Zhuge Ke

Zhuge Ke
A Qing dynasty portrait of Zhuge Ke
Regent of Eastern Wu
Born	203
Died	253 (aged 50)
Names
Traditional Chinese	諸葛恪
Simplified Chinese	诸葛恪
Pinyin	Zhūgě Kè
Wade–Giles	Chu-ko Ke
Courtesy name	Yuanxun (traditional Chinese: 元遜; simplified Chinese: 元逊; pinyin: Yuánxùn; Wade–Giles: Yüan-hsün)

Zhuge Ke (203–253), courtesy name Yuanxun, was a military general and regent of the state of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period. He was the eldest son of Zhuge Jin, an official who served under Wu's founding emperor Sun Quan. After the death of Sun Quan, Zhuge Ke served as regent for Sun Quan's son and successor, Sun Liang, but the regency proved to be militarily disastrous due to Zhuge's overaggressiveness against Wu's rival state Cao Wei. In 253, Zhuge Ke was killed, along with his family, in a coup d'état.

After Wu's founding emperor Sun Quan created his son Sun Deng as crown prince in 221, he set up a staff for the crown prince consisting of the sons of the key officials or other well-known young members of the administration. The four most prominent ones were Zhuge Ke, Zhang Xiu, Gu Tan and Chen Biao. Sun Deng treated them as friends, not as subordinates, and they grew up together and served as Sun Deng's advisors. When Sun Deng had his secretary Hu Zong (胡綜) write a commentary about his advisors in 229, Hu wrote that Zhuge Ke was the most intelligent and skilful of his generation. While this was true, he also quickly developed a reputation for being reckless, a characteristic that both his father Zhuge Jin and his uncle Zhuge Liang repeatedly rebuked him about. On one occasion, Zhuge Jin observed, "This child will either bring great honor to my household or destroy it."

By 234, Zhuge Ke was serving as a commander of the capital guards, and he submitted a plan to Sun Quan to suppress the indigenous Baiyue people and recruited about 40.000 locals as soldiers of Danyang commandery (in present-day Xuancheng, Anhui), who had not submitted to the Wu authorities and were pillaging the Han people — a plan that most senior officials, including Zhuge Jin, considered reckless and costly. Zhuge Ke, however, insisted that his plan would be successful, so Sun Quan commissioned him as the governor of Danyang and him Prefect of Danyang and "General Who Pacifies the Yue" gave him full powers to implement his plan. Once he arrived, he requested the four neighbouring commanderies to seal their borders and did not combat the Yue; then, when the rice became ready for harvest, he had the rice harvested quickly and then gathered up, away from the pillaging Yue. The Yue were starved into submission, and as soon as they submitted, he treated them with kindness. By 237, Danyang was entirely under the Wu government's control and became a productive commandery for manpower and supplies which in turn easily fulfilled his quota of 40,000 bodies to military. Sun Quan was impressed and granted Zhuge Ke the title of a marquess and furthermore he promoted to the rank of General of the Guards [weibo jiangjun] .