Inside and outside Luoyang, all was chaos, caught in a kind of shifting stagnation.
The situation was roughly as follows: Empress Dowager He and Emperor Liu He were in the Imperial Palace, protected by the Imperial Guards, led by the Taiping Army.
Dong Zhuo's Western Liang Army had breached the walls of the Imperial City, and the other emperor, Liu Bian, was with the Western Liang Army. Empress Dowager He and Liu He were turtles trapped in Dong Zhuo's jar.
Dong Zhuo had largely taken over Luoyang's defenses and held the initiative within the city.
But.
No one knew what Empress Dowager He had promised the Imperial Guard commanders. Whatever it was, their resistance was fierce.
As a result, Yuan Shao's vanguard troops, working with Yan Liang and Wen Chou, had already taken Luoyang's northern gate. Yuan Shao and the Luo Clan army stationed by the Luo River could enter Luoyang within a quarter of an hour.
Under these circumstances, all three sides tacitly halted the fighting underway, or the fighting that might begin, to consider how to break the deadlock.
Apart from the Zhao City Luo Clan, everyone inside and outside Luoyang was extremely anxious.
Both Dong Zhuo and Yuan Shao feared that other Feudal Lords would appear during this standoff, potentially causing unimaginable, unpredictable results. Even the most harmless outcome would mean sharing Luoyang's political spoils, and that was unacceptable.
Everyone was also guessing why the Luo Clan Scions had come to Luoyang. To the vast majority, there was nothing here that would attract the Luo Clan.
Except for the Marquis of Unshuang, but by now everyone could see that the Marquis of Unshuang himself did not wish to return to Zhao City. It was not that Dong Zhuo refused to let him go.
No one knew that