“Intention”: War for the Han Frontier sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne
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Kong Rong’s eyes wandered.
“Dong Cheng was conspiring against His Excellency; we all know that, and
that was admitted to by him on many occasions,” Wang Lang noted. “But why, of
course, is known only to his wandering spirit: who was he...? Who, truly, was
that former vassal of another Dong, Dong Zhuo
- the most evil man of recent times, without question - that laid waste to
Luoyang, raided the imperial tombs, and is known to have actually committed
regicide...?”
Kong Rong nodded silently.
Even the most loyal of Han adherents was starting to doubt the chances
of avoiding another fall, even if it was as temporary as the last. That fear
was made more tangible when the battle to decide who would succeed Emperor Ling
ended with a victory for Empress Dowager Hè and her brother, Commander-in-Chief
Hè Jin: many feared another Liang Ji, and the ‘Ten’ feared a reduction in their
influence. Further intrigue led to the deaths of Hè Jin, the ‘Ten Attendants’
and thousands of court eunuchs, and the rise to power of the western general
Dong Zhuo, whose rule brought tyranny beyond comprehension.
Dong Zhuo apparently knew no moral low: the nation
suffered as he indulged his every vice, and a coalition of nobles quickly
formed to oppose him after he deposed the child Emperor Shao and replaced him
with his younger half-brother. That latest Emperor, dubbed ‘Xian’, was forced
to watch powerlessly as the increasingly brazen and desperate Dong Zhuo flooded
the economy with worthless currency, looted and burned Luoyang, relocated the
court back to the original capital Chang’an and ruled as he pleased; when loyal
officials and some of Dong Zhuo’s disgruntled followers allied to murder Dong
and restore control to the court proper, there was a brief glimmer of hope, but
it did not glimmer for long. Li Jue and Guo Si, who were two of Dong Zhuo’s
most powerful vassal-warlords, seized power, fought off all rivals and
established an autocratic ‘regency’ in Chang’an.
All the while, the warlords
that had once risen up to oppose Dong Zhuo were fighting amongst themselves and
carving up the east of the country between them.
It was, ironically, an army of bandits - former Yellow
Turbans - that was militarily instrumental to rescuing Emperor Xian when a
dispute born out of intrigue divided the regents and led to an embarrassing
civil war that tore Chang’an apart and left hundreds dead. The proposed solution
was their splitting the country down the middle and running it separately from
within Chang’an and Luoyang; the most prominent architects of the ‘rescue’ that
followed were Dong Cheng and Yang Feng, but the latter’s use of bandit allies
to intercept the emperor’s convoy as it travelled to Luoyang’s ruins was never
popular, and when Yang started to reward himself at Dong Cheng’s perceived
expense, Dong made a secret alliance with Cao Cao, betrayed Yang Feng and
assisted Cao’s plan to move Emperor Xian and the weary, famine-stricken court
to Cao Cao’s base in Yan Province, to the south of Luoyang. That is where the
court had been ever since, relying entirely on Cao Cao’s magnanimity and
ability to project economic and military strength on Emperor Xian’s behalf; Cao
Cao was now the most influential man in the land, and Dong Cheng quickly
shifted his stance yet again and started to become Cao’s most dangerous
opponent, both publicly and privately.