Lady Sun's attempted flight with Liu Shan

Lady Sun’s attempted flight with Liu Shan is a failed political operation disguised as a family emergency: Sun Quan’s court sends a forged letter to lure Xuande’s wife and seven-year-old son from Jingzhou, hoping Xuande will surrender the province to recover his heir. Zhao Zilong and Zhang Fei stop the departure and take the child back, but Lady Sun proceeds south. The episode makes the household a contested political border, where kinship can motivate protection as readily as it can be exploited for leverage.

Causes and Political Stakes

The scheme begins with intelligence from spies: Xuande is away in Shu, and Sun Quan’s adviser Gu Yong sees his absence as an opening to seize Jingzhou. Sun Quan initially considers the attack, but his mother intervenes. Xuande is her son-in-law, she points out, and Lady Sun is their only daughter; an assault could put her at risk. She also challenges Sun Quan’s appetite for more territory, asking whether his existing lands in the south are not enough. Sun Quan repeatedly apologizes, and the immediate plan appears to be abandoned.

That restraint gives way to a more indirect design. Zhang Zhao proposes sending five hundred men into Jingzhou with a letter falsely claiming that the queen mother is dying and longs to see her daughter and grandson. The political calculation is explicit: if Lady Sun leaves with Xuande’s only heir, Xuande might give up Jingzhou in exchange for the child. Zhao Shan, a man trusted by Lady Sun, is selected to carry out the scheme. The operation depends not on force at first, but on disguises, a forged message, and the emotional authority of family news.

The Departure and Interception

Zhao Shan and his men enter Jingzhou disguised as traders. He tells Lady Sun that her mother is desperate to see her and her son. Lady Sun is moved by the message, but does not simply accept his urging: because Xuande is away, she says she should seek permission from Kong Ming, acting as her husband’s representative. Zhao Shan insists that there is no time to lose. Confused and distressed, she decides to leave at once, collects her son Ah Dou, and travels by carriage toward the river, where boats await to take them south.

Zhao Zilong discovers the departure while returning from patrol and reaches the shore in time to call for Lady Sun to wait. Zhao Shan orders the boats to set off. Zilong spots a fishing boat, boards it, and pursues them; when the party’s archers fire and Zhao Shan’s men try to stop him, he deflects their attacks and reaches Lady Sun’s boat. He enters her cabin with his sword drawn and demands to know where she is going and why she has not sought permission. The pursuit thus brings the private deception into the open: what had been presented as an urgent family visit is also the removal of Xuande’s heir from his territory.

Zhang Fei’s Intervention and Outcome

Lady Sun calls for her maids to help, but Zilong brushes them aside and takes the child onto the deck. By then the shore is distant, and Zhao Shan is still steering south. Ten boats suddenly emerge from a creek. Zilong first fears they mean his death, then recognizes Zhang Fei in the lead boat. Zhang calls to his sister-in-law to leave the boy. In the ensuing clash between the boats, Zhang boards Lady Sun’s vessel and kills Zhao Shan, ending the operation’s leadership and leaving the group without its organizer.

Lady Sun protests that her mother is dying and says she would have been too late had she waited for her husband’s permission; she also threatens to drown herself if the others prevent her. Zhang Fei rejects forcing her to stay as dishonorable. He proposes a narrower resolution: take Ah Dou and let Lady Sun go. Zilong and Zhang carry the child back to Zhang’s boat and steer away; with no alternative, Lady Sun’s boat continues south. The attempted removal therefore achieves neither its stated family reunion nor its political aim of compelling Xuande to surrender Jingzhou: the child is recovered, while Lady Sun reaches her brother’s territory.

Aftermath and Significance

Once Lady Sun arrives in Sun Quan’s capital, she tells her brother what has happened. Sun Quan again sees an opportunity to attack Jingzhou, but news of Cao Cao’s approaching invasion, with four hundred thousand troops, redirects his attention. He orders a wall built at the mouth of Ruxu as a defensive line. The episode’s immediate family dispute thus feeds into a larger strategic crisis, even though the intended leverage over Xuande has failed.

The action turns on rival interpretations of obligation. Sun Quan’s mother invokes a daughter’s and mother’s place within the family to restrain an attack; Zhang Zhao then turns those same ties into a stratagem, using an invented illness to induce Lady Sun to travel with her son. Lady Sun herself recognizes that her husband’s absence makes Kong Ming the appropriate person to consult, but the urgency of the false message overcomes that hesitation. Zilong and Zhang Fei act to protect Xuande’s heir, while Zhang’s refusal to compel Lady Sun to remain places a limit on that protective duty. The child returns to Xuande’s side, but the marriage bond does not settle the political conflict between the two houses.