Chapter 26 Chapter 4 Dong Zhuo’s Solo Court Cao Cao’s Recruitment of Soldiers (1)

Dong Zhuo, styled Zhongying, was born in Lintao, Longxi, which is now Min County, Gansu Province.He was a man of great stature, of great courage, of extraordinary strength, and of a rough and cruel character. When Dong Zhuo was young, he was fond of being a chivalrous man and fighting against injustice. He used to do business in the Qiang area and made friends with many chiefs of the Qiang tribe.Not long after accumulating a lot of wealth, Dong Zhuo returned to Longxi, bought a large piece of land, and engaged in development and farming.Because of his seriousness and hard work, he gradually achieved very good results.

Dong Zhuo was generous and generous. When the chiefs of the Qiang tribes were in trouble, they often asked him for help, and Dong Zhuo almost always agreed, and he killed the cattle to show their friendship. Over time, all the chiefs liked Dong Zhuo very much and were very grateful to him, so they discussed to thank him very much.The chiefs collected thousands of cattle, sheep, and horses as gifts.As a result, Dong Zhuo suddenly became a local rich man. In the last years of Emperor Heng of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Dong Zhuo was elected as Habayashiro as the son of a good family in the six frontier counties.

Dong Zhuo has a talent for learning martial arts, and his arm strength is unmatched by anyone.He often wears two sets of bows and arrows with him, and can shoot left and right on horseback, which is impossible for ordinary people to fight against. Soon, Dong Zhuo was appointed as the attendant of Zhang Huan, the general of Zhonglang, and accompanied him to conquer the Hu people in Bingzhou.In this expedition, Dong Zhuo was vigorous and brave, and made a lot of contributions. Therefore, he was worshiped as a doctor, and he was given 9,000 pieces of heavy silk.And Dong Zhuo distributed all the things he gave to the soldiers, so he won the hearts of the soldiers and had a very high reputation in the army.

Later, due to Dong Zhuo's outstanding performance in the army, he was promoted to the county magistrate of Guangwu County, and then served as the captain of the northern part of Shu County and the captain of Wuji in the Western Regions. In the first year of Zhongping, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, that is, in 184 A.D., Dong Zhuo was enlisted as the governor of Bingzhou and the governor of Hedong.During the incident of the Yellow Turban Party, Zhonglang General Chijie replaced Lu Zhi, who had offended the eunuch, as the leader of the army, and fought against Zhang Jiao in Xiaquyang.Relying on his bravery, Dong Zhuo looked down on the rebellious peasants at all, so he adopted a head-to-head battle in an attempt to wipe out Zhang Jiao's army in one fell swoop.Unexpectedly, the peasants who were trapped to death had great resistance.Dong Zhuo's army was outnumbered and was defeated instead.Therefore, the court removed Dong Zhuo from his post, merged his army into Huangfusong's command, and ordered Dong Zhuo to return to his hometown and contemplate his mistakes behind closed doors at home.

After Dong Zhuo was suspended and returned to his hometown, he was not discouraged. He still carried forward his usual style of businessman, pretending to be fishing, and kept bribing the eunuch group with money in order to strive for an early reinstatement. At this time, it happened that Han Sui joined forces with the Qiang tribe in Xiliang Prefecture to rebel.Han Sui was a Qiang from the Han Dynasty. He was once appointed as a senior general of the Han royal family, and he had a good relationship with Cao Cao, Yuan Shao and others.Later, Han Sui was ordered to return to Chunzhou to appease the conflict between the Qiang people and the Han people, and took up an important position in the Chunzhou Army.However, after the incident of the Yellow Turban Party, the finances of the Han royal family were almost bankrupt, and the senior officials of the court turned the focus of their exploitation to Chunzhou again, causing the Qiang people to fall into a miserable situation. Han Sui, a brave and emotional man, led Chunzhou The Qiang tribes in the territory rebelled and killed the civil and military officials appointed by the Han royal family, and Chunzhou almost completely fell into their hands.

Since Dong Zhuo had a deep understanding of the Qiang people in Chunzhou and had good friendship with the Qiang chiefs, the court first restored Zhonglang as a general, and was appointed as the commander of one of the six armies of the Western Expedition to Squeeze the Chaos. Dong Zhuo, who was reinstated and entrusted with an important task, led his troops to the north of Wangyuan Kip, which was far away from the rebels. And this time there are many tribes participating in the rebellion, and they all have the determination to die.Although the six armies had a strong lineup, their combat capabilities were far inferior to those of the Qiang people. Instead, they were surrounded by tens of thousands of Qiang and Hu people. Their food was scarce, and they were about to fall into the doom of annihilation.

In a critical situation, Dong Zhuo suddenly thought of a good way to escape. He ordered the troops to pretend to be fishing to satisfy their hunger, use sand and stones to intercept the water flow to form a cover, and withdraw the troops secretly. Withdrew to the end, and then the army behind Duan dug the dike, and the river surged out suddenly, completely blocking the pursuers.Only then did the Qiang and Hu people find out, but it was too late. Dong Zhuo's army had already retreated a long way to the east.For a while, the water was deep and the current was fast, unable to get through, so we had to watch Dong Zhuo escape helplessly.

In this military campaign to conquer Chunzhou in the west, five of the six armies that entered Longxi were almost completely wiped out, and only Dong Zhuo's army returned with its entire army.Therefore, Dong Zhuo's ability to use troops was once again affirmed.The imperial court decreed that the legion temporarily stationed in Fufeng on standby, and appointed Dong Zhuo as the former general, leading Bingzhou as the pastor. In order to deal with the rebellion in Chunzhou, the court soon appointed Dong Zhuo as the governor of Chunzhou to appease him.Due to the bad situation, the imperial court took great care of and accommodated Dong Zhuo, almost unconditionally agreed to whatever Dong Zhuo asked for.Gradually, Dong Zhuo became self-willed and arrogant. He thought he was great and ignored many people.Later, even the relationship with Huang Fusong, his old boss whom he always respected, began to deteriorate sharply.

Based on military needs, Dong Zhuo often traveled to and from the court to discuss military plans, so he was very familiar with the deployment and dynamics of the troops in the Royal Central Committee and the Sili District. Seeing the corruption of the government, the increasingly serious struggle between the eunuch faction and the Qing school, and the extremely unstable situation, Dong Zhuo inevitably coveted it.He gave up the task of pacifying Chunzhou, and stationed the main force in Fufeng and Hedong counties in Sili District, ready to drive straight into Luoyang at any time. It was Huangfusong's adoptive son Yan Zhong who first discovered Dong Zhuo's strange behavior, and he asked Huangfusong to relieve Dong Zhuo from his military post.But Huangfusong didn't want the Sili District to fall into civil war, so he only reported Dong Zhuo's illegal behavior to the court, and the emperor ordered Dong Zhuo to return to the central government to serve as an official in the Shaofu.But Dong Zhuo refused to listen, so Huangfusong had no choice but to mobilize troops in an attempt to encircle Dong Zhuo's army.At this time, Emperor Liu Hong passed away, and Luoyang fell into the vortex of emergency power seizure. No one was in the mood to care about Dong Zhuo's disobedience.

Finally, during the court incident on August 25, Dong Zhuo achieved his long-cherished wish—to drive the elite Xiliang army into the capital Luoyang.