Du Yu

Du Yu is the commander Yang Hu recommends to succeed him in the campaign against Wu, and his appointment turns a long-debated invasion into a coordinated assault. A daily reader of the Spring and Autumn Annals, he brings the campaign to a decisive opening: his orders help take Xiakou and Jiangling, while the collapse of Wu’s defenses opens the way toward Jianye.

Identity and Appointment

Du Yu enters the account through Yang Hu’s final act of service. After Yang Hu’s health worsens, Sima Yan visits him at his bedside and regrets not having acted on his earlier proposal to attack Wu. Asked who could now undertake the campaign, Yang Hu recommends Du Yu. He dies after ensuring that the plan has a successor, linking Du Yu’s rise to both a missed opportunity and an urgent military decision. Du Yu is described as remarkable and devoted to the Spring and Autumn Annals, which he reads every day and carries with him when riding. This detail places disciplined study beside command: his introduction is not simply as a replacement general, but as a man whose intellectual practice accompanies his public and military role.

The Case for War

The proposed campaign answers a political and strategic opening. Wu’s ruler, Sun Hao, has intensified his abuses over the years, while executions and fear have made honest discussion and planning increasingly difficult. Yang Hu had judged Wu vulnerable, but the court initially withheld permission to invade. His warning that a virtuous successor to Sun Hao could change the situation makes delay itself a risk. After Yang Hu’s death, Sima Yan remains uncertain. Du Yu’s memorial presses the decision by arguing that, unless Jin attacks now, the south may invade Jin instead. Sima Yan at last agrees to go to war. The account thus presents Du Yu’s intervention as the point at which the court’s wavering gives way to action, under pressure from both Wu’s condition and the danger of waiting.

Command of the Campaign

Sima Yan assigns forces to several objectives across Wu. Du Yu is ordered against Jiangling, while other commanders target Tuzhong, Hengjiang, Wuchang, and Xiakou; Admiral Wang Jun’s navy advances down the river, and Yang Ji holds overall command from Xiangyang. Du Yu’s role is therefore one part of a broad, coordinated offensive rather than an isolated attack. The campaign’s first major success comes through a feigned retreat that draws Wu’s troops into an ambush and nearly destroys them. Du Yu also orders eight hundred men to blend in with the fleeing Wu soldiers. They enter Xiakou with the remnants, start fires inside the city, and create confusion that allows Jin to seize it. The operation converts a battlefield victory into control of an important city and has an immediate effect on Wu morale. The advance then gathers momentum. The Wu naval commander, Lu Jing, is killed while trying to reach shore, and the commander at Jiangling abandons the city. Du Yu captures the fleeing commander and orders his execution for cowardice. City after city and region after region surrender; with Du Yu leading the advance, the Jin forces race toward Wu’s capital, Jianye. His campaign therefore joins deception, infiltration, and punishment of a failed commander to a wider sequence of capitulations.

Narrative Role and Significance

Du Yu’s arrival completes the transfer of Yang Hu’s unrealized plan into action. Yang Hu identifies the opportunity and names the successor; Du Yu’s memorial secures the decision, and his field command produces early territorial gains. The narrative gives the campaign a clear chain of responsibility, from the regret expressed at Yang Hu’s bedside to the coordinated invasion and the fall of key cities. His portrayal also balances learning with practical command. The Spring and Autumn Annals is his cherished daily reading, but the account measures his role through decisions with immediate consequences: entering Xiakou by deception, capturing Jiangling’s fleeing commander, and pressing forward toward Jianye. In the story’s closing movement toward unification, Du Yu is the figure who turns a long-postponed strategic opening into the advance that brings Wu close to defeat.