East of the River: Home of the Sun Clan sample -- TPMThorne.com

Wu Jing was returning to the departing army; he was visibly uncomfortable, and he was obviously looking forward to a short dialogue with his feisty nephew Sun Ce.
“…Go on, son,” Sun Jian said.
Sun Ce required more prompting before he finally followed his mother: he ran past his uncle Wu Jing without stopping.
“Ayah… does no one care what happens to me?” Wu Jing sighed as he reached the sombre Sun Jian.
“He’s upset,” Sun Jian replied. “Shall we…?”
“Yes, let’s get going,” Wu Jing agreed.
The two men returned to their small army, unaware that Sun Ce had decided to turn around and watch his father’s final retreat. Cheng Pu had prepared a horse with a mostly-white coat for Sun Jian to ride: he mounted it and prepared to make one last horseback address to his small army.
“I hope that every man that had family to say their farewells too has had their chance,” Sun Jian began. “We’ve got a long journey ahead of us, and although our enemy is not as fearsome as it could be, it will still be many months before we can come back to our homes. But rest assured, this will be a battle fought together: I have as much chance of coming home as any of you, because I intend to be right out there with you.”
Wu Jing shuddered at the words.
“I know that we had the odd man decide not to go because the enemy is ‘the people’,” Sun Jian continued. “Yes, it is… but they’ve been muddled by lies, taken in when they were scared and angry. Our job isn’t to kill everyone, okay…? Our job is to pacify the land. Our job is to stop those that need stopping, and help those that need helping.”
The militia listened silently and carefully.
“We’re going to cross the Great River and go through Lujiang Prefecture,” Sun Jian continued.

“After that, we’ll go west and cut off the enemy advance to the Great River from Runan. Our first objective isn’t to save the northerners: it’s to protect our own homes. What we do after that is up to the Yellow Turbans and how much they want to come down here; hopefully, they’ll take one look at our marshlands and realise that we’re doing them a favour.”
Some of the men laughed.
“…Not bad,” Zu Mao whispered as he pondered Sun Jian’s rhetoric.
Cheng Pu brought his horse alongside Sun Jian’s and said, “We should get going.”
“I know,” Sun Jian replied quietly; he then turned his gaze back to his militia and asked, “Are we ready…?”
The reassured men spoke as one, yelling, “Yes, Commander Sun!”
Sun Jian smiled, raised his sword, and shouted, “For the Empire!”
The militia hollered their accord, and the journey out of Fuchun began. Sun Ce watched with a mixture of fear and awe, whispering, “There goes my father…!”

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