Sun Jun's death is the abrupt end of his bid to seize imperial power in Wu: Sun Xiu and Zhang Bu turn a palace festival and a staged fire against him, seize him in the hall, and have him executed. The episode reverses Sun Jun’s reliance on control of the palace guards and makes his record of arbitrary killings the stated reason that Sun Xiu refuses his plea for mercy.

Background and Conspiracy

By the time of the plot, Sun Chen had accumulated power at court, installed his relatives in key posts, and made Sun Xiu ruler against his will. Sun Chen then resolved to take the final step and claim imperial power for himself. Sun Xiu, alarmed by this threat, sought help from his adviser Zhang Bu and called on the veteran commander Ding Feng.

The conspirators chose a festival as the setting for their plan. They would invite Sun Chen to attend and kill him there. The occasion let them move against him within the palace, where his confidence in his hold over the guards would prove misplaced.

The Festival and Execution

Inauspicious signs appeared in Sun Chen’s household the night before the festival, but he dismissed them. The next morning he collapsed after getting out of bed, yet insisted on going. He argued that his brothers controlled the palace guards and that no one could challenge him; if there was trouble, he said, a fire would summon them quickly.

Sun Chen sat beside Sun Xiu, and the gathering initially appeared undisturbed. When flames broke out around the palace, Sun Chen treated them as the signal he had described. He rose, only to face Zhang Bu entering with thirty guards. They seized him, and he asked to be allowed to go into internal exile.

Sun Xiu answered by recalling the people Sun Chen had arbitrarily killed and asking when Sun Chen himself had shown mercy. He ordered an immediate execution. Sun Chen was taken aside in the great hall and put to death there.

Aftermath and Political Significance

The episode closes Sun Chen’s attempt to convert control of the court into imperial rule. His confidence rests on the palace guards, but the plot defeats him through a coordinated intervention by Sun Xiu, Zhang Bu, and Ding Feng. The fire that Sun Chen had named as a means of calling for help instead becomes the moment that exposes him to his opponents.

Sun Xiu’s justification makes Sun Chen’s record of killings central to the outcome: the ruler rejects exile by invoking the mercy Sun Chen denied others. The news also prompts congratulations from Liu Shan, ruler of Shu. In response, Sun Xiu sends an envoy to Shu; the envoy’s report describes corruption at court and popular poverty there, widening the episode’s aftermath from a palace power struggle to a comparison between the political condition of Wu and that of Shu.