At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was already a turbulent situation in the court, at this time, various uprisings and disputes between the princes were frequent, and the regime of the Eastern Han Dynasty was already in a precarious state.
Due to the land annexation at that time, the powerful people in various places occupied the land by their own mercenaries, and the eunuchs within the imperial court interfered in the government, which led to the inability to manage the forces in various places, which made the powerful and powerful with many mercenaries at that time divide the regime, and there is a great image of changing the dynasty.
Dong Zhuo was one of the more famous heroes in this period, he was a warlord and a powerful minister in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, but he was ambitious and had a force that no one could match at that time, so his mercenaries set up a new lord and took charge of the actual government as an auxiliary minister.
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms book has a lot of introductions to Dong Zhuo at the beginning of the book, and his deeds in history have been criticized by later generations, indeed he occupied the capital, abolished the old emperor, supported the Han Xian Emperor, and killed the ministers of the court and other deeds were the inducements that led to the change of the political situation in the Eastern Han Dynasty and opened the Three Kingdoms era.
In the chaos of the world, there will inevitably be heroes, and no matter how bad the regime is, it also has loyal supporters, Wang Yun is the last year of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty was a very trusted minister.
The Wang family was originally a well-known family in Shanxi, and the family has held important official positions in the court for generations, and many years of operation have given the Wang family a high prestige both inside and outside the court.
Wang Yun is more valued in the Wang clan, he is talented, and has the talent of the past and the present, he has been influenced by the family since he was a child, and is determined to put the country first, be loyal to the monarch and serve the country, and die.
After years of operation, Wang Yun has become a courtier who is quite trusted by Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, but the emperor has no power, Dong Zhuo is in charge, he can only secretly plan how to get rid of Wang Mang, save the Han family and save the emperor.
The more well-known episode is that Wang Yun used Diao Chan to achieve the goal of separating Lu Bu and Dong Zhuo, and the ingenious beauty trick made Dong Zhuo's regime completely collapse, which shows Wang Yun's resourcefulness and ability to perceive people's hearts.
With Lü Bu killing Wang Mang, on the surface, the real rule of Emperor Xian of Han had just begun, but in fact, the rule of the late Eastern Han Dynasty was never decided by the Han Emperor, but by the ministers with power.
Since the hero who overthrew Dong Zhuo's rule was Sima Wang Yun, he was in charge of the government after that. In order to completely save the Han family from fire and water, Wang Yun did not attack Dong Zhuo's old subordinates, nor did he punish the ministers of his relatives, let alone crusade against Yuan Shu and Yuan Shao and others who stood on their own, but killed Cai Yong.
Officialdom has always needed to take sides, and it is normal for different camps to fight each other.
Cai Yong and Wang Yun, who were originally servants, had already communicated and decided to become each other's help, and in addition to this, there were eunuchs and relatives. It can be seen that after killing Dong Zhuo, he can't wait to kill Cai Yong, why is this?
Wang Yun is loyal to the imperial court, and he is also talented, wise, strict, and too upright, which is why he has been hostile to many eunuchs before, so that he was hunted down everywhere, and he only returned to the court when he knew that Dong Zhuo was in power.
Because of his lack of power and seeing Dong Zhuo bullying the young master, he had the heart to eradicate Dong Zhuo. For this reason, he made false and appointed snakes to give advice to Dong Zhuo, but secretly used stratagems to disintegrate Dong Zhuo's internal group.
This kind of operation is indeed effective, but for the literati, the tactics used are too dirty and unsightly, after all, the use of beauty to divide the world is indeed not on the table. Later, there was a person who was very famous at the time, that is, Cai Yong.
Cai Yong was a well-known celebrity in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and he knew astronomy and geography, piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, history books and ancient books.
Even, his daughters were all famous talented women at that time, this is what later generations called Cai Wenji. At this time, Cai Yong's work was mainly to compile real history, similar to what we know about Sima Qian. This man has high requirements for the authenticity of historical events, and they would rather lose their names than flatter.
And what Wang Yun did was true for the Han Dynasty, but the means and processes he used were written in history, and it is very likely that he himself would feel ashamed, and he would care more about the comments of later generations, and he could not persuade Cai Yong to rewrite history, so he had the heart to kill him.
Cai Yong was a learned man in the world, and there were many people who admired him and wanted to follow him. Any person will respect and treat him with kindness because he appreciates his talents.
The same was true when Dong Zhuogang was in power, he understood that he was a reckless man, and he did not know how to govern the country, and he needed the help of capable people.
At this time, Dong Zhuo thought of Cai Yong, this talent had been the same eunuch ** as Wang Yun before, and he had already resigned and retired, and now Dong Zhuo invited him to go out of the mountain to help, which was originally a gesture of seeking talent, but Cai Yong was unwilling.
Because Dong Zhuo's reputation is not good, and he is mediocre and lustful, bullying the young master, and committing many crimes, Cai Yong does not want to be with him, but Dong Zhuo threatens Cai Yong's family, so Cai Yong has no choice but to agree to enter the court as an official and help Dong Zhuo deal with court politics.
During this time, Dong Zhuo respected Cai Yong very much, and would ask Cai Yong's opinion on many things, even if there were disagreements, Cai Yong's opinion would become the first choice for him to adopt, which shows Dong Zhuo's recognition of Cai Yong.
Maybe it's because Dong Zhuo is better to Cai Yong, so after Dong Zhuo was killed, Cai Yong did not have a different color, and it was recorded in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty that Cai Yong just "sighed without words, and was moved by color", probably because he did not have a quick face after killing, but sighed for Dong Zhuo.
This kind of performance was fully seen by the dominant Wang Yun, who once angrily scolded Cai Yong at that time"Dong Zhuo was originally a thief and stole the Han family, as a courtier, you should be resentful together, but you only think of Dong Zhuo's benefits and forget your own integrity, isn't this disloyal? ”
Judging from the situation at the time, it was true that Cai Yong's performance was inappropriate, but it did not make Wang Yun angry, it can only be said that Wang Yun's original character was jealous and hateful, he hated Dong Zhuo, and he also hoped that like-minded people with him could also be here, seeing Cai Yong quite double-faced.
So it is possible to be dissatisfied with him in my heart, afraid that he will rebel for the sake of small profits, so from this point of view, it is reasonable for Wang Yun to kill Cai Yong.
Wang Yun was not a really outstanding person during the entire Eastern Han Dynasty, although he was talented, but his personality caused him to make few friends, so he was not very famous at that time.
If Wang Yun wants to be famous, he needs to seize the opportunity to serve the imperial court and make contributions, just as Dong Zhuo was in power to oppress the Han Emperor, he killed Dong Zhuo through a strategy, thus reaching the peak of his popularity.
After gaining prestige, Wang Yun also became the actual ruler of the Eastern Han Dynasty at that time because of the attention of the Han Emperor. In this case, what Wang Yun needs to do is to stabilize the power and avoid the resurgence of the anti-thieves, so it is necessary to exterminate Dong Zhuo's remaining party.
Although Cai Yong is his own person, his situation is special, he is reused by Dong Zhuo, and his own prestige is very high, as long as he exists, Wang Yun's governance will not be smooth, he will inevitably be restricted, and there may even be a situation where his rights are lost.
These are unacceptable to Wang Yun, whose rights are hard-won, so he wants to kill Cai Yong so that he can avoid the troubles in the future.
Some scholars in later generations believe that the evaluation of historical figures at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty is still not objective enough, after all, every person in history is flesh and blood, and no one can really be free from mistakes.
In the case of Wang Yun, he himself used a trick to kill Dong Zhuo for the sake of the imperial court, and his starting point was naturally for the monarch and the Han Dynasty, but it cannot be said that he did not have his own selfishness, after all, after all, he became the head of the hundred officials and held the supreme power.
Although he was criticized by later generations and literati at the time for killing Cai Yong, from the perspective of Cai Yong's personality, he was originally a person who did not have a clear position, but Wang Yun was the opposite, he was a person with clear boundaries, black and white, obviously the two people were not the same kind, so it was reasonable for the later events to occur.