11 Wildest Assassinations During Total War: Three Kingdoms' Historical Setting

Dian Wei was Cao Cao's bodyguard, known for wielding a pair of halberds each weighing eighty pounds. When Cao Cao insulted his new ally, Zhang Xiu, by hitting on the man's aunt who was still in mourning for his late uncle, he knew that Dian Wei had be gotten rid of to get vengeance.

Zhang Xiu sent an officer to befriend Dian Wei, getting the man drunk enough to doze off – then he stole the infamous halberds. Unarmed and drunk, Dian Wei awakens and stumbled out of his tent to find that Zhang Xiu had attacked. He leaped into action, killing men with whatever he could find around – an ax, his bare hands, even in some versions of the story picking up a man's corpse and beating another to death with it.

Zhang Xiu's men were so afraid that they fired a mass of arrows at the man, and then another, until he was basically a human pincushion. And even then, because he died standing straight up in a fighting stance, they hesitated to move past him. Thanks to this, Cao Cao was able to escape to safety.