Dong Zhuo (4)
We made our way to the government office where the key civil and military officials had assembled. Several officers of warlord origin were already gathered inside.
My father took his seat, the generals and civil officials formed up in their ranks, and the envoy was shown in.
"...Fan Chou?"
"It has been a while, General Han. I have come this day as an envoy of General Dong Zhuo."
One of Dong Zhuo's officers—a member of the Four Robbers—greeted the assembly with a clasped-fist salute. He hailed from the same hometown as my father, and the two were clearly acquainted, yet a faint but unmistakable air of condescension clung to his manner.
Han Sui let the man's rudeness pass, and once Fan Chou had finished introducing himself, asked the purpose of his visit.
"...So, what business brings you here?"
"You are aware, I trust, that your army massacred the common people of our territory?"
That son of a bitch...
Fan Chou was shamelessly pinning a false charge on us—we who had merely put down traitors stood accused of slaughtering innocents—fanning the flames of fury in everyone present. The hot-blooded Ma Chao and Yan Xing looked ready to burst, the anger all but popping crosswise above their brows; the cool-headed Pang De and Fa Zheng let their eyes glint frost-cold; and Ma Teng and Fa Yan held their silence.
Han Sui, too shrewd a politician to miss the obvious, knew perfectly well that with Dong Zhuo having marched an army all this way, denying the accusation would accomplish nothing. So he went straight to the heart of the matter.
"What is it you want?"
"Vassalage."
"Vassalage, you say..."
He was speaking of an offer of surrender.
"We desire that the forces of General Han Sui and General Ma Teng pass, as they stand, under the command of our lord, General Dong Zhuo."
True to his master's tyranny, Fan Chou made the outrageous demand in a supremely arrogant tone.
In the original history, Han Sui and Ma Teng—rebels in those days—had been drawn into Dong Zhuo's service on the condition that their crimes of rebellion be pardoned. But we were governors now, legitimate officials of the Han court, not traitors. And unless it came from a Dong Zhuo who held the Emperor in his grasp and wielded truly immense power, the offer would not have held water to begin with.
Above all, for men who had built a power base here, surrender was a proposal that could not be accepted.
At Fan Chou's words, the warlord-born officers began to stir. Ma Wan, Cheng Yin, and the rest of them had little to gain from this war—their lord would simply change to Dong Zhuo, nothing more. Their situation was nothing like ours, with so much to lose.
"...And if we refuse?"
"Is that not obvious?"
Fan Chou laughed flippantly.
"His Excellency the General of the Household will crush you into submission by force, and then decide what is to be done with you."
Whew. The man's insane...
Where does he find the nerve to provoke us like this? Even in the games, this worthless trash with a Martial stat that never cracked 70 is one hell of an aggro-puller.
If his aim was to rattle us, he had passed with flying colors—Ma Chao and Yan Xing were already glaring daggers at him, for all the world ready to bash his skull in with their spears.
"A proposal that requires no thought at all."
The moment Han Sui declared his refusal, the faces of the warlord officers who had joined us only recently darkened.
"Give it some thought, at least. It is out of regard for the bond between men of the same hometown as yourself, General, that I have come to this table. An offer such as this is by no means a common—"
"We're refusing. Now get the hell out."
Unable to stomach his shameless clinging a moment longer, I spat out the words, and Fan Chou's brows knitted as his features twisted into something vicious.
"...You insolent whelp! Do you have any idea who you're—!!"
The moment he started toward me, Yan Xing, who had been guarding my side, whipped out his blade in a flash and set its edge against Fan Chou's throat. Caught utterly off guard by Yan Xing's blinding speed, Fan Chou froze solid where he stood.
Han Sui checked Yan Xing with a glance and bade Fan Chou take his leave.
"That will be all. You may go."
"...I only spoke for your sake, General. You will surely come to regret this."
At Han Sui's words, Fan Chou shook his head and withdrew.
It's true enough that he's from the same hometown... but whether he said any of it for our sake, I rather doubt.
Li Jue and Guo Si stuck in my memory for the weight they carried in history's great events, and Zhang Ji as well, being Zhang Xiu's uncle—but Fan Chou was nothing more than a name to me. As far as I knew, the man's historical significance was so pathetically thin that the only thing I could recall about him was that he had been purged by Li Jue for letting Han Sui, his fellow townsman, slip away.
Which means he's either here to provoke our army before the war and cloud our judgment—or, if not that...
I began to study the faces of the others in the chamber.
Though I had delivered the refusal in my father's stead, the mood in the room had sunk into a heavy gloom, and reactions ran the whole gamut.
"That bastard... I can't stand him. Acting all high and mighty, provoking us like he's somebody."
"Exactly what I was thinking. He's the one who behaved like a savage first, and then he pulls that crap on the young master?"
Ma Chao's temper boiled over at Fan Chou, who had strutted about so arrogantly on his faith in Dong Zhuo, and Yan Xing, echoing her sentiments, slid his drawn sword back into its sheath. The officers who had long served in our army were indignant at the man's insolence, making no effort to hide their displeasure.
"...And yet, my lord. Rude as the man's manner was, they say the army under Dong Zhuo is fierce and battle-hardened. Ought we not at least weigh the option of surrender?"
"Quite so. They say Dong Zhuo rewards able subordinates handsomely regardless of their birth, so weighing it... does not seem a bad notion."
But a few of the warlord-born showed open skepticism about antagonizing Dong Zhuo. They had never been part of our army from the beginning, after all—they owed us no fealty, and had no reason they must stand against him.
Han Sui, finding some merit in their words, bowed his head and fell into deep anguish.
In his youth he had been more ambitious than any man alive, and he had the record of rebellion to prove it—but the price had been his wife. Had there not been the child his beloved wife left behind, Han Sui himself might well have defied the Han court to the very end, banner raised high, spewing out all the grief and rage of a man who had lost the woman he loved. That his brilliant son had accepted the offer to join forces with Ma Teng, too, had sprung from one fear above all: that Han Yeong would never be safe if they bowed to the Han court. For Han Sui, nothing in this world outweighed his child's life.
If one more wrong choice of mine is what undoes Han Yeong...
Even as he proclaimed his refusal of Dong Zhuo's offer, Han Sui remained in the grip of a quiet dread.
"...Han Yeong."
When my father, still deep in deliberation, called my name, I turned to him.
"Yes, Father."
"What do you judge is the right course?"
...?
Why was he asking me? I couldn't begin to guess what was in my father's heart, but I answered with exactly what I thought.
"...To begin with, I believe we must not accept any proposal that urges us to surrender."
"Why so?"
"Dong Zhuo is generous to his own men. Savage and cruel as his temperament may be, he has truly mastered the art of gratifying the desires of subordinates who distinguish themselves and of binding their hearts to him."
In fact, Dong Zhuo cherished his men to the point of dividing among them the very spoils he received as rewards. It was no accident that men like Li Jue and Guo Si followed him.
"...Then ought we not accept, after all?"
"But if we become Dong Zhuo's men, our power will end its days as nothing more than gatekeepers for Liang Province—and with it vanishes any chance of becoming loyal vassals of the Han who uphold the Emperor."
At those words, my father's face hardened for a long moment. My words had carried a great deal of meaning. All the world knew that Dong Zhuo coveted power—that he was a corrupt ruler who had purchased his new offices with bribes to the Ten Attendants. Why else would Cao Cao have denounced He Jin's plan to summon Dong Zhuo against the Ten Attendants as the height of folly—loosing a tiger to drive out a den of foxes?
"You believe we have a chance of winning if we resist?"
This foe was nothing like the rebel armies of the past, which had been little more than hordes of untrained bandits banded together. Dong Zhuo's soldiers, like our own, had already shattered foreign tribes again and again and displayed a magnificent martial bearing; the officers beneath him were said to be exceedingly numerous, and every last one of them ferocious beyond measure.
Yet even faced with my father's worry, I answered with confidence.
"We do."
It was not that I was perfectly certain of victory—I knew full well that Dong Zhuo's host was no pushover. Nor was the answer mine alone to give.
And yet—
Han Yeong turned his head and cast his gaze over the many people gathered in that chamber.
"Because I believe in the outstanding generals of our army."
He simply trusted in our army's peerless warriors and its brilliant strategists. As fighters, Ma Chao and Pang De—who stood in a class the Dong Zhuo army could not touch—went without saying, and Yan Xing and Ma Teng were masters of arms in their own right. Fa Zheng was a strategist of genius who, young as she was, would not be found wanting even trading wits with Jia Xu, and Fa Yan, too, was superb in the management of civil affairs. There was not a single cause for fear that our army would lose.
"...Whew. Very well."
He, too, knew well the martial valor of his sworn brother Ma Teng, and of Ma Teng's daughter Ma Chao. Pang De's swordsmanship and Fa Zheng's cunning, however, he knew only through the reports that reached me, never having witnessed either with his own eyes, and so they had still looked like grounds for doubt. But looking into Han Yeong's eyes, Han Sui let out a long, deep breath and at last made his decision. He had watched his son grow for many years; he could read him. Those eyes proclaimed a will that would never be broken.
"We will stand against Dong Zhuo's savage army and fight to protect Liang Province! Prepare to march out—!!"
"YES—!!!"
As if in answer to his cry, every general under his command—warlord-born excluded—thundered in reply.
"Hm... So this is Jincheng Commandery?"
A woman with hair white as fresh snow looked out over the city streets where the common people made their lives.
"How interesting."
By rights, the more developed and prosperous land should have been the Yongzhou region, not Liang Province—yet compared with the territories Dong Zhuo ruled, the faces of the people here looked far, far brighter.
"I believe I shall wander about for a time. Follow me."
The rugged giant of a man escorting her answered not a word, only gave a silent nod and fell in behind her.