To talk about the history of the last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there is a figure that cannot be bypassed, that is, Dong Zhuo.
Dong Zhuo took advantage of the war at the end of the Han Dynasty and the weakness of the imperial court to occupy the capital and depose and kidnap Emperor Xian of Han, causing other warlords throughout the country to launch Dong Zhuo's crusade.
However, Dong Zhuo, who only had 3,000 men and horses in his hands, how did he occupy Luoyang, and how did he do it?
He did two things.
Dong Zhuo was a native of Liangzhou, and his father was originally a small county lieutenant in Charge of Public Security and Military Service in Yuzhou, but Dong Zhuo was brought back to Liangzhou by his father shortly after his birth.
Dong Zhuo is not small, good at riding horses, will also open bows left and right, and is aggressive by nature, and his traces are also related to "martial",
In the earliest days, he did the Liangzhou "Terracotta Warriors", in charge of weapons and horses,
Later, he was put into the camp of Zhonglang general Zhang Yi, and later made meritorious contributions because Dong Zhuo fought against the Qiang people.
Step by step, he was promoted to the position of "Lieutenant of the Western Regions",
This position is not low, the boss is the general, and Dong Zhuo in this period is a small success.
Since then, Dong Zhuo has experienced several ups and downs in the official sea,
He was promoted to Hedong Taishou (管一郡).
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out, Dong Zhuobai was named "General of Dongzhong Lang".
He was transferred to Jizhou to succeed the "Northern Zhonglang General" Lu Zhi (Liu Bei's mentor) to pacify Zhang Jiao (the leader of the Yellow Turban Army),
As a result, Dong Zhuo was defeated and lost his official position.
The last year of the Eastern Han Dynasty was an eventful autumn, and in the second year of Zhongping, a rebellion broke out in Liangzhou.
The imperial court reactivated Dong Zhuo and appointed him "Zhonglang General", but Dong Zhuo still failed to defeat the Liangzhou rebels.
The imperial court reassigned Zhang Wen as the commander-in-chief, worshiping as the "General of the Che Riders", and Dong Zhuo was also inexplicably promoted by the imperial court to the "General of the Broken Prisoners".
It is also a strange thing that after losing the battle, he can still be promoted, and Dong Zhuo in this period is finally included in the ranks of generals.
However, the Liangzhou rebels were so strong that it was difficult to calm down.
The imperial court had to continuously promote the generals on the front line, and sent people and horses, so Dong Zhuo was promoted to former generals.
Later, he was reassigned by the imperial court to be the pastor of Hezhou (in charge of the military and civil affairs of a state), and at this time, Dong Zhuo was considered to be full-fledged.
How did Dong Zhuo, who was in Hezhou, run to Luoyang?
In fact, this has a great relationship with the great general He Jin.
When we look at the history of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it is not difficult to find that the Eastern Han Dynasty has several characteristics:
First, many empresses did not have children, and the princes were mostly the adopted sons of the empress.
The second is the hegemony of foreign relations,
The third is to reuse eunuchs.
In order to regain power from foreign relatives, the little emperor relied on the eunuchs around him, which made the foreign relatives and eunuchs fight fiercely.
And He Jin was a foreign official, he was the elder brother of Empress He, after the death of Emperor Ling, Empress He's son succeeded to the throne, for Emperor Shao of Han,
However, after Empress He called Empress He Empress, she began to make a claim to the dynasty and take charge of her son's home.
Her brother He Jin was thus worshipped as a great general.
The cause of the incident was that He Jin dismissed all eunuchs from his sister Empress He, but Empress He refused.
He Jin thought of a "brilliant plan", and he wrote to Dong Zhuo, asking him to "fake rebellion" and bring troops to Luoyang to scare Empress He.
However, before Dong Zhuo arrived, He Jin died.
It turned out that He Jin once again entered the palace and suggested to Empress He that all the eunuchs be killed.
Unexpectedly, this conversation between the brother and sister was overheard by a small eunuch,
The little eunuch turned pale with fright, and hurriedly reported the matter to the eunuch leader Zhang Rang and Duan Jue.
Therefore, He Jin was invited by Zhang Rang to the attic of Shangshu Province as soon as he left the palace gate, and zhang Rang scolded He Jin for being ungrateful.
He jin was killed by the eunuchs.
After the news came out, He Jin's subordinates Wu Kuang, Yuan Shu, and others rushed into Shangshu Province, planning to find eunuchs to settle accounts.
However, they came late, and Zhang Rang and the others had already run away with the Young Emperor and King Chen Liu.
On the other side, Yuan Shao and He Jin's younger brother He Miao also rushed over with their centaurs.
At this time, another accident occurred: He Miao's head was suddenly cut off by Wu Kuang's men........
Wu Kuang's reason was: He Miao usually protected the eunuchs, and He Jin's death, He Miao was also responsible.
When Dong Zhuo arrived in Luoyang, he caught up with the tail of this chaos,
However, dong Zhuo did not enter the city, and he heard that the emperor had hidden in a family's house.
Dong Zhuo took his men and horses to pick up the emperor, who expected the emperor to see him and cry, but King Chen Liu (Emperor Xian of Han) replied like a stream,
Quite liked Dong Zhuo.
Dong Zhuo took Emperor Shao and King Chen Liu and led three thousand men and horses back to Luoyang.
At this time, Luoyang City was the time when the dragons were leaderless,
It was already the third day of the massacre of eunuchs, and the people of the city were in a panic,
Both the eunuch and He Miao died in this turmoil. The rest of the eunuchs, as well as their cousins, the He clan, died and fled,
No one in the big Luoyang city came out to preside over the chaos,
It just so happened that Dong Zhuo escorted the Young Emperor back to the capital with his men and horses, and naturally became the person who presided over the major events.
However, why did Dong Zhuo occupy Luoyang with only 3,000 men and horses?
He actually did three things.
Dong Zhuo became the most powerful man in Luoyang at that time, and after welcoming the Han Shao Emperor Liu Wei to the imperial palace, he blackmailed tianzi to order the princes to begin to interfere in the entire Eastern Han Dynasty.
When he first arrived in Luoyang, Dong Zhuo could only deploy more than 3,000 people, and Dong Zhuo knew this very well, and as a strong backing for controlling the government, it was not enough.
To this end, Dong Zhuo ordered his subordinates to sneak out of Luoyang at night.
The next day, it drove into Luoyang,
After creating the illusion that Dong Zhuo's soldiers and horses are strong, it is used to confuse others, so as to temporarily stabilize the situation,
Dong Zhuo quickly absorbed He Miao's troops with lightning speed.
He also ordered Lü Bu to kill Ding Yuan, the "Jinwu" and take over the capital defense forces.
In this way, Dong Zhuo's army expanded a lot, and he already had the military ability to influence the government of the dynasty.
After Dong Zhuo controlled the government, he forced Empress He to promote herself to Sikong,
Later, after counting the sins of Empress He, he proposed to depose the Young Emperor and establish Liu Xie, the Prince of Chenliu, as emperor.
At first, this proposal was opposed by everyone, the most fierce of which was Lu Zhi, who also offended Dong Zhuo and almost lost his life and left Luoyang.
After the big and small officials saw Lu Zhi's fate, they were afraid of Dong Zhuo's obscenity and dared not speak out.
So that Dong Zhuo finally achieved his goal - the 9-year-old Liu Xie, the king of ChenLiu, was made emperor.
Empress He and Empress Shao were secretly executed by Dong Zhuo.
In order to consolidate his power, Dong Zhuo arbitrarily arranged civil and military officials in the name of Emperor Xiandi.
And from it to win over the bureaucracy for themselves, while secretly cultivating cronies and minions,
suppress and frame officials who oppose themselves,
In addition, Dong Zhuo not only arranged his own eyeliner inside the capital,
Local minions were also installed by appointing local officials such as Taishou and Shi Shi, such as Liu Biao, who was recommended by Dong Zhuo as The Taishi of Jingzhou.
In this way, Dong Zhuo used various means to place the eyes and ears layer by layer,
Basically, it had controlled the politics of the Eastern Han Dynasty, deterred the government and the opposition, and thus occupied the city of Luoyang.
Originally, Dong Zhuo's choice of a more qualified emperor was not to blame, and he also did some things that the auxiliary chancellor should do.
But in addition to this public heart, Dong Zhuo also had a lot of selfish intentions, not to mention that he later got rid of Empress He and The Young Emperor.
Soon caused the unfairness of many people of insight,
At the same time, it also gave others an excuse to crusade against him,
In addition, Dong Zhuo also dug a lot of "pits" for himself, in order to win people's hearts, he promoted Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu and others in the name of Emperor Xian, which also gave others the basis to fight him.