Before the summer of the Court of Ten Flies had ended, the Emperor passed away. It was the evening of the eleventh day of the fourth month, 189 CE. The eunuch Jian Shuo (蹇碩) moved first to set the nine-year-old Xie (協) upon the throne. Yet He Jin's (何進) troops surrounded the palace first, and the fourteen-year-old Bian (辯) ascended. This was Emperor Shao (少帝). Jian Shuo, fleeing, fell to the hand of another eunuch. The first fly had dropped first.

Yet nine flies still remained. He Jin began to oversee the court from the seat of Grand General. At his side stood two young officers. Their names were Yuan Shao (袁紹, style Benchu 本初) and Cao Cao (曹操, style Mengde 孟德). Yuan Shao was the son of a house that had produced chancellors for four generations; Cao Cao was the son of the adopted grandson of a eunuch household. The two brought up a line before He Jin.

"Grand General. The heads of the nine eunuchs must all be struck at a single stroke. If it is not done in one stroke — the heads on our side will fall first."

He Jin nodded and yet hesitated long. His sister was the Empress Dowager He (何太后), and she was shielding the eunuchs. Her words circled long inside He Jin's two ears. "Elder brother. If all the eunuchs die, every attendant of this palace will vanish."

Yuan Shao shook his head. "Grand General. Then summon troops from outside into the capital. Before the eyes of outside troops, the eunuchs will offer up their own necks."

Cao Cao stepped forward and opposed it. "Grand General. If you summon outside troops inside the capital, those troops will become the masters of the capital. To strike the neck of a eunuch, we do not open the gate of the capital outward."

He Jin did not heed Cao Cao's line. He followed Yuan Shao's. A summons was sent westward — a call for one captain stationed in Xiliang (西涼) to come up to the capital. That captain's name was Dong Zhuo (董卓).

That afternoon, as the summons crossed westward, the nine remaining flies gathered before the Empress Dowager He's chamber and knelt. A line mingled with tears came out.

"Your Majesty the Dowager. This afternoon our nine necks are about to fall. Only Your Majesty's mediation can save our necks. Call the Grand General into this palace and mediate from Your Majesty's seat."

The Empress Dowager nodded. A message went down to He Jin bidding him enter the palace.

He Jin received the message and walked into the palace. Yuan Shao and Cao Cao tried to hold him back at the gate. He Jin laughed. "It is my sister's chamber. It is not a seat a blade enters."

The palace gate closed behind him. Nine flies were waiting at the center of the chamber. A blade came down upon He Jin's body from nine directions. In the midst of nine flies, one man died first. The two characters Seonmang (先亡, dying first) were inscribed, quietly, upon the seat of blood at the center of that chamber.

News of He Jin's end carried beyond the gate. Yuan Shao and Cao Cao charged at a stroke into the palace. Blades came down from nine directions upon the nine flies. Within one evening, some two thousand eunuchs of the Luoyang palace died all at once. Any face without a beard was mistaken for a eunuch; one or two beardless scholars and a few young boys died along with them. The courtyard of the palace was covered with blood.

Emperor Shao, Bian, and the Prince of Chenliu (陳留王), Xie — the two young princes — crossed the rear wall of the palace and fled into the wilderness north of the capital. Behind them, no troop of soldiers followed. At the middle of a plain, the two young princes stood shivering, with only each other. Bian could not put the grain of his own name on his lips; Xie, instead, stammered out a line. "We are — the two sons of the Han (漢). Point us a way." The child's voice scattered in the plain's wind.

At that moment, from the west, the sound of hooves came. A large banner was fluttering in front. Upon the banner, the single character was Dong (董). The height of the captain reached nine chi, and his face gleamed darkly.

The tenth night of Book 1 deepened, quietly, upon the seat of blood in the courtyard of the Luoyang palace and at the middle of the plain to the north. The two characters Seonmang (先亡) were planted as a seed — the posture of one man who died first inside a chamber. The afternoon when a summons in the east called a captain in the west, and the night when a western banner reached the middle of a plain, joined today into one grain.

—