Category: Episodes (page 18)

The coalition forces are marching for the capital, but first, they will have to get past Dong Zhuo’s top generals. The result is two of the most famous battlefield encounters in Chinese lore.

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It’s a busy episode for Cao Cao. He gets out of a sticky situation, screws himself out of a delicious pork dinner, drops some life wisdom on his traveling companion, and then stirs up a whole lot of trouble for Dong Zhuo.

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As Dong Zhuo rises to power, he bestows endless kindness on all mankind. He’s doing such a great job, in fact, that someone decides to give him a beautiful, bejeweled knife with a razor-sharp edge while he was lying down with his back turned.

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• Picture of the ivory tablet/paddle/notepad thing that one minister tries to hit Dong Zhuo with

We’ve had rebellions, palace intrigue, a deadly power struggle, and a bloodbath at the imperial residence. But all of that was just the warm-up act. We are finally getting into the meat of the story, starting with ascension of Dong Zhuo, who’s like Santa Claus, just less jolly and more stabby.

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• There is no map this week, since all the action takes place in or just outside of the capital Luoyang.

He Jin makes his officers bang their heads against walls with his pathological inability to dispose of the eunuchs. Meanwhile, a bit character from episode 1, Dong Zhuo, drops by the capital with 200,000 of his best friends, just to say hi and see what’s up.

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Liu Bei discovers that landing a government job in the Han court takes connections, patience, and a lot of dead rebels. And that’s BEFORE the leeches start ransoming you for a bribe. Fortunately, Zhang Fei resolves the matter diplomatically.

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A quick overview of what I’ll attempt to do with this podcast. You can also read this explanation instead.

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A few resources for those who want to delve more deeply into the novel and the historical era on which it is based (and yes, they contain spoilers):

• threekingdoms.com: Read an English translation of the novel online for free. Scroll past the Oprah picture at the top to see the table of contents. The site includes a lot of crowd-sourced annotations, some of which can be helpful.
• purepen.com/sgyy/: Read the original Chinese novel online for free.
• The China History Podcast: This excellent podcast series is a must-listen if you’re into podcasts and Chinese history and culture. There are episodes on the Three Kingdoms era, the Han dynasty that directly preceded it, and the Jin dynasty that followed.
• BBC podcast about the novel