Who was Chén Dào?

On Memes and One-Time Mentions

I will admit that I used to be a bit surprised and bewildered by the occasional memes that would appear around Chén Dào, but I eventually got over it once I realized it was a similar case to Huà Xióng.

For those unaware, Huà Xióng is treated as a very important character in the early chapters of the Sān Guó Yǎnyì, but in the actual historiography, the name Huà Xióng only appears once, and in a completely off-hand way:

[Sūn] Jiān again recollected his troops, joined in battle at Yángrén, greatly defeat [Dǒng] Zhuó’s army, beheading their central controller Huà Xióng and others.¹

To give some context, due to the bureaucratization of the military, attempts were made to keep track of important kills and captures as a way to try to measure battle achievements and distribute rewards appropriately. As a result, occasionally in the history books you will see a named individual being mentioned as captured or killed, with said mention being the only extant record of that name.² So the Huà Xióng of historiography’s claim to fame is that he was the highest ranking officer killed at the battle of Yángrén.

So what happened? Well, probably when there’s less recorded, there’s more freedom to simply make stuff up. We have the name Huà Xióng and the implication that he was a relatively high ranking officer, so story-tellers are free to go from there and imagine some ferocious warrior, and then spin-off even more stories until it’s meme that grows stronger with each generational propagation.

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Strictly speaking, Chén Dào does not count as a “one-time mention” since it could be argued that he in fact has two mentions, but he is named in the historiography relatively rarely for someone who reached decently high rank, so it is perhaps natural for there to be a lot of room for memes to grow.

He is mentioned once in SGZ 40 as a commander of the Yǒng'ān garrison:

As Zhūgě Liàng wished to set out army to Hànzhōng, [Lǐ] Yán understood rear affairs, moving garrison to Jiāngzhōu, leaving Protector of the Army Chén Dào to station at Yǒng’ān, all subordinate to [Lǐ] Yán.³

But his real claim to fame probably comes from mention number two, the short biographical note attached to the entry on the official Yáng Xí in SGZ 45. Yáng Xí composed a eulogy toward the great ministers of Shǔ-Hàn, which Chén Shòu quoted in the entry, presumably as a way to give tribute to his former homeland. Some individuals included in Yáng Xí’s eulogy lack their own biographical entries, and for those Chén Shòu attached explanatory biographical notes. Chén Dào was one such figure mentioned in Yáng Xí’s eulogy, alongside Zhào Yún:

“Campaigning South [General Zhào Yún] was generous and earnest, Campaigning West [General Chén Dào] was loyal and able, the time’s select soldiers, the illustrious of the fierce officers.” Eulogizing Zhào Zǐlóng and Chén Shūzhì.

Shūzhì was named Dào, a Rǔnán man. From Yù province he accompanied Xiānzhǔ [Liú Bèi], his fame and rank often second to Zhào Yún. Both were praised for their loyalty and bravery. At Jiànxīng’s beginning, rank reached Yǒng'ān Commander, Campaigning West General, enfeoffed a precinct Marquis.⁴

These are all the mentions of Chén Dào in the standard histories, but he is also mentioned once in an extant letter from Zhūgě Liàng to his brother Zhūgě Jǐn preserved in the encyclopedia Tàipíng Yùlǎn:

Elder brother, you worry that Báidì’s troops are not elite and trained. Those [Chén] Dào commands are the Former Ruler’s [Liú Bèi’s] banner subordinates, the White Feathers, the west’s top troops.⁵

Note that the apparent purpose of this quotation is not to mention Chén Dào, but to provide an example of using the relatively rare word 眊 (which I have rather crudely rendered as “Feathers” in the above translation) in a military context. In some editions of the encyclopedia, the editor who added punctuation marks apparently did not even realize Dào was a personal name and punctuated the text to treat Dào as a word.⁶

So Chén Dào was a commander considered second to Zhào Yún, and at one point held command of an elite division made up of Liú Bèi’s former personal troops. With a jumping off point like that, it is perhaps natural for memes to appear and grow around him, especially given how much of a legend his peer Zhào Yún has become.

That Chén Dào is not included in Sān Guó Yǎnyì probably actually helps the meme, since that just means even more freedom to imagine things without being constrained by the Yǎnyì, let alone the historiography.

Artist portrayal of Chén Dào in the video game ROTK 14.

Given enough time, maybe some other one-time mention name like Gōngsūn Yáng will have its day as a meme.⁷

1. SGZ 46: 堅復相收兵，合戰於陽人，大破卓軍，梟其都督華雄等。

2. Huà Xióng is of course, not the only one. Off the top of my head, I can mention Gōngsūn Yáng and Xiàhóu Bó, both one time mentions in SGZ 1 for being high-ranking officers captured alive. There are definitely more if you are willing to go digging.

3. SGZ 40: 以諸葛亮欲出軍漢中，嚴當知後事，移屯江州，留護軍陳到駐永安，皆統屬嚴。

4. SGZ 45: 征南厚重，征西忠克，統時選士，猛將之烈。－－贊趙子龍、陳叔至叔至名到，汝南人也。自豫州隨先主，名位常亞趙雲，俱以忠勇稱。建興初，官至永安都督、征西將軍，封亭侯。

5. Tàipíng Yùlǎn 341: 諸葛亮《與瑾書》曰：兄嫌白帝兵非精練。到所督，則先主帳下白眊西方上兵也。嫌其少也當復部分江州兵以廣益之。

6. https://ctext.org/text.pl?node=379383&if=en

7. I’m being facetious. I don’t expect someone like Gōngsūn Yáng to ever get memed, since Gōngsūn Yáng has the misfortune of being a subordinate of Sūn Quán whose one-time name-drop is being the highest ranking officer captured alive by Cáo Cāo, and mythology and popular imagination has almost never cared about the south-eastern front between Cáo Cāo and Sūn Quán. I think the television series Sān Guó (2010) straight up pretends that all of Cáo Cāo’s military campaigns between 211 and 219 (which include three campaigns against Sūn Quán) never even happened.