Historical Record
Concerning Dong Xi, there is no clear record in the official history, the Records of the Three Kingdoms, or its related sources. In the vast course of Three Kingdoms history, many figures, because their deeds were obscure or their records lost, failed to leave their names in the annals; Dong Xi is one such. Therefore, we cannot ascertain from the historical and biographical materials his life, native place, official posts, achievements, or any specific activities.
In the Novel
Dong Xi appears in Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a member of the Cao Wei camp; his image is entirely a product of literary fashioning, with no clear historical record. He first appears in chapter ninety-two of the novel c:6162, as one of the officers under the Cao Wei general Xiahou Mao. After Zhao Yun had greatly defeated Han De and his sons at Fengming Mountain, Xiahou Mao felt deeply that Zhao Yun, though aged, had lost none of his heroic spirit and was hard to match. At this point, the adviser Cheng Wu (son of Cheng Yu) offered Xiahou Mao a plan, holding that Zhao Yun, though brave, was brave without strategy, and that he could be captured by setting an ambush. Xiahou Mao adopted Cheng Wu's advice and dispatched Dong Xi to lead thirty thousand troops, together with Xue Ze, to lie in ambush on the left and right. Dong Xi's task was to lead these thirty thousand troops in ambush on the left, waiting for Xiahou Mao to lure Zhao Yun into the ambush ring and then attack from the flank, attempting to surround and capture Zhao Yun. However, the novel does not describe Dong Xi's specific performance or fate in this ambush in detail; his image remains chiefly at the level of receiving and carrying out the ambush orders, a background figure serving to set off Zhao Yun's valor and Xiahou Mao's blunders in command.
Key Relationships
Dong Xi's main key relationships are reflected in the camp he served and his direct superior. He belonged to Cao Wei c:6162 and was a general of the Cao Wei regime. In the novel, he took orders directly from the Cao Wei commander Xiahou Mao c:6162 and took part in Xiahou Mao's military action against Zhao Yun. In addition, he had a relationship of joint operation with the adviser Cheng Wu, who offered the plan, and with the other ambush general Xue Ze (unique to the novel). These relationships together make up his brief and limited scope of activity in the novel.
Defining Scenes
Dong Xi's defining scene, and also the only scene in which he is clearly mentioned, occurs in the battle of Fengming Mountain in chapter ninety-two of Romance of the Three Kingdoms c:6162. When Zhao Yun had greatly defeated Han De and Xiahou Mao was at his wits' end, the adviser Cheng Wu offered a plan of ambush. After Xiahou Mao adopted this plan, he dispatched Dong Xi to lead thirty thousand troops to lie in ambush on the left side of the Fengming Mountain battlefield c:6162. His task was, together with the right-side ambush troops led by Xue Ze, to form an encirclement of Zhao Yun. Although this scene does not display Dong Xi's personal valor or cunning, it makes clear that he, on the Cao Wei side, took part in an important military action against the famed Shu Han general Zhao Yun, though that action ultimately failed. This is the only military deployment in which he specifically took part in the novel, and therefore constitutes the whole of his characterization (unique to the novel).
Relationships
1 relationships
Enemies1
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- 演ch.92
Inner monologues · AI-generated1 段 ▸
- I was ordered to lead thirty thousand troops in ambush on the left, while Xue Ze led thirty thousand on the right. Once