Rock of Hatred

The Rock of Hatred is a large stone in temple grounds that Xuande and Sun Quan each split with a sword after calling on Heaven to judge their respective prospects. Its crossed cuts endure as a physical record of their shared opposition to Cao Cao and their conflicting claims to Jingzhou, making the stone a compact emblem of alliance shadowed by rivalry.

The Omen at the Temple

After an attempt on Xuande’s life at a gathering hosted by Sun Quan, the Queen Mother rebukes her son and demands to know why assassins were waiting there. Sun Quan denies knowing of the plan, and his adviser Lü Fan shifts blame to Jia Hua. The Queen Mother would have had Jia Hua executed, but Xuande, now treated as her son-in-law, asks her to show mercy so the relationship does not begin inauspiciously. Jia Hua leaves with his men.

Later, walking in the temple grounds, Xuande sees the stone and asks for a sword. He looks up to Heaven and makes its splitting a test of his fate: if he is destined to return to Jingzhou and become king, the sword will divide the rock; if he is destined to die there, it will remain whole. He strikes, and the stone splits. The gesture gives the uncertain political future a visible, seemingly decisive answer, though it does not resolve the rivalry behind the question.

Two Hopes, One Stone

Sun Quan has been watching Xuande. He asks what the latter has against the stone, and Xuande explains that, approaching fifty, he is distressed at having failed to rid the country of traitors. He presents his welcome by the Queen Mother as an auspicious moment, and interprets the split as Heaven’s sign that he may destroy Cao Cao and revive the Han dynasty.

Sun Quan then makes his own appeal. Publicly, he asks Heaven for help in defeating Cao Cao; privately, he asks whether he will recover Jingzhou and see his lands prosper. He too strikes the stone and splits it. The two men therefore produce the same result while attaching different political hopes to it: Xuande’s appeal points toward the restoration of the Han and his own rise, while Sun Quan’s includes the recovery of territory held by his rival.

The stone’s marks preserve that double meaning. Its cuts are not a single shared sign but the traces of two separate tests, made by allies whose aims overlap against Cao Cao yet diverge over Jingzhou. The encounter presents the omen as auspicious without making the underlying contest disappear.

The Name and Its Narrative Form

The rock remains marked by the crossed sword cuts and becomes known as the Rock of Hatred. A poet visiting the site contributes a short verse about the swords striking the mountain stone, the ringing of metal, and sparks. The poem fixes attention on the physical act and its durable mark, turning a brief episode into a memorable scene that can be recalled through both place and verse.

That form reflects the novel’s larger use of poetry. Alongside historical events and dramatic material developed through storytelling and theatre, anonymous poems often sum up episodes in a voice suited to performance. The Rock of Hatred story similarly converts political tension into a concise, repeatable image: two swords, one stone, and marks that remain after the appeals to Heaven have ended.

Memory and Significance

The stone is linked in the narrative to the Hill where the Horses Stopped. After the encounter at the rock, Xuande and Sun Quan return to the hall and later walk together onto a veranda. Xuande praises the view; Sun Quan takes a remark about southerners as sailors and northerners as horsemen as a challenge, and the two men race their horses uphill and down. The locals regard their laughing display as auspicious. The paired landmarks thus hold contrasting impressions of the same political relationship: the rock bears divided claims, while the hill recalls friendly competition and public good feeling.

The Rock of Hatred does not settle who will control Jingzhou or establish that Heaven has guaranteed either man’s success. Its importance lies instead in giving the alliance’s tension a lasting form. Xuande and Sun Quan can both oppose Cao Cao and both read the split as favorable, but they cannot make their territorial ambitions identical. The crossed marks retain that contradiction as the episode’s clearest consequence.