Gaichu Indeed...
“Is that really true?”
“Yeah. I saw it with my own two eyes, clear as day. And… I received confirmation through the imperial seal itself. We’re going to become His Majesty the Emperor’s army, not the Duke of Yan’s troops.”
The Emperor had created a new direct-command unit called the Hobun Guard and immediately drafted an order reassigning Gao Shun—who had been waiting in Pingyuan—along with the ten thousand Bingzhou troops to this newly formed unit.
The ten thousand Bingzhou troops and their commander Gao Shun shall be reassigned from Pingyuan to the newly established Hobun Guard and placed under Our direct command. The imperial jade seal confirms this order.
Details on the Bingzhou army’s chain of command and roster of generals were still unclear, so those positions in the Hobun Guard remained blank. Yet the seal stamped in the corner of the mulberry-bark paper was unmistakably that of the Imperial Jade Seal.
“His Majesty wants to turn us into his personal blade, and the Duke of Yan simply allowed it?”
“That’s right. If he treated us like his original subordinates, those men would resent it. If he treated us as surrendered generals, we’d be the ones resentful. Since His Majesty currently has no personal guards, using us is the most practical solution—or so the Duke apparently decided.”
Directly incorporating surrendered generals would inevitably cause friction with the existing army, so the pragmatic move was to attach them to a friendly faction that lacked military strength. It was the ideal solution, yet not one most warlords of this chaotic age would have chosen. In an era where even a single soldier was precious, willingly giving up elite Bingzhou cavalry and the Camp Crushers was no easy thing. Moreover, handing ten thousand troops to the very Emperor he was “protecting” was tantamount to driving a razor-sharp dagger into his own throat.
“…”
“Tell me, Gao Shun. Could you make that same choice?”
“If ordered, I would obey. However…”
If his lord forcibly seized troops, Gao Shun would follow the command. But the option of voluntarily handing over one’s own soldiers was not something even he could readily choose.
“We did receive the battle-axe and the ceremonial axe. We’ll head to Liaodong, have an audience with His Majesty, and divide the generals and vice-generals for reassignment into the Hobun Guard. Haah… damn it. After all this, I can’t even hold a proper grudge…”
Lu Bu was a violent and cruel man, but he knew how to cherish his own people. It might seem surprising, yet warlords like Yuan Shu or Dong Zhuo who treated those within their boundaries well were not exactly rare. The Bingzhou army that had endured day after day across the barren lands of Bingzhou shared an even tighter bond than most regular forces. Inside Dong Zhuo’s army, the Bingzhou troops—who had never received proper treatment—had grown so close that all ten thousand of them were practically sworn brothers.
They had fled to Yan and surrendered because Minister of Education Wang Yun had drawn his sword and begun purging the remnants of Dong Zhuo’s faction, but they had not forgotten their grudge against Gongsun Zan and Liu Bei, who had killed their great elder brother and father figure, Lu Bu. Yet Gongsun Zan had not used them as surrendered generals. Instead, he had appointed them as the Emperor’s own blade.
Having received the battle-axe and ceremonial axe, not even the Duke of Yan could issue them arbitrary commands. And with ten thousand troops now stationed in his own stronghold of Liaodong, if the Emperor ever betrayed Gongsun Zan, the Duke would suffer a devastating loss.
“Gaichu indeed… It really is Gaichu…”
In the Spring and Autumn period, a man of Jin named Gaichu—courtesy name Gaijachu—cut flesh from his own thigh to feed Duke Wen of Jin when the duke was starving during his exile. After nineteen years of wandering, Duke Wen became a feudal lord and ruler of Jin. He summoned Gaichu to reward him, but Gaichu refused and hid on Mian Mountain. The duke tried to smoke him out by setting the mountain on fire, yet Gaichu chose to embrace a tree with his elderly mother and burned to death. Thereafter, Duke Wen forbade hot food on the anniversary of his death, eating only cold dishes—the origin of the Cold Food Festival. Whenever he looked at shoes made from the tree Gaichu had clung to, the duke would lament, “Beneath my feet lies the one I mourn,” giving rise to the respectful address “foot-beneath-you.”
Of course Gongsun Zan disliked the connotation and simply called people by name, courtesy name, or office. Yet the stance this man—who used any excuse to ignore formal etiquette—showed was not so different from that of the loyal subject who had left two indelible marks on history.
The Bingzhou army had followed Lu Bu. Lu Bu had been Dong Zhuo’s adopted son. Dong Zhuo’s actions had been treason. Therefore the Bingzhou troops carried the guilt of being traitors themselves. In that situation, Gongsun Zan’s gesture appeared as a magnanimous pardon: “Atone for your sins by serving as the Emperor’s blade.”
They wanted to resent him. They ought to resent him. Yet they could not.
“Gao Shun… This time, I really will do well.”
“…”
“I truly… truly mean to do my best.”
“…As you say.”
Where resentment vanished, respect often took root. In the place where the Bingzhou army—no, the Hobun Guard’s—grudge had disappeared, a tiny sprout of respect was beginning to bloom.
“Your Excellency, how do you intend to conduct training for the Hobun Guard?”
The reason I had tossed Zhang Liao and the rest of the Bingzhou army to His Majesty instead of accepting them myself was partly to avoid the danger of factions splitting the military. But there was another reason rooted in the unique nature of the Yan army.
In this era that lacked even wired telephones, let alone radios, proper military operations required at least company commanders—or rather, centurions—to be capable of assessing the situation themselves and organically adjusting plans. That demanded a fairly high level of knowledge. They needed to function not as mere meat shields but as anvils that could move by their own judgment, and for that they first had to understand tactics.
Fortunately, the researchers at the Yan Research Institute had taught soldiers, neighborhood children, and illiterate commoners as a casual pastime. Among the secondary intellectual class thus created, the quick learners had in turn taught nearby civilians as another hobby. Thanks to that environment, every soldier in the Yan army could read and make tactical decisions. But such standards could not be expected of outside forces.
Since it was impossible to make the Bingzhou troops understand strategy down to the individual soldier level, they could at best be assigned to reconnaissance or miscellaneous duties. And that would obviously reignite the faction problem I mentioned earlier.
Of course the issue could be solved by building a training camp and teaching them step by step, but… with so many people inside Yan already eager to become soldiers, there was no need to spend extra money training the Bingzhou army.
“They must have their own training regimen. Rather than tearing it apart to fit our methods and earning resentment, let’s preserve their traditions.”
“Understood. Next item: Minister of Education Wang Yun has requested one hundred thousand seok of military rations. How shall we respond?”
Your Excellency the Duke of Yan,
The current military situation grows dire by the day. I hereby request an urgent shipment of one hundred thousand seok of military grain to sustain the loyal forces defending the Han. Your prompt compliance is expected.
— Wang Yun, Minister of Education
“…What the hell did that guy ever do for me? Why’s he throwing a tantrum all of a sudden?”
Yan was a feudal kingdom with its own duke. While it lay within the Han Empire’s sphere of influence, it was still another country. Just as Joseon existed inside Ming’s sphere but was not Ming itself. Even in tributary trade there had to be something given in return; if someone suddenly demanded resources, you were fully entitled to tell them to go pound sand.
Yan felt slightly more like a vassal than Joseon, yet this was not a direct request from the Emperor. A few letters from some minor Minister of Education could safely be ignored.
“Write ‘Eat a fucking dick.’ Don’t beat around the bush—put it exactly like that. Where does some Sado flunky get off sending a letter to a duke demanding rice? The absolute nerve.”
Though both duke and minister held similar peerage ranks, strictly speaking the Minister of Education was like an upper-house senator while a duke was more like a state governor. The governor sent taxes upward; the senator was supposed to allocate a proper budget and send it back down. Yet here the man was, using the chaos of the times as an excuse to avoid managing any real budget, now suddenly demanding a hundred thousand seok of military grain?
“If he doesn’t like it, tell him to come take it himself. Even Dong Zhuo never tried to extort money from me, so where does this half-dead old bastard get the balls to try?”
“Understood. Next item. Until now researchers and intellectuals have taught literacy as a hobby, but the number of people seeking instruction has grown so large that it can no longer be managed as a side activity. Researcher Deokjo therefore proposes that we must construct proper academies and train specialized educators.”
“Hmm… Is the budget sufficient?”
“The budget is ample, but constructing academies and dispatching scholars risks creating vacancies in administrative personnel.”
A few years earlier, researchers had poured in from across the realm, rapidly expanding both administrative and research staff. But after last year, when every worthwhile intellectual had already arrived, that growth had sharply plateaued. Most Confucian scholars belonged to the Clean Stream faction, and those men already held positions in their home regions. Not many eccentrics were willing to abandon wealth and fame to start again as freshmen at the institute.
Governing only Liaodong had posed no problem, but once You and Ji provinces were incorporated into the administrative domain, the supply of educated men could no longer keep pace with demand. On top of that, priority had been given to distributing barbed wire, so the administrative branch had suffered a severe manpower shortage since last year.
Had the existing bureaucrats been usable as they were, the problem might not have grown so acute. Unfortunately, those old officials were credit defaulters who had taken advantage of the previous Emperor’s post-payment system for official posts. They could not possibly be inherited as proper administrative personnel.
Scholars of this era were obsessed with teaching disciples—to put it in modern terms, they were addicted to the hobby of imprinting their own color onto newbies. Yet the apprenticeship model, exemplified by the “Newbie Park” approach, had the inherent limitation of being unable to accept many students at once. Therefore, constructing academies and building infrastructure for basic education was undeniably necessary.
However, as already mentioned, the administrative staff were already screaming under crushing workloads. They were barely restraining their discontent with the promise that manpower shortages would soon be resolved if everyone endured just a little longer. If another promise was broken here, the worst-case scenario was entirely possible: administrative officials might raise the red banner of revolution, declaring they could no longer endure.
…If no one else, the Governor of Laling would almost certainly turn bright red with rage. The probability was extremely, extremely high.
“Then… mm… First, summon researcher Deokjo. Since he raised the problem, he ought to have at least some solutions in mind. My own daughter is studying under him, so let’s hear what sort of grand ideas he’s been harboring.”