In the second year of Xingping (195), Sun Ce led his troops south, and in just five or six years, he started from scratch, basically unified Jiangdong, and quickly reached the peak of his power.

【Unification of Koto】

In the fourth year of Chuping (193), Sun Ce's filial piety was over, and he officially began to move forward, when he first consulted Zhang Hong, who was also in Jiangdu, and said his life plan, and this dialogue between the two is the "Jiangdu right" that has been passed down to future generations.

Later, Sun Ce asked Yuan Shu for his father Sun Jian's old department, at first Yuan Shu was unwilling to give, and asked Sun Ce to go to his uncle Danyang Taishou Wu Jing where to recruit troops, but Sun Ce recruited some soldiers but was attacked by Zu Lang and almost died.

After Sun Ce took refuge in Yuan Shu, Yuan Shu admired him very much, but he was worried that Sun Ce would become bigger, and he promised to let Sun Ce be the Taishou of Jiujiang, but he destroyed his promise, and then promised Sun Ce to hand over Lujiang to Sun Ce when he defeated Lujiang but broke his promise again, Sun Ce was very disappointed in Yuan Shu, so he was ready to go south to break out of the world by himself.

Yuan Shu also understood Sun Ce's heart at that time, but at that time, Yangzhou was full of forces, Yuan Shu did not think that Sun Ce could succeed, on the other hand, Yuan Shu also wanted to end the deadlock against Liu Xuan, so he allowed Sun Ce to go south.

So Sun Ce began his journey to unify Jiangdong.

At that time, Sun Ce's first enemy was the powerful Yangzhou Mu Liu Xuan, Liu Xiang as a justifiable Yangzhou Mu, the strength was strong, and Yuan Shu had been competing with Yuan Shu for more than a year, although Yuan Shu sent Wu Jing, Sun Ben and others, but also could not open the deadlock for a long time. After Sun Ce went south, he defeated Liu Xuan's generals Fan Neng, Zhang Ying, Yu Elk, Zhen Rong and others like an autumn wind sweeping away leaves, and quickly hit Liu Xuan's old nest Qu'a, and defeated Liu Xiang here and drove him out of Wu County. After that, Sun Ce and his subordinates swept away Yan Baihu, Zou Ta, Qian Tong, Wang Sheng, and the two Wu County Taishou Xu Gong and Chen Yu who were not obedient to Sun Ce, and completely controlled Wu County in their hands.

In addition to Wu County, Yangzhou also has five counties, including Huiji, Jiujiang, Danyang, Yuzhang and Lujiang, among which Huiji County has a vast area and is very rich, so it is natural for Sun Ce to take it as the next target. After Sun Ce went south, Huiji guarded Wang Lang according to the city, Sun Ce could not attack in a hurry, and then listened to the advice of his uncle Sun Jing to raid Wang Lang's rear, and killed his general Zhou Xin in one fell swoop, defeated Wang Lang, and then caught up with Wang Lang, captured him, and pacified Huiji.

In the second year of Jian'an (197), Yuan Shu was ready to establish himself as emperor, but Sun Ce refused to listen to his persuasion, so he severed relations with him and separated from Yuan Shu's camp. At that time, Wu Jing, Sun Ben, Zhou Yu and others under Yuan Shu also came to seek refuge with Sun Ce. In the third year of Jian'an (198), Sun Ce sent Xu Kun to expel Yuan Yin, the Taishou of Danyang, appointed by Yuan Shu, and welcomed Wu Jing, who had just returned from Yuan Shu, to serve as the Taishou of Danyang, and defeated Zu Lang and Tai Shici who were entrenched in Danyang, and captured them all, and Danyang County was also owned by Sun Ce.

After Yuan Shu self-annihilated, Liu Xun, the Taishou of Lujiang County, seized the old department under Yuan Shu, and his strength was greatly enhanced, which caused Sun Ce's jealousy, and it was Liu Xun who took away Sun Ce's position as the Taishou of Lujiang, so Sun Ce was dissatisfied with it and was ready to eliminate it, so he lowered his posture and lured him to send troops, and then took advantage of the situation to enter and capture Liu Xun's base camp Anhui City in one fell swoop, and then defeated Liu Xun and Huang Zu's reinforcements again, and completely drove them out of Lujiang, thus obtaining Lujiang County.

After Liu Xuan was defeated by Sun Ce in Qu'a, he fled to Yuzhang, and later died here, after his death, he left a lot of subordinates, Sun Ce wanted to take these soldiers as his own, so he sent Tai Shici to collect, and at the same time to explore the truth about Yuzhang, it turned out that Yuzhang was a big cake without defense, Sun Ce then sent troops to attack. At that time, Yuzhang was too guarded by Huaxin to adopt the management of inaction, and Yuzhang could not control the territory, and in the face of Sun Ce's army, he did not even have the courage to fight, so Yuzhang was in the hands of Sun Ce.

Yuzhang is very large in history, so Sun Ce divided it into two, divided into Yuzhang and Luling. At that time, except for Jiujiang County, the northernmost county, Yangzhou had basically fallen into the hands of Sun Ce.

【Sun Ce and Cao Cao】

After Yuan Shu's death, the situation in Jiujiang County was more complicated, which had a lot to do with Sun Ce and Cao Cao.

At that time, Sun Ce had basically occupied Jiangdong, and Yangzhou was basically owned by him, but the Xuchang court belonging to Cao Cao did not have any consciousness of appointing Sun Ce as the Yangzhou Assassin or Yangzhou Mu, Cao Cao not only did not recognize that Yangzhou belonged to Sun Ce, but instead ordered Sun Ce's younger brothers to be transferred to Xuchang, and parachuted Yan Xiang into Yangzhou Assassin History, occupying Yangzhou Shouchun and Jiujiang County, which was undoubtedly a great threat to Sun Ce who stayed in Yangzhou, Because Sun Ce, as an outsider of the imperial court, had to temporarily give up going north to seize Jiujiang in order to avoid confronting the authority of the imperial court.

But this did not mean that Sun Ce gave in to Xuchang, he secretly ordered Li Shu, the then Taishou of Lujiang, to directly kill Yan Xiang, the assassin of Yangzhou, to show his dissatisfaction, and as a preparation for the Northern Expedition, at this time the relationship between Sun Ce and Cao Cao was already on the verge of rupture.

【Koto Prosperity】

After Sun Ce pacified Jiangdong, Cao Cao was unable to go south because of Yuan Shao's threat, so he adopted a policy of appeasement towards him, so he married his younger brother's daughter Xu to Sun Ce's younger brother Sun Kuang, and married Sun Ben's daughter for his son Cao Zhang, and recruited Sun Ce's younger brothers Sun Quan and Sun Yi to come to Xuchang with gifts, and ordered Yangzhou Assassin Shi Yan Xiang to recommend Sun Quan as a talent.

According to the record of "Wu Li", Cao Cao commented on Sun Ce at that time: "It is difficult to compete with Qi'er!" ”

At that time, Sun Ce replaced all the original chiefs in the area controlled by Yangzhou, and he himself served as the Huiji Taishou, and took Wu Jing as the Danyang Taishou, Sun Ben as the Yuzhang Taishou, and divided the Yuzhang into Luling County, with Sun Ben's younger brother Sun Fu as the Luling Taishou, Danyang Zhu Zhi as the Wujun Taishou, and Li Shu from Runan as the Lujiang Taishou. In addition, Sun Ce worshiped Zhou Yu as the central protector and concurrently served as Jiangxia Taishou (Jiangxia was still in the hands of Huang Zu at that time).

In addition, Sun Ce's subordinates were also civil and military, he took Zhang Zhao from Pengcheng, Zhang He from Guangling, Qin Song, Chen Duan, etc. as strategists, and military generals included Tai Shici, Sun He, Xu Kun, Xu Yi, Huang Gai, Han Dang, Song Qian, He Qi, Dong Xi, Zhou Tai, Ling Cao, Jiang Qin, Chen Wu, Quan Rou, Deng Dang, Lu Meng and others.

At that time, Sun Ce had become a force to be reckoned with, except for the two strongest princes, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, the strength of Sun Ce's group was no worse than that of Liu Biao's group entrenched in Jingzhou and Liu Zhang's group in Yizhou, and he was already one of the few heavyweight princes at that time.