Dong Zhuo did nothing wrong. Change my Mind.

[Hexagoros]

Title.

[AlwaystheMage]

You could actually make an intresting discussion about how Dong Zhuo is a bit of scapegoat, that clearly some issues with how hostile the texts are and so on. Unfortunately I don't think your joke post really works, it doesn't give anything for people to bite on and is too clearly a wind up

[Pete]

Well. He lost and as we all know the victor writes history.

Actually Dong Zhuo was very straightforward and did and said what he wanted to and he was no liar. He crushed the Eunuchs who were responsible for all of this mess. So ok he slept with the concubines of the emperor...well yeah thats not so nice but considering the emperor was 9 years old it does not matter at all. Also burning down Luoyang and not letting the alliance use it was smart. He moved to an easier defendable position.

Considering the situation he was at he did the best he could do and I dont know if others would not have done the same.

[Dou B Jin]

it seems like you were never open to the opposite idea to begin with. This is a change my mind post and the first thing you do is pick the post that agrees with your opinion.

As far as Three Kingdom goes no one was innocent but the most distinctive factor that made Dong Zhuo the villain was his cruelty.

List of horrible things Dong Zhuo committed during his reign.

1. Execution of civilians without cause.
2. Burning and looting of Luo Yang and the royal tombs.
3. Raped the (previous) Emperor's wives, princesses of the court, and female servants.
4. Execution of court officials who did not side with him along with their families and servants.
5. Cruel execution of hostage and war prisoners.
6. Sent his army out to pillage villages and enslaved women.
7. Execution of many wealthy merchants and took their wealth to fill his coffers.

You could argue that history is written by the victor but the problem was it wasnt written by victor. The Record of the Three Kingdom was written by Pei Song Zhi (裴松之) who wrote it during the Song Dynasty. At that point it was already 200 years later and with the government having no
direction relation to era of the three kingdom.

[Hexagoros]

Originally posted by Ruiqicn:

it seems like you were never open to the opposite idea to begin with. This is a change my mind post and the first thing you do is pick the post that agrees with your opinion.

As far as Three Kingdom goes no one was innocent but the most distinctive factor that made Dong Zhuo the villain was his cruelty.

List of horrible things Dong Zhuo committed during his reign.

1. Execution of civilians without cause.
2. Burning and looting of Luo Yang and the royal tombs.
3. Raped the (previous) Emperor's wives, princesses of the court, and female servants.
4. Execution of court officials who did not side with him along with their families and servants.
5. Cruel execution of hostage and war prisoners.
6. Sent his army out to pillage villages and enslaved women.
7. Execution of many wealthy merchants and took their wealth to fill his coffers.

You could argue that history is written by the victor but the problem was it wasnt written by victor. The Record of the Three Kingdom was written by Pei Song Zhi (裴松之) who wrote it during the Song Dynasty. At that point it was already 200 years later and with the government having no
direction relation to era of the three kingdom.

Was any of this really outside the norm of 'warlord' behavior at the time though?

[Straybow]

Is it so wrong to want a lake of wine and forest of meat?

[AlwaystheMage]

Since serous discussion, there are things to say for Dong Zhuo, 1) the records are against him. He is the big bad, he is seen as starting the war via miliatry coup and ending the great Han dynasty, he kills an Emperor (granted, last time the gentry were in charge they... uh killed an Emperor), he burns the capital (imagine any general doing that now, the image and shock that would create), he is a frontier general and not one of them. Is it fair? No, some of the attacks are hypocritical or snobbish. The histories have been cuaght in outright lies as the records and important families (or popular Han heroes) ensured their ancestors were to be seen as predicting his evil ways, of not associating with him and if possible, of outwitting him. Add a tendency of tropes in Chinese history and attempts to dig at him.

2) Dong Zhuo does deserve some credit. He was one of the best generals of the late Han/early three kingdoms era (before likes of Cao Cao learnt how to command), he was brave, clever, inspired loyalty of his soldiers. He took power becuase he was cleverer then everyone else on the ground to take control of vacuum created by gentry carrying out mass murder (such "heroes"), he did attempt serious reform and restraint in the early years (seems to have given up after a time). He was politically inept with no idea how things he did would appear, he was an outsider (frontier generals were not treated well by court) and was formed by his experiences.

In terms of against, even if we dismiss some claims and suggest elements of others are exaggerated, his rule was brutal. He may have seen it as trying to reimpose discipline using miliatry standards (the need for strictness was a popular idea of the era) to combat real problems but even with that, he was way too harsh. Things like executing a woman for not marrying him was not usual for the era and was a horrible thing to do, He did descend into corruptness and hedonism, his rule was damaging even without the civil war with his coinage reforms leading to hyper inflation, he helped weaken the Han's authority with his actions.

Originally posted by Syndicalist Pete:

Well. He lost and as we all know the victor writes history.

Actually Dong Zhuo was very straightforward and did and said what he wanted to and he was no liar. He crushed the Eunuchs who were responsible for all of this mess. So ok he slept with the concubines of the emperor...well yeah thats not so nice but considering the emperor was 9 years old it does not matter at all. Also burning down Luoyang and not letting the alliance use it was smart. He moved to an easier defendable position.

Considering the situation he was at he did the best he could do and I dont know if others would not have done the same.

Dong Zhuo did lie, Dong took part in fight against eunuchs (the Han's problems began way before the eunuchs) but the main credit/blame for mass murder was not Dong, yes sleeping with the imperial family did matter given attitudes of the time and need for legitimate heirs for Emperor

Originally posted by Ruiqicn:

You could argue that history is written by the victor but the problem was it wasnt written by victor. The Record of the Three Kingdom was written by Pei Song Zhi (裴松之) who wrote it during the Song Dynasty. At that point it was already 200 years later and with the government having no
direction relation to era of the three kingdom.

Pei Songzhi added commeantry and other sources, the SGZ itself was written by the various history departments and compliled edited as a private project by Shu then Jin officer Chen Shou.

Also the SGZ and other sources are known to lie about Dong Zhuo. The possibly most famous example is Sun Jian trying to get him executed which is full of inaccuracies and would have meant Sun Jian was an idiot for recommending it. Dong Zhuo was the big bad, leading figures families did not want positive connections in any respect.

Originally posted by Hexagoros:

Was any of this really outside the norm of 'warlord' behavior at the time though?

1 isn't but the village massacre of his own citizens was unusual

2 was unusual. Perhaps not so much on the frontier but a PR disaster to burn the capital, it made perfect miliatry sense given the blockade but it was a shock to the system

3 yes it was but it also a bit of a trope for super baddies

4 is normal

5 boiling alive was a bit far

6 it depends which incidents is being originally referred to

7 I don't recall

[Boop.]

right and wrong is all opinion based, none are good, all are good, none are evil, all are evil, it's just a persons opinion at the end of the day

[Budoshi]

i kinda new to 3 k stuff but wasnt it he a kind of tyran? sure the game describe him as such

[AlwaystheMage]

Originally posted by Budoshi:

i kinda new to 3 k stuff but wasnt it he a kind of tyran? sure the game describe him as such

He is traditionally seen as the fat tyrant that brought down the Han

[RitualistEssence]

Originally posted by Takerath:

Originally posted by Budoshi:

i kinda new to 3 k stuff but wasnt it he a kind of tyran? sure the game describe him as such

He is traditionally seen as the fat tyrant that brought down the Han

So he was the Donald of his time period.