Guanqiu Jian

Imperial Protector of Youzhou, and his function is the memorial that ends the chapter — the report of Gongsun Yuan's revolt that arrives just as Cao Rui finishes killing his empress, and forces a council.

Two jobs, and the second one is decisive. Leads one hundred thousand troops against Wuchang in the three-pronged invasion and retreats when Dongxing breaks. Then holds the line with Hu Zun during the Xincheng siege, and when Zhuge Ke's plague-ridden army finally gives up the siege it is Guanqiu Jian who 'led the Wei's grand army to follow and harass Zhuge Ke's march and inflicted a severe defeat' — the blow that turns a failed siege into the disgrace that gets Zhuge Ke killed.

The rebellion is declared in this chapter's last lines. 'In the spring of the second year of Right Origin, it was reported at court that Guanqiu Jian, General Who Guards the East, and Wen Qin, Imperial Protector of Yangzhou, were raising armies with the declared design of restoring the deposed emperor. Sima Shi disconcerted.'

Provoked into revolt by his own son and armed with a forged edict from the Empress Dowager, he swears the Shouchun oath over a white horse's blood, puts sixty thousand men into Xiangcheng, and then loses the campaign by hesitation: beaten to Nandun, panicked back to Xiangcheng by Sun Jun's crossing, and finally surrounded by three armies. He escapes with a dozen riders to Shenxian, where 'Governor Song Bai received him kindly and comforted him with a feast. At the banquet Guanqiu Jian drowned his sorrows in the wine cup till he was helpless, when he was slain by his host.' His head is sent to the Wei army as proof.