| Zhou Yu | |
| |
| Character information | |
|---|---|
| Force(s): | Sun Jian Forces Sun Ce ForcesYuan Shu Forces Sun Quan Forces |
| Weapon Type: | Iron Sword |
| Advanced + : | Phoenix |
| Historical information | |
| Real name: | Zhōu Yú |
| Chinese name: | 周瑜 |
| Style name: | Gōngjǐn |
| Chinese name: | 公瑾 |
| Born: | 175 |
| Died: | 210 |
Zhou Yu is Wu's main strategist and Sun Ce's sworn brother. He is married to Xiao Qiao. Akin to history, he is an intelligent man who is known for his good looks and musical talent. At the Battle of Chi Bi, he served as the commander, leading his fleet to victory over Cao Cao's larger forces.
In Dynasty Warriors Online, he is 25 years old and his height is 178 cm (5'10").
General information
While serving Zhou Yu you will gain
Domestic Bonus - Commerce + 10
Battle Bonus - Musou + 15
Character Information
[1]Zhou Yu's artwork in Dynasty Warriors 6.===Personality===
Calm and rational, Zhou Yu is a wise expert of strategy who is capable of seeing through most of his enemies' ploys. He was a darker and slightly more arrogant character in his first appearance, but he has softened in following titles. He treats his allies with modest professionalism and genuine respect. His devotion to his homeland is unquestionable, and his talents are praised with renown.
Since they are often childhood friends, Zhou Yu acts as the voice of reason for the hot blooded Sun Ce. They share a strong bond and both comrades can rely on the other in times of need. In previous titles, he refers to his friend by his style name in Japanese, though this was not the case in Dynasty Warriors 6. His mature and serious persona contrasts with Xiao Qiao's naive and cheerful one. While he is also a loving husband, his words of caution are not always appreciated by his wife. Even so, he thinks of her dearly and will not hesitate to come to her rescue.
Character Symbolism
Within many Koei works as well as many fictional Three Kingdoms media, Zhou Yu is attributed to have played a flute. Historically, he was said to have been gifted with musical talent in his youth. A famous passage retorts that he could hear a mistaken note of a group performance even whilst drunk, turning his head directly to the lone performer who missed his/her part. While nothing in historical records notes that he particularly favored the woodwind instrument, flutes have a history of signaling the start of various ceremonies and a war strategist was occasionally given the honor of being the player. His act of playing a flute is likely a romanticized image for him inspired from these two sources - Koei works especially like to tie in this trait with his strategies at Chi Bi.
Zhou Yu's weapon within the Dynasty Warriors series oddly has a couple Japanese names within Asian ports. His second weapon is named Zantetsuken (literally Cutting Iron Sword), a doting term used to praise the hard metals of a Japanese sword. The description implies that the unique methods for forming the blade makes it nearly indestructible, but this legend has been debunked more than once in history. His fourth weapon's name includes another term for Japanese swords, Shinuchi. It is used to describe the best part of a blade to hit multiple times.
The name of his third weapon, the gǔdìng dāo, was a weapon actually noted to have been wielded by Sun Jian within Romance of the Three Kingdoms, though it rarely made an appearance past his introduction. Zhou Yu likely uses a sword within the games due to a later event in the novel, wherein he performed a sword dance at a banquet for Jiang Gan.
All of his weapons in Dynasty Warriors 6 are named after aspects of the sky. In the Asian ports, they take specific inspiration from cloudy times of day during which the sun or moon will illuminate the sky for a picturesque effect (crimson irisation, vermillion morning haze, black misty spring moon). The reference of the light sources creating a brilliant shine may be a subtle nod to Zhou Yu's style name.
Historical Information
Early life and career
Zhou Yu was born in Lujiang Commandery in an influential family with many members who served in high ranking positions in the government. Zhou Yu's grandfather, Zhou Jing, and Zhou Jing's son both took the post of Grand Commandant in the Han imperial court. Zhou Yu's father, Zhou Yi, was the Chief of Luoyang, the capital city. When the coalition against Dong Zhuo was formed, Zhou Yi led his family to migrate to Lujiang. There, Sun Jian's son Sun Ce and Zhou Yu studied together and became lifelong friends. Zhou Yu's uncle later became the governor of Danyang under the warlord Yuan Shu , Zhou went visit his uncle and stayed there, while his best friend, Sun Ce, was planning to establish independence over the soil of Jiangdong.
Sun Ce, under a commission from Yuan Shu, entered Yang Province to aid his relatives, Wu Jing and Sun Ben, who were attacked by Liu Yao. When Sun was about to cross the Yangtze River to begin his Jiangdong campaign, he sent a letter to Zhou Yu, stating his ambition. In response, Zhou Yu led his troops to Liyang (歷陽, present-day He County, Anhui, China) to catch up with Sun Ce, who exclaimed upon Zhou's arrival, "with you, greatness can be attained!"
Service under Sun Ce
Zhou Yu was involved in the first half of Sun Ce's campaign to unify Yang Province, wherein the focus was to defeat the warlords in the area. Zhou Yu was credited with the capture of Hengjiang and Dangli. Then, Zhou Yu followed Sun Ce to cross the Yangtze and took over Huji , Jiangcheng , and Qu'e. When the strongest opponent in the area, the Inspector of Yang Province, Liu Yao, fled from Moling , Sun Ce's forces had been joined by local peasants numbering a few ten thousands. Therefore, Sun Ce told Zhou Yu he could complete his objective with the current troops, and asked Zhou to go back and defend Dangyang. Soon, Yuan Shu's ambition was fed by Sun Ce's recent victories over his long-term rivals to a point that he desired to declare himself emperor. Sun Ce, citing loyalty to the Han Emperor Xian, sent a letter to Yuan Shu in an attempt to dissuade him from doing so, but Sun's counsel fell on deaf ear. Yuan Shu further sent his cousin to replace Zhou Shang as the Administer of Dangyang, and kept Zhou Shang and Zhou Yu in Shouchun. In order to control Sun Ce, Yuan Shu had the families of Sun and Zhou Yu kept under a short leash, so Zhou tricked Yuan to grant him the position of Chief of Juchao with the intention of escaping from Yuan's domain, and returned to Sun Ce via Juchao
Upon knowing what was happening with Zhou Yu's return, Sun Ce sent Lü Fan to secretly retrieve the families back to the southern side of Yangtze River. Then, Sun Ce severed ties with Yuan Shu and allied with Lü Bu, Cao Cao, and Liu Bei to oppose Yuan. It was during Zhou Yu's journey to Wu did he bring along a wealthy merchant called Lu Su into Sun Ce's government, who would become a prominent advisor to the Sun family later.
Marriage
It was around this time that Zhou Yu and Sun Ce married the Qiao sisters. Very soon afterwards, Sun Ce and Zhou Yu pacified most of Yang Province on the south of the Yangtze River and extended their power into the Wu region and north into the Huai River region, defeating Liu Xun and the remnant forces of Yuan Shu in the north as well as Huang Zu and the forces of Liu Biao to the west.
Serving Sun Quan
In 200, Sun Ce was assassinated and was succeeded by his younger brother, Sun Quan. Zhou Yu took control of military affairs while Zhang Zhao was in charge of domestic affairs. Around this time, Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao and demanded that Sun Quan send a family member hostage. Zhou Yu advised against sending a hostage. This raised Zhou Yu's prestige within the Sun family, and he was treated as an older brother by Sun Quan. In 206, Zhou Yu attacked the local bandits and captured over 10,000 people and resettled them. When he was stationed on the border, he repelled an attack by Liu Biao's general, Deng Long, who was captured in the battle.
In 208, Sun Quan ordered an attack on Jiangxia, which was controlled by Huang Zu. Zhou Yu was assigned the Grand Commander, Lü Meng the navy commander, and Ling Tong the vanguard commander for the campaign. Even the battles were harder than expected, Huang Zu was ultimately captured and executed.
Not long later, Cao Cao started a campaign aimed at wiping out all opposition in southern China. As his army conquered Jing Province and was closing in on Sun Quan, the latter's court was divided upon the issue of whether to surrender or resist. Sun Quan consulted Zhou Yu, who replied: "Although Cao Cao pretends to be a minister of the Han Dynasty, he is actually a thief who is attempting to steal the empire from Han. My lord, with your brilliant talent and your father and brother's military prowess, have ruled and pacified Eastern Wu. The territory stretches thousand of li, the soldiers are well trained, brilliant advisors of great talents are at your disposal. It is the time to get rid of Cao Cao and restore the Han Dynasty. Cao Cao has come down south and presented himself as an opportunity for you, my lord. Now I will analyse for you the dire situation Cao Cao has placed himself into: Even if the north has been completely unified, can Cao Cao's ground based army fight against our superior navy and marines? The truth is that the north has not been completely pacified. Ma Chao will remain a thorn in Cao Cao's flesh. Cao Cao's superior cavalry is useless against the mountainous and watery terrain of the south. Winter is upon us, and yet Cao Cao's large army has to depend on a long supply line halfway across China. Cao Cao's army are mainly composed of northerners, and they are not used to the environment of the south, thus they will easily become sick. With all of these problems, I promise you that with 30,000 men, I can easily defeat him." Greatly relieved, Sun Quan decided to resist Cao Cao's invasion.
The Battle of Red Cliffs ensued. Contrary to popular belief, Zhuge Liang did not contribute much and Zhou Yu was the supreme commander of the united forces against Cao Cao. In this battle, a series of stratagems were employed by Zhou Yu to destroy Cao Cao's naval fleet. Huang Gai proposed a plan in which he pretended to surrender to Cao Cao and infiltrated the enemy camp. There, he set his own ships on fire and rammed them into Cao Cao's ships before jumping into the river. Many of Cao Cao's ships were set ablaze and he was forced to flee back to Xuchang.
Afterwards, Zhou Yu led his army in pursuit of Cao Cao's army and laid siege to Nan Commandery. While on the front lines, Zhou Yu was seriously wounded by a stray arrow and forced to withdraw from the direct command of troops. Cao Ren, the defending general, heard of Zhou Yu's injury and ordered his soldiers to yell insults outside Zhou's camp in an attempt to dishearten his army. Zhou Yu personally inspected his troops to raise their morale. Seeing that the advantages he had hoped to gain were lost, Cao Ren retreated. After a year of siege, Nan Commandery was taken and Zhou Yu was appointed governor of the commandery.
Death
In 210, Zhou Yu proposed to Sun Quan his plan to attack Liu Zhang of Yi Province and unify all of southern China under Sun Quan to resist Cao Cao in northern China. In addition, he proposed an alliance with Zhang Lu of Hanzhong and Ma Chao of Liang Province, whom Zhou Yu correctly predicted would soon oppose Cao Cao (Ma Chao rebelled a year later, and Zhang Lu supported him). While preparing for the long campaign, he died at age 35 in Baqiu.
Zhou Yu was buried in his ancestral home in Lujiang. Lu Su succeeded him as commander-in-chief of Sun Quan's military, while his oldest son Zhou Xun inherited his title of nobility.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhou Yu accepted Zhuge Liang's offer of alliance at the Battle of Chi Bi, although Zhuge Liang was his rival of mastering tactics. Unfortunately after that great battle, his destiny wasn't as good as Zhuge Liang's. He was foiled each time by his rival - partially through the efforts of Lu Su- and his frustration resulted in the aggravation of a battle wound, causing his sickness and death.
Quests Started by Zhou Yu
Destroy the Facility - 1 Player Quest
Capture the Messenger - 1 Player Quest
A Soldier Prizes Speed - 1 Player Quest
Stop the Black Market - 2 Player Quest
疑惑の深い森 - 2 Player Quest
Weapon
Zhou Yu's Weapon of chocie is the Iron Sword