The Han emperor’s attempted return east to Luoyang becomes a succession of threatened journeys rather than a restoration of imperial order. Zhang Ji negotiates a route for the emperor and empress, but Guo Si breaks the agreement and pursues them; Yang Feng and Dong Cheng repeatedly intervene, while Li Jue and Guo Si’s renewed campaign drives the court into flight again. The emperor eventually reaches the old capital, only to find its palaces burned, its streets overgrown, and its surviving people facing famine. The episode makes the imperial journey a measure of the Han court’s collapse: the emperor can move, but only at the mercy of armed leaders whose loyalties and promises keep changing.

Background and the negotiated journey

By the time Zhang Ji arrives from Shaanxi, Li Jue’s army has largely dispersed and Guo Si has little influence. Zhang Ji seeks to end the fighting and reconcile the rival leaders. He presents the emperor with a memorial arguing that the court would be safer if it moved east to Hongnong. The emperor welcomes the proposal, and Zhang Ji arranges a compromise: Li Jue is to provide carriages and about two hundred guards for the imperial couple, while Guo Si is to release the court officials he has imprisoned.

The agreement briefly turns a political settlement into a practical itinerary. But its weakness is apparent almost at once. Guo Si orders his men to stop the imperial party at Baling Bridge; his own guards allow the emperor to cross, and Guo Si then sets out in person with an armed force to halt the convoy. The route east is therefore not simply a transfer between capitals. It is contested ground, and the emperor’s safety depends on whether individual commanders choose to obey, defect, or fight.

Guo Si’s pursuit and the first rescues

As the convoy reaches Huayin County, Guo Si catches up and demands that it stop. With the emperor in immediate danger, a force arrives under a banner identifying its soldiers as Yang Feng’s men. Yang Feng, who had escaped after his earlier confrontation with Li Jue and taken refuge in the Zhongnan Mountains, has come to defend the emperor. His troops attack and drive Guo Si away.

Guo Si makes another attempt to seize the emperor and is defeated again, this time with help from Dong Cheng, a relative of the emperor. These interventions keep the journey alive, but they do not end the threat. The imperial party is protected through timely armed support rather than by an effective court or a settled agreement. Each rescue buys passage, not security.

Renewed attack and flight from Dongjian

Fearing that Zhang Ji’s influence at Chang’an and Yang Feng’s movement toward Hongnong will leave them powerless, Li Jue and Guo Si join forces and ride toward Hongnong, intending to kill the emperor. On the way, they catch up with the imperial convoy at Dongjian, where Yang Feng and Dong Cheng are resting. The loyal troops cannot hold off the larger rebel force. Yang Feng and Dong Cheng manage to get the imperial couple out before the city is taken, but the rest of the convoy is captured. Dongjian is looted and destroyed, and the emperor escapes to Shanbei with Li Jue and Guo Si close behind.

The renewed flight forces Yang Feng and Dong Cheng to seek both reconciliation and reinforcements. They approach the White Wave rebels, a splinter movement of the Yellow Headbands. One of its leaders, Li Yue, draws many recruits into the emperor’s defence. This alliance gives the imperial supporters additional strength, but its protection proves conditional: Li Yue will later turn against the very party he has helped defend.

Across the Yellow River amid famine

Even with the new force, Li Jue and Guo Si defeat the White Wave troops and seize Hongnong. They kill the old and weak and compel able-bodied men to join their army, forcing the emperor to flee north again. On the banks of the Yellow River, Li Yue finds a small boat to carry the emperor and empress across. The party is reduced to a handful of servants, with Li Yue and Yang Feng trying to care for the imperial couple.

Yang Feng commandeers a farm wagon and takes them to Dayang, but there is no food there. They continue and spend a night in a rough farm hut; local peasants offer food, but it is too coarse for the imperial couple to eat. In Anyi, the court finally rests in a simple, single-storey hut rather than a palace. The contrast between the imperial title and the circumstances of the journey is stark: the emperor survives through a small boat, a commandeered wagon, and whatever shelter can be found along the way.

At Anyi, Li Yue reveals a different side of his role. He bullies the court, attacks courtiers, denounces people before the emperor without apparent cause, and gives the imperial couple deliberately poor food and drink. He also pressures the emperor to appoint other White Wave leaders to positions of authority. The emperor’s dependence on armed protectors has not restored his command over the court; it has placed him under the influence of another military leader. Although efforts to reconcile Li Jue and Guo Si eventually succeed and governors across China send supplies, the relief comes in a time of severe famine.

Treachery at the pass and arrival in Luoyang

Yang Feng and Dong Cheng decide to take the emperor back to Luoyang, a plan Li Yue opposes. He turns traitor, conspiring with Li Jue and Guo Si to seize the emperor en route. When Yang Feng and Dong Cheng learn of the scheme, they hurry ahead with the imperial couple, leaving Li Yue to attack without the other rebel leaders’ support. At night, at Ji Guan mountain pass, Li Yue catches up and falsely claims that Li Jue and Guo Si are with him. The emperor believes the lie, but Yang Feng recognizes that Li Yue is acting alone. He sends Xu Huang to challenge him; Xu Huang kills Li Yue, and the White Wave force scatters.

With the road clear, the emperor returns to Luoyang and confronts the material ruin of the capital. Its palaces and halls have burned to the ground; weeds and brambles cover the streets and ruins, and only one building remains partly intact. The emperor lives in that small building, while the court meets amid the overgrown remains around it. Hunger continues: surviving families subsist on bark and roots, and people die beside the ruins of their homes. Yang Biao recommends summoning Cao Cao, whose army is the strongest, to secure the emperor. With the emperor’s consent, a messenger is sent, and Cao Cao prepares to march to the capital. The return thus restores the court to its former location, but not to its former power or shelter.

Narrative significance

The episode’s repeated changes of escort and direction make political allegiance tangible. Zhang Ji’s compromise offers a route; Guo Si breaks it; Yang Feng and Dong Cheng rescue the emperor; Li Jue and Guo Si force another flight; and Li Yue, first a source of reinforcements, becomes a threat. The court’s passage depends on shifting military calculations rather than stable institutions, while famine and the ruined capital show the cost borne by people beyond the contest for control.

The episode also turns the return to Luoyang into an anti-triumphant homecoming. The emperor reaches the old capital, but the city offers neither functioning palaces nor food, and the need to summon Cao Cao transfers the practical burden of security to the strongest warlord. This fits the novel’s larger portrait of the Han’s disintegration, in which the emperor remains a source of political legitimacy even as armed rivals determine where he can travel and who can protect him. The book’s account draws on the historical collapse of the Han while shaping it as dramatic narrative: negotiated promises, reversals, rescues, and the stark image of a court meeting among the capital’s ruins make political breakdown legible as a journey repeatedly interrupted.