陳宮
Chen Gong
Allegiances: Left Cao Cao’s staff to advise Lü Bu
Profile
Once on Cao Cao’s early staff, he turned coat and became Lü Bu’s brain — engineering the great revolt that handed Lü Bu his master’s home province. As Lü Bu’s strategist he cornered Cao Cao more than once, but at every decisive moment his lord ignored the plan. Captured at Xiapi, he walked to the execution ground rather than beg, and a weeping Cao Cao provided for his mother and family ever after.
Key events
- 194
Cao Cao vs. Lü Bu for Yan Province
On Chen Gong’s counsel, Lü Bu storms Cao Cao’s home province of Yan; savage fighting at Puyang follows before Cao Cao claws it back.
- 198
Siege of Xiapi — the End of Lü Bu
Cao Cao and Liu Bei flood Lü Bu out of Xiapi. Betrayed by his own men, Lü Bu is captured and executed; Chen Gong dies with him.
History vs. the novelHistoryvsNovel
The novel makes him the magistrate who freed a captured Cao Cao and then left in disgust at his ruthlessness — invention. The real break, the histories suggest, came from distrust after Cao Cao’s executions of the gentry.