Unqualified Appraisal 5: Xiàhóu Dūn
Disappointing, but not for what you might think
Let’s be blunt: he’s famous for the eye.
Seriously, just look at his Magic: The Gathering card. Out of all the things they could have called him, they call him “the One-Eyed.”
This is somewhat understandable though, since it is well known that an eye patch automatically make you badass.1 The subconscious logic tends to be that battle scars are proof that an individual is a tough and experienced warrior, and a battle scar to the eye, being on the head and close to the brain, must therefore have been near-fatal and further proof of being tough and experienced.
The eye loss thing also makes Xiàhóu Dūn very easy to portray in the various adaptations. Whoever is the one with the eye-patch is obviously supposed to be Xiàhóu Dūn. This automatically makes him stand out.
Naturally then, Xiàhóu Dūn can be rather hyped up in popular imagination: he has an eye patch, he has to be badass.
But then you read the historiography, and it’s a bit… underwhelming. There’s actually not that much recorded of him that really lives up to the one-eyed eye patch hype.
Then you start to learn how to read between the lines with what actually is recorded, and things start to become outright disappointing. No, I don’t mean to say Dūn was disappointing. I mean how the historiography handles him is disappointing.
See, even if he had never lost that eye, he was still Cáo Cāo’s second-in-command in the early days, probably Cáo Cāo’s longest-serving and most senior military officer. He (along with Cáo Rén and Chéng Yù) was in the first group of meritorious ministers to be added to the Wèi Ancestral Temple to receive sacrifices in accompaniment to the sacrifices to Wèi Tàizǔ Cáo Cāo.2 Reading between the lines, there are further hints of some rather important things that just aren’t covered in very much detail. There is not that much preserved in the historiography, but based on what is, it really feels like there should have been a lot more. But there isn’t. He should be famous as Cáo Cāo’s number two, but he isn’t, he’s famous for the one eye.
The lack of information in the historiography probably is not Xiàhóu Dūn’s personal fault. If I had to make a guess as to what happened, Dūn’s branch of the family probably fell out of prominence during the Wèi-Jìn transition. I’ll talk a bit more about that in a bit. For now, let’s just quickly go over what we is preserved.
Summary
If you want a more serious and in-depth exploration of the historiography surrounding Xiàhóu Dūn (and a few of his relatives), one is already available here, so I’ll keep this summary as short and simple as I can.
The Xiàhóu clan of Pèi appears to have been an old ally of the Cáo clan of Pèi, the two families regularly intermarrying.3 By one account, Cáo Cāo’s father Sōng had actually been adopted over from the Xiàhóu clan into the Cáo clan, and had previously been a younger brother of Xiàhóu Dūn's father, which would have made Cáo Cāo and Xiàhóu Dūn first cousins.4 Whether this particular claim was true or not (probably not5), Cáo Cāo and Xiàhóu Dūn were most likely still relatively closely related in some way, and when Cáo Cāo first rose up, he depended on his extended Cáo-Xiàhóu clan to be his officer corps, with Xiàhóu Dūn as his second-in-command.6
And from there… not much else until around 194. Before then, the biographical entry is mostly just a list of different positions that Xiàhóu Dūn held. Here is where it helps to read between the lines: the list further confirms the idea of Dūn as Cāo’s second-in-command. When Cáo Cāo claimed office as a General (jiāngjūn), Dūn was his Major (sīmǎ), his chief military assistant. Dūn became the administrative head of Dōng, which was Cáo Cāo’s former position; when Cáo Cāo claimed authority over all of Yǎn province, he put Dūn in charge of his former position in Dōng and presumably the very heart of his power.7
We then get an account of Dūn’s services when the Yǎn provincial leaders turned against Cáo Cāo and invited Lǚ Bù to take control of the province. In 194, Cáo Cāo was away on an eastern campaign against Táo Qiān, leaving Xiàhóu Dūn in charge of Púyáng. When the rebellion began, Dūn led a light force out from Púyáng toward Juànchéng, where Cáo Cāo’s family was, where he encountered and battled Lǚ Bù. Lǚ Bù retreated, but seized Púyáng in Dūn’s absence, capturing Dūn’s heavy equipment and supplies. A group of Lǚ Bù’s officers falsely surrendered, who then ambushed and captured Dūn to ransom him for money, but Dūn was rescued by his subordinate officer Hán Hào.8
Overall, there seems to be some implied criticism of Xiàhóu Dūn for losing Púyáng in this narrative in its phrasing of the events (or maybe it’s just me), but the alternative parallel account in the biographical of Xún Yù, states that Xiàhóu Dūn went from Púyáng to Juànchéng because Xún Yù had specifically summoned him, and further credits Dūn with restoring order in Juànchéng on his arrival.9 Furthermore, if we look at a map, Púyáng is to the west of Juànchéng; if Juànchéng had fallen, likely Xiàhóu Dūn in Púyáng would have been cut off and isolated.
When Cáo Cāo returned to Yǎnzhōu, Xiàhóu Dūn rejoined him and followed on the campaigns against Lǚ Bù, where Dūn was famously hit by an arrow and wounded in the left eye.10 No, as badass as it would have been, the story of Xiàhóu Dūn pulling out the wounded eye with the arrow and eating it that appears in the mythology11 has no basis in the historiography record. Most stories also seem to attribute the eye loss incident to the 199 campaign against Lǚ Bù rather than the 194 campaigns, which I think is due to a misinterpretation of an annotation to Hòu Hàn shū.12
Here we need to do a bit more reading between the lines, as the narrative then mentions Xiàhóu Dūn’s next few offices as serving as the administrative head of Chénliú and Jǐyīn.13 Those regions had been the heart of the Yǎn provincial rebellion,14 and Dūn’s appointment showed a great deal of trust in Dūn’s ability to pacify and govern the troubled area. The text at least includes a short but positive anecdote on Dūn’s administrative abilities: at the time of a drought, Dūn lead a waterworks project to dam the Shòu river, personally carrying soil and leading the officers and officials to plant rice paddies, to the benefit of the local civilians.15
Xiàhóu Dūn was at some point transferred to Hénán Intendant (yǐn), a special post with censorial authority over central government officials.16 No date is preserved in the entry, but one might suspect that the appointment was in 196, when Cáo Cāo took custody of the Hàn Court and himself claimed office as Colonel Director of Retainers (sīlì xiàowèi), another office with censorial authority over central government officials. If so, then this appointment to Hénán would further reinforce Dūn’s position as Cáo Cāo’s second.
During Cáo Cāo’s northern campaigns from about 202 to 207, Dūn served as the commanding officer defending Cáo Cāo’s rear,17 culminating in Dūn’s inclusion as one of the top twenty or so senior officers to receive major fief increases and endowments in 207,18 where-in Dūn seems to have ended with the largest total fief size.19
The narrative in Dūn’s entry then skips all the way to the 216-217 campaign against Sūn Quán, stating that Xiàhóu Dūn accompanied and was then left in command of a garrison of twenty-six armies. Here, we need to read between the lines again, because the narrative gives no further context with regard to the twenty-six armies, nor to the statement that Dūn was specially bestowed with singers and performers, with Cáo Cāo’s written orders on the bestowal mentioning the historical precedent of the Spring and Autumn era figure Wèi Jiàng being rewarded with stone and metal musical instruments for negotiating peace with western nomadic peoples.20
If you’re particularly bad at reading between the lines, you might instead call these singers “prostitutes” and say they were given for “merits unknown,” and make incredibly stupid comments on the written orders concerning the reward bestowal like “Cao Cao sounded a bit sarcastic: a talons and fangs material like Xiahou Dun was not refined enough to appreciate musical instruments. Women, for sex and entertainment purposes, were a more suitable reward.”21
Since some people are apparently too lazy to do the work, I’ll do it for them: the rewards were for Sūn Quán’s nominal surrender in 217.22 The military pressure of the twenty-six armies under Xiàhóu Dūn garrisoned at Jūchāo led Sūn Quán to negotiate peace terms to have them withdrawn. That is why Xiàhóu Dūn was compared to Wèi Jiàng and specially rewarded with musical performers: just as Wèi Jiàng did, Xiàhóu Dūn oversaw peace negotiations. There is no reason to assume that the musical performers were “prostitutes,” especially when considering the symbolic meanings of them being musical performers, and musical instruments and musical performers being counted as one of the Nine Bestowments.23
In 219, Xiàhóu Dūn again accompanied Cáo Cāo in the campaign against Guān Yǔ, where he was given exceptionally special honors to ride in the same carriage as Cáo Cāo, and enter and exit Cáo Cāo’s internal rooms; the records explicitly state: “of the various officers, none could compare.”24
In early 220, (March 15 in the modern calendar25) Cáo Cāo died and was succeeded by his eldest surviving son Cáo Pī, who promoted Xiàhóu Dūn General-in-Chief, the highest ranking General, but a few months later Xiàhóu Dūn died26 (June 13 in the modern calendar27).
Though a military man, Xiàhóu Dūn personally invited teachers to receive study. By nature he was pure and frugal, so that he did not manage a personal business estate, when he had a surplus he would give it out, and when he did not have enough he would borrow it from the government. His posthumous name was Zhōng, “the Loyal.”28
Appraisal
Short version: Cáo Cāo’s right hand.29
An anecdote records that after Cáo Cāo founded his own Wèi fief state and was giving his followers Wèi appointments, Xiàhóu Dūn alone continued to receive appointments through the Hàn rather than Wèi system. This was an incredibly high honor, for by this move, Cáo Cāo intended to treat Xiàhóu Dūn specially as not being his subject. All other officials, by being Wèi officers, were considered legal subjects of Cáo Cāo as the ruler of the Wèi fief; Dūn alone would maintain special distinction of not being a subject of Cáo Cāo, with both of them being subjects of Hàn. Dūn nevertheless protested that it was not appropriate for him not to be a subject of Wèi, and though Cáo Cāo said that Wèi was a trifling state not worthy of counting Xiàhóu Dūn as one of its subjects, Dūn continued to insist and finally did receive a Wèi rank.30 Add to this the stories of Xiàhóu Dūn being the only outer officer permitted to enter and exit Cáo Cāo’s inner rooms, and can there be any doubt that Xiàhóu Dūn had a special position as Cáo Cāo’s right hand?
Military Matters
It seems pretty common nowadays to say that Xiàhóu Dūn was a bad or mediocre military general, which seems mostly based on his defeats against Gāo Shùn in 199 and against Liú Bèi at Bówàng in 202, which are not covered in his biographical entry but mentioned in the entries of other involved officers,31 and on a general lack of notable recorded achievements in his entry. This may be a fair criticism, especially when compared against the list of victories and battle achievements preserved in other entries such as those of Xiàhóu Yuān, Cáo Rén, and so on,32 but one can come up with other possible excuses or explanations. Many of those lists for other officers are from their autonomous commands; maybe Xiàhóu Dūn lacks such lists because he tended to follow in Cáo Cāo’s personal command more often.
Maybe Xiàhóu Dūn’s biographical entry is just plain deficient compared to most others. I have already noted the oddity of how Xún Yù’s entry mentions an achievement of Xiàhóu Dūn in passing which is completely missing in Dūn's own entry. There are more such cases. The biographical entry of Dù Jī mentions that in 205, Xiàhóu Dūn was sent with an army to support Dù Jī in Hédōng, but then nothing further is recorded on Dūn’s role in these activities in either entry. Consider also that Dūn’s own entry mentions his reward of musicians without explanation of the context of Sūn Quán’s nominal surrender in 217 and Xiàhóu Dūn’s role in that achievement.
Or maybe Xiàhóu Dūn really was a poor commander in autonomous positions and only worked well as a military administrator or as Cáo Cāo’s direct subordinate. It can be difficult to be confident about such guesses when the entry is so sparse on the career of Wèi’s number two.
There also seems to be a popular misconception about Xiàhóu Dūn’s role in the 215 campaigns against Zhāng Lǔ, namely that Dūn was a commander who blundered his way into a victory. That is not what the account of the campaign says. According to the account, Cáo Cāo sent Xiàhóu Dūn and Xǔ Chǔ ahead to recall the front divisions of the army, but at that same time, the front divisions had accidentally stumbled across the enemy main camp, causing the enemy forces to panic and flee. As news from the front arrived, the officers could not believe the reports, so that Xiàhóu Dūn personally went to see, and then went back to report to Cáo Cāo.33 The whole thing is a rather minor anecdote, but seems to be incorrectly cited by people who want to argue that Dūn was a poor general by claiming that the incident is supposed to be proof Dūn could only win by luck.
Idle Speculations
So why exactly is there relatively little recorded on the services of Wèi’s number two man? Well, we can never really know for sure, but I do have one idle speculation.
See, there’s an obvious compare-contrast situation available that might hint at what happened, and that’s in the entry of Xiàhóu Dūn's younger third cousin Xiàhóu Yuān. There tends to be a fair bit more recorded in Yuān's entry than in Dūn's entry, particularly in the specifics of achievements. Of course, one could argue that maybe this was just because Yuān did more than Dūn, but one could also propose another reason: Yuān’s branch of the family did a lot better than Dūn’s in later generations.
Evidence for this claim? Well, Xiàhóu Dūn had at least nine sons, of which we only know the names of two. Of those two, we know only that the eldest, Chōng, inherited Dūn’s fief, and the second, Mào, was friends with Cáo Cāo's son Pī and briefly held rank as a military officer in the west before being recalled due to concerns about his ability. In contrast we known the personal names and quite a bit more of seven of Xiàhóu Yuān’s sons, even the two who died in their teens.
We can only guess why, but it is perhaps worth noting that a few of those sons of Xiàhóu Yuān became connected to the rising Sīmǎ faction during the Wèi-Jìn transition (Yuān's second son Bà being a major exception). Sīmǎ Shī’s first wife was a daughter of Xiàhóu Yuān’s cousin’s son Shàng,34 and the wife of Yuān's grandson Zhuāng was a cousin of Sīmǎ Shī’s later wife lady Yáng, where we are explicitly told that this latter connection allowed that branch of the Xiàhóu clan to flourish for a time.35 Were the descendants of Xiàhóu Dūn perhaps less willing than the descendants of Xiàhóu Yuān to play along with the changing trends of the transition period, and if so, did this perhaps have consequences for the written legacy of Xiàhóu Dūn?
My Appraisal
As some might be able to guess, my interest in Xiàhóu Dūn is more meta-ish, based less on what is recorded of the figure himself and more on how little is recorded of someone who, by what we do have, seems to have been a rather important figure of the period. Seriously, he was Cáo Cāo’s number two, why is there so little about him left to attract attention, to the point that his main claim to fame is his one eye?
Could the lack of detail itself be a sign of something else? That his legacy became a victim of the politics of later generations?
Probably not. Most likely I’m just seeing things again. Remember, these ramblings are unqualified. I can read too much into things (or lack of things), but you probably shouldn’t.
Anyways,
夏侯大將軍與太祖有定天下之功,應當勳書竹帛,惜乎傳記不詳。36
Hmm, this one ended up being a bit less fun than I hoped. It sort of tried to be a puff piece, since I was working quite hard to interpret things in the best way possible, but ultimately there really wasn’t enough source material to puff up to make it a proper puff piece. Well, I do have ideas on a certain other Xiàhóu that could probably be more easily puffed up, and who quite honestly is really overdue for some puffing…
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Laconic/EyepatchOfPower
SGZ 3: 夏五月壬申,詔祀故大將軍夏侯惇、大司馬曹仁、車騎將軍程昱於太祖廟庭。
SGZ 9: 評曰:夏侯、曹氏,世為婚姻,故惇、淵、仁、洪、休、尚、真等並以親舊肺腑,貴重于時,左右勳業,咸有效勞。
Cáo Mǎn zhuàn and Shìyǔ annotated to SGZ 1: 吳人作曹瞞傳及郭頒世語並云:嵩,夏侯氏之子,夏侯惇之叔父。太祖於惇為從父兄弟。
DNA analysis of modern-day Cáo and Xiàhóu families show that they do not share the same Y-chromosome lineage. See: https://www.nature.com/articles/jhg20135
SGZ 9: 太祖初起,惇常為裨將,從征伐。
SGZ 9: 祖行奮武將軍,以惇為司馬,別屯白馬,遷折衝校尉,領東郡太守。
SGZ 9: 太祖征陶謙,留惇守濮陽。張邈叛迎呂布,太祖家在鄄城,惇輕軍往赴,適與布會,交戰。布退還,遂入濮陽,襲得惇軍輜重。遣將偽降,共執持惇,責以寶貨,惇軍中震恐。惇將韓浩乃勒兵屯惇營門,召軍吏諸將,皆案甲當部不得動,諸營乃定。遂詣惇所,叱持質者曰:「汝等凶逆,乃敢執劫大將軍,復欲望生邪!且吾受命討賊,寧能以一將軍之故,而縱汝乎?」因涕泣謂惇曰:「當奈國法何!」促召兵擊持質者。持質者惶遽叩頭,言「我但欲乞資用去耳」!浩數責,皆斬之。惇既免,太祖聞之,謂浩曰:「卿此可為萬世法。」乃著令,自今已後有持質者,皆當并擊,勿顧質。由是劫質者遂絕。
SGZ 10: 興平元年,太祖征陶謙,任彧留事。會張邈、陳宮以兗州反,潛迎呂布。布既至,邈乃使劉翊告彧曰:「呂將軍來助曹使君擊陶謙,宜亟供其軍食。」眾疑惑。彧知邈為亂,即勒兵設備,馳召東郡太守夏侯惇,而兗州諸城皆應布矣。時太祖悉軍攻謙,留守兵少,而督將大吏多與邈、宮通謀。惇至,其夜誅謀叛者數十人,眾乃定。
SGZ 9: 太祖自徐州還,惇從征呂布,為流矢所中,傷左目。
For example, in Sānguó Yǎnyì chapter 18, which outright features the story of Xiàhóu Dūn losing his eye in the chapter title.
In the annotated Hòu Hàn shū, at the account of the 199 campaign in HHS 75, Xiàhóu Dūn is mentioned, and that mention has an annotation clarifying who he was, mentioning that he lost his eye during a campaign against Lǚ Bù. This creates the false impression that he lost his eye in the 199 campaign. In SGZ 9, it is clear that he lost his eye in the 194 campaign against Lǚ Bù, not the 199 campaign.
SGZ 9: 復領陳留、濟陰太守,加建武將軍,封高安鄉侯。
Zhāng Miǎo, administrator of Chénliú on the western end of Yǎnzhōu, was a major leader of the rebellion and had welcomed Lǚ Bù into the province from that direction. See SGZ 7.
SGZ 9: 時大旱,蝗蟲起,惇乃斷太壽水作陂,身自負土,率將士勸種稻,民賴其利。
SGZ 9: 轉領河南尹。
SGZ 9: 太祖平河北,為大將軍後拒。鄴破,遷伏波將軍,領尹如故,使得以便宜從事,不拘科制。建安十二年,錄惇前後功,增封邑千八百戶,并前二千五百戶。
SGZ 1: 十二月春二月,公自淳于還鄴。丁酋,令曰:「吾起義兵誅暴亂,於今十九年,所征必克,豈吾功哉?乃賢士大夫之力也。天下雖未悉定,吾當要與賢士大夫共定之;而專饗其勞,吾何以安焉!其促定功行封。」於是大封功臣二十餘人,皆為列侯,其餘各以次受封,及復死事之孤,輕重各有差。
SGZ 9 records an increase of 1800 households to a total of 2500; for comparison, SGZ 10 records that Xún Yù seems to have come in second with an increase of 1000 to a total of 2000.
SGZ 9: 二十一年,從征孫權還,使惇都督二十六軍,留居巢。賜伎樂名倡,令曰:「魏絳以和戎之功,猶受金石之樂,況將軍乎!」
Yes, Dr. Lu, I am continuing to hate on your PhD thesis. Again, don’t take it too personally, but since you are considered a qualified scholar on the subject due to that PhD, that PhD thesis is going to be treated very seriously and referenced by historians of the future, and I feel morally obligated to those same historians of the future to make a big stink about what I consider garbage scholarship.
SGZ 47: 二十二年春,權令都尉徐詳詣曹公請降,公報使脩好,誓重結婚。
An annotation to HHS 9 gives a short summary of the nine bestowments, with musical instruments as third: 案禮含文嘉曰:「九錫謂一曰車馬,二曰衣服,三曰樂器,四曰朱戶,五曰納陛,六曰虎賁士百人,七曰斧鉞,八曰弓矢,九曰秬鬯。」The expanded bestowment order in SGZ 1 includes six rows of dancers with the musical instruments.
SGZ 9: 二十四年,太祖軍于摩陂,召惇常與同載,特見親重,出入臥內,諸將莫得比也。拜前將軍,督諸軍還壽春,徙屯召陵。
SGZ 1: 庚子,王崩于洛陽,年六十六。
SGZ 9: 文帝即王位,拜惇大將軍,數月薨。
SGZ 2: 庚午,大將軍夏侯惇薨。
SGZ 9: 惇雖在軍旅,親迎師受業。性清儉,有餘財輒以分施,不足資之於官,不治產業。諡曰忠侯。
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/right-hand%20man
Wèi shū annotated to SGZ 9: 魏書曰:時諸將皆受魏官號,惇獨漢官,乃上疏自陳不當不臣之禮。太祖曰:「吾聞太上師臣,其次友臣。夫臣者,貴德之人也,區區之魏,而臣足以屈君乎?」惇固請,乃拜為前將軍。
SGZ 7: 太祖遣夏侯惇救備,為順所敗。SGZ 32: 使拒夏侯惇、于禁等於博望。久之,先主設伏兵,一旦自燒屯偽遁,惇等追之,為伏兵所破。SGZ 18: 劉表使劉備北侵,至葉,太祖遣典從夏侯惇拒之。備一旦燒屯去,惇率諸軍追擊之,典曰:「賊無故退,疑必有伏。南道狹窄,草木深,不可追也。」惇不聽,與于禁追之,典留守。惇等果入賊伏裏,戰不利,典往救,備望見救至,乃散退。
See SGZ 9, obviously, or for the non Cáo-Xiàhóu officers, see SGZ 17 and SGZ 18.
Annotated to SGZ 8: 魏名臣奏載董昭表曰:「武皇帝承涼州從事及武都降人之辭,說張魯易攻,陽平城下南北山相遠,不可守也,信以為然。及往臨履,不如所聞,乃歎曰:『他人商度,少如人意。』攻陽平山上諸屯,既不時拔,士卒傷夷者多。武皇帝意沮,便欲拔軍截山而還,遣故大將軍夏侯惇、將軍許褚呼山上兵還。會前軍未還,夜迷惑,誤入賊營,賊便退散。侍中辛毗、劉曄等在兵後,語惇、褚,言『官兵已據得賊要屯,賊已散走』。猶不信之。惇前自見,乃還白武皇帝,進兵定之,幸而克獲。此近事,吏士所知。」
JS 31: 景懷夏侯皇后諱徽,字媛容,沛國譙人也。父尚,魏征南大將軍;母曹氏,魏德陽鄉主。
Shìyǔ annotated to SGZ 9: 世語曰:威字季權,任俠。貴歷荊、兗二州刺史。子駿,并州刺史。次莊,淮南太守。莊子湛,字孝若,以才博文章,至南陽相、散騎常侍。莊,晉景陽皇后姊夫也。由此一門侈盛於時。
General-in-Chief Xiàhóu [Dūn] together with Tàizǔ [Cáo Cāo] had achievements in settling the realm, he should have had his merits written on bamboo and silk, a pity that his biographical records are not detailed.
Thanks, a good read as always.
I think there is some weight to the idea of Xiahou Yuan's descendants (mostly Xiahou Wei's) being associated with the Simas resulting in a lesser historical record for Dun compared to Yuan. And I still wonder who Xiahou Xian 獻 was - there seems to be a gap in the history there. That said, Dun's descendants are mentioned in records, and Xiahou Xuan's fate isn't hidden, so maybe there's nothing too much missing. As a right-hand man, Dun was probably less obvious and perhaps purposefully more discreet in his achievements.