The Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition (3)
Yuan Shao was the idol of this era’s Clean Stream faction. The reputation and virtue he had accumulated by observing six years of mourning made him an object of admiration for every Confucian scholar. His noble appearance, which retained its dignity despite his relatively humble origins, made him the perfect icon to stir the hearts of the literati. When word spread that this very Yuan Shao had joined hands with his younger half-brother—Yuan Shu, the legitimate heir of the Yuan clan—to form the Eighteen Warlord Coalition, the rumor raced across the realm on the lips of travelers. Naturally, it also reached the ears of the officials serving Inspector Han Fu of Ji Province.
“Lord Wenjie is a good man, but…”
“A bit lacking, right?”
Let me emphasize this again: Han Fu was never meant for high office. Even if he had entered government service, he was certainly not the sort of man who should have been entrusted with an entire province. He was skilled at composing prose and arithmetic, and he got along well with people, so he could be respected as a refined scholar. But he simply did not possess the caliber of a hero capable of navigating these turbulent times. Moreover, since the so-called Clean Stream faction was never actually filled with clean people, it was only natural that the local gentry who had ruled Ji Province for generations would turn their eyes toward Yuan Shao.
“For now, we used Lord Han Fu as an excuse to send Gongsun Zan away. We told him we were in a state of war… If that bastard still has any sense left, he won’t dare challenge the Eighteen Warlord Coalition head-on.”
“Of course not. Colonel Yuan has already declared that the puppet emperor controlled by Dong Zhuo must abdicate in favor of His Highness the Prince of Bohai. Naturally, His Highness should be supported by Colonel Yuan.”
And Yuan Shao loved it when his subordinates competed in loyalty. He had long understood that by dividing his underlings again and again, splitting them into countless factions and setting them against one another, the authority and political power of the sole mediator and leader would naturally rise. That was why those under Yuan Shao—or those who admired him—often engaged in political maneuvering so thick with “humanity” that it would have fit right into Victorian England, all in hopes of catching his eye just once more. What was happening in Ji Province was simply one more instance of that pattern.
No matter what happens, never let You Province and Ji Province fall into the same basket. The two provinces form the shape of a vast bay surrounding the Yellow Sea, and the lower reaches of the Yellow River mark their border. Any ruler who controls both regions at once would gain the decisive advantage of being able to strike Luoyang by sea at any time. Furthermore, if Qing Province to the south of Ji is also occupied, it would be tantamount to monopolizing all the water resources north of the Yangtze. For Yuan Shao, who aims for hegemony over the world, handing the weapon of the sea to Gongsun Zan—whose political stance is known to differ from his own—is utterly unacceptable.
Gongsun Zan himself had almost no territorial ambition. But in this era, was there any warlord who could claim to lack such desire and still be believed, even by a single grain of rice? Naturally, the Clean Stream officials of Ji Province who admired Yuan Shao were only looking for a plausible “justification” to hand the Inspector’s seat over to him. Gongsun Zan’s visit and the Prince of Bohai’s flight to the Inspector’s residence provided them with an excellent excuse.
The only problem was that the ten elite bodyguards Gongsun Zan had brought with him were blocking the gates of the Bohai Inspector’s residence with overwhelming martial force. The messengers who should have leapt over the walls to report this to Yuan Shao had screamed loudly the moment they cleared the wall—then fallen silent. That was the issue.
“Carrier pigeons! Send carrier pigeons!”
“It’s pouring rain! How do you expect birds to fly in this?”
“T-then what should we do?! We must inform Colonel Yuan of this as soon as possible!”
“…Let’s wait. No matter how strong Gongsun Zan’s Liaodong army is, they cannot defeat the million-strong army of the Eighteen Warlord Coalition. If anything goes wrong, we can simply announce to the world that Gongsun Zan has sided with Dong Zhuo.”
“But Gongsun Zan is the Grand General who broke through a million Yellow Turban rebels and took Zhang Jiao’s head. What if something really does go wrong?”
“The Yellow Turbans were nothing but a rabble, no matter how numerous. Colonel Yuan and General Yuan’s Eighteen Warlord Coalition is composed of soldiers who have displayed peerless martial prowess against those very rebels. No matter how strong Gongsun Zan may be, he cannot possibly win.”
“Ugh… Something feels off about this…”
“Haha! You’re just worrying over nothing, my friend. Relax and get some proper sleep.”
---
“This is strange.”
“What is, sir?”
“Well, the old man was spouting nonsense earlier, so I went ahead and declared war, but knowing Han Fu’s personality, there’s no way he’d challenge me to a direct confrontation, right?”
This era had no information or communication technology whatsoever. Precisely because of that, the powerful had to know one another’s faces. Authority—except for the emperor at the very top—tended to involve mutual benefit. If I wanted to throw my weight around as some county magistrate or provincial inspector, I had to make my face known to the local elites of other regions and maintain friendly relations with their rulers. Moreover, most of the current provincial inspectors and governors had been Clean Stream figures who earned merit during the Yellow Turban Rebellion. For men who had always treated one another as “we’re all family,” not knowing each other’s faces would have been far stranger.
Of course, since my own jurisdiction of Liaodong was such a remote backwater, I was the era’s ultimate outsider—I had never even seen the faces of most people except for a handful like Yuan Shao and Cao Cao. Still, that didn’t mean rumors about the appearance and temperament of the governor next door never reached my ears.
“That man is a scholar through and through. A pale-faced bookworm. He doesn’t have the caliber to plot a dynastic revolution with the Prince of Bohai, nor does he have the desire. He’s always said that if someone qualified to be Inspector of Ji Province appears, he would gladly yield his seat. For him to suddenly develop ambition now… the timing doesn’t add up.”
Besides, Inspector Han Fu was quite intelligent. Think about it. Just how massive was the Yellow Turban Rebellion? Eight out of thirteen provinces saw uprisings. Moreover, the rebellion’s leader Zhang Jiao was from Ji Province, and that was also where the rebels had been strongest. The previous Inspector of Ji had died in the chaos, and Han Fu had been hastily dispatched to fill the administrative vacuum. Would they have placed an incompetent man even in a stopgap role? Though he was rather timid, Han Fu was a superhuman whose administrative ability could rival even mine, which drew upon twenty-first-century experience.
“Perhaps he’s putting his faith in Yuan Shu’s Eighteen Warlord Coalition?”
“Hah, I’d actually feel better if that were the case. For now, let’s wait until Eom Gang brings back internal intelligence.”
The rain was falling so heavily that tactical movement was severely restricted anyway. It was obvious that two or three out of every ten Jincheonroe would fail to detonate. We had wrapped the inner powder barrels in oil-soaked paper to block moisture, but there were still limits to what this era’s technology could achieve.
— BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“Stone Blue!”
“Each position, report!”
“Who goes there!”
“It’s Eom Gang!”
“Enter.”
After a simple subordinate verification procedure, a completely drenched Eom Gang rummaged through his clothes and pulled out a small bundle. It was the official seal of the Inspector of Ji Province.
“Colonel, there appears to be some kind of conspiracy at work. I strongly recommend suspending immediate military operations.”
Just as I thought.
“It is true that His Highness the Prince of Bohai has come down with a severe cold. Lord Inspector Han Fu has been personally tending to him with utmost care… but he claims he never received any word of the Colonel’s visit.”
So there was a rat after all.
“Report. Is the brought provisions sufficient?”
“Yes, sir. The rainy season will end soon, so for now we only have tofu and jerky, but grain shipments are scheduled to arrive by sea shortly.”
“Good. The operation plan remains White. Distribute the orders to the men below and make sure we secure the hearts of the people first.”
“Understood!”
“You already know this well, but looting is strictly forbidden. If you want fresh meat or a warm place to sleep, pay for it, use it, and submit the expense report. You know the drill, right?”
“Yes, sir!”
Looting was an excellent way to raise an army’s morale in the short term. Until the modern era, when salaries were low or nonexistent, it was considered the victory bonus given to soldiers. Even during Napoleon’s time, looting was rampant, so in this era it was simply part of the job. However, for soldiers from the modern era I came from, prohibiting looting was standard practice.
Well… it wasn’t purely for humanitarian reasons. A far more sophisticated, moral, and civilized method of looting had been newly developed, and that played a large part. Looting was certainly efficient, but its major drawback was that it caused the local population’s sentiment to turn sharply against you. The world’s strongest military, the U.S. Army, understood this fact and had enough money to provide victory bonuses without looting. Bonus Army? That was just the mess Hoover left behind. Cheers.
…I got sidetracked. When looting is prohibited, the local residents’ goodwill shoots straight through the heavens. On top of that, if you pay cash for their houses and meat? And hand out tofu as a healthy snack? It’s basically “give me chocolate.” The money spent can be recovered later as war reparations after victory. Or mining rights… no, resource extraction rights wouldn’t be bad either… In any case, since we didn’t loot directly, we can prevent the people’s hearts from turning into a complete mess.
Of course, if they become so poisoned by the taste of black axes or the bright red sickle and hammer that they reach the state of “I’ll only be satisfied if you tear us apart!” then the story changes… But at this point in time, the army with the strongest red flavor in the entire world was none other than the Liaodong Army. The White Operation Plan was the collective term for the civil-military operations designed with exactly this situation in mind.