The Prince of Bohai, Liu Xie (1)
After the conversation with Liu Yu ended and Gongsun Zan had once again turned his focus to internal affairs, the scorching summer in Luoyang was only just beginning. The moment the succession ceremony for the new emperor, Liu Bian, concluded, the makeshift state council that followed had long since transformed into an octagon-style brawl.
“Look here! In my hand is the list of the Ten Eunuchs who colluded with the Yellow Turbans!”
The man on one side, furiously waving a sheet of paper to seize the crowd’s attention, was none other than the Minister of Education, Wang Yun. Though his snow-white hair revealed an age that was far from young, he burned with the passion of a newly appointed official. As the leader of the Clean Stream faction and a hero who had helped suppress the Yellow Turban Rebellion, he was also one of the few high-ranking ministers within that faction. It was impossible to tell exactly how many so-called “leaders” the Clean Stream faction actually had, but a leader was a leader. The names written on the paper he held were not some reckless scribble like a twentieth-century red purge list; every entry carried weight.
The Yellow Turban Rebellion had been a massive popular uprising, and the previous emperor, Ling, had indeed provided the spark through his practice of selling offices. The Ten Eunuchs had led that charge. Had it merely been the usual corruption of officials peddling positions for cash, it would have been just another tired episode of rulers copying each other’s money-printing magic throughout history. But this progressive, radical economic monarch had invented an unprecedented financial product: the deferred-payment office bond. More innovative than mortgage-backed securities, these occupation-collateralized bonds sold at a staggering pace. The Ten Eunuchs, acting as the brokers, pushed the toxic product onto even the lowest-grade debtors with the same frenzy Wall Street wolves had shown in the early twenty-first century.
Of course, among those who rode the wave were some who had extended a hand to the Yellow Turbans. Some had been coerced; others had simply switched sides once they saw which way the wind was blowing. The central government’s official policy toward the rebels was immediate execution, making it difficult to determine true guilt. But this was hardly an era that presumed innocence. The Clean Stream faction, hungry for a comeback, had quietly compiled and organized these lists, waiting for their moment. With the regime change, they had seized He Jin’s hand and intended to use the list as a blade to purge their political enemies.
In truth, after seeing Jian Shi—the rising star among the Ten Eunuchs—clash with He Jin and promptly get poisoned, they had fueled their hope circuits with the belief that the Grand General was finally cutting ties with the eunuchs and climbing aboard their ship. However, He Jin, true to his status as the era’s greatest celebrity, maintained connections across the Clean Stream faction, the Ten Eunuchs, the Dirty Stream faction, the consort clans, and every other circle. He could not afford to favor only the newly rising Clean Stream faction without considering the reactions of all the others.
“Wang Yun, restrain yourself. The crisis of the Han has not yet passed. What reason is there for family to turn blades against one another?”
“Grand General! How many years have the common people suffered because the Ten Eunuchs indulge in luxury?”
“This very morning I met with Guo Sheng of the Ten Eunuchs. On this paper are written both my name and theirs! They fully acknowledge that their own greed triggered the Yellow Turban Rebellion. That chapter ended with the death of Jian Shi, who created the Western Garden Army and sowed discord. They have sworn to focus solely on their duties as inner officials and refrain from interfering in civil or military affairs! The peace of our era rests in my hands!”
Two men stood shouting about McCarthy’s list from two thousand years in the future and peace in their own time, but it was history that would never be recorded.
“Grand General! So you mean to leave these traitors alone?!”
“Be silent, Minister Wang! It is for His Majesty the Emperor to decide, not the Grand General or the Minister of Education! And traitors? Their crimes have not yet been fully exposed. Watch your tongue!”
“Ugh…”
There were already far too many tangled threads to cut just one. And even if the Clean Stream faction’s thread were strong enough to sever all the others, it was no iron cable. Some of the imperial relatives seemed to be entertaining different thoughts; contact had already been lost with one or two of them. Although Jian Shi’s death had allowed them to seize military authority over the Han, military power alone could not revive a broken nation.
The Han is finished. As long as it doesn’t collapse during my generation, that will be enough.
The rise and fall of eras was the law of the world. Those who held privilege in a declining age usually cried, “Just don’t let it happen to me!” He Jin was no exception.
---
The Prince of Bohai, Liu Xie, climbed into the carriage bound for her assigned domain. Even now she feared that men in black might come for her in the night, that she might vanish in a land stripped of its countless supervisors and spies, or that poison might be mixed into her food and drink. Yet she knew perfectly well that if she did not board this carriage, she would meet the same fate as Jian Shi—an morning from which she would never wake.
“…Older brother.”
“Xie, it’s all right. I know you’re worried, but Colonel Gongsun himself will come to greet you. I heard his daughter is around your age, so try to make her your person.”
“Yes.”
The northern gate of Luoyang opened. There stood Gongsun Zan’s cavalry, arrayed in perfect order and leading horses so massive they could not be seen anywhere else in this era. Their commander was unmistakable thanks to his personal banner and his uniquely towering frame, but the rest of the soldiers all wore identical armor and weapons, making it impossible to tell one from another. The cavalry in their polished plate armor gleamed brilliantly, while the infantry in black leather reinforced with metal studs stood without the slightest sway in their posture.
“Attention, entire army!”
Thud!
Nearly a thousand men stomping in unison was enough to shake the earth beyond the northern gate.
“Salute toward His Majesty the Emperor!”
““Loyalty!””
It was a simple motion—drawing swords and raising them to the sky—yet the sight of a thousand soldiers performing it in perfect unison was magnificent in its own way.
“This humble subject, Gongsun Zan, Colonel of Liaodong, along with one thousand cavalry from You Province, has arrived in Luoyang to escort Your Highness the Prince of Bohai!”
They had called him a man with the bearing of Xiang Yu, and the description fit perfectly. Though his body was wrapped in armor hammered from iron plates, the breadth between his shoulders was so vast that two grown men could easily fit inside it. He looked strong enough to uproot mountains.
“I… I’ll be in your care, Colonel.”
“I will escort you safely.”
“Y-yes… I’ll be counting on you.”
“Have a comfortable journey.”
The carriage window closed. The sound of horses snorting followed. For a brief moment she felt her body tilt backward, then the vibration of the ground reached her. Whether it was because the man named Gongsun Zan was simply that enormous, or because the tremor of the earth happened to match the trembling of her own body, Liu Xie realized she had stopped shaking.
---
That day, the Liaodong army received three skulls… no, a new prince. She was a tiny little thing. I had heard my daughter Yun was around the same age, but no matter how I looked at her, she seemed at least ten years younger. She looked like she had only just started elementary school. Normally, someone that young becoming a prince would have an imperial elder as regent… Ah, right. The Inspector was an imperial relative.
In any case, under the pretext of escorting the Prince of Bohai I had received permission to lead troops into Luoyang, and while I was at it I succeeded in planting a few informants in the city. Escorting the little prince wasn’t particularly difficult. There were no bandits, the weather was decent. It was one of those days when everything fell perfectly into place.
Traveling by carriage meant we couldn’t cross the mountains, so the journey would take a full week. We could have gone downriver by boat along the Yellow River and arrived quickly, but the Prince of Bohai, Liu Xie, was simply too young to risk those rough waters. We had no choice but to move slowly along the main roads. A one-way trip of at least seven days had been scheduled.
Long journeys are boring. At first the Prince of Bohai kept the carriage windows tightly shut, whether from fear of the unfamiliar environment or simple shyness. But once night deepened and we set up camp, the atmosphere had relaxed enough that she opened the windows and exchanged a few words with the escort soldiers.
“Is it true that you broke through millions of Yellow Turbans and took Zhang Jiao’s head, Colonel?”
There it was again. That was pure luck. The encirclement had collapsed while we tried to break out, the formation shattered again while crossing the mobile fortress, and if I hadn’t detonated every last Jincheonroe we had gathered, lowering their morale to the floor, that miracle would never have happened. In truth, the slightest mistake and I would have died.
“I was fortunate. Zhang Jiao had protruded in front of his formation, and the Yellow Turbans’ own lines had fallen apart while trying to break through my master’s encirclement. If every condition hadn’t smiled on me, I would have died.”
“Still, I think it’s amazing. Someone like me could never have done it.”
“That is only natural, Your Highness, since your calling is not war. If excelling at war were the duty of a ruler, then it would have been the Overlord of Chu, Xiang Yu, and not the High Ancestor Liu Bang who unified the realm.”
A soldier could display his full strength when he was under someone else’s orders. I didn’t know the details, but the fact that Xiang Yu—who seemed to be playing an entirely different genre by himself—lost to Liu Bang was probably for that reason as well. In the end, the one giving advice always plays the best moves in Go. Of course, the slightest mistake could produce a monster like Stalin who treated human lives as mere numbers, but from experience it was still better than when soldiers sat at the very top.
“How long will it take to reach Bohai?”
“It is scheduled to take about a week. We would arrive quickly by boat, but the flooding season is about to begin, so it would be too dangerous.”
“I see. I have never left Luoyang before, so I will trust entirely in you, Colonel.”
“With a force of this size, no bandit gang or wild beast would dare challenge us.”
“Um… if it’s not rude, may I ask one thing?”
“Of course. Speak freely, Your Highness.”
“Uh… well… why did you give all the soldiers the exact same armor and swords? Doesn’t that make it hard to tell them apart?”
“Normally they wear surcoats bearing the Liaodong army’s crest, so there’s no problem. Besides, trying to express each soldier’s individuality would cost too much money, so I excluded it.”
Putting a simple sleeveless jacket over the armor made friend-or-foe identification possible. The design was a bit plain, so I had them remove the jackets today when we needed to look impressive, but the principle was to wear them in combat. Later, once I recruited a proper designer, I could make them look cooler, but the jackets fulfilled their role well enough for now.
“Huh?”
“It is more efficient to equip another entire set of armor with the money it would cost to add one more horn or draw one more pattern. It saves both money and time. And the money and time saved can be redirected to other policies.”
There was one fellow named Jigalrek who was the best in this field. He wasn’t a real historical figure, but there was much to learn from him.