Year 183: Yu Bi at Juyong Pass
November, 183 AD.
Youzhou, Shanggu Commandery, Juyong County — Juyong Pass.
A bitter wind howled through the gate of the Great Wall at Juyong Pass. Blade-sharp winter gales cut through everything. Even the breath steaming from the sentries’ mouths seemed ready to freeze solid; every face on the wall had gone pale with cold.
Beyond the wall, mountains and grasslands lay buried under white snow. In a season like this, who would dare breach the Great Wall? Still, the gate could never be left unguarded.
More than a hundred soldiers were scattered along the battlements of Juyong Pass, eyes fixed on the lands beyond. The pass was the final bulwark protecting Youzhou and Jizhou from the northern tribes. These were regular troops, not conscripts — each man in matching armor and helmet, spear in hand. Even with thick gloves they blew on their fingers as they paced the wall.
Near the gatehouse, a woman of about five foot five waited in the sentry post, silken hair falling loose around her shoulders. Her shift would begin soon; she would relieve the other squad on the wall. For now she sat by the central fire, warming her hands.
“Xianhe. It’s exhausting, isn’t it? When we were kids our dreams were so much bigger.”
Her voice was languid, soft enough that only the dozen or so people around the fire could hear it. Yet the tone itself was pure music. And for all the laziness in her speech, her eyes shone like a predator’s waiting for the right moment to strike.
A man of ordinary looks, about five foot seven, merely smiled at the sound. Jian Yong, courtesy name Xianhe, native of Zhuo County in Youzhou.
“That damned mulberry tree… it bewitched you. The one that used to shade your house, Xuande.”
Jian Yong answered carefully, voice drained of strength. Yu Bi’s eyes grew distant, as though she were looking back across years; then she closed them.
A life of grinding poverty. She was the eleventh-generation descendant of Liu Sheng, Prince Jing of Zhongshan, son of Emperor Jing of the Former Han — yet so far out on a collateral branch that she might as well have been a commoner. The present imperial house gave no special treatment to descendants of the Former Han emperors. Her father had died early; the household had been so poor it defied description. She and her mother had woven straw mats just to eat.
For a time she had lived as a wandering knight in Zhuo Commandery, but even that could not last. The mulberry tree had been the root of it all. A man named Li Ding had once looked at it and declared:
An auspicious shape. A person of great destiny will come from this house.
As a child she had been intoxicated by those words, certain she would become a hero of the realm. Like the founding emperor Liu Bang she was dual-natured, her male self strong and restless. Like him she had waited for talent and for chaos while living the knight-errant life — yet talent never gathered, and chaos never came. Only the capital’s politics grew noisier.
She had believed that if she simply led her followers well, men like Zhang Liang, Xiao He, Han Xin, and Fan Kuai would come of their own accord. But Zhuo Commandery was too small. No wealthy retainer appeared to liquidate his estate for her; no warrior of Fan Kuai’s strength stepped forward to settle her fights. By nineteen she had faced reality: the knight-errant road offered no future.
The one stroke of luck was the ten capable fighters who had stayed with her through those years. Dozens more would have followed her strange natural charm, but her purse could never have fed more than ten. So she chose the ten tempered in marketplace brawls, added herself and Jian Yong, and the twelve of them climbed to Jixian and enlisted.
Fate, unkind as ever, posted them to Juyong Pass — the northernmost gate of the Han.
Without those followers I would never even have made knight, the lowest officer rank.
Here every soldier held the proper rank of regular troops, not mere conscripts. Yu Bi herself held the junior officer post of knight.
She and Jian Yong had been wallowing in self-pity when the other squad filed out of the waiting room. Instantly their eyes sharpened.
“Xuande. You’re certain about this? That a great upheaval will come next year?”
Jian Yong leaned in so close even the nearby followers could not hear, whispering for the hundredth time that week.
“I am. Remember the band of refugees we caught a few days ago?”
“Mm.”
Yesterday she had heard from old Zhang Shiping that the families’ relocation had already begun, so she finally told Jian Yong everything.
A week earlier a large group of refugees trying to cross into Bingzhou had been rounded up in Juyong County. Yu Bi’s squad, off duty at the time, had been called in. From one of those refugees she had heard something that made her eyes light up.
Zhang Jiao, the leader of the Way of Great Peace, is preparing a massive rebellion across eight provinces next March. I was a mid-level cadre, but I got scared, hid my identity, and I’m fleeing to Bingzhou. I’ve told you — please, let me and my family go…
The middle-aged man had begged as though his life depended on reaching Bingzhou.
Why Bingzhou of all places?
Because… Bingzhou was left out of the plan.
Yu Bi, following pure instinct, had spirited the man and his family away for private questioning. The information was clear: a vast rising would erupt in March across Qingzhou, Xuzhou, Youzhou, Jizhou, Jingzhou, Yangzhou, Yuzhou, and Yanzhou — eight provinces in all.
Why not report it to the court?
The court? If that useless Han imperial house loses, the retribution would be terrifying. Better just to hide in Bingzhou.
He knew little more — only that thirty-six Way of Great Peace branches across the eight provinces were plotting, and that March was the chosen month. Yu Bi had released the family that had, in effect, become her benefactors, warning them never to speak of it to another soul. Speak, and they would be beheaded as sowers of chaos.
From that day the dying embers of her ambition had blazed back to life.
“Xuande. You’ve moved your wife’s parents as well?”
“Of course. I asked Uncle Zhang Shiping to relocate every one of our brothers’ families to Shangdang Commandery in Bingzhou. It’ll be finished by the end of this month. Even Gukyang’s mother.”
At the mention of his wife, Yu Bi’s languid expression vanished; she smiled radiantly.
Her first wife had died years ago of illness. During the lean knight-errant years she had never even dreamed of remarrying. Then, early this year, she had met the woman who was now her first wife.
She had taken emergency leave to meet someone urgently in Yongnu County. There she had encountered her fated woman — Jeon Ye, courtesy name Gukyang. Already nearly adult in size despite her years, and strikingly lovely. Yu Bi had seen a mother and daughter being harassed by street thugs and moved to help; the fourteen-year-old girl was already fighting five of them herself. Whether from chivalry or the simple desire to impress a beauty, Yu Bi had stepped in and saved her. Wearing her military uniform, she had somehow drawn the girl’s interest first.
Juyong Pass? Ah! When I turn fifteen next year I was going to volunteer as a soldier — for Juyong Pass itself.
Gukyang? Truly?
Shared interest, the status of savior, and every ounce of Yu Bi’s natural charm — she had pursued Gukyang relentlessly. By summer both families had given consent and the marriage was sealed. Now Gukyang lived with her husband in this harsh frontier county, treating it as advance training for the soldier’s life she still intended, never once complaining. Brave, strong-willed, utterly endearing.
“Don’t worry, Xianhe. Even your cousins are being moved.”
“Mm. If you’re handling it, Xuande, it’ll be done properly. So what now?”
“I’ve talked it over a great deal with Gukyang. We only need to get the families into Bingzhou and then keep serving diligently here. I agree completely.”
Yu Bi’s great fortune was that her new wife was genuinely brilliant. Quick of judgment, skilled at gathering information and choosing the best course. She even investigated the lives of the northern tribes on her own and spent every free hour thinking how she and her husband might rise as generals.
“True enough. When the rebellion breaks, they’ll draft troops from here too, won’t they?”
“Exactly. That’s why next year I intend to bring Gukyang into our squad. I need her. I need her mind.”
Ambition burned in Yu Bi’s eyes as she spoke. Jian Yong saw it and smiled with quiet satisfaction; the followers who had come with them from Zhuo Commandery all smiled as one.
“Chaotic times… for bottom-feeders like us, chaos is the only road to advancement… right, Xianhe?”
One of the retainers from the old knight-errant days clapped Jian Yong on the shoulder and spoke the dangerous words aloud.
“Of course. In chaotic times, who says kings and marquises are born to it? Hahaha.”
The door creaked. Laughter died. Twelve pairs of eyes snapped toward the entrance; tension flooded the waiting room.
“What kind of treason are you plotting that you all shut up the moment I walk in?!”
A woman of about five foot nine, voice low and resonant, strode in with her helmet tucked under one arm. Long hair, neatly bound and swept back, framed a striking face.
Yu Bi’s group exhaled in collective relief.
“Elder Sister! At least make some noise when you walk!”
“Look at this man — balls the size of peas.”
Her rough scolding made Jian Yong flush and leap to his feet.
“Why so late? We go on duty in less than half an hour!”
“Hohoho. These things happen. More importantly, what amusing things was the Liu household saying that made everyone go silent the second I entered?”
Her expression changed completely depending on whom she faced. Toward Jian Yong she was coolly dismissive; toward Yu Bi her eyes melted with honeyed affection.
“Yigong, you made it. Did you bring Mother-in-law here safely?”
A week earlier, after receiving the intelligence, relocating the twelve families gathered in Zhuo Commandery had gone smoothly. Han Dang’s family, however, lived farther away; she had had to go herself.
Han Dang was originally from Yingzhi County in Liaoxi Commandery, but after her father’s death she had moved as a child to her mother’s hometown of Yongnu. At thirteen she had married a man from Zhuo and settled there. Five years ago both Yu Bi and Han Dang had lost their spouses. After Han Dang’s husband died, the two had somehow fallen into each other’s arms and begun sharing a bed.
Xuande, let’s not marry. Let’s just live like this.
All right, Yigong.
Those sweet days had been brief. One day Han Dang returned to Yongnu and left only a letter saying she was going down to Xuzhou. Early this year Yu Bi had taken emergency leave and raced after her to persuade her.
Han Dang’s mother had been arranging a remarriage; through a merchant she was negotiating a match with one of Sun Jian’s private soldiers serving as a clerk in Xiapi. Yu Bi had gone straight to Han Dang’s house after parting from Jeon Ye and spent three days and nights persuading the mother. In the end she had promised to take Han Dang as a secondary wife and brought her back — with great difficulty.
“Yes, Liu household. You still haven’t given me an answer.”
“…Within the week our parents will pass through here. Then let’s hold even a simple wedding ceremony, Yigong.”
With chaos almost upon them, Yu Bi could not bear to lose the woman standing before her — neither as a woman nor as a warrior. She had never met a fighter of Han Dang’s caliber; she had used the convenient excuse of both being widowed to court her with care. When Han Dang had spoken of leaving, the sky itself had seemed to fall. That trauma still lingered. Yu Bi decided she could no longer hide the secret of the Yellow Turbans from her hot-tempered lover; she advanced the wedding they had planned for next year.
If she kept the secret any longer, Han Dang might truly explode and walk away forever.
“Household? Truly?”
Yu Bi nodded.
“On the family register I am still of imperial blood. I receive no real privileges, but like the great clans I am legally allowed three principal wives. I will take you as a principal wife.”
Born in 156, the twenty-seven-year-old woman shed hot tears. Yu Bi’s followers quietly filed outside; Jian Yong scratched his head awkwardly and followed them. Yu Bi stepped forward and pulled Han Dang into a tight embrace.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been too indecisive.”
“No, household.”
Holding Han Dang, Yu Bi felt absolute certainty settle in her chest: with Jeon Ye’s mind, Han Dang’s martial prowess, and her own command and charisma, she could seize even the slenderest chance the coming chaos would offer.
