Thanos is a well recognized pop culture character and his meme provides an easy starting point for a conversation. The video does not promote genocide, and nor do I. It was designed to open up a dialogue about historical portrayals, and ask you to consider an alternative perspective.

"Dong Zhuo was brutal and killed a lot of people!" [Cao Cao eyes Xu Province] "Xun Yu, hold my wine..."

Liu Bei in romance said something along the lines of "coalition was only formed because they were jealous of what Dong had, and not that they wanted to save the Han".

he was the strongest Dong he was the Biggest Dong and in Total War: Three Kingdoms with his shield breaker ability he was the hardest Dong

all he wanted was to end the warlord era and unify the empire and of course the warlords went : REEEEEEE

Dong : Me and my stepson relationship 100% strong . Diaochan : Oh really ?

We need a Alternate History Hub video on 'What if Dong Zhuo won.'. Someone send this to Cody.

I think when talking about the Three Kingdoms period you can’t really say “He’s not as bad as everyone thinks” or “that guy was a good guy” because let’s be honest, none of the Warlords were good people. They fought for themselves and their greed

Dong Zhuo reminds me of the Roman Emperor Caligula and how he's remembered as a raving madman. But one of our main sources for Caligula's reign was Suetonius, who was a notorious court gossip and wrote from the perspective of the wealthy and powerful Senators, people who hated Caligula. But by all accounts, the common Plebians loved Caligula because he tended to side with them. In history you always need to be mindful of where you are getting your primary sources from, because focusing on just one perspective distorts the truth.

Dong's more a case of Machiavellian politics could go poorly if applied incorrectly. He's shown as overstepping his bounds in a very strict, tradition-driven court and strong-arming his way into power through aggression and exerting control over a younger, more easily manipulated child emperor. Some translations of Three Kingdoms that I've read had him contemplating seizing hegemony and making himself Emperor too. He had no allies within the court save for essentially the hostage emperor, and his personal coterie of generals and advisers were people he had previously known and elevated to high honours and positions. He made himself feared and hated while seizing power in precarious ways, he promoted people he could trust but not people who could expedite his own rise to power, and he left powerful enemies alive, hoping his shocking acts of cruelty would keep them in line. Sacking Luoyang and moving to Changan makes sense from a military standpoint, but the comparison to Liu Bei's rout lacks a certain context. Dong Zhuo's sack of Luoyang was generally portrayed as something akin to a violent pillaging, with numerous burial tombs of greatly revered emperors of the past looted, people forced out of their homes, and untold property destroyed by his soldiers with anyone who resisted killed on the spot. Liu Bei's situation is portrayed as more a case of the populace of his city packing what they can and fleeing with him of their own free will, with Liu Bei working to protect his people despite how it put his own forces in dire straits as they were hunted and harried by Cao Cao's larger yet more dangerous army. Granted, this is just how the two events are compared in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms book, a "mostly historical fiction" with a somewhat biased author. I feel it's right that he's vilified, his reign greatly eroding the already failing strength of the Han and expediting the rise of the Three Kingdoms, but he's someone we can learn from.

in China Dong Zhuo was refereed as 梟雄 which means "ambitious and ruthless character , a formidable person" so he was still somewhat respected in a sense. In china only the best of men can bear the title of 雄

just some records from book of Han.. Dongzhuo grew up in west border of Han empire, through his youth he gained a good reputation among chiefs of various nomad tribes who serves Han. He was also a hero in the region, has great horse archery skills(can shoot arrow on both sides of horse back).

During 1812 Napolenic wars in Russia our military commander Kutuzov burned down Moscow - and now he considered as one of the greatest military minds of Russia.

A list of incorrect facts this video used to construct the alternative narrative about Dong Zhuo: 1) (00:50)Dong was ordered to end the strife caused by eunuchs, and that's exactly what he did. Wrong. The first half of this is a gross simplification: In AD189 Dong (as well as 2 other border troop commanders) was order by Grand General (chief-in-command of imperial armed forces, also acting regent at the time) He Jin to move his troop to the vicinity of Luoyang(capital), to mount pressure on He Jin's sister Empress Dowager He to force her to relinquish her protection to the eunuchs. That is what Dong was assigned to do, now lets observe what Dong did. It is implied that "Dong ended the strife caused by eunuchs" in the video, and it's wrong. In the palace coup of August 189, the eunuchs assassinated He Jin, then it was the imperial guards led by the Yuans(namely Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu) whom stormed the palace and slaughtered the entire eunuchs faction, during which Dong and his troops were 15 km from Luoyang therefore couldnt participate. When Dong finally caught the wind of radical changes happening in Luoyang, he ordered a forced march and intercepted the child emperor being escorted back to capital by the victorious bureaucrats. That is the role Dong played in "ending the strife caused by eunuchs". After it is after the death of eunuchs when Dong suddenly burst into action, accepting pledge of loyalty from some former troops of He Jin, killing Ding Yuan (thru betrayal of Lu Bu) and taking command of his army, becoming commander of the strongest army in Luoyang, and therefore able to launch his de facto coup, aka the dethroning of current emperor. 2) (1:21) The emperor is not the person originally nominated to the throne, so Yuan Shao put a pretender on it, and Dong Zhuo was righting the wrong when deposing him. The first half is a hotly contested topic. We know the political tradition of Han dynasty favored the eldest child Liu Bian(the child emperor Dong deposed), while late Emperor Ling personally favored younger Liu Xie (the child emperor Dong enthroned). There is no concrete evidence of Emperor Ling ever made a decision on succession before death in the records. The latter half is completely wrong, as Liu Bian was put on the throne by his uncle Grand General He Jin and his mother Empress Dowager He, not Yuan Shao. I also would argue that the Hes' decision was a poplular one, seldomly viewed as usurpation (which is suggested by the video), because it‘s in conformity with Han succession tradition, while Liu Xie was an unorthodoxy candidate favored by the almost universally despised Emperor Ling and his eunuchs. 3) (2:20) Dong Zhuo was an effective suppressor of rebellions. Huge exaggeration. Dong Zhuo failed horribly against the Yellow Turbans in 184, to the extent he was relieved of duty and imprisoned in Luoyang. Then he took part in the campaign against rebellion of Liangzhou, which the imperial forces failed to suppress until the fall of Han. In that unsuccessful campaign, Dong Zhuo was the only commender whom kept his forces intact and achieved some limited victories, so he did deserve some recognition on his military skills, but not overexaggeration. It would be such irony to call him an effective suppressor of rebellions, especially when we consider his action led to the largest rebellion in Han history, a rebellion he clearly could not suppress. If we correct all the incorrect "facts" in the video, it's easy to see the arguement to justify Dong's actions, that he is trying to make things better in his way, is baseless. If we put the fact not touched by this video into the narrative the image become even clearer. It should be noticed that Dong Zhuo was one of the closest army to Luoyang in 189 because he was purposefully delaying the previous imperial order to relinquish his command and go to Bingzhou, camping his army close to Chang'an looking for political opportunity in Luoyang, which already spells insubordination and disloyalty. He played no part in eliminating the eunuchs - that should be contributed to the Yuans - but only when the coup against eunuchs was settled, Dong found out that he was now leading the strongest military forces in the imperial capital, so he launched a second coup, a ruthless power grab serving only the interest of himself. I think the traditional narrative on Dong Zhuo is therefore, quite accurate.

Dong Zhuo was scarcely any different from Cao Cao, the villainous hero of Wei. They both kept a stranglehold on the Imperial Court (which was something repeated countless times before and after), manipulated child emperors, comitted grievous massacres and employed terror tactics. Admittedly, Cao Cao had the reputation of being far more deferential toward Imperial authority than Dong Zhuo, but that in of itself may be embellishment on the side of both men. Cao Cao, however, ended as the winner. He controlled Han, reunified the North, which was the heart of China, and built the foundations of Wei. Whereas Dong Zhuo died having been murdered by his foremost subordinate. Anyone who wins is always remembered in better light. Jenghiz Khan is possibly the only historical winner who did not control the narrative (Mongols, they're the exception - thanks John Green).

If Dong Zhou had won the war, yea...he would be on the right side.

It’s a classic example of fat shaming.

i can hear people laughing in the background

*the dong is never wrong*

An important fact worthy to be noticed: “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” is a not a history book but a historical fiction novel. The writer depicts historical characters with his own favors and bias. “Records of the Three Kingdoms” is the reliable source.

I watched the trailer and I'm glad that you can play him. It's always interesting to play as a villain. Only one thing that bothers me during that trailer. Dong Zhuo face that looked out of place. Everything was pretty realistic and his face reminded me of some Mario characters, a bit too cartoonish.

The thing that made Dong Zhou failed was that he was pretty much a savage who only knew about war. His early young life with the nomad tribes had led him believing in the power of might where the strong have the right to take everything. This is true in some sense but in this era, people were not fools and the political work behind everything was very complex. Not concerning this political network behind everything was the main cause for Dong's failure. The result is the backstab from Lu Bu. The most important thing for a tyrant to get a grip of his power is drawing a clear line that he himself absolutely does not cross. Dong Zhou pretty much overstepped every possible lines, which made pretty much all of the officials working for the palace at that time and the other warlord outside to cook up the scheme to eliminate him.

In retrospect, at least for my own prior comments, Dong Zhou's actions aren't abnormal for the times. Abhorrent sure, but this was an age when people occasionally made *soups* out of their enemies. Dong Zhou's decision to sack Luoyang and move the people is a militarily sound decision. Using torture as a means to demoralize the enemy, as opposed to trying to get information from a prisoner, is also a workable form of psychological warfare. Wiping out the entire family of an enemy commander also seems sadly common for the age whenever an opposing leader got the chance. The massacres and kidnappings his regime engaged in (once killing all the of age men in a city) were also not unique then or later. So I guess his ham-handed attempts to control the Han Emperor and then take ultimate power himself (there is plenty of evidence he wanted to be Emperor) shouldn't come off as some great evil when most other Warlords would have tried the exact same thing given a chance.

Dong Zhuo did one thing right without question, he rid the imperial court of the eunuch menace, but as Cao Cao remarked, it's like bringing a tiger to kill a wolf, the wolf is bad but the tiger will be worse when the wolf is slain. In any event it is a mistake to project modern standards of morality onto people who lived in ancient feudal times, there are certain things that must be in place before a society can be civilized as we think of the term today, when you can grant the majority of your populace a high standard of living for example, and they aren't worried about starving or local bandits coming to kill and rape their families then you can have the scholarly society. But man is only ever a hairs breadth from becoming bestial, if that living standard wanes too much or law and order can no longer be enforced by a strong state, you will see how quickly even modern people devolve into vile acts of barbarism.

Super interesting take. It's interesting how may of history's great tyrants simply had their biographies written by their enemies, there's definitely more than a few famous tyrants of the ancient world who are beginning to be looked at in a more questioning light.

NONE CAN STOP THE EXPANSION OF... THE DONG'S EMPIRE.

They demonized him because he kept expanding DONG

*"Simply did what he wanted to do and made no excuses."* Yeah, like torture and beat any official he wanted to, and let his own soldiers rape and pillage the common people daily. Deposed the emperor, poisoned the Dowager, brought up his own child puppet so he could do whatever the fuck he wanted to do forgoing all Chinese etiquette and propriety at the time. *"He corrected the wrong done by the eunuchs."* No he didn't. He did the same thing they did; abuse the people and amass power for himself. It was the Yuans who killed the eunchs and tried to restore order; Dong Zhuo came in after and took control. *"He needed to use every item in his disposal to reassert the power of the Han empire."* Are you purposefully spinning this? Dong Zhuo never wanted to restore the Han empire. The reason why so many other warlords were rebellious to him was because he seized power and created a puppet emperor to do his bidding. This is like saying I punch someone in the face, and when that person comes to strike me back I shoot him in the head and his entire family to defend myself and am justified in doing so. *"Would you kill one, to save one hundred. Would you torture one to prevent a war."* You can't be serious with this statement. This saying does not reasonably personify what he was doing. Do you also excuse Stalin and give him the same defense? *"Liu Bei also marched a city full of people in Changban."* They followed him willingly. This isn't even the romanticized version; what historical information we have states Liu Bei was popular and the people respected him. When advised to abandon the civilians, Liu Bei refused. You cannot compare this to Dong Zhuo force marching Luoyang's populace and having many of them die from starvation and exhaustion on the mountainous roads to Changan. *"Extreme situations require extreme actions... Abraham Lincoln allowed William T. Sherman to burn..."* Again, such a bad comparison and such a bad way to represent Dong Zhuo. Dong Zhuo wasn't a desperate man trying to keep peace and order through harsh means. He was greedy despot who did what he did because he couldn't give two shits about the common peasant and was raping and pillaging long before the coalition came. Lincoln was someone desperate to end a civil war that was costing many lives and at the very least tried to recompensate people who lost their land. The motivations and situations are entirely different. *"Next time you think of Dong Zhuo, think of Thanos."* Just... No. Stop. Their motivations do not remotely come close. I know you want views and a video to keep up your hobby/job, but please do one where you don't have to spin things around and give the ABSOLUTE BIGGEST charitable position to someone that doesn't deserve it. Dong Zhuo deserves every bit of his tyrant and despotic outlook. The only thing you got right was that he wasn't some fat buffoon some people make him out to be; he was a talented general.

Great video, for some reason this is the video that triggered an excitement to look up and learn more about the three kingdoms period! You got yourself a new sub

I can't wait to expand Dong

you really need to do this more man, these are great.

0:00 when your history teacher tries to connect with his students

It must also be remembered that the information we have about Dong Zhuo are all from successors after him which may have wanted to paint him as badly as possible. Stories like his torture feast are most likely falsities to help make him look as bad as possible.

in the historical novel one of the Han civil officials Cai Yong was crying after they killed Dong Zhuo probably he was good to him after that Wang Yun killed him for that, Dong Zhuo maybe a tyrant also Cao Cao and many others, so I'm just neutral about him

Supposedly he also had the ministers drink the blood of his enemies mixed with wine. At least from what I saw in both Three Kingdoms shows

First campaign, using Ma Teng and stayed true to Dong Zhou for 150 turns

Ok, so the big thing about Chang Ban is the people left their homes out of fear of Cao Cao. Up to this point Cao Cao went on his infamous killing spree of Xu Province and burned down several villages. They weren't forced out of their homes and left their things behind like Dong Zhuo did. They were scared for their safety because Cao Cao was arguably more destructive than Dong Zhuo was. Dong Zhuo burned down one city out of tactical necessity. Cao Cao on the other hand went on a mass killing spree of Xu Province over the death of his father and burned down a few villages.

Another example of the Yuans messing things up for everyone. When a man who has spent five years fighting a rebellion of Qiang tribesmen and defecting Han officers is ordered to come to the capital with his troops by the Grand Commandant (He Jin) and arrives to find that his superior officer has been assassinated by the Eunuchs and the capital is on the verge of chaos, he acts quickly, decisively, and with the goal of keeping any would be trouble makers from escalating the situation. If anything, the Coalition and the resulting Three Kingdoms period could very well have been avoided if Yuan Shao had followed He Jin’s plan instead of modifying it after He Jin was assassinated. The Yuan half-brothers (or cousins if you want to put more emphasis on the adoption of Yuan Shao by their uncle, which Yuan Shu definitely did) were nearly as bad as the eunuchs in hindsight.

The comment section is: 90% spelling his name as Dong Zhou 10% spelling his name right (Dong Zhuo)

Tired of people saying thanos was right. Buddy had magic powers and could do anything and killed half the universe instead of just making it so everyone had food and shit

ive heard some historical extracts on Dong Zhou that wasnt like the romance of the three kingdoms describing him as a tough as nails warrior. What people often forget is how did he get so powerful. He commanded the Xiliang army which was sorta like Mongolians. They were known across China as the finest and most powerful cavalry in the world. For Dong to command an army like that he had to be well respected and strong. History paints him as the bad guy due to extracts at the time favouring the Han. Similarly Cao Cao also gets flak for being too tyranical and ruthless, and what people dont realise is Cao Cao was one of the most intelligent man of the time, even on par with Zhugeliang because he managed to make his territory the strongest out of the three kingdoms.

He is a a general/governor for a reason. No dumb dumb can earn that much influence based on merits. However, saying he's not bad is about the same as saying Hitler was an ok guy. He chopped people' heads in the King palace and forced the loyalist officers to drink the blood with wine for god sake. At one point Dong Zhuo and Cao Cao was the same: using the Emperor to influence the court, but the warlords only formed a coalition to get Zhuo, which meant there was truth to the rumors about him. Liu Bei as Shu king could only claim that Cao Cao held the Emperor hostage, since allegations similar to Dong Zhuo's would be wrong on Cao.

He tortured people during banquets for entertainment and threw a axe at his adopted son Lu Bu ffs...

thank you for this video. so many people are ignorant of the people in the three kingdoms era, and don't truly know their backstory and motives for doing so.

Dong Zhuo was actually a lot like Caesar and Napoleon, if you think about it. Just another example of how historians seem to have a double standard. Throughout most of history, Caesar and Napoleon are unambiguously hailed as heroes by many people(well, Napoleon had a more shady reputation. But his image has largely been positive throughout the world). But a man like Dong Zhuo is a bad guy somehow even though all three men had done essentially the same thing to their respective government. To be fair though, AFAIK Dong Zhuo was never an excellent propagandist the way Napoleon and Caesar were. So maybe that explains something.

We need a HBO series based in the three kingdoms period.

Thanos had no point, it was an illusion made from good acting.

I mean boiling prisoners alive and cannibalism is pretty frowned upon though

The fact that he was up-front makes him a better person than his rivals in my eyes, granted, better than war-mongers and ravagers isn't much.

Superb video!

Fun fact Vlad the Impaler invited a group of boyars(nobility) to a fest in good fate that he forgive them that they killed his father and biger brother, but of cours he impale them. He also did something similar with peasants.Whana know more?

Dong Zhuo even says in Romance that he put the other Liu boy on the throne because he was brighter and more assertive than his brother. In other words, at least when he first replaced the Emperor, Dong Zhuo was hoping the Emperor would grow up to be a strong, assertive Emperor with convictions and not a malleable one.

you guys need to read "The Ravage Of Time"

Very insightful. I've been reading and studying that period since the first RTK game I purchased in the 90s. There is a whole lot of ambiguity between reality and fiction in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Interesting watch, thanks!

The quality of his character is irrelevant. He could neither bring the Yuan or Sun families to heel, nor stop Cao Cao from calling for the coalition. The Han were doomed as was what little power he held through it. What ever his intentions, Dong Zhou set the precedent for holding the Emperor through military force and dethroning an Emperor likewise thereby invalidating the authority of the emperor and further justifying rebellion. If Hei Ji had lived, if the Yuan had been free to pick up the pieces after the Eunuchs died then the central state might've held long enough for the emperor to grow up and restore some of the office's prestige and perhaps limped on for a while. Dong Zhou made it clear that the court was powerless and an empire was up for grabs if you had the will to take it.

How does this video have like no comments? Mr. Cody Bonds I am a huge huge fan of your channel and absolutely love your work. And honestly, this video did much Justice to Dong Zhou. In my personal opinion the real villain or “Tyrant” of the whole romance I gotta say goes to Cao Cao. I mean he kinda did betray everyone in the end and really it’s like you said, Dong Zhou did bring stability and asserted authority for a time and although it was brutal and even cruel at times it was still very effective. And an interesting point on how would people look at him if he had won. Well honestly it’s the age old phrase “it is the victors the write history.” Which unfortunately he was not the victor, and was left to be a victim to historical crucifixion like many other historical figures in human history. He may have been “wrong” in the eyes of the tamed nobles and warlords of China at the time but in the end just like in the natural world it is might that makes right. At least in an environment of pure chaos which is exactly what the three kingdoms era was. He wasn’t the ruler that china wanted but the ruler it needed.

Imo the premise defending both Thanos and Dong is wrong. Killing or torturing 1 does not necessarily save the hundred, but does guarentee an evil act within itself

Extreme time might need extreme measures, but I think for most Chinese scholars, that hardly justify unnecessary cruelty he committed. After Han, The government embrace Confucianism as the dominant philosophy for the empire. One of the key aspect of Confucianism philosophy is 仁 (benevolence, humaneness) Yet, many of Dong Zhuo's doing is comparable to the infamous Tyrant Zhou of Shang. Not to mention in Confucianism scholar's eyes, the government should take care of its people or it would lose the mandate of heaven. "民之所欲，天必從之-《尚書 - 泰誓上》"(What the people want, the heaven will permit it - Tài shì, Book of Documents. ) Seeing what we know about Dong Zhuo, it's as clear as day that he doesn't care about people, only power (as the trailer accurately narrated ). That certainly wouldn't earn him any favor in any Chinese historian's eyes.

All the warlords wanted the same thing and we're willing to sacrifice others for it

Dong Zhou was not an evil or good man, he was a ruler

I think he distinguished himself historically for killing the younger child emperor. Im not a squeemish fan of history. But that was a pretty big disticntion between him and some of the others. Child murders are pretty good ammo for historians. Not that the other warlords didn't or wouldn't have killes a kid, but he killed the emperor in a real obvious way

man, I really want to see that giant meatball he made

Those eunuchs deserved it. People also forget that, with the exception of Lu Bu, Dong Zhuo had a lot of talented and loyal men serving him.

History is more complicated than we thought.

Hey so I found your channel through KZfaq suggestions and was disappointed that there weren't more videos like this, videos explaining the other side of the story for video game villains would be great in my opinion, maybe you should consider making this into a series or something.

the thing is when dong zhuo take emperor hostage every warlord knew that han is dead. only yuan shu that is honest or too honest about claiming the han is dead and establish a new kingdom.

From what I've gathered here, it seems that there is absolutely no denying that Dong Zhuo was a tyrannical maniac. I don't care what you call "necessary," boiling people alive and rolling them into meatballs at a feast is an act of cruelty so legendary that it pretty much erases any other good deeds he might have done. However, what he really was as opposed to a single mad villain of China was one of many cruel and wanton people, and he was simply the most memorable among them. No doubt his contemporaries committed any number of atrocities, some perhaps equal to his own. He is certainly not misunderstood, but he is not unique either.

Im a Chinese who had to study ancient history. Your points are valid. I further push that Cao Cao is a virtue of paragon (check hair cutting incident) and Liu Bei is a opportunistic backstabber (broken numerous promises and did horrible things too)

What I learned from history is that Chineese people in particular are bound to seperate themselves to fight one another Unless they are ruled by a tyrant man or goverment that keeps them all together but then again, maybe someone would say that there is no china to begin with - only a huge conglomerate of smaller nations

While Dong Zhuo was an okay person overall, he definitely wasn't respectful to the emperor and the basic laws of being respectful such as: wearing shoes in the palace (no person should wear shoes in a royal house at the time) sleeping in Emperor's bed keeping his weapon out while with the emperor walking in the presence of the emperor (you are supposed to trot)

Dong Zhou was to the Chinese Imperial court that an Australian Prime Minister of the British empire would be in the 1800's.

i thought i was going crazy because of the background laughter

I'm getting the sense that the Dong had a sane view of the problem, and a really insane view of the solution.

Dong Zhou in Koihime Musou is the cute humble noble lady, though.

My question is "where the Yellow Turban rebels really the bad guys?" The people were starving and impoverished from a poorly run nation, plagued with droughts and floods.

Cody, u r the best presenter on the net, but it largely sounds like rationalizing: 1) Lincoln & Henry 8 were legit rulers. Dong Zhuo was an hillbilly usurper hardly even a cultured man by Chinese standards. 2) the lothbroks were foreign invaders not a local. Conquerors are held to different standards of cruelty with other nations. 3) the whole digging up the grave sounds really bad in ancient China. Feng shui beliefs link that to ruining their descendants and it didn’t take long to prove them rt in this instance. The Han collapsed.

History is written by the victors, and thus the Dong was written as a horrible tyrant who satisfied all his carnal needs and had no virtues. This translates into the games, where they show the yellow turban rebellion, and then gloss over his tenure and any rights. Meanwhile the Eunochs, who yeah, effectively started the whole civil war, are just kind of forgotten because they didn't serve much of an active role after Dong Zhuo bitch slapped them out. Also, Thanos is a good example in modern media. Namely that he saw a problem, found a solution, and enacted it. The problem was, randomly snapping out half of all life means that the problem isn't solved. You've still effectively kept the same food problems in check (they did confirm that half of all animals and plants were snapped out as well), while adding a screwed up infrastructure, instability, and very likely civil war as leadership and positions of power were just suddenly vacated without explanation.

Dong Zhuo makes Vlad Teppes look like Ghandi

bruh... don't read the romance for historical data but your video is sound and presents the idea nicely.

The best way to break someone's morale in a civil war is to the war without any violence, even before the war actually begins. The way you do that is through legal action, planning and compromise in a way they won't be able to comprehend. So although I understand the actions of average warlord and general _(of all of history),_ I can only view their actions as primitive and crude. So I can only assume that glorying torture and execution of one's enemies today is a sign of further devolution of our specie. Oh well... nothing new there.

Is there any way we could get a pic of Dong Zhuo w/ the Infinity Gauntlet without the lettering on top?

It was He Jin, not Yuan Shao who out another heir on the throne, though

>Much like Thanos he may have had a point Nah. If there's a better alternative to your plan, of which there were many, then your plan is flawed and you need to rethink it. Thanos could have made all resources infinite or made it so supply lines couldn't be interrupted. Dong Zhuo, similarly, could have just adapted to court life and not made a human meat ball out of a bunch of Chinese farmers.

Old record had been long lost. New Dynasty want their people stay obedient so They need Tyrant [Dong Zhuo], The Usurper [Cao Clan and Sima Clan] and Thier Loyal retainer [Liu and the gang]. Dong Zhuo didn't evil but he must purge all corruption in Han count [Han was about to ceased] and All warlords want seized power for themselves.

If Gongsun Zan had taken the emperor instead of Dong Zhuo, history would have been far worse..... 1 - Gongsun Zan was also a general from the frontier and didn't have political skills to lead a country (much like Dong). 2 - He was also skilled in cavalry warfare (also like Dong) 3 - He was unable to proper use his best general, he "allowed" Zhao Yun to leave his service when he was already short of capable leaders. (Dong Zhuo beats him in that point, even through he was notorius for Being brutal with his enemies, he was generous with his own troops and with the exception of those involved in his d&ath, almost all "Liang faction" were 100% loyal to him) 4 - Unlike Dong Zhuo who once in power tried to appease the "scholar faction" within the court (by appointing some of them to rule over some places ) I highly doubt that Gongsun Zan would have done the same, since he was notorious for being hostile to scholars in general. Result? More chaos and instability. 5 - Gongsun Zan kill&d Liu Yu (a close relative to the emperor and a very respected man in the north) and more important, a man who outranked him, would he have been capable of killing the emperor himself if needed? That is something to think. 6 - His battle tactics s#cks! His defeat in Yuan Shao's hands was pathetic, he decided to "be absent" so his men would "fight more" for him? Really???? If you think burning Luo Yang was bad, I believe with this man in power, things could have been even worse ( if that is even possible). If I forgot something, feel free to comment. Sorry the long post

At the end he had the last laugh.

The Dong can't be wrong!

Whats the name of the instrumental in the beginning?

It seems like a lot of this boils down to saying "what he did was OK because he was trying to keep the empire from collapsing." Which sounds good, but it kind of ignores that he FAILED. And that many of the things he did made it easier for people to rally against him. He was probably less bad than he was portrayed, and none of the other warlords alive at the time were actually, truly good and noble. But still, he helped along the collapse of the Han.

To answer your question, Cao Cao did win the war, but he became the most unfairly maligned character of the era regardless of that. While Liu Bei lost, and he became the protagonist of the war in the eyes of the people. Popular perception works in mysterious ways.

You make a point with this interpretation of Dong Zhou. I always saw the conflict between him and the other members of the court as a cultural clash as you mention. I don't think he was ignorant of the workings of the Han court, but he did not see it as important as the other courtiers considering the stakes at hand. I wonder how well things would have gone for him with some better intercultural communication skills.

All Dong Zhuo did was acted first in taking control of the government. Sure he was a tyrant but he did awaken the ambitions of all the other Warlords in a sense.

if china had a henry the 8 its a dong zhou

What’s right for him doesn’t mean it’s right for the realm. You just can’t justify desecrating imperial mausoleums and scattering all the skeletons on the ground or opening people alive when it’s objectively wrong.

The war had few good guys. Even Liu Bei achieved his kingdom by backstabbing his host and patron - seizing Yi for himself. And he's supposed to be the righteous one, at least in the Romance.

Dong Zhou was good at ending the rebellion, but he was no ruler. A general who could use terror, but not a good ruler, he would have needed someone else rule and make bog decisions for him

I would say during that period everything was fucked up. We got lots of people like Dong in history, China always had a lot of careerists during Chaos period

I never thought I'll live to a day that I'll saw somebody defend Dong Zhuo. but you kind of have a point

The Thanos thing. No Thanos did not have a point. Or rather IF he had a point, then his so-called "solution" would make no difference and in no way change anything. It was a plan built on the logic of a 5 year old child.

Hnnnng my historian brain hurts. Obviously you were right about his methods being far too crude, but I’ll be damned if the rest your other points didn’t make a bit of sense too. It’s easy to just think of Dongy boi and his lot as nothing but tyrants, so it’s good to re-examine such things. Especially when considering a person’s legacy. Great vid, keep it up!