Jia Chong

The instrument of both halves of Sima Zhao's policy. Puts the question of the throne to him outright - 'all real authority is in your hands, and the country is not tranquil. The only remedy is for you to become actual ruler, and you should find out who are your supporters' - then goes east himself as the sounding board, gets Zhuge Dan drunk and finds out exactly what he thinks. When Sima Zhao wants to march at once, it is Jia Chong who supplies the caution that shapes the whole campaign: 'you derived your power from your father and brother, and people have not had time to discover your own virtue. If you leave the court and there be a revulsion of feeling against you, you will lose all. Rather request the Empress Dowager and the Son of Heaven to go with you.'

Gives the order and survives it, which is the chapter's point. Supplies the Lurking Dragon poem to Sima Zhao in the first place, with the reading that makes it fatal ('one stanza undoubtedly points to you, my lord'), and promises 'I will see to it for you.' At the Dragon Gate, when the guards stop dead at the sight of their own Emperor, it is Jia Chong who breaks the moment: 'What did Duke Sima Zhao train you for if not for this day's work?' and then 'Duke Sima Zhao said the man had to die.' Arrests Wang Jing for calling him a rebel over the body. Chen Tai demands his head as the minimum atonement and does not get it.

Proposes the cheap solution and is overruled. Faced with Deng Ai's map, he tells Sima Zhao that Jiang Wei 'has carried on the work of Zhuge Liang only too thoroughly, and it is hard to force him back. What you need is some crafty brave to assassinate him, so remove this constant menace of war.' Xun Xu talks the plan up into a full invasion instead.

Supplies the instrument and then becomes a suspect himself. Asked what to do about Deng Ai's insubordination, he answers 'Why not order Zhong Hui to reduce him to obedience?' - the move that sets the two conquerors against each other. Later sent to lead an expedition into the Xie Valley, and by then his own suspicions of Zhong Hui have grown enough to raise with Sima Zhao, who turns them back on him with a smile.

Ends one war and starts a dynasty. Arrives at Chengdu in the middle of the bloodshed and 'restored confidence and order', sets Wei Guan over the city and sends the captive Latter Ruler to Luoyang. Then supplies Sima Yan with the reading of Cao Cao he needs - that Cao Cao's King Wen talk was fear of posterity's reproach, and 'Nevertheless he caused Cao Pi to become Emperor' - and with the comparison that flatters ('Comparison with Cao Cao is impossible'), and finally reads the abdication mandate aloud on the terrace.

The Jin court's hardest voice, and the one who asks the question everybody wants asked. Present through the planning of the conquest, and at the reception of the captured Sun Hao he puts it to his face: 'I hear, Sir, that when you were in the south, they gouged out people's eyes and flayed their faces. What crimes were so punished?'