The Ten Attendants' Rebellion (2)
The Ten Attendants slew He Jin, then hurled his severed head before the officers and soldiers gathered outside the palace to await the Grand General, snarling threats at them and ordering them to withdraw.
"The traitor He Jin is dead!! You, his henchmen, share in his crime of treason — confine yourselves to your quarters and await your punishment!!"
But in their folly, announcing He Jin's assassination in hopes of breaking the Grand General's camp only brought calamity down upon the eunuchs' own heads.
"Avenge the Grand General!!"
"Purge the eunuch vermin!!"
The treacherous deed — luring He Jin in under pretense of an Empress Dowager's summons and butchering him — had set Yuan Shao and every officer and soldier under the Grand General's banner ablaze at once. The resentment these men had spent years swallowing toward the eunuchs erupted completely with He Jin's death.
They led their troops against the palace gates, smashing them open, and came charging headlong at the Ten Attendants with the force of an avalanche.
The Ten Attendants, who had done it all to cow the generals, were thrown into bewilderment by the sight of those same officers bearing down on them, united in fury and rolling in like thunder.
"Th-this is a disaster!! Yuan Shao and the Grand General's officers are bearing down on us!"
"S-stop them! Stop them at once!!"
As the Grand General's army under Yuan Shao collided with the Imperial Guards led by Jian Shuo, the palace where the august Son of Heaven dwelt drowned in blood and the screams of the dying, transformed into a living picture of hell. The sparks-flying clash of weapons rang through the grounds, and bright flames clawed at the sky.
The Imperial Guards thrust out their spears in a fury to halt the Grand General's troops' ferocious advance — but men grown fat and pampered under the Ten Attendants' patronage were never going to hold back the hardened soldiers led by Yuan Shao and Cao Cao.
Seeing the battle tipping against them little by little, Zhang Yang approached Zhao Zhong.
"...We're in trouble. It goes badly. We're being pushed back, inch by inch."
"Then what are we to do?!"
Zhang Yang, head of the Ten Attendants, wracked his brain. To stay was to die like dogs. Throwing themselves on the mercy of Yuan Shao and the Clear Stream worthies would avail nothing — those people despised them past all measure, and capture meant there was no future at all. Nor, he judged, would even Empress Dowager He shield them this time; no one on earth grants clemency to those who murdered her own brother. Which left a single way out: the protection of one of the other warlords He Jin had summoned.
"Two of the warlords He Jin called up from across the realm happen to be nearby, no? We have no choice but to entrust ourselves to them..."
A eunuch is a creature that lives parasitically off a host. If the great tree that had sheltered them had fallen, they need only find a new one to cling to.
"Then... to whom do you intend to go?"
Han Yeong of Liangzhou, leading his army out of Chang'an — and Ding Yuan of Bingzhou, plundering at Mengjin. Had it been Dong Zhuo rather than Han Yeong among the summoned warlords, he would have gone west and cast himself upon their old friendship, but that man's power lay in ruins, and he had received no summons this time. Worse, with Han Yeong the eunuchs shared nothing but bad blood, thanks to the affairs of Fa Yan and Dong Zhuo. Ding Yuan, at least, they had some dealings with, over the swarms of raiders pouring out of Bingzhou. Which made the answer simplicity itself.
"...We go to His Majesty. The north stands empty — while the Imperial Guards are still holding them off, we must slip out in the direction of Beimang Mountain."
"...Yes!!"
And so the two leaders, Zhang Yang and Zhao Zhong, slipped away without the knowledge of the other Ten Attendants still directing the fighting, and made for the Emperor in the Southern Palace. Yet as Zhao Zhong's back moved ahead of him, Zhang Yang could only watch it with eyes gone cold.
A long while passed after that. The reek of blood hung thick through every quarter of the palace, and blood had spattered the halls until they were stained a red so deep it seemed uncanny. The imperial palace, blazing fiercely in its shroud of crimson, had become a hell of carnage. The Imperial Guards who had stood against the Grand General's army, once Zhang Yang and Zhao Zhong slipped away, could endure no longer and were annihilated to the last man.
"P-please..."
Jian Shuo — the eunuch who had swaggered as he butchered He Jin and marched the Imperial Guards to war — sat slumped on the ground, his face drained a deathly gray, begging.
"G-General Yuan, spare me... You and I are both members of the Eight Colonels of the Western Garden, are we not?"
Weeping and sniveling without a shred of dignity, Jian Shuo groveled for his life before the woman standing over him — a pitiful sight one could hardly reconcile with the omnipotent power of the Ten Attendants, who had once seized the government and bent the court to their will.
But Yuan Shao answered the grotesque display only with a cold sneer.
"...How amusing. You looked down on me as the concubine-born daughter of the Runan Yuans — and did you not monopolize every last authority of the Western Garden's Eight Colonels for yourself?"
"Th-that was..."
Yuan Shao looked him over with glacial calm.
"Zhongjian. Cut him down."
"G-General!! Spare m—!!"
Shhk—!!
At her word, the general at Yuan Shao's side swung his blade without a flicker of feeling, and Jian Shuo's head left his shoulders.
"So Jian Shuo is dead as well. What will you do now, Benchu?"
"That leaves only Zhang Yang and Zhao Zhong, the heads of the Ten Attendants. We must seize them quickly."
Every eunuch remaining in the palace had been put to the sword — that much had succeeded. All that remained was to deal with Zhang Yang and Zhao Zhong and secure the Son of Heaven. Then at last she could step into the very center of power she had longed for all this time. She had to hurry, before Yuan Shu got his hands on the Emperor.
"Colonel!!"
A soldier sent to track the whereabouts of Zhang Yang and Zhao Zhong came running back.
"What is it?"
"Zhang Yang and Zhao Zhong have fled with His Majesty and the Prince of Chenliu from the palace!!"
"What did you say!?"
Cold sweat broke out on Yuan Shao at the bolt from the blue. This was disastrous. If the other side secured the Emperor, then a single misstep would see them branded as traitors instead.
"Pursue them at once!!"
"Yes, Colonel!!"
At her command the soldiers raced off as one after the fleeing pair. Where in the world has Mengde gone, at a time like this? Yuan Shao wondered where her friend had vanished to without a word, but she judged securing the Emperor the priority and bent her mind to that alone.
"Kwahahaha! Rich pickings! Who knew playing at being Black Mountain Bandits would be this much fun!"
Ding Yuan beamed ear to ear as he hugged to his chest the wealth wrung from the common folk while disguised as a Black Mountain Bandit. The hero whose name had once rung high for crushing the barbarians pressing in from the north had, as the years piled on, gone blind with honor and greed.
If I could enter Luoyang with this...
"Governor!!"
When one of his officers barged in, throwing up the tent flap without so much as a by-your-leave, Ding Yuan's brow furrowed.
"What's all this commotion about?"
"Something is gravely wrong in Luoyang!!"
"What?"
At his subordinate's words, Ding Yuan hurriedly bolted from the camp. Smoke was climbing into the sky from the direction of the imperial palace in Luoyang.
"...Has some calamity struck?"
He Jin had ordered him to pitch camp near Luoyang and stand by. Had He Jin been about to make his move, he would have sent word. Which could only mean the Ten Attendants had struck first.
"Governor!! A carriage is approaching this way at great speed!"
"What?"
Lavish in its ornament and its make — and coming from the direction of Luoyang, it could only belong to someone of exalted rank or high office.
"Halt!!"
At the suspicious carriage's approach, Ding Yuan's soldiers closed in, ringing it round with leveled weapons.
"Declare yourselves!! This is the camp of Ding Yuan, General and Governor of Bingzhou."
"I have come to the right place, then."
From the carriage that had drawn up near the camp alighted an old man with a withered, shabby air. The sight of the court robes worn by eunuchs thickened the soldiers' wariness all the more — for they knew full well that such men were the very ones marked for extermination this time.
"...Zhang Yang?"
At the sight of the eunuch, Ding Yuan knew him at once. Zhang Yang — one of the arch-traitors who had to be driven from Luoyang, head of the Ten Attendants, the fountainhead of every poison afflicting the Han. He had seen the man at court in years past, and recognition came in an instant.
"It has been a long time, General Ding Yuan."
At that oily greeting, Ding Yuan's face turned vicious, and his hand went to the sword at his hip.
"Have you lost your senses? You know full well I am the enemy of you Ten Attendants."
Ding Yuan was a warlord come at He Jin's summons — naturally, he counted as an ally of the Clear Stream. In ordinary times he had cultivated connections with Clear Stream and Turbid Stream alike, but standing now in the Clear Stream's camp, he bared his killing intent at Zhang Yang. A killing intent far too dense to belong to an old man pressed down upon Zhang Yang — yet his expression never lost its easy composure.
"Do not bare your fangs so, General. His Majesty and the Prince of Chenliu are sleeping."
"...!!"
Zhang Yang, who had ridden the Emperor's protection to the summit of power, knew precisely what manner of man stood before him — righteousness worn as a mask, a heart brimming with greed beyond any man's. Had Dong Zhuo still lived, he would have attached himself there, drawn by that man's might and their close ties — but with that faction in ruins, better to cling to Ding Yuan. Outwardly Zhang Yang played the picture of composure; inwardly he trembled like a leaf. In politics, the first rule was to keep one's poise and never show weakness, and so he disguised his fear of the killing intent with a studied calm.
"If you mean to seize me and sell me to the Clear Stream, General, I can hardly stop you. But — what if I could give you the thing you want?"
"...And what would that be?"
"The realm."
"...!!"
Zhang Yang, who had spent decades beguiling emperors and ministers alike with politics, judged it would be easy to beguile a man cooped up on the frontier crushing barbarians, with no head for politics at all.
"I will help you win all under heaven, General. Does that not tempt you?"
"..."
The honeyed promise of the realm shook Ding Yuan to his depths — for he harbored the ambition to break out of Bingzhou and become a power who commanded all under heaven.
"...Come with me, then. And not a word of this gets out!!"
"Zhao Zhong, you will remain here and watch over His Majesty."
After sealing the soldiers' lips, Ding Yuan took Zhang Yang to his own quarters.
"So. What business brings you to me?"
"General He Jin is dead, and the seat of Grand General stands empty. If I labor for you behind the scenes, the next Grand General will be you."
"Absurd. If the Clear Stream lays hands on you, you are a dead man. How, then, do you propose to help me?"
Zhang Yang let the growl wash past him with a deep, unshakable smile.
"Do you know who I am? The head of the Ten Attendants — holder of more treasure than any man at court."
"..."
"And I know the present currents of the court inside and out. You came running at He Jin's summons so that, by lending him your strength, you might carve out a place for yourself in the political world — am I wrong?"
Zhang Yang saw straight through to Ding Yuan's heart. The loyalty to the Han and the grand cause for the people that the young Ding Yuan had once carried no longer remained in this old, worn-out man; nothing filled him now but the hunger for advancement. That greed was what had brought him at He Jin's call — to aid in purging the Ten Attendants and claim a seat of his own. But to join hands with a faction already politically finished was a heavy gamble, and Ding Yuan only chewed on the dilemma. Then Zhang Yang struck at the one tender spot no man may touch: his inferiority.
"If you seize me and hand me over, does that credit come to you, General? The Yuans of Runan will gobble up every last seat of honor and leave you nothing, mark me."
"Th-that's—!"
The Yuans of Runan: Three Excellencies for four generations, the most celebrated of the great houses of the Central Plains — a pedigree among pedigrees. With Yuan Shao, Colonel of the Central Army, and Yuan Shu, General of the Household Rapid as Tigers, standing at He Jin's side — and the two of them at the fore of this purge of the Ten Attendants, harvesting the greatest laurels — a man lacking both pedigree and connections like Ding Yuan could only be shoved to the rear. And what was he by comparison? Merely a governor born in Bingzhou, one of those frontier provinces scorned by the men of the capital region. At the mention of those born to great houses' blood, jealousy and envy put out shoots in Ding Yuan's heart, and the scales of his long wavering tipped at last to one side.
"I will become your strategist and help you seize all under heaven! Then the place beneath one man and above ten thousand will be no dream!!"
True to a eunuch who had played the Emperors of Han upon a three-inch tongue, Zhang Yang coiled around Ding Yuan like a serpent.
"...But if they press you on why the leaders of the Ten Attendants came fleeing here, what answer will you give?"
"Is there not a suitable neck just over there? We take that as our proof and simply stage our deaths."
For Zhang Yang, one thing mattered above all: his own survival. Whether his comrade Zhao Zhong lived or died concerned him not at all.
"...And what is it you want from me?"
"Safety, and survival. That is quite enough."
Zhang Yang smiled his cunning smile and extended his hand.
"Well? Will you take my hand?"
Long had Ding Yuan chewed on the promise of standing at the very axis of power — and at the last, he could not beat back the temptation. He clasped Zhang Yang's hand.
And so, on that day, Zhang Yang and Zhao Zhong — and with them every last one of the Ten Attendants — met their deaths in the eyes of the world.