 572/573

"Uncle Yun" is in the same frame with a sea shell 貝 (a word for "precious")

Sun Shu left her "precious" behind


I think Liu Bei never slept with Sun Shu

Liu Shan would have no longer been the heir apparent if Sun Shu had bore a son

子以母貴 (a son is noble because his mother is noble, from Confucius)

Liu Shan's mom was a nobody

that's expected because Liu Bei was also a person with little to no real power

but Sun Shu was the elder sister of Sun Quan, a warlord recognized by Cao Cao post-Red Cliff battle

a product of the union between Liu Bei and Sun Shu would have had enough legitimacy to challenge Liu Shan

and thus Liu Bei's court would be directly controlled by Sun Quan

just like Treaty of Troyes during the Hundred Years' War, Henry V forced the King of France to marry off his daughter to Henry

only reversed in Three Kingdoms

Sun Quan forced Liu Bei to marry Sun Shu in order to exert control on Liu's court
basically what was alluded in the Sun Shu chapter back then, saying that Sun clan women do not get married to others, they get married to Sun clan.








first depiction of Liu Zhang, warlord of Yi province

holding a ceramic vessel

there's a saying in The Analects. Confucius compared one of his student to a china bowl

precious, but useless (too fragile and cannot be used for more than one purpose)

子贡问曰:“赐也何如?”. 子曰:“女，器也”. 曰:“何器也？”. 曰:“瑚琏也”


the full saying is more complex than that

Zi Gong asked his master (Confucius) for his value. The master said: "You're a tool". Zi Gong asked: "Which one?" The master said: "The china bowl for rituals"

Confucius has another saying: 君子不器 "Good men are not tools" (because a tool has one purpose but a virtuous man is versatile)

by comparing Zi Gong to a tool, his master already implied that he's useless

to enjoy RoT I would say reading RotK is not enough, one needs to dabble in classical works like The Analects or Gongyang Commentary as well (they all have English translations)

I recommend Gongyang commentary because the Analects' translation was too archaic for my English