History of Three Kingdoms 7
Emperor Xian's tragic journey to the east
After Wang Yun（王允） was killed, Li Jue（李傕）, Guo Si（郭汜）, Fan Chou（樊稠）, Zhang Ji(张济), all four of them were titled as Marquis by themselves, of which Li Jue is the most powerful, he had the power to set his own government, while Zhang Ji is the least powerful, he stayed in Hongnong（弘农） and then went to Shan County（陕县）.
Of these four, Li Jue, Guo Si and Zhang Ji all belonged to the Niu Fu（牛辅） branch, and only Fan Chou was not, which set the seed for future civil strife.
In 194 A.D., Ma Teng(马腾), who was stationed in Mei County(郿县), had a personal matter to ask for help from Li Jue, who did not agree. Ma Teng was furious and mobilised his troops to prepare for an attack on Li Jue. Emperor Xian of Han hurried to send an envoy to mediate, but Ma Teng refuse.
When Han Sui(韩遂), who was stationed in Jincheng(金城), got the news, he also led his army to persuade for peace.
As a result, Han Sui lived up to his reputation as a war monger. Instead of persuading Ma Teng, he was persuaded to rebel, so Ma Teng and Han Sui joined together and marched to Chang'an（长安）.
Although Ma Teng, Han Sui, like Dong Zhuo, were warlords in the area of Liangzhou(the Province in the norwest,Frequent rebellions occur ), they had little connection with Dong Zhuo's group,Dong Zhuo even served as a government army to suppress their rebellion.
Although Dong Zhuo, Niu Fu, Li Jue,Guo Si and the others were rude, they at least belonged to the government’s army,while Ma Teng and Han Sui were both rebels,so it was no wonder that Li Jue looked down on them.
Li Jue sent Guo Si and Fan Chou to lead their troops to attack, and the two sides started a fierce battle at Changpingguan（长平观）, resulting in the defeat of Ma Teng and Han Sui, with more than 10,000 dead and wounded, and each of them fled to Liangzhou in separate directions.
During his escape, Han Sui was chased by Fan Chou all the way to Chencang(陈仓). Seeing that his life was in danger, Han Sui had a bright idea and said to Fan Chou, "We are from the same hometown, and we have no personal grudges, so you may be able to use me in the future." Fan Chou himself is from Jincheng in Liangzhou, after second thought, there is really no need to fight for his lives, so the two of them held hands and laughed and talked happily for a long time before reluctantly leaving each other. After returning to Chang'an, Fan Chou was suspected by Li Jue for this incident.
At the beginning of 195 AD, Li Jue sent someone to assassinate Fan Chou at a banquet and annexed his troops, Chang'an entered the period when Li Jue and Guo Si were in charge of the Imperial Court.
Li Jue, Guo Si were both subordinates of Niu Fu, the two did not have factional disputes, so they would have got along very well, but things are bad in a woman, this woman is Guo Si's wife.
She thought that Guo Si often went to Li Jue's house for banquets because he had a crush on one of Li Jue's pretty maids, so he deliberately provoked the relationship between them, and insisted that the edamame beans were poisonous, and also instigated Guo Si to drink faecal juice to induce vomiting.
This is now a big eembarrassment for drinking shit soup. The angry Guo Si attacked first, and Li Jue of course did not show weakness, the two deployed their own troops, and a melee broke out in the city, Li and Guo fighting each other for several months, tens of thousands of innocent people died. Chang'an city actually appeared to eat people, white bones piled up all over the road, daylight robbery abounded, relying on Emperor Xian to open the granary alms porridge, the people did not all starve to death.
In order to provide relief to the victims, Emperor Xian of Han also raised some funds, which was learnt by Li Jue, who even used the lack of military pay as a reason to rob them by force. Then, Li Jue sent people to take Emperor Xian of Han by force to his battalion and detained him.
The soldiers in chaos entered the palace to rob the palace maidens and properties, and set the palace on fire.
Emperor Xian sent Yang Biao (杨彪from one of the most powerful clan in Late Han,Hongnong Yangs弘农杨氏)and other ministers to persuade Guo Si to make peace, Guo Si not only did not agree, but also to hold the ministers who came to persuade to make peace as hostages.
In this way, Li Jue held the emperor hostage, Guo Si held the ministers hostage, day and night fierce battle, the city was a shambles.
Life inside Li Jue's battalion was Emperor Xian's lifelong nightmare. As the emperor, he could not even secure the basic needs of life. Not to mention the fact that the ministers did not have enough to eat, even Emperor Xian ate rotting and stinking cow bones. It is no wonder that after the death of Li Jue, Emperor Xian of Han, who was such a good-tempered man, ordered his head to be hung up for public display to express his strong hatred for Li Jue.
After Li and Guo had been fighting each other in this way for several months, Zhang Ji came to persuade them to make peace, plus Yang Feng (杨奉)betrayed Li Jue at this time, weakening Li Jue's power, only then did Li Jue and Guo Si agree to stop fighting and make peace.
As the palace in Chang'an had been burnt down, Zhang Ji proposed that he wanted to take Emperor Xian to Hongnong, and the ministers agreed. It was only after repeated negotiations that Li Jue and Guo Si agreed to release him.
It was then decided that Guo Si, Zhang Ji, Yang Ding(杨定), Yang Feng and Dong Cheng（董承）, a general of Niu Fu, would guard Emperor Xian back to the east.
Dong Cheng, a vassal of Niu Fu, whose position in Dong Zhuo's group was even lower than that of Li Jue, Fan Chou and others, whose power was also smaller, was also promoted to a General at this time, guarding the Emperor alongside him.
The journey was full of difficulties and problems. First of all, Guo Si thought that he was the strongest, so why bother to share with all the others, he might as well keep Emperor Xian by himself own. Guo Si then plotted to take Emperor Xian back to the west, but the plan was leaked. Guo Si, who had offended the public, was the first to be defeated.
Afterwards, they arrived at Duan Wei(段煨)'s territory in Huayin（华阴）, and because Yang Ding had a grudge against Duan Wei, he united with Yang Feng and Dong to attack Duan Wei's battalion , but they failed to take it down for a dozen days in a row.
At this time, Li Jue and Guo Si, who came together again, finally realised that letting Emperor Xian to go was a bad move, so they led an army under the banner of rescuing Duan Wei and tried to capture Emperor Xian once again. As a result, Yang Ding was defeated and fled to Jingzhou（荆州）, where he was killed by Liu Biao(刘表provincial governor of Jingzhou).
Li Jue, Guo Si and Zhang Ji, after all, belongs to the same faction of Niu Fu, plus Zhang Ji was at odds with Yang Feng, Dong Cheng and others, so Li Jue ,Guo Si and Zhang Ji after a roundabout way, but also united, fighting with Yang Feng and Dong Cheng in Hongnong. As a result, Yang Feng and Dong Cheng were defeated, half of the officials were killed or wounded, and the officials' family members and royal belongings were thrown all over the road, so that even Emperor Xian could only sleep in the wilderness.
Since Yang Feng was once a member of the yellow turban rebellion army, he secretly sent someone to the east of the Yellow River to contact Han Xian（韩暹）and other former leaders of the Yellow Turban Rebellion to lead an army to protect the Emperor. When Han Xian and others arrived, he untied with Dong Cheng and Yang Feng temporarily defeated Li Jue, and Emperor Xian's carriage was able to continue to move forward. Li Jue and others soon led their troops to come after them, attacking and killing along the way.
By the time Emperor Xian arrived at Shan County, there were only less than a hundred imperial guards around him, after some discussion, they secretly prepared a boat, wanting Emperor Xian to cross the Yellow River by night. But the embankment of the Yellow River was dozens of metres above the water and it was impossible to go down. So a rope was pulled, and a guard were asked to climb down with Emperor Xian on his back.
After reaching the river's edge, the soldiers scrambled to jump onto the boat, with countless hands grasping at the edge of the boat. Dong Cheng and others were afraid that the boat would capsize, so they used their swords to chop them, and the boat was piled up with chopped off fingers, too many to cover the boat.
In the end, only the emperor, empress , Dong Cheng and other dozens of officials crossed the river together, most of the palace maidens , officials ,soldiers and people who failed to cross the river were killed by Li Jue and others, and countless people were frozen or drowned to death alone.
After crossing the Yellow River and arriving at Dayang County(大洋县）, Emperor Xian lived in a common people's houses, and Zhang Yang（张杨）, the governor of Henei（河内）, sent thousands of people carrying rice to pay tribute, and only then was the group barely able to get enough to eat.
Emperor Xian sent someone to Jingzhou to persuade Liu Biao, before Liu Biao finally repaired the imperial palace in Luoyang and sent a large amount of daily necessities.
In July 196 A.D., Emperor Xian of Han, who had been suffering from many tribulations, finally returned to the city of Luoyang, which he missed so much!