Meiwu is the great palace Dong Zhuo had built outside Chang’an, a display of his power and accumulated wealth that becomes central to the plot against him. First presented as a place where he intends to live beyond the city’s anxieties, it is later entered by Lü Bu’s forces after Dong Zhuo’s assassination, exposing the palace as both a refuge for captives and a storehouse of plunder.

Construction and Display of Power

After Sun Jian’s death, Dong Zhuo is reassured by the belief that the young Sun Ce poses no immediate threat. He grows more brazen, claiming the title of Most Venerable Father and behaving as though he were emperor. Outside Chang’an, he has a vast palace built, compelling more than a quarter of a million serfs to labor on it. Once it is complete, he fills it with eight hundred beautiful women as personal attendants and stocks it with gold, jade, and other treasures taken through his rule.

Meiwu’s scale and contents make it more than a residence: it concentrates Dong Zhuo’s wealth and authority in a private stronghold beyond the city. Its splendor rests on coerced labor and plunder, setting the palace’s apparent security against the suffering and political resentment produced by its owner.

A Promised Refuge

During Wang Yun and Diao Chan’s scheme to turn Dong Zhuo against Lü Bu, Diao Chan tells Dong Zhuo that she fears Lü Bu and cannot remain where she is. Dong Zhuo promises to take her to Meiwu the next day, presenting the palace as a place where the two can live happily and free from anxiety. The promise briefly casts the stronghold as a refuge, but the plan surrounding it makes it the destination to which Dong Zhuo will be deliberately drawn.

Wang Yun’s allies settle on a false imperial summons to bring Dong Zhuo back from Meiwu. Lü Bu chooses Li Su to deliver the fabricated decree. Li Su tells Dong Zhuo that the recovered Emperor Xian wants to discuss abdicating in Dong Zhuo’s favor. Dong Zhuo accepts the message in light of a dream he interprets as auspicious and sets out for the palace. Thus Meiwu’s distance from the court offers no protection: the deception uses Dong Zhuo’s ambition to draw him away from the stronghold and into the assassination plot.

The Palace After Dong Zhuo

After Dong Zhuo is killed, Lü Bu leads armed men to Meiwu. He takes Diao Chan from the palace and kills Dong Zhuo’s family there, including his elderly mother. The soldiers also discover young women from noble families who had been held captive and set them free. The enormous store of stolen treasure is seized.

The palace’s meaning therefore changes with the reversal of power. Built to shelter Dong Zhuo and display his command over people and wealth, Meiwu becomes the site where his household is destroyed, captives are released, and his accumulated riches pass into other hands. Its capture gives concrete form to the collapse of the regime it had embodied.