Spring in Liaodong, Spring in Luoyang (2)
The first thing I did upon returning to my heart’s homeland of Liaodong was send a letter to my father-in-law asking whether his health had taken a turn for the worse. The second was to confirm that the encrypted orders I had sent ahead had been carried out properly.
First came the stockpiling of supplies and equipment. Second was checking on the current state of the Yan Research Institute. Finally, I needed to inspect the condition of the Liaodong army and verify the fortresses built across the Bohai Bay and the Liaodong Peninsula.
The principle behind the hosimgap I had handed over to Yuan Shao was simple. Even in this era, simple armor that protected only the chest and abdomen already existed, and bending wide iron plates to match the curve of an adult male’s torso was not an especially difficult process. The only modern touch I had added was modifying the outer layer into tough leather armor so the iron plates—the actual protective core—could be easily swapped out.
Of course, heavy cavalry and personal guards used the hosimgap, while regular infantry needed more substantial armor. But for now, due to time, budget, and technical limitations, everything had been standardized around the hosimgap.
It wasn’t as if I had any specialized knowledge of metallurgy. A former company commander who had only bounced around conflict zones wasn’t going to suddenly pull that kind of expertise out of nowhere. I wondered if the engineers might experience a sudden enlightenment and figure out how to make tungsten carbide or something. Who knows. It would be nice if they did.
“The entire army has been equipped, and we have stockpiled twice the required quantity in the warehouses. As you ordered, damaged hosimgap are being melted down and distributed to civilians.”
“Good. How many cavalry have we gathered?”
“One thousand.”
Good. Very good. This was what I liked about the Chinese mainland. There were rumors that the rice-growing culture made it easier to increase population, but considering that wheat and millet were still the main staples in this era, it was clear these people simply loved having lots of manpower. Even though their territory was barely the size of Incheon to Gyeonggi Province, they were already fielding ten-thousand-strong infantry units and thousand-strong cavalry forces. And that was without any general mobilization or conscription. Truly impressive.
In this era, salt was literally worth its weight in gold.
“What about the farms? Are the crops growing well?”
“Everything is proceeding smoothly except for the millet we used to eat, which has now become a weed. Um… is rice really that delicious?”
“It is. And once cultivated, the grains are fuller and more efficient than millet. I brought the seeds back from Luoyang because I liked what I ate there.”
Until recently, the staple crop of Liaodong had been millet. It grew well even on terrible soil, but no amount of packaging could make it taste good. Rice was delicious and grew almost as well as millet, though not quite as vigorously. Therefore, to those who grew rice, millet was nothing but a weed.
Last year, some farmers hadn’t fully understood my order to pull up the very crop they had been eating and treating as a weed. Still, I had no intention of forcing the change on peasants who didn’t work my personal fields. If they didn’t want to eat it, they didn’t have to. I, on the other hand, would be enjoying rice with scorched rice crust.
The sun was already sinking behind the western mountains. Since electric lights obviously didn’t exist in this era, the rest of the work was naturally postponed until tomorrow.
“I’m going to greet the Administrator and then head home. What about Un-i?”
“Ah… that kid. Are you sure she isn’t actually your biological daughter, sir?”
“What kind of bullshit— Ahem. Lady Jinjeong and I have only been married for less than five years. How could that even make sense?”
I had brought Un-i back from Sangshan because there was nowhere else to leave her, so I was raising her as my daughter. She would soon reach puberty, but I had heard she was unusually calm and quiet for her age, so there weren’t many problems in raising her. It had already been three years since I last saw her face because of the Luoyang incident. I hoped she hadn’t forgotten what I looked like.
“No, but the way she handles a blade is exactly like you, sir. The way she treats weapons, too.”
“That’s because she learned it from me.”
Weapons were consumables. They deserved to be cherished like a lover, but given the metallurgy of this era, after a few battles you had to either buy new ones or send them for repair. If I were in the same tight spot as that Liu Bei girl, I would have to scrimp even on repair costs. But the position of Liaodong Administrator wasn’t exactly unprofitable, and neither my household nor Lady Jinjeong’s was particularly poor. As for swords and spears… if they broke, we simply discarded them and bought new ones.
“I learned from you too, sir…”
“You don’t have money. I do.”
“Sir, can I hit you just once?”
“You think I’d let you?”
Ah, it felt good. I didn’t have to worry that every word might be misunderstood or overheard by someone hiding nearby. There were no ambitious subordinates eyeing my position or political rivals waiting to stab me in the back. My mind was at ease, so my body was at ease. And because my body was at ease, my mind became even more relaxed. An infinite cycle of comfort had begun to turn.
Humming to myself, I returned home where, as always, Lady Jinjeong was waiting for me.
“You’re back?”
“Where’s Un-i?”
“She said she’s playing at Lady Liu Bei’s house. Is everything finished for today?”
“More or less. I caught a few rabbits on the way. Shall we boil them?”
“That sounds good. I’ll tell them to put water on. Go wash up first.”
It was the same peaceful scene as always. While spring in Luoyang was set to become a scorching, blood-soaked spring, spring in Liaodong remained warm and gentle as ever.
I drew the water I had left out earlier and washed away my sweat. Using a loofah, I scrubbed my body with the horse-fat soap substitute, then rinsed again with water. Since the smell of horse sweat still lingered, I applied flower oil to mask the odor. This too was a luxury one could not expect in Luoyang.
As was common in this era, bathing itself was considered a luxury. Even when people did bathe, without surfactants like soap, they could only wipe away the grime. Washing with water alone never left you feeling truly clean, and the stench of body oil could give you a headache.
Knock knock.
“Shall I scrub your back?”
“Really?”
“Hehe, only your back, of course?”
“Do you think Un-i would be happy if she got a little sibling?”
“What are you saying? She’s just lonely being an only child, so she’s always running off to play outside, isn’t she?”
Yes. Liaodong was a good place. Perhaps, by the standards of this era, it was the most livable place in the entire world? Or maybe not. Did Rome even exist at this time? I wasn’t sure. In any case, it was the best place for me to live.
‘Indeed, the iron of Liaodong is exceptional.’
Yuan Shao felt a surge of greed every time he touched the hosimgap that Gongsun Zan had left behind. The structure itself was nothing special—any local blacksmith could produce them—but the quality of the iron was impossible to replicate. Or rather, replication was possible, but maintaining consistent quality like the ones Gongsun Zan had provided was extremely difficult.
‘No, is it Baigyu’s ability to standardize measurements that is truly impressive?’
Consistent quality, consistent size, consistent weight. It was as if the phrase he had repeated like a mantra during his time as Colonel of the Left: “Reliable enough, and a shit-ton of them,” had been given physical form in this armor.
It was a shame to have lost him, but since he had not yet felt any particular ambition toward Gongsun Zan, Yuan Shao set aside his interest for the time being.
Spring in Luoyang promised to be hotter than any summer, and the storm had already begun to blow. There was simply no time left to chase after someone who had already departed.
“Aman, how has Dong Zhongying been lately?”
“Why are you asking me? What would I know?”
“Are you sulking? Did the person you had your eye on run away?”
“Shut up. I have no interest in a man who already has a wife.”
“Pfft, of course. I asked a foolish question. But I really am curious about Dong Zhuo. The Colonel of the Huben has been acting strange lately.”
“Ah, that? Dong Zhongying refuses to withdraw his troops and keeps them camped in Luoyang, so the man’s probably burning with anxiety. He must be wondering whether the rope he grabbed is a rotten one.”
After the relatively neutral Gongsun Zan had returned home, the Western Garden Army had split cleanly into three factions. The Dirty Stream faction led by Jian Shi, the Clean Stream faction led by Yuan Shao and Cao Cao, and the miscellaneous faction led by Po Hong, Dong Zhuo’s pawn. In terms of sheer size, the Dirty Stream faction was the largest, while the Clean Stream and miscellaneous factions formed a tripod that somehow maintained balance. However, as long as Dong Zhuo kept making excuses not to disband his troops, his faction could not avoid growing suspicion.
“Hmm…”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Should we keep Dong Zhongying alive?”
“Can we even kill him?”
Although he had shown incompetence as General Lu Zhi’s successor, that was simply because there were few people in the entire Central Plains capable of following General Lu Zhi’s strategies. That was why, despite the crime of breaking the encirclement, he had gotten off with only a verbal reprimand and had even managed to plant several of his own men in the Western Garden Army. Dong Zhuo was a great warlord who had pacified the wild lands of Liang Province and had been a renowned hero even before the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
“We can’t kill him. We have no justification, and if Dong Zhongying’s faction collapses now, we’ll be next.”
A two-legged cauldron was unstable, but a three-legged one stood firm. If he could stand at the pinnacle of the world, Yuan Shao would gladly cut down both the Dirty Stream faction and Dong Zhuo. But killing Dong Zhuo now would not place him in the position of being above ten thousand men.
“That won’t do… that absolutely won’t do.”
“Hey, you’re not cooking up another one of your sinister schemes, are you?”
“Aman, anyone listening would misunderstand. How could a loyal subject like myself possibly devise any treacherous plot?”
“Tsk. As expected, the great villain of this chaotic age suits you far better than me.”
“How rude.”
“Hasn’t the time for politeness between us long since passed?”
“That is true.”
“Are you really not going to tell me what scheme you’re plotting?”
“Ah, it’s nothing much. The era in which the Colonel of the Upper Army treated the Grand General like a subordinate is coming to an end. Isn’t it only human to struggle desperately when death approaches?”
“…Hey, you don’t mean—”
“Why are you looking at me like that? Just in case, I presented the hosimgap that Duke Gongsun left behind as a gift to the Grand General.”
“…”
“Aman, I am not a madman. Much less a bloodthirsty murderer who enjoys watching people die.”
Whether he knew it or not, among the letters already piled in Yuan Shao’s room, several would surely contain details of what Jian Shi was plotting. If that monster who raised hundreds of vipers behind his smiling face was involved, it was almost certain.
‘He wasn’t like this when we were young. The older he gets, the stranger he becomes.’
“Aman, are you cursing me inside your head right now?”
“You heard that?”
“At times like this, you should at least pretend to deny it.”
The wind was blowing. A storm so harsh that even childhood friends who had known each other since they were infants would cut one another down, stab their parents’ friends, and change parents three times just to survive was approaching. Everyone already knew this, even as they smiled.
‘I should have gone home too.’
“If even you run away, I will truly have to send a pursuit party after you.”
“Stop reading my mind, you damn political monster.”
“Then at least try to hide your expression. You hid it so well in front of Duke Gongsun.”
“That was because I needed to hide it. Since I’m already completely under your thumb anyway, is there any point in hiding my expression from you?”
“That is also true.”
Bang!
“Colonel Yuan! You were right! That bastard Jian Shi— I mean, was the Colonel of the Entire Army present?”
“Ah, he is my childhood friend. Since we are on the same boat, it is fine.”
“Hey, hey! That’s not true, you son of a—”
“We are on the same boat. I swear it upon the name of this Yuan Benchu.”
“That bastard Jian Shi was plotting to kill me. If the Administrator hadn’t been there, I would have tested just how sturdy that hosimgap really is.”
“I am glad you are safe.”
“Do not look for me for a few days. Once my nephew becomes Emperor, everything will be over. At that time, I will do as you suggested.”
“It is an honor, Grand General.”