Shen Pei

Shen Pei (onyomi: Shin Pai) is a vassal of Yuan Shao. Xun Yu calls him a confident but mediocre strategist. After the death of Yuan Shao, Shen Pei helps to install Yuan Shang as the heir to the Yuan patriarchy. Upon capture, Shen refused surrender, and, as per his request, was executed facing north, where his late lord's former territories were.

Role in Games
In Dynasty Warriors 4, he serves as a general during the Battle of Ji Province. He helps to encourage Yuan Shang to forsake Yuan Tan, and serves as one of his subordinates.

In Dynasty Warriors 5 and Dynasty Warriors 6, Shen Pei appears at the Battle of Guan Du to fight Cao Cao's forces, while in the latter title's Special spin-off, he also serves at Hebei.

Dynasty Warriors 8 has Shen Pei appear at Shu's version of Guandu, where he, Yuan Shang and Feng Ji will seal off the initial escape point for Liu Bei. He also appears at Mt. Bailang as an enemy officer.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms gives Shen Pei higher leadership and intelligence stats. He also has a better war stat than Yuan Shao's other advisers. His skill prevents enemy units from using the Joint Attack command. In most games, he is friends with Yuan Shao and Feng Ji and hates all of Yuan Shao's other strategists except for Ju Shou.

Quotes

 * "Lord Yuan Shang, you are the rightful heir of the Yuan Family!"

Historical Information
Shen Pei was born in Wei commandery, Ji Province. He first served under the governor of Ji, Han Fu, but was unable to achieve his ambition in his service. Later, when Yuan Shao took control over Ji, Shen Pei joined him and became Attendant Official at the Headquarters. For the next years, he served him loyally and offered many advice's. When Yuan Shao wanted to attack Cao Cao, the latter's adviser Kong Rong described Shen Pei as a talented strategist, but Xun Yu spoke of him as a mediocre and lacking original ideas.

In 200, Shen Pei served Yuan Shao as his tactician at the Battle of Guandu. His strategies allowed Yuan Shao to score some early victories, but Yuan Shao was defeated in the end due to his own indecisiveness. During the battle, Shen Pei also ordered the imprisonment of one of Xu You's relatives for breaking the law, which caused the latter's dismissal and eventual defection to Cao Cao. Additionally, two of Shen Pei's sons were captured during the battle, causing Guo Tu and Xin Pi to state that Shen Pei would eventually surrender to Cao Cao. However, Shen Pei was convinced by Shen Pei's old enemy Geng Ji that he would not surrender.

After Yuan Shao's death, Shen Pei and Feng Ji supported Yuan Shang as his heir instead of the oldest son Yuan Tan. Shen Pei ordered his men to forge Yuan Shao's will to make Yuan Shang the heir. This caused the relations between Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang to drop and they started to fight each other eventually. Cao Cao used the opportunity to strike north and attack Ji Province. Yuan Shang, who led a campaign against Yuan Tan in Qing, left Shen Pei in charge of his capital at Ye.

Cao Cao besieged Ye in 204. Although Shen Pei was able to hold off the enemy for a long time, the defection of Li Fu, Su You and others eventually caused the city to fall. With a large portion of the population having starved, Shen Pei's nephew Shen Rong opened the gates and surrendered. Shen Pei was captured and, when one of his enemies named Zhang Ziqian, who had surrendered earlier to Cao Cao, laughed at him, rebuked the deserters to be traitors, while being a loyal minister himself. Cao Cao was impressed by Shen Pei's loyalty and wanted to spare him, but Shen Pei refused to surrender and Xin Pi and others wanted him to be executed. When Cao Cao ordered Shen Pei's execution, the latter asked to be faced north where his lord was. Cao Cao granted him his wish and had him later buried with honor in the north of the city.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Shen Pei first appears in the novel at chapter 13, where he successfully warned Yuan Shao not to take in a wandering Lu Bu. Then in chapter 22, he advised Yuan Shao to war against Cao Cao and was assigned a commanding position for the army, which got him into a quarrel with another adviser, Xu You. When Guan Yu slew Wen Chou in chapter 26, Shen Pei and another strategist spoke with Yuan Shao about how Liu Bei, under his employ, might have aided in his prized general's demise.

In chapter 30, during a battle, Shen Pei, commanding ten thousand archers, repelled Cao Cao with Yuan Shao forcing him to flee into Guandu. At this point he offered two plans to attack the encamped enemy: to build up mounds of dirt and attack Guandu from the high vantage points via arrow, and then to dig into the city and go from there. Both of these plots were defeated by Cao Cao, who utilized the intelligence of aide Liu Ye to first build catapults to break the dirt mounds, and then to quickly build a moat to render any digging into the city null.

In chapter 31, he set himself up to support Yuan Shang as the successor to the Yuans. Shen Pei dissuaded an ill Yuan Shao from leading a defense himself from an attack by Cao Cao in the year 202. Yuan Shang stepped up to lead instead. Yuan Shang's defense ended up in a disaster and in chapter 32 his father, disheartened by his previous devastating losses, died, appointing his youngest son the heir. Shen Pei and Pang Ji officially installed him as the General-in-Chief and Imperial Protector of the four northern provinces of Bing, Qing, Ji, and You.

Yuan Shang ended up relying on Shen Pei as his lone strategist once the other, Pang Ji, was executed by Yuan Tan. He was left to defend the capital city of Ji province, Ye, and once his lord fled to You Province to Yuan Xi, Shen Pei put up a staunch defense against Cao Cao.

The Commander of the East Gate of Ye, Feng Li, failed to monitor the night watch because he was intoxicated, and for this Shen Pei severely punished him, leading the commander to sneak out of the city, go to Cao Cao, and reveal a weakness of Ye. Cao Cao adopted the advice and attempted to dig into Ye at night, but Shen Pei, noticing the absence of light outside the capital, had his soldiers crush the passage killing the tunnelers and Feng Li himself.

Soon, Ye's food supply ran short so its defenders had the city's civilians evacuate and come under Cao Cao. During the release, they hid soldiers at the rear but due to Cao Cao's foresight the plan was all for naught.

Xin Pi, a defector to the enemy from the Yuans, hoisted up the seals of office and items Yuan Shang had left behind. Infuriated, Shen Pei put to death the eighty kinsmen of Xin Pi, leading the traitor to weep. Shen Rong, the nephew of Ye's commander and a dear friend to Xin Pi was distraught and shot an arrow out of the city offering a surrender of one of its walls.

Cao Cao took advantage of the surrender and marched his troops into the city, and Shen Pei was captured by Xu Huang who took him to have an audience with Cao Cao. They met Xin Pi on the way who whipped Shen Pei about the head yelling, "Thug! Cutthroat! Today you die!" The prisoner mockingly retorted and regretted how he had not killed Xin Pi.

Face-to-face with Cao Cao, it was revealed that Shen Pei's nephew was the one who surrendered the city. He was asked why so many volleys of arrows were shot at Cao Cao and responded, "Too few! Too few!" Cao Cao asked if the prisoner wanted to become a vassal of his while Xin Pi pleaded for his death.

Shen Pei proudly boasted, "Alive, I served the Yuans. Dead I shall remain their loyal ghost. I'm not one of your fawning, wheedling villains! Get it over with!" And so he was set up for execution, though his position was facing south.

Therefore, Shen Pei turned and roared to the axeman, "My lord is to the north. I won't die facing south!" After changing his direction he knelled and presented his neck, and thus he was executed. Cao Cao was chilled by the man's fierce loyalty and buried him north of Ye.