Dong Zhuo Seizes Luoyang (189): The Han Court Falls to a Warlord

Dong Zhuo’s seizure of Luoyang in 189 was the moment the Eastern Han court lost control of its own capital. A frontier general from the north-west, Dong Zhuo marched into Luoyang during a bloody palace crisis, deposed one emperor and installed another, and ruled through the boy Emperor Xian until his murder in 192. His coup, the burning of Luoyang in 190 and the coalition raised against him began the age of warlords that ended in the Three Kingdoms period.

Background: a court at war with itself

By the 180s the Han dynasty, restored by Emperor Guangwu in AD 25, was badly weakened. Palace eunuchs and the families of empresses competed for influence over a series of young or weak emperors, and many officials and scholars were purged in the “Proscriptions” of the 160s and 170s.

The Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184 showed how fragile the state had become. To crush it the court gave wide military powers to generals and provincial governors, who kept their armies afterwards. In the north-west, generals such as Dong Zhuo spent the 180s fighting rebels and Qiang tribesmen in Liang province, building tough, loyal frontier forces.

Emperor Ling died in May 189. His teenage son Liu Bian became Emperor Shao, with his mother, Empress Dowager He, as regent and her half-brother He Jin, the general-in-chief, as the leading figure at court.

The palace coup of 189

He Jin, encouraged by the young aristocrat Yuan Shao, planned to destroy the powerful palace eunuchs. Empress Dowager He resisted, so He Jin summoned provincial commanders, including Dong Zhuo, to march towards the capital and add pressure.

The plan went badly wrong. In September 189 the eunuchs lured He Jin into the palace and killed him. Yuan Shao and his cousin Yuan Shu then stormed the palace with troops and massacred the eunuchs; the histories say around 2,000 people died, including some beardless men killed by mistake. A small group of eunuchs, led by Zhang Rang and Duan Gui, fled the city with the young emperor and his half-brother Liu Xie. Cornered by pursuers near the Yellow River, Zhang Rang threw himself into the water.

Dong Zhuo, whose army was close to Luoyang, met the imperial party outside the city and escorted it back. With only a few thousand men at first, he made his force look larger, according to the histories, by marching troops out of the city at night and back in by day. He took over the leaderless troops of He Jin and his brother, and persuaded Lü Bu to kill his own commander Ding Yuan and bring Ding Yuan’s army over.

Dong Zhuo in power

Within days Dong Zhuo dominated the court. On 28 September 189 he deposed Emperor Shao and placed the eight-year-old Liu Xie on the throne as Emperor Xian, the last emperor of the Han. Empress Dowager He was killed soon afterwards, and the deposed emperor was poisoned in early 190.

Dong Zhuo made himself chancellor of state, a title not used for centuries, and gave himself privileges such as wearing a sword and shoes in the throne hall. He appointed some respected scholars to office to win support, but his rule was remembered as brutal. Han sources accuse his soldiers of looting wealthy households in the capital and of massacring villagers at a festival and presenting them as captured rebels.

Many officials fled. Yuan Shao left for the east, where he became governor of Bohai, and Cao Cao, then a junior officer, escaped to raise troops of his own.

The coalition and the burning of Luoyang

Early in 190, provincial governors and commanders in the east formed an alliance against Dong Zhuo and chose Yuan Shao as its leader. Its members included Yuan Shu, Han Fu, Kong Zhou, Liu Dai, Zhang Miao, Qiao Mao, Bao Xin and Cao Cao, and in the south Sun Jian joined the fight.

Dong Zhuo responded by abandoning Luoyang. In spring 190 he moved the emperor and court west to the old capital Chang’an, which was easier to defend and closer to his base. The people of Luoyang were forced to march with them, and many died on the road. The palaces, temples and houses of the city were set on fire, and Lü Bu’s men opened imperial tombs around the capital to take their treasures. Luoyang, home to perhaps several hundred thousand people, was left in ruins.

The coalition achieved little. Most of its leaders camped at Suanzao and avoided battle. Cao Cao advanced alone and was defeated by Dong Zhuo’s general Xu Rong at Xingyang in 190. Only Sun Jian won real victories, defeating Dong Zhuo’s forces at Yangren in 191, where the commander Hua Xiong was killed, and entering the ruined capital. By then the allies had begun to quarrel, and the alliance dissolved into private wars.

Fall and aftermath

In Chang’an Dong Zhuo built a fortified town at Mei, west of the city, stocked with grain said to be enough for thirty years. His rule bred enemies even among his own men. The minister Wang Yun recruited Lü Bu, who had quarrelled with Dong Zhuo and, according to the histories, was having an affair with one of his maids. On 22 May 192 Lü Bu killed Dong Zhuo at the palace gate, and his family was wiped out.

Peace did not follow. Dong Zhuo’s officers Li Jue and Guo Si marched on Chang’an, killed Wang Yun and drove out Lü Bu. They then fought each other in and around the city. In 195 Emperor Xian escaped east, reaching the ruins of Luoyang in 196, and in that year Cao Cao took him under his protection at Xu, in modern Henan.

Key people

• Dong Zhuo (died 192): frontier general from Longxi who seized the court in 189.
• He Jin (died 189): general-in-chief whose plot against the eunuchs led to his own death.
• Emperor Xian (181-234): placed on the throne by Dong Zhuo; abdicated to Cao Pi in 220.
• Yuan Shao (died 202): leader of the coalition and later the strongest warlord in the north.
• Lü Bu (died 198): Dong Zhuo’s officer, who killed first Ding Yuan and then Dong Zhuo.

Myths and facts

The novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written about twelve centuries later, made Dong Zhuo a stock villain. Its most famous episode, in which the beautiful Diaochan is used by Wang Yun to turn Lü Bu against Dong Zhuo, is fiction built on a brief historical mention of an affair with a maid. The novel also shows the whole coalition fighting great battles at Hulao Pass, which the histories do not record in that form; Guan Yu’s killing of Hua Xiong in the novel was in reality the work of Sun Jian’s army.

Timeline

• 189, May: Emperor Ling dies; Liu Bian becomes Emperor Shao.
• 189, September: He Jin is murdered; Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu massacre the palace eunuchs; Dong Zhuo enters Luoyang.
• 189, 28 September: Dong Zhuo deposes Emperor Shao and enthrones Emperor Xian.
• 190, early: Eastern governors form a coalition under Yuan Shao.
• 190, spring: The court is moved to Chang’an and Luoyang is burned.
• 191: Sun Jian defeats Dong Zhuo’s forces at Yangren and enters the ruined capital.
• 192, 22 May: Lü Bu kills Dong Zhuo at Chang’an.
• 196: Cao Cao takes Emperor Xian to Xu.

Why it matters

Dong Zhuo’s coup ended the Han court’s ability to rule China. After 189 power lay with whoever had an army, and the leaders who rose in the struggle against him, above all Yuan Shao, Cao Cao and Sun Jian’s family, went on to fight the wars that divided the empire into Wei, Shu and Wu.