If I Can't Use the Sword, I'll Give It to a Friend
The ducal residence, which we were borrowing because no building existed that matched an emperor’s dignity, was not particularly splendid. Yet it did not feel rustic or impoverished either. The countless gold and silver treasures that had once adorned it had all been ripped out—on the grounds that “they hurt my eyes”—then melted down and recast into bizarre shapes before being stacked to the ceiling in the warehouses. The jewelry and furniture too beautiful to melt were displayed in a dedicated exhibition hall built on one corner of the estate grounds. Of course there remained a risk of theft, but after the rumor spread about the “mysterious corpse of a great traitor that neither rots nor attracts flies,” which every captured criminal was forced to view upon imprisonment on the penal island, few thieves possessed the nerve to try their luck. Naturally we did not actually pickle people in formaldehyde and mount them for mere theft, but the visceral shock delivered by those products of arcane research proved more than sufficient as a crime deterrent.
The interior of the residence used granite and marble. Lacquered black pillars stood in sharp contrast against pure white walls, while every piece of furniture, crafted from white birch, created an uncanny harmony with the pale floors. Fifteen hundred years later the Dutch merchant Dirk Gerritsz would gaze upon this mansion and lavish it with praise: “Sparse, yet rich. Rich, and therefore frugal. Perfect because there is nothing more that can be taken away.” Another two or three centuries after that, masters such as the architect Le Corbusier would revere the building as the father of modernist architecture. By the standards of power holders in this era, however, it was an almost painfully modest dwelling.
The Duke who had yielded the residence to the imperial siblings now lived in a small summer villa built along the coast. That villa was only slightly smaller in scale and differed little in design from the main house. At any rate, a modernist aesthetic that excluded all gold and silver was, by the standards of this age, an exceedingly upright architectural style. The intellectuals who prized integrity welcomed it with open arms. Merchants who had hoped to curry favor by presenting precious metals wore bitter expressions, but since we built a public exhibition hall in the front courtyard of the ducal residence, engraved their names upon it, and thereby saved their faces, rumors of the “Oriental Alexandria Library” spread across the known world through traders from Rome, India, Parthia, and beyond.
Scholarship here was closer to philosophy than to religion, and Mohism openly declared that one should “pretend to believe if it benefits the ruler.” Thus persecuted minority faiths from every corner of the earth began storing their sacred relics in this building that accepted such objects without complaint, treating it as their final ark. It was therefore no surprise that, in later generations, the Liaodong region would be venerated as a holy land for every religion under heaven.
The imperial siblings, now accustomed to Liaodong where the cultures of the world converged, received academic and philosophical instruction from the scholars at the research institute. They broadened their minds through exchanges with philosophers of the Western lands and steadily accumulated the qualities befitting an emperor and his kin while receiving lessons in the art of governance from the regent Liu Yu.
“Heaven’s Mandate… Heaven’s Mandate, huh.”
“Your Majesty, what troubles you?”
“It is nothing. In less than ten years he has raised this mere border wasteland to such a level. The scholars at the Civilization Research Institute may be right—perhaps it would be better to hand the imperial seal to Duke Gongsun and simply rest.”
The Emperor, residing in the ducal mansion, had frequent contact with Gongsun Zan’s family. Gongsun Yun, four years his senior, naturally assumed the dual role of friend and bodyguard.
“If Father heard you speak that way he would faint from shock. He has no desire to hold power.”
“Can any man truly be so free of ambition? If he felt no craving for power, why develop the State of Yan to this degree? Are you not reading too much into it?”
“The Father I have observed until now… well… yes, he is the sort who would rather shoulder the burdens of Xiao He than wear the crown of Emperor Gaozu of Han. He says that stiff, old-fashioned etiquette simply does not suit him…”
“Kuhaha! That is the perfect answer. Indeed, a man like Duke Gongsun need not trouble himself with ceremony.”
“Your Majesty?”
“Zilong, if your father—Duke Gongsun—should ever desire the imperial seal, I will gladly surrender it. To be honest, the throne is nothing but trouble and endless labor.”
It had not always been so, but because his father Liu Hong had pursued the YOLO life with excessive enthusiasm, the imperial office in this generation had become a seat of responsibility rather than pleasure. Through the education he received from the researchers and Liu Yu, Liu Bian was gradually coming to understand that truth. Of course an emperor could lay hands on unimaginable wealth, yet a boy not yet twenty who had already been thrust onto the throne as both supreme ruler and puppet, and who had fallen in love with the conveniences of modernist architecture two thousand years ahead of its time, possessed surprisingly little greed for material things.
“Your Majesty?”
“A comfortable chair, a house that does not leak, a few plots of land where I need not fear hunger, and a harmonious family—nothing more is required. Anything beyond that is mere luxury.”
Of course these were the words of a fifteen-year-old who still knew little of the world. Yet compared to the dangerous fantasies boys of that age usually harbored—becoming ruler of all under heaven, or purifying every inferior race except their own magnificent countrymen—his thinking was remarkably sound.
“Well, I have my own plans as well.”
The emperors of successive generations had married many handsome men and beautiful women to produce heirs. Having gained some healthy weight from proper meals, the Emperor himself possessed the features of a strikingly beautiful youth. Moreover, the golden hair rarely seen in the Central Plains lent him an air of mystery. It was therefore no surprise that Gongsun Yun’s heart beat a little faster as she watched him.
“Your Majesty, Grand Tutor Liu Boyan requests an audience.”
“Let him enter.”
The audience chamber doors opened. Liu Yu entered accompanied by a man Gongsun Zan had never seen before, both of them bowing low.
“So. What reason brings you before me?”
“Y-Your Majesty?”
The stranger remained prostrate, yet the tension in his back and the crown of his head made his shock obvious.
“Yes, I am the Emperor. Grand Tutor Yu, have you come to introduce this man?”
“…Yes. This is a general who formerly served under Lu Fengxian. His surname is Zhang, his given name Liao. His courtesy name is Wenyuan. He has surrendered to Yan Duke Gongsun Zan together with ten thousand troops from Bing Province.”
“If this is a military matter, Duke Gongsun could have handled it alone. Why, then, have you exposed my person to a surrendered general?”
The Emperor had not yet stepped into the open. This was both at Gongsun Zan’s suggestion and a seclusion the boy himself had chosen after learning basic political science from Liu Yu and the researchers. The young Emperor still lacked the full qualities of a monarch. In the present chaos, with the Central Plains fractured in four directions, any premature public appearance might spawn rumors that Gongsun Zan was manipulating a puppet emperor. A Duke already possessed authority equivalent to a king; there was no need to “support” the throne. The problem was that too many warlords were eager to use any excuse to form an anti-Gongsun alliance and bide their time.
Thus the Emperor had decided to remain secluded in the Liaodong ducal residence until he could make political decisions as a true sovereign and withstand the pressure of local magnates. Until now he had revealed his survival only to Grand Tutor Liu Yu, researchers of verified loyalty, Lu Zhi, Liu Bei, and others who were “in the same boat as Gongsun Zan.” A surrendered general from Bing Province, however, could hardly be called a man of confirmed loyalty. Even if his background were trustworthy, there was no reason to present a surrendered commander to the Emperor. Liu Bian could not fathom why Gongsun Zan had brought the man before him.
“Your Majesty. A few days ago, Dong Zhuo died.”
“Dong Zhuo?”
“Yes. General Zhang, repeat to me exactly what you reported earlier.”
“…Understood.”
After listening to Zhang Liao’s report, His Majesty wore a deeply complicated expression.
“Your Majesty?”
“I have heard your account well, General Zhang. I must speak privately with Duke Gongsun. Would you withdraw for a moment?”
“Yes! Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years! Ten thousand times ten thousand years!”
Once Zhang Liao and the elderly Lord Liu Yu had left the reception room, the Emperor adjusted the crank on his recliner, settled into a more comfortable posture, exhaled a long sigh, and rubbed his brow.
“Duke… Duke Gongsun.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“In your judgment, am I ready to step forward? If I order the march on Luoyang, can we truly bring this age of chaos to an end?”
The Emperor was young—scarcely more than a middle-school boy. Far too young to bear the highest authority of a nation. The original plan had been to let the clearly terminally ill Dong Zhuo die while the boy continued to cultivate his qualities, then launch the offensive on Luoyang the moment the tyrant perished and end the turmoil once and for all. But Dong Zhuo had died far too soon.
It had been only a few months since His Majesty reached Liaodong. The schedule now thrust upon him was harsher than forcing a first-year high-school student to skip every preliminary exam and sit the bar examination in April.
“Your Majesty, are you afraid?”
“I will speak honestly. I hold no great desire for the throne. In my heart I would rather hand you the imperial seal and live as a simple scholar. I still have no loyal guard like you, no officials like you, and I lack the knowledge to fill all the empty seats by myself. Yes, I am afraid. So afraid that I want to crawl under the blankets and hide.”
“You can. No—I will make certain that you can.”
At the very least this boy understood the weight of his responsibility. Most children his age would have fled in terror, yet the young Emperor, though his hands trembled, chose to confront his duty rather than run. That alone made him a hundred, a thousand times better than the warlords of the Central Plains who styled themselves Inspectors and Administrators.
“Your Majesty, the Bing Province Army has lost its lord. I killed him.”
“I know.”
“And those men are subordinates of Lu Bu, the supreme commander of the Bing Province Army. They can never become my subordinates. Even if I accepted them, my own officers would resent it. If I used them only to the extent that my officers did not complain, the Yan army would split in two just as Dong Zhuo’s forces did.”
“…Then what exactly are you trying to say? You have already shown them my face. Are you telling me I have no choice?”
“Your Majesty, you must employ them as your sword.”
They had surrendered to me, but they remained surrendered generals. As long as my own troops were intact and my army functioned properly, there was no need to heavily rely on the Bing Province forces, nor could I safely do so. Sending them back to Bing Province would merely allow another warlord to rise there. Creating new units centered on them would inevitably breed friction with my existing forces. Of course I could force their integration, but at a moment when the end of the chaos seemed visible if we simply followed the plan, my personal assessment was that there was no reason to add further risk.
“The elite quality of the Bing Province cavalry has been renowned since ancient times. The soldiers under Gao Shun who remain in Pingyuan Commandery to steady the army are also known as the Camp Crushers, famed for capturing every enemy position they assault. If Your Majesty takes them into your hand, they will become your sharpest blade.”
If a fine weapon does not suit my own profession and I cannot wield it, I need only give it to a comrade who can.
“If you judge that Your Majesty is not yet ready to enter Luoyang, then we simply wait until you are prepared. Yet opportunities to obtain elite troops are rare. Therefore, even if you do not march on Luoyang at this time, please take these men into Your Majesty’s embrace.”