Spring in Liaodong, and Spring in Luoyang (1)
The Yellow River is truly long. And dangerous. All the silt and stones swept down from its headwaters churn together into a thick, muddy soup so opaque you cannot see even an inch ahead. Beneath the surface lie dozens, even hundreds, of natural reefs built up from accumulated mud and rock. That wretched environment made it nearly impossible to build a single dam on the river even in the twenty-first century. In this era, the Yellow River was nothing more and nothing less than a highway for boats.
The vessel we rode now had a shallow draft and a flat bottom, which improved matters somewhat, yet the constant thud of reefs knocking against the hull made it impossible to relax even for a moment.
“Captain, when will we arrive?”
“The wind is still mild and the flood season is a little ways off, so we should reach port by tomorrow evening.”
“That’s a relief. My new friends still haven’t made peace with the boat.”
The ten little rascals I had recently taken in were doing their part to make the Yellow River even filthier.
“Ugh!”
“Blegh!”
“I must say I find you even more remarkable, sir. Anyone who isn’t a seasoned sailor usually ends up seasick when crossing the Yellow River.”
It was certainly turbulent, but compared to the days I had to cross winter seas in a rubber boat, this was nothing I couldn’t endure.
“One of the routes from Liaodong to Luoyang is to sail across the Yellow Sea.”
“Is that so?”
I had never actually taken it, but it was undeniably the fastest path.
“No water bandits?”
“They only move in autumn when the shipping traffic increases. They don’t come out this late in spring. Too hot for them.”
“Yeah… that makes sense.”
Whether water bandits, mountain bandits, or horsemen, their main season ran from late autumn to early spring. The autumn ones targeted harvest time; the winter and spring ones crawled out because they had nothing left to eat at home. They were not the diligent sort who would sweat through the hot summer months.
“Captain?”
“…Yes?”
“Didn’t you say there were no water bandits?”
Near the horizon, a single rootless warship of the kind favored by river pirates was approaching. It looked years old; the wooden sections were half-rotted and visibly sagging, and the sail was riddled with holes. At least the sail bore the Han emblem, but the hull design was unfamiliar. It resembled a sharp-keeled vessel, yet it was definitely not a ship used by the Han. People were bailing water with buckets, so at first I thought they might be survivors of a wreck, but the greedy expressions on the faces of the scouts atop the observation deck made their intentions clear.
“Kids, snap out of it.”
“Bleeegh…”
This was bad. Looked like I would have to handle it myself. I checked that the dagger tucked behind my waist was properly seated and reassured the boatman. Having some Jincheonroe would have made things easier, but I had used most of them surviving the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Since I also needed to avoid Luoyang’s watchful eyes, I had discarded what remained and never manufactured more. Still, it did not seem likely to escalate into a serious problem. Our boat was smaller, but that half-wrecked pirate ship would turn into an express ride to the dragon palace with just a few extra holes. The armor-piercing bolts on my arbalest could punch straight through those rotting planks.
I nocked an arrow on the crossbow, hid it beneath the railing, and strained to hear what the approaching pirates wanted.
“Hey! I’m Gongsun Zan of You Province! What’s your reason for blocking us!”
“G-Gongsun Zan?!”
“Boss?!”
“Boss! It’s Chunsik!”
“Boss! Are you all right?! It’s Dongsik!”
“You know them?”
The tension drained away and a hollow laugh escaped me. Of course. There was no way actual water bandits would be that diligent. These were my adventure-loving friends from Liaodong.
…Wait. Isn’t this the Yellow River? So they crossed it on that ghost ship? No… I distinctly remember giving them a rather expensive boat.
“Hey! What happened to your ship!”
“Wahaha! It broke apart so we abandoned it! We crossed the sea just fine, but the Yellow River’s reefs were absolute bastards!”
“You crazy bastards! Then whose ship is that!”
“Some Tianzhu pirates attacked us, so we swiped one of theirs! It leaks like a sieve; we nearly went to visit the dragon palace ourselves!”
“Tsk… They’re merchants working out of Liaodong. Said they were going to open new trade routes along the coast. So why the hell are they loitering around here?”
In pre-modern times, merchants and thieves had been synonyms. In this ancient era it was even worse. Like Hermes with his many titles, they also doubled as travelers and messengers. Without cannons or the like, meeting genuine cutthroats in the middle of a journey meant fighting for your life, and running into wild beasts along trade routes was routine. Unless you were a skilled warrior, setting out as a merchant was no easy matter.
“Heading back?”
“No! Since we’ve already come this far, we figured we’d stop in Luoyang too! We need to buy a new ship anyway!”
“Turn around! Luoyang is a complete mess right now!”
“What?!”
“The emperor is dead.”
“Don’t tell me you killed him, Boss?!”
“Are you insane?! I’m an official! A loyal subject! Anyway, if you go poking around Luoyang and get yourselves killed, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Ugh, then of course we should head back! Want to switch to our boat?”
“Are you actually crazy?! Crossing the Yellow Sea on that tub? You’d just become fish food.”
“Why say such heartless things?”
Heartless? I was being completely sincere. It might not be open-ocean sailing, but that thing barely qualified as a boat. One decent wave and it would be finished. At this point a rubber raft looked safer than that ancient flat-bottom riddled with holes.
“I was planning to arrange a new vessel in Dongrae anyway, so we’ll head back together then.”
“What about the cargo, Boss?”
“Cargo?”
“Yes. We brought the pepper you like, and… what was it? Buddhist scriptures? We picked up a few that those bald monks are fond of.”
Was Buddhism even present in this era? I had no idea. If people of this time said it existed, then it existed.
“How much did you bring, exactly?”
The Han had paper, but records from other countries mostly used clay tablets or wooden slips. Naturally they were thick, and the characters of this age were not written in tight ten-point font, so the physical volume was enormous compared to the actual information they contained.
“All together, about two chests. We got looted a bit by the pirates, so the haul is a little light… We can have the monks copy them into paper books later.”
“Sigh. Let’s just get to Dongrae first! We’ll borrow a bigger ship and travel comfortably!”
“Yes, Boss!”
The emergency was canceled. I eased the tension on the bowstring.
“Ugh… Blegh!”
The kids still had no answers. If those had been real water bandits it could have turned ugly. We did not yet have a navy or army large enough to separate the two services, so I added a mental note to begin naval training for the soldiers once we returned.
While our protagonist, Gongsun Zan, was meeting his old hometown friends and heading toward Dongrae, the spring in Luoyang was colder than any winter and hotter than any summer.
“What do you mean… Why would Jian Shuo try to move against me, Colonel Yuan?”
“…Isn’t it obvious? For the moment Jian Shuo sits above the Grand General, but the Western Garden Army itself is a temporary force the late Emperor created on a whim.”
The commander of the Western Garden Army held the title of Colonel rather than General. This was because the army’s supreme commander had been the late Emperor Ling himself, and every coin used to establish the unit had come from the late Emperor’s private purse. Naturally, now that the Emperor was dead, the army’s operating funds had vanished into thin air, yet the authority of the Imperial Guard remained. Jian Shuo could not help but fear the coming backlash from all the bullying he had practiced openly and in secret until now, and He Jin had noticed as much.
‘No wonder he’s been sending gifts so frequently lately. So that was what he was afraid of.’
He Jin had no particular desire to oppose the Ten Eunuchs. He understood their fears better than anyone, and at the same time, as a member of the external maternal faction, he shared a political partnership with them.
“Still, there is no problem. We simply return to the way things were. It is true I am close to you people of the Clean Stream faction, but when all is said and done I am also an external relative.”
“No. The relationship between the two of you cannot return to what it once was. Human beings can bear to climb upward, but they cannot stand to fall downward.”
“…”
“When you were forced to obey Jian Shuo’s orders as Grand General, how did it feel?”
“It fucking sucked.”
“…Ahem. Even so, you had the Crown Prince who would become the next emperor, and Empress Dowager He could serve as your political partner and backer.”
“But Jian Shuo… hmm, wasn’t Zhao Deng watching over him?”
“That relationship fell apart years ago over the matter of Lord Zhao Deng’s grandson. For all the talk of the Ten Eunuchs, he is nothing but an old man who must soon yield his seat to the next generation. There is no telling what he might attempt.”
“Hmm…”
“I am not suggesting we strike at Jian Shuo. I am saying we must remain vigilant against him, General.”
‘There is no harm in being cautious. As Colonel Yuan says, Luoyang truly has been chaotic lately.’
“I understand. I will follow your advice, Colonel.”
“Then please accept this.”
“…? What is it?”
“It is called a Hosimgap. I wear one myself from time to time. It protects the heart from spears and blades.”
It had originally been something Gongsun Zan carried, but for political reasons Yuan Shao—who refused to wear armor—had personally requested one from him so that he might maintain at least a minimum of defense. The twenty-first-century plate carrier, rearranged with second-century technology, had been replicated once more, stacked in Yuan Shao’s warehouse, and then passed from Yuan Shao to Grand General He Jin. It was a pitiful era without patents.