You are a court official. Cao Cao just put down a coup, and now he’s asking whether you helped put out the fire started by the rebels or just stayed home. What would you say?

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Welcome to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Podcast. This is episode 89.

Last time, we left off in the middle of yet another conspiracy to overthrow Cao Cao. The conspirators attacked the camp of the royal guard in the capital Xuchang on the night of a major holiday celebration. The idea was to secure the emperor and the city, and then attack Yejun (4,4), the city where Cao Cao was living la vida loca as the King of Wei.

The rebels managed to wound the commander of the royal guard, Wang Bi (4), but he managed to slip away. First, he tried to find refuge at the home of his good friend Jin (1) Yi (4), only to learn, by accident, that his friend was actually one of the conspirators.

Shocked by this revelation, Wang Bi now turned and ran to the home of Cao Xiu (1), one of Cao Cao’s nephews and officers. There, he told Cao Xiu about the coup, and Cao Xiu sprang into action. Donning his armor, he led about 1,000 soldiers out into the city and engaged in street fighting with the rebels.

While this was going on, the city was being engulfed in cries of “Exterminate all of Cao Cao’s traitors; support the House of Han!” That, and flames, lots and lots of flames. The fire even reached the Tower of the Five Phoenixes, where, according to the conspirators’ plan, the emperor was supposed to be safe and sound so that he could make a public denunciation of Cao Cao so as to give the uprising legitimacy. Oops. So much for that. Instead, the emperor was hiding deep inside his palace, while Cao Cao’s people doggedly guarded the palace gates against any intruders. Or maybe, just maybe, a ragtag group of no-name conspirators and their house servants weren’t quite up to the task of cutting their way through the palace guards.

 

And to make sure that this ill-conceived coup completely blew up in the conspirators’ faces, an army loyal to Cao Cao arrived outside the city just now. It was led by Cao Cao’s kinsman and trusted commander Xiahou Dun, who was stationed a couple miles outside the capital and whose job it was to patrol the city. That night, when he saw fire flaring up inside the city, he immediately brought his troops to help. Somehow, the conspirators didn’t account for this, which kind of boggles the mind. I mean, even if you and your little band of house servants did somehow take the city, how were you going to hold out against a siege by a professional army 30,000 strong?

Said professional army now surrounded the city and sent a force inside to reinforce Cao Xiu. So now, the conspirators, who only had about 1,000 untrained men, were going up against a much larger force, made up of seasoned soldiers led by veteran generals. Yeah, this will not end well for the conspirators.

The fight lasted until dawn. By then, the coup was dead, along with most of the rebels. The two lead conspirators, Geng (3) Ji (4) and Wei (4) Huang (2), only had 100-some men left inside the city. Their three fellow conspirators — Jin (1) Yi (4) and the two Ji (2) brothers — were supposed to provide reinforcement, but they had all been killed. Geng (3) Ji (4) and Wei (4) Huang (2) tried to flee from the city, but of course there’s an army presently surrounding the capital,