Dong Zhuo (1)
If anyone prided themselves on knowing Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there was no way they could fail to know who Dong Zhuo was.
Mangzhuo Caoyi.
It was a phrase coined to describe the great traitors of the age from the Han Dynasty all the way through Cao Wei: Wang Mang, Dong Zhuo, Cao Cao, and Sima Yi.
Of these, Wang Mang was the first usurper in history to receive an abdication — the man who brought the golden age of the Former Han, founded by Liu Bang, Emperor Gaozu of Han, to an end after he crushed Xiang Yu and claimed the imperial throne.
He poisoned Emperor Ping, the fourteenth emperor of the Former Han, then received the throne from Liu Ying, the puppet emperor he had propped up in the boy's place, destroying the Former Han and founding the Xin Dynasty. Yet his harsh tyranny and cruelty plunged the people into utter misery.
As a result, the people of every region rose up in revolt, and as he suffered defeat after defeat at their hands, he was finally captured and torn limb from limb — a gruesome end worthy of his crimes.
Afterward, Emperor Guangwu founded the Later Han, and the Xin Dynasty that Wang Mang had built, lasting a mere fifteen years, became a short-lived empire too brief to even be counted as its own era.
It was an irony, considering that even Xiang Yu, who had dominated the Central Plains, failed to last ten years — yet his era was still recorded in history as the Chu-Han Contention.
Granted, comparing Xiang Yu — the original hegemon and archetype of the overlord — to a hypocrite like Wang Mang, who murdered an emperor and shattered the peace, was an insult to Xiang Yu of overwhelming proportion.
At any rate, Wang Mang was a traitor occasionally brought up in connection with Dong Zhuo during the Three Kingdoms era, but he wasn't a particularly important figure in this period of history.
"That bastard's worse than Wang Mang!!"
About the only way he got invoked was as an insult like that.
But Dong Zhuo was different.
He was the villain you'd be disappointed not to see, the one who played such a crucial role in the early parts of the story.
During the chaos of the Ten Attendants, it was Yuan Shao who advised He Jin to summon provincial armies in order to intimidate the eunuchs — and the man He Jin called upon was none other than Dong Zhuo.
By the time Dong Zhuo arrived, however, He Jin was already dead at the Ten Attendants' hands, and there was no way that cunning pig would let such an opportunity slip by.
He deposed Emperor Shao, who had succeeded Emperor Ling, and enthroned Emperor Xian instead — consolidating his own power while simultaneously creating a legitimacy problem for the Han, since the new emperor had been placed on the throne by another man's hand rather than through proper abdication.
He inflicted every manner of tyranny upon the people, burned the capital of Luoyang to the ground, and robbed the imperial mausoleums of the Later Han's successive emperors.
As if that weren't enough, he unleashed his soldiers to pillage town after town at will, and — under the delusion that more coin was always better — mass-produced mountains of dubious, debased currency from the imperial mint, real and fake all jumbled together.
The result: he shattered the coin economy so thoroughly that the people reverted to barter.
That was the kind of man Dong Zhuo was — he handpicked his atrocities from a list too long to count on ten fingers.
'Honestly, it was Dong Zhuo who put the finishing touch on completely wrecking the Han.'
If the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the chaos of the Ten Attendants were the starting point that heralded the true descent into an age of chaos, then Dong Zhuo's seizure of power was the wedge that hammered the empire beyond repair — swelling the warlords' ambitions, reducing the emperor to a puppet, and rendering the court incapable of even functioning. His rise opened the age of warlords carving up the land.
Though he's counted among the ranks of history's great traitors today, Cao Cao — whose heart back then brimmed with loyalty and righteousness toward the Han — was once willing to stake her very life on assassinating him.
And the event in which the lords rose up as one, each nursing their own desires and obsessions beneath the banner of righteousness, to crush him and reveal themselves to the world — that was the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition.
It was also at this point that the three sworn brothers Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei — who had been denied recognition of their merits during the Yellow Turban Rebellion for failing to pay bribes — first began to draw serious attention.
This was the golden age of the novel's early chapters, too, producing scene after legendary scene: Guan Yu slaying Hua Xiong before her wine went cold, or the Three Heroes doing battle against Lü Bu.
Thus, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Dong Zhuo was a villain who absolutely could not be left out.
And yet······.
'Why would that tyrannical pig join hands with these bastards?'
In the official history, Song Jian and Dong Zhuo had no connection whatsoever, and in the Romance, the figure of Song Jian had been cut entirely, leaving him with no role at all.
"Are you certain? She clearly said it was that woman, Dong Zhuo?"
"Y-yes, sir! Absolutely certain!!"
"······."
After suppressing the rebel coalition formed by the warlords of Yang Province, I had kept a constant, wary eye on Dong Zhuo's every move.
He was, after all, one of the warlords nearest to our own territory — but the greatest reason was to stop the traitor who would ruin the Han.
Everything we had done until now — putting down rebels to earn official posts and gathering capable talent — amounted to building up our strength for the same summons He Jin would issue to the regional lords to put down the Ten Attendants, just as it had for Dong Zhuo.
Because if we entered Luoyang together, we could put a stop to Dong Zhuo's atrocities.
He was the mastermind who scattered official posts among the lords far and wide, inciting them to carve up the land and worsen the age of chaos — which is why the very first goal I'd set after my rebirth was to block Dong Zhuo in the aftermath of the Ten Attendants' fall.
Dong Zhuo, who had been stripped of office when his crimes were exposed during the Yellow Turban Rebellion, was supposed to recover his standing as a warlord by distinguishing himself in the Liang Province rebellion under Bian Zhang and Han Sui.
But because of my intervention, Father had not joined the rebellion — on the contrary, he had crushed it even faster than history recorded, earning official rank and new territory in the process and rising rapidly as an emerging power.
By contrast, Dong Zhuo, robbed of his chance to win merit by putting down the revolt, had scraped his way back into office by showering the Ten Attendants with enormous bribes before slinking home to Liang Province — or so the reports said.
Consequently, Dong Zhuo's forces were drastically diminished compared to his strength in either the official history or the Romance.
'And yet that man ordered the rebels who styled themselves kings to plunder our territory's people and supplies, in exchange for his tacit permission······.'
Was he trying to check us as we grew in strength? Or······.
"I have a bad feeling about this."
Fa Zheng spoke, her eyes narrowing.
"My lord, I believe we must return to Liang Province at once. We need to make Dong Zhuo's involvement known — and quickly."
"···Right. I'm of the same mind. Leave a picked few of our troops behind here."
I had already sent a letter requesting Dong Zhuo's forbearance for our passage, but hearing the shocking truth of his connection to Song Jian's band made me uneasy all the same.
At the moment, Ma Chao and every other main fighting commander of Liang Province was gathered here, which worried me on Father's account, and Uncle Han Sui's as well.
"Pang De."
"Yes, my lord."
"Escort these men to Liang Province as prisoners."
"Understood. Follow me."
"Yes, ma'am!!"
Song Jian's officials, rigid with military discipline, were led away to the barracks under Pang De's hand.
"What is it? What's going on?"
"Young master? Has something happened?"
Ma Chao and Yan Xing, returning after receiving the surrender of Fuhan County's officials, asked with puzzlement at the grave mood that had settled over the returning crowd.
"We're heading back to Jincheng right away. My gut says something's wrong."
"Why? The battle only just ended."
"It's because of Dong Zhuo."
At Yan Xing's question, it was Fa Zheng who answered in my place.
"Dong Zhuo? You mean that bastard who got disgracefully exposed by the Yellow Turbans and had to grovel with bribes just to keep his post?"
Ma Chao sneered and cut him down with scathing contempt.
The type who bought office with bribes — one of the breeds of human being Ma Chao despised most, having watched corruption her whole life since childhood.
"Yes."
Having given her answer, Fa Zheng continued with a calm explanation.
"Dong Zhuo is an ambitious man. Because of his past blunder, he's obsessed with rebuilding his strength. And yet a man like that has no reason whatsoever to be in contact with Song Jian, a self-declared king and traitor."
At a moment when he ought to be expanding his power and standing within the Han, there was no need to join forces with a lunatic styling himself a king.
If he were caught and branded a rebel, not only would his political position crumble — he would fall entirely. Why would any sane man take such a reckless gamble?
"Then why did he make contact?"
"Where are our troops stationed right now?"
"···Fuhan County, of course."
"And where, precisely, is Fuhan County located?"
"······!?"
At Fa Zheng's words, I finally understood the source of the nameless unease that had been coiling around me.
"Well······. Between Jincheng Commandery and Longxi Commandery."
"To be exact, it's Fuhan County of Longxi Commandery. Territory that belongs to Longxi."
"You don't mean······."
"Yes. That's exactly what I mean."
She nodded.
"Yes — we have marched our army into Dong Zhuo's own territory. An incursion into his lands is the perfect pretext for him to pick a quarrel with us."
"That's impossible!! Didn't we clearly send a courier to Governor Dong asking his forbearance before we marched?"
"And what if that courier······."
Fa Zheng cut off Yan Xing's incredulous protest with her answer.
"What if the courier carrying that letter was ambushed along the road and killed?"
"That's······."
It was an outrageous claim.
But having just heard that Song Jian had been used to lure our army into Fuhan County, I could not dismiss the possibility out of hand.
If that were the case, Dong Zhuo would never have received any report at all — his territory would simply have been invaded by some other warlord's army.
And if he had manipulated Song Jian from behind the scenes — ordering him to abduct the people of our lands and plunder our supplies precisely to provoke us into moving troops — then everything fit together perfectly.
After the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the power of regional officials had swelled enormously. A man in his position could make war on such a pretext if he wished.
"Of course, this is mere conjecture — but the collaboration between Song Jian and Dong Zhuo leaves me with a very bad feeling. We must return within the hour, my lord."
"···Understood."
I couldn't call any of it certain, but an anxious premonition had closed over me like a shroud. I stepped outside the barracks, mustered the soldiers still celebrating their victory, and hurried the preparations for withdrawal.
Completing the reorganization as swiftly as we could, we led the army back toward Jincheng Commandery — and it was on that march that a single piece of news pricked its way into our ears.
The news that our army had invaded Longxi Commandery, Dong Zhuo's own territory, and mercilessly slaughtered its people······.