Southern Bumpkins Tour Laling (1)
“That bastard… that damned bastard…”
Dong Zhuo, who had returned to the imperial palace empty-handed, swallowed his rage as his cheeks trembled. “Who was it that raised a mere provincial merchant all the way to the rank of Duke of the State? How dare he repay my kindness with treachery?”
The province of Yanzhou, his original target, had already fallen into Gongsun Zan’s hands. Attacking Gongsun Zan now would leave him vulnerable to Yuan Shu in the south, yet leaving him alone would clearly allow Gongsun Zan to devour Qingzhou and Xuzhou as well. If he took Youzhou, Jizhou, Yanzhou, Xuzhou, and Qingzhou, it would be no exaggeration to say he had swallowed half the Central Plains by himself.
Dong Zhuo had appointed Gongsun Zan as Duke of Yan only to keep Yuan Shu and the other regional warlords on edge, never to raise a traitor who would stab him in the back.
“Prepare the Jin poison.”
He had felt reassured upon hearing that the Yan army numbered less than a hundred thousand, and he had even praised Gongsun Zan—overlooking the injury inflicted on Lu Bu—when the latter built fortresses on the plains and cut the supply lines of the anti-Dong coalition. But the moment Gongsun Zan revealed his true intentions and Cao Cao scurried over to him like a rat, Dong Zhuo realized his grand strategy had been thrown into chaos.
If he attacked the fortresses on the plains, Yuan Shu would strike at Luoyang. If he left them alone, Gongsun Zan, having devoured half the Central Plains, would surely drive him out of Luoyang and install the Prince of Bohai as emperor, branding Dong Zhuo a traitor.
“…Your Excellency the Grand Commandant, it was you who ordered the burning of the Jin bird breeders and all of us after you became Grand General.”
Until now, Dong Zhuo’s army had been the strongest in the Central Plains. Jin poison was a tool for the weak to face the strong, and once he held the greatest army, he had erased every trace of it—along with everyone who knew about it—by burning them all. Yet now that the realm had split into four, he could not attack Yan because of the massive fortresses built by the Pingyuan Army, and Yizhou was blocked by the Qinling and Daba Mountains, making any move against it too risky while his rear remained exposed.
He had thought that annexing Yanzhou and then taking Xuzhou and Qingzhou through it would isolate Gongsun Zan in the north and allow him to deal with Yuan Shu in Jingzhou, but Cao Cao’s swift defection to Gongsun Zan had instead left those two provinces isolated from Luoyang. In other words, the only territory left worth targeting was the jungles south of the Yangtze where Yuan Shu had fled.
The people living in that green hell were nothing but savages like the Miao and Yao tribes. The lands of Jiangnan were rife with poisonous plants and insects, a breeding ground for malaria and other diseases. Even if he conquered them, it would take decades to turn the swamps into farmland. Dong Zhuo was already approaching middle age; by the time taxes began flowing from Jiangnan, he would likely be dead of old age. That made the lands south of the Yangtze a net loss for him, which meant he could no longer expand his territory any further.
To placate his restless factions, he needed sweets to put in their mouths, yet the legitimate emperor had already ascended to heaven. Seizing power by force was impossible with Gongsun Zan, whom he himself had raised, hiding behind city walls and aiming arrows at him. Few wanted the land of Bingzhou, constantly raided by the Black Mountain bandits and the Xianbei, except those born and raised there. Xiliang was a dung heap among dung heaps, surrounded by the Gobi Desert, the Tibetan Plateau, and the Qilian Mountains—so barren that even the Black Mountain bandits refused to live there. Though his holdings were vast, the only truly productive land remained in Sili Province.
Naturally, the sweets Dong Zhuo could offer were fewer than what his subordinates demanded. The Confucian zealots of the Central Plains, who traditionally loved large populations, had already sent hundreds of “martyrs” and were still throwing their own lives away in a holy war against him. Time was no longer on his side.
‘I’m keeping you alive only because it helps end this chaotic age faster. Don’t cross the line again, you bastard.’
“How dare he… how dare he simply leave this Dong Zhongying alive? Just leave me alive?! …Guh!”
His already bloated body no longer permitted even the luxury of anger. A suffocating pressure, as if his chest were submerged in a deep swamp, crushed his lungs. A body already riddled with every adult disease screamed even without a mouth. Gongsun Zan’s betrayal—raised as a card to keep Yuan Shu and the new warlords in check—had been enough to set that body ablaze.
“Your Excellency the Grand Commandant!”
“Lord Grand Commandant!”
“A physician! Call for a physician! Physician Zhang!”
Most warlords knew how to seize power but not how to maintain it. Dong Zhuo was no exception.
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“Agh… it’s cold… What on earth did that honey-water guy order that he’d send his precious son across the Yellow Sea in this freezing winter…”
“Bofu, the Start of Spring has already passed. It’s properly spring now. Jiangnan is just warmer; most of the north is like this.”
“Ugh… damn it all. Hey, Gongjin. Honestly, is it normal to propose a marriage alliance to a kid who hasn’t even reached the age of ‘studying at fifteen’?”
“What can we do? General Yuan wants it. As long as Lord Marquis of Duting cannot defeat Dong Zhuo alone, using that honey-water guy’s connections isn’t a bad idea… What is that?”
“Gongjin, do they build houses out of stone in the north?”
“…I’ve never heard of such a thing…”
The rumor that the emperor had ascended reached the Jiangnan region of Jingzhou in late winter. It was early spring when Yuan Shu ordered Sun Ce, son of Sun Jian, and his companions to propose a marriage alliance with the Prince of Bohai. The two men crossed the Yangtze with a hundred guards and followed the Yellow Sea toward Bohai Commandery in the State of Yan. Only after the sea calmed following the Start of Spring could they finally set foot on Yan soil.
Compared to Jiangnan, where even the preliminary feasibility study for redevelopment had not yet begun, the north was a city racing at the cutting edge of the era. The trading port on the Yellow Sea, raking in gold through a worldwide salt-smuggling network, was bustling with merchants from across the globe who had followed the Liaodong traders.
The Silk Road crossing the steppes and deserts had been developed a thousand years ago even in this era, but the sea route had also been opened about a hundred years earlier, connecting India and Rome. Salt merchants departing from Liaodong could join the existing trade networks after reaching India. Naturally, the porcelain and silk of the Far East, along with the cheap salt harvested from the sea, were priceless treasures to Westerners. The second-grade steel produced in Liaodong and sold to civilians was the finest material anyone who worked with metal desired, thanks to its consistent quality.
The people of this era had their religious and ideological differences, but Gongsun Zan, ruler of Yan, had lived in a country that guaranteed religious freedom and held views similar to the primitive ancient anarchism of Mozi. Researchers who studied the ruler’s philosophy and had suitably flexible minds regarded strange powers and supernatural beings merely as opium for the people. It was possible only because the stiff-necked Confucian scholars had already been ground down during the Partisan Prohibition.
In this period, opium existed not as a drug but as the only painkiller available. Addiction was treated as a matter of personal weakness, and it was tolerated as a form of “popular culture” to endure a harsh life.
— Religion is the sigh of the oppressed people, the protest against suffering. Suppressing belief in strange powers and supernatural beings is like taking away the wine drunk to forget the pain of chaotic times, like disturbing a sick person’s rest. If a ruler leads a prosperous age, the people have no need to rely on strange powers and supernatural beings. The people’s reliance on them is proof of the ruler’s incompetence.
Mozi had said that a ruler should at least pretend to believe in religion for the sake of smooth governance, and the Confucianism of this era also did not believe in strange powers and supernatural beings according to Confucius’s will. The two philosophies had mixed, giving birth to this bizarre view of religion.
Naturally, the trading port was filled with strange buildings under construction that blended architectural styles and religious colors from around the world. Sun Ce and Zhou Yu, bumpkins from Jiangnan, could hardly believe this port was in the same Han territory.
“Excuse me, is this really Bohai Port of the State of Yan?”
“Veniae?”
“Bani… what?”
“Afuw?”
“Hey! That area is the foreigners’ district, so they won’t understand you! Judging by the ship, you look like you came from the south. Have you reported to the county magistrate?”
Just as they were despairing at the language barrier, a middle-aged man with a catfish mustache threw them a lifeline. His robes were made of the precious Shu brocade, and golden ornaments hung from his wrists and ears. His imposing presence was clearly not that of an ordinary merchant, and the two southern bumpkins stiffened. Only Sun Ce, whose father had been the Marquis of Duting, managed to speak.
“County magistrate? Isn’t this the Prince of Bohai’s residence?”
“Aigoo… Bohai Port is further north! And that’s a military port—you can’t enter without Lord Duke of Yan’s permission! If you’re fellow Han people, why come by sea instead of taking the land route?”
“Do you know how many mountains we’d have to cross to go from Jingzhou to Youzhou?”
“…You’re from Jingzhou? No wonder your accent was strange… Give me ten cash and I’ll fill out the report for you too. These days there are so many foreigners that finding Han people is harder.”
Of course, most people gathered at Laling Port were merchants. In this era, “merchant” was synonymous with thief or vagrant. They would never dare swindle Gongsun Zan—the incarnation of Chiyou, descendant of the Yellow Emperor, the great elder of the northern nomads who were like natural disasters, the salt-extracting master of the sea who flew through the skies—nor his subordinates. But they were confident they could fleece these ignorant southern bumpkins in the blink of an eye.
It was true that Bohai Port was a military harbor and off-limits to just anyone, but Sun Ce’s party, flying the banner of Yuan Shu, Governor of Jingzhou, would have no trouble entering. The salt merchant guiding them knew this fact well. The two bumpkins and their soldiers fell for the merchant’s smooth persuasion, and an unplanned sightseeing tour of Laling Port was added to their itinerary. Of course, the salt merchant also made a tidy profit selling souvenirs at his own gift shop, so everyone was happy.
“Come to think of it, what is your courtesy name, brother?”
“I’m just a silk peddler with no courtesy name… My surname is Li and my given name is Zi.”
“How about you two young masters?”
“This is Sun Bofu, son of Lord Sun Wentai, the Marquis of Duting. I am Zhou Gongjin of Yangzhou.”
“Oh my! Such distinguished guests! Please, this way. The magistrate’s office is only a short carriage ride away—one watch at most.”
Sun Ce and Zhou Yu, who had broken off with only five or six guards, were once again shocked when they saw the bus pulled by packhorses twice the size of Guoxia horses.