Your five tiger generals of each kingdom

[Sun Fin]

My all star Five would be:
Sun Ce (i no his a leader but who cares)
Lu Xun
Zhao Yun
Xiahou Dun
Zhang Liao

[Sun Fin]

I got thinking about who should have been Wu's five generals after Han's question so decided to revive this thread.

I'm basing my choices on the criteria that Chen Shou seemed to have selected when making his groupings in the SGZ. Those factors seemed to be:

1) That they weren't family (so not Sun Ce).
2) Not commanders-in-chief (so no Lu Meng, Zhou Yu or Lu Xun).
3) That their career peaked during the lives of Liu Bei/Cao Cao. So for Wu during the lives of Sun Ce and Quan (so no Ding Feng).

Therefore I'm going to pick:

1) Cheng Pu
2) Huang Gai
3) Taishi Ci
4) Gan Ning - pains me to do this, I can not stand the man but he was an important military figure for Wu.
5) Ling Tong

The three who I also considered are Zhou Tai, Zhu Ran and Han Dang.

[Han]

Theres another criteria in which all Five should die roughly in the time period with one outlier. Zhao Yun for the Five Tigers and Zhang He for the Five Elites

[Sun Fin]

Hello together,

I made my own TOP 5 Ranking of Wu Generals (in the period 208-222) , but I need some help for the last two free spots.

My Top 5 are:
Zhou Tai
Gan Ning
Ling Tong
???????
???????

You can choose two of these characters:

Ding Feng - killed Zhang Liao, but was only a subgeneral and his great time was later
Cheng Pu - yeah he was a great number, but after Nanjun he didn't fight
Lu Meng - correct me if I am wrong, but he was a strategist or did he really fight?
Zhu Ran - his great accomplishments took place after the mentioned time period. Or am I wrong about that?
Lu Xun - more a strategists???
Taishi Ci - Died in Hefei or rather before Chibi.
Xu Sheng - Was he a top general or did he beat a great general?

You can see a post I made a few above to give some more thoughts on this.

I would remove Ding Feng, Lu Meng and Lu Xun from the options immediately. As I said above Chen Shou in his groupings normally didn't include CIC's like the two Lu's whilst I feel Ding Feng was too late.

That leaves Cheng Pu, Zhu Ran, Taishi Ci and Xu Sheng. I also think Huang Gai, Jiang Qin, Chen Wu, Dong Xi and Pan Zhang deserve consideration. Especially Huang Gai. However I'm just going to stick to your list for now.

Now personally Taishi Ci would be top of my list. His reputation from before encountering Sun Ce was admirable. Then he fought against the Little Conqueror (both in an actual one on one duel and leading rebels after Liu Yao's capitulation). After, finally, surrendering he went and recruited an army for Ce despite most of Ce's other subordinates doubting Ci's trustworthiness. Finally he actually fought on behalf of Ce and Quan! I think he is the best of Wu's generals and I'm just sad he died young.

That leaves one place. I think Xu Sheng is probably the lest important of the remaining three so we'll discount him. Zhu Ran probably had the more spectacular career but I think Cheng Pu's solid service over many years gets the nod.

[Han]

As I said above Chen Shou in his groupings normally didn't include CIC's like the two Lu's whilst I feel Ding Feng was too late.

Are you talking about five tigers and five elites?

Guan Yu( Xu and Jing), Zhang Fei( HanZhong), Ma Chao(Xiliang), had complete command at some point in time during their long careers.

Zhang Liao also had autonomy shared with Yue Jin at Hefei.

[Sun Fin]

Yeah that's actually a really good point Han.

Would it be fair to say that whilst all of them did have independent commands it's not what they are best known for? Instead all of them are mainly thought of as warriors and front line officers who occasionally commanded armies unlike Zhuge Liang, Zhou Yu, Lu Xun or Lu Meng etc who are thought of primarily as commanders?

[Han]

Agreed. They were all remembered for their martial valour. However, if I recall, their greatest accomplishments came as commanders especially Guan Yu and Zhang Liao.

[jonathan_hili]

Here are my picks:

Cao Wei: Cao Ren, Zhang Liao, Xu Huang, Zhang He, Yue Jin.
Notable candidates: Deng Ai, Yu Jin, Xiahou Yuan.

Shu Han: Zhang Fei, Wei Yan, Jiang Wei, Wang Ping, Huang Zhong.
Notable candidates: Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Chen Dao.

Dong Wu : Gan Ning, Taishi Ci, Zhou Tai, Ling Tong, Cheng Pu.
Notable candidates : Huang Gai, Zhu Ran, Ding Feng.

I have restricted the term “military general” to those who were also not key advisers or in overall command, and therefore figures like Lu Meng, Lu Xun, Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong don’t get a mention.

[Sun Fin]

I think that's a pretty good list. Although I'm surprised that you said you weren't going to use '“military general” to those who were also not key advisers or in overall command' and then put Jiang Wei in your list as he was commander-in-chief of the Shu army for a long time!

I also wouldn't have Cao Ren as traditionally blood family members have been excluded from the list!

I was also wondering what it was that made you give Cheng Pu the nod over Huang Gai?

[CaTigeReptile]

As I said above Chen Shou in his groupings normally didn't include CIC's like the two Lu's whilst I feel Ding Feng was too late.

Are you talking about five tigers and five elites?

Guan Yu( Xu and Jing), Zhang Fei( HanZhong), Ma Chao(Xiliang), had complete command at some point in time during their long careers.

Zhang Liao also had autonomy shared with Yue Jin at Hefei.

Zhang Liao and Yue Jin were both stationed at Hefei but they did not have autonomy from what I can recall. I believe they were supervised by Xue Ti, Protector of the Army, who gave instructions on Cao Cao's behalf. They were not CICs. Cao Cao tended to leave Caos and Xiahous in that role. (Zhang He, on the other hand, was CIC at Hanzhong after Xiahou Yuan died, though only briefly).