Chapter 66: The Death of Dong Zhuo
Arriving at the palace gate, Lü Bu held up Dong Zhuo's head and shouted loudly: "Lü Bu Lü Fengxian is here, all of you stop!"
Lü Bu exerted his full strength and let out a thunderous roar, causing the soldiers of both sides to pause in their fighting, their blood and energy churning. Without needing to be told, they slowed down their attacks and separated, looking at Lü Bu with anticipation, wondering what he was going to say.
As the saying goes, a man's name is like a tree's shadow. Although Lü Bu was not liked by the scholars and officials, who considered him to be just a rough and unrefined warrior, he was actually very famous and influential among the soldiers. The Battle of Tiger Trap Pass was even more shocking to the world, where he single-handedly fought against Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan without falling behind, showing his extraordinary bravery and martial arts skills, making him an idol for warriors all over the world.
Only then did Lü Bu take out a yellow silk from his bosom, slowly unfolding it, and read aloud: "In the second year of the Chū Píng era, on the fourth month, Kui Chou day, the Emperor of Great Han decreed: Dong Zhuo has disrupted the palace, overthrown the imperial court, cruelly oppressed the people, brought disaster to the country... His crimes are great and his evil is extreme. He specially orders General Lü Bu and Minister Wang Yun to eliminate this rebel..."
"...Now that Dong Zhuo has been beheaded, you can put down your arms and I will not hold past grievances against you." As he spoke, Lü Bu swung his halberd with force and shouted: "The head of the traitor Dong is here, yet you still refuse to surrender!"
"What? The Grand Tutor is dead?" The five hundred Tiger Guards immediately became agitated, each one stretching their necks to get a clear look at Dong Zhuo's head. Some of those who were loyal to Dong Zhuo even charged towards Lü Bu with swords in hand, shouting loudly as they sought revenge for the Grand Tutor.
It must be said that Dong Zhuo was indeed good to his soldiers, at least half of the Hu Bao soldiers rushed up to avenge him. Lü Bu was furious and swung his halberd in a frenzy, instantly creating a scene of blood and flesh flying everywhere, a hell on earth.
At the same time, a group of cavalrymen in black uniforms suddenly appeared in everyone's line of sight. The leader wore a tall hat and had long sleeves fluttering behind him, with a white beard flowing across his chest, and a precious sword hanging from his waist. It was indeed Wang Yun, the King of Shizhong, as mentioned in the imperial edict. Beside Wang Yun stood Zhang Liao, also known as Zhang Wenyuan, holding a steel knife upside down.
Zhang Liao led over a thousand iron cavalry, and at a glance, he saw the Hu Bao army surrounding Lü Bu. With a loud shout, he led his iron cavalry to charge forward.
Lü Bu was also getting frustrated at this time, mainly because Lü Bu was not used to infantry battles. When killing people, he always felt that something was missing, and there was no smooth and refreshing feeling.
So seeing Zhang Liao leading his troops forward, Lü Bu immediately shouted loudly: "Wen Yuan, kill them all, not a single one is left."
Zhang Liao responded with a loud shout: "The general has given an order, kill them all, leave no one alive."
But Lü Bu and Zhang Liao did not notice that Wang Yun's face was somewhat gloomy, Wang Yun was very displeased in his heart, he thought that this time to kill Dong Zhuo, should be with himself as the leader, the one who should give orders is oneself, Lü Bu... hum! That is just a fighter, dare to overstep authority, truly... truly impolite!
As they pondered, Zhang Liao and others had already killed the 500 Tiger Guards, with blood flowing like a river, corpses scattered all over the ground, and the white jade steps in front of the palace gate were dyed red. Many palace guards who had never seen fresh blood before turned pale and trembled all over, which made Wang Yun frown.
Wang Yun was indeed loyal to the Han court and had some abilities, but he had one major flaw: his desire for power was too strong. Since childhood, he had been known as "the talent of Wang Zuo", and over time, he began to think that he was the number one person in the world, comparable to Lü Shang and Zhang Liang. He always wanted to control everything in his own hands. This was similar to most powerful ministers, but Wang Yun forgot that in this chaotic era, reputation was nothing, and only having soldiers and generals under him was real power.
Before long, Zhang Liao led his men to slaughter Dong Zhuo's 500 elite soldiers, and then had the corpses carried outside for burial. Only then did Wang Yun's face break into a smile. The great deed was now accomplished, and he only waited for his name to be recorded in history.
The corpses were cleaned up, and Wang Yun and Lü Bu entered the palace to meet with Emperor Xian. At that time, Emperor Xian was only over ten years old, an age when one admires heroes. Seeing how tall and majestic Lü Bu looked, he was extremely delighted and immediately conferred upon Lü Bu the title of Marquis of Wen, granting him a ceremonial axe, and putting him in charge of the military forces in the capital (which consisted of only a few thousand men under Lü Bu's command). Lü Bu was overjoyed, hastily kneeling down to kowtow, and shouting "Long live the Emperor!"
To be honest, at this moment Lü Bu really had the intention of sacrificing his life for Emperor Xian of Han.
"The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" evaluation of Lü Bu is too subjective, in fact, Lü Bu's ambition is not great, and he is not the three-talented house slave scolded by Zhang Fei. Lü killed Ding Yuan and Dong Zhuo were all due to the emperor's edict, it can be said that they were acting on orders.
After the reward ceremony, they began to discuss how to deal with Dong Zhuo. Emperor Xian had a deep grudge against Dong Zhuo and immediately ordered that the entire Dong family, regardless of age or sex, be executed. Dong Zhuo's body was left exposed for three days. Note that the treatment of Dong Zhuo was to expose his corpse for three days, mainly because Emperor Xian had not yet considered how to flog the corpse, rather than exposing it for three days being considered as having completed the punishment.
The mighty Dong Zhuo is dead and still cannot rest in peace, it's really... beyond words.
Looking at the historical evaluation of Dong Zhuo, "Records of the Three Kingdoms" describes Dong Zhuo: He was cruel and inhumane, so he used severe punishment to intimidate the masses. If someone offended him slightly, he would definitely retaliate, and people could not protect themselves.
Actually, it's a bit excessive. First of all, let me say that the people who wrote books in ancient times were Confucian scholars and officials. Dong Zhuo naturally hated these people very much. Because Dong Zhuo enforced the law extremely harshly, and those who broke the law would be punished, but in reality, could ordinary people dare to break the law? It was already good if they could survive, and those who dared to disregard the law were precisely these officials and Confucian scholars, so Dong Zhuo mostly punished these officials and scholars.
The Wu Book says: The prefecture summoned Zhuo as an official, and had him supervise the suppression of bandits. Hu often went out on raids, capturing many civilians, so the Governor of Liangzhou, Cheng You, appointed Zhuo as a subordinate officer, putting him in charge of leading troops to pursue and capture them, defeating them greatly, beheading or capturing thousands. The Governor of Bingzhou, Yuan Shao, recommended Zhuo to the imperial court, appointing him as a county magistrate.
The Records of Heroes says: Zhuo Ju fought against the Qiang and Hu tribes in over a hundred battles before and after.
It can be seen that Dong Zhuo's garrison in Xiliang still had some achievements, of course, I'm not here to vindicate Dong Zhuo. In fact, Dong Zhuo was not a good person, but I just think that the things written in history books are not entirely trustworthy.
Scholars and officials said that Dong Zhuo was put to death, whether they were officials or civilians, all applauded. Here, only the words of scholars are expressed with suspicion, just like in a certain dynasty in later generations, mainstream media propaganda oil prices rose, people expressed no pressure at all.
The Book of Later Han also records a folk song from Eastern Han: "Thousand-mile grass, why so green? Divined for ten days, cannot be born."
Just simply suspecting it a bit, the cultural level of the common people in the Eastern Han Dynasty is really high.
As soon as Dong Zhuo died, his body was thrown onto the street and exposed to the sun. At night, the guards inserted a burning torch into his navel, lighting up the sky lanterns to illuminate the surroundings. Because of Dong Zhuo's obesity, "the light shone brightly until dawn, as if it had been accumulating for days."
Next was the elimination of Dong Zhuo's party members, and the first to be unlucky was Li Ru. Li Ru was a ruthless man who poisoned Emperor Shao with his own hands, and he was ranked first on the list of those to be killed in the imperial court without any suspense.