Han Feizi tells Qin’s long terrace work weakened the state. Ren Wang saw Chu’s feint, so Qin defended and deterred invasion.
The decision by Dong Zhuo to move the Han capital from Luoyang to Chang’an in 191 AD is often portrayed in Romance of the Three Kingdoms and popular history as a sign of weakness—a desperate retreat forced by the overwhelming power of the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition led by Yuan Shao. The image of Dong…