The Return (3)
"Welcome back, my lord."
As we returned to Chang'an with Liu Xie—newly invested as the Prince of Fufeng—under our protection, Fa Zheng came out at the head of an army to greet us.
Once we had granted Liu Xie the finest mansion in Chang'an as her residence for the time being, I moved about in the company of Jia Xu and Fa Zheng, asking the two of them about the string of events that had unfolded in Yong Province.
"How are Dong Zhuo's forces faring?"
When I asked after Dong Zhuo—the first of our enemies to successfully stage a comeback—Fa Zheng answered in a level, unshaken tone.
"They had advanced as far as Beidi Commandery, but the moment word arrived that you were hastening your return, my lord, they hurriedly fell back to Anding."
...As expected.
Dong Zhuo, nursing his grudge over the loss of Yong Province, had apparently pulled this stunt in the hope that I would be forced to retreat from Luoyang. But could a man so thoroughly crushed by defeat really make such a cold, calculated call? I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was pulling strings behind this scheme.
Whoever got that pig's rump moving—the beast had been cowering in Anding, paralyzed with fear—was someone else entirely...
With Li Ru dead and his spirit beaten to tatters by defeat after defeat at our hands, a scheme like this could never have sprung from Dong Zhuo's own head.
Does he have another strategist besides Li Ru? Or is he simply moving on someone's orders...?
There had to be a separate figure behind it—someone who had instructed him to join hands with the Qiang tribes, the sworn enemies of the Han, and land a blow.
And if you asked who had profited most from this whole affair, the answer was Ding Yuan, without question. Our withdrawal had handed him complete control of the Luoyang government without his suffering a single further loss.
If we had heard the news and refused to withdraw, Dong Zhuo would have hurled himself straight at Chang'an and thrown everything into jeopardy.
To be sure, with Fa Zheng there and Uncle Ma Teng holding Wuwei, we would hardly have crumbled at a touch—but with the bulk of our main forces away in Luoyang, the damage could still have been grave. The soldiers we had brought up from Liang and Yong Provinces might well have seen their morale sag under worry for the families they'd left behind.
"...Hah. I should have wiped Dong Zhuo out as fast as I possibly could, back when I had the chance."
All of this was the aftershock of the Ten Attendants' rebellion erupting earlier than it should have. Just as Gongsun Zan had refused He Jin's summons under the pretext of defending You Province, it would have been wiser for us as well to cook up some plausible excuse, buy time, crush Dong Zhuo first, and only then march on Luoyang.
I moved in haste, obsessed with securing the Emperor's person...
Of course, the outcome hadn't been entirely barren—we had gained Xu Rong, a man who could honestly be called a fierce general, and we had acquired the great piece that was Liu Xie. Even so, with that turn of history erupting ahead of schedule, I couldn't shake the sense of being dragged about endlessly in its wake.
...And yet, something's off. There shouldn't be a single soul on Ding Yuan's side worth calling a strategist.
Whoever had engineered our army's withdrawal to Chang'an had to be in Ding Yuan's camp, and yet his people had no proper strategist to speak of. From Lu Bu on down, their ranks were a parade of born soldiers and nothing else. If I had to name one clever head among them, it would be Zhang Liao—but even she, brilliant as she was at commanding troops and reading a battlefield, would never have conceived of schemes like these.
The coincidence of Ding Yuan being first to secure the Emperor's person. The political adroitness with which he won Luoyang's officials over to his side. Weigh it all together, and someone is standing behind that man.
Perhaps that figure had even played a hand in throwing the Luoyang affair into disarray this time around.
While I was still gnawing over the scheme Ding Yuan had sprung, Fa Zheng, at my side, spoke up.
"By the way, my lord."
She asked, plainly puzzled.
"The Prince of Chenliu... no—why is His Highness the Prince of Fufeng here, of all places...?"
My traveling in Liu Xie's company had come out of nowhere as far as she was concerned, and she looked thoroughly nonplussed. I had sent word ahead after meeting Liu Xie in Hedong, but bringing her back this abruptly, the reaction was only fair.
"...Fair enough. It just sort of worked out that way."
History had bent for many reasons—Ding Yuan seizing the Luoyang government in place of Dong Zhuo, whose power had collapsed wholesale, among them—and one of the largest was that the Prince of Chenliu, the one who should have ascended the throne as Emperor, had seen the fief changed to Fufeng Commandery and been brought here instead.
Had events flowed as originally written, Cao Cao would have gone to Wang Yun to borrow the Seven-Star Precious Sword and assassinate Ding Yuan, the powerholder she would have found waiting in Luoyang.
Instead, after losing to me in battle, Ding Yuan had thrown herself into the war and left the management of Luoyang's interior to Cao Cao, neglecting it—and seizing that opening, Cao Cao had consulted with Wang Yun, drawn up a plan, and spirited the Prince of Chenliu away. Ding Yuan, predictably enraged, had tried to take her into custody, but by then Cao Cao was already out of Luoyang and fleeing into Yan Province.
...Then does that mean the massacre of Lü Boshe's household will never happen either?
In the history I knew, Cao Cao had tried to assassinate Dong Zhuo with the Seven-Star Precious Sword, failed, and been captured in flight. With the help of Chen Gong, then the magistrate of Zhongmu County, she had escaped, and to throw off pursuit she had lodged at the home of Lü Boshe, an old friend of her father Cao Song's. There, at the sound of a blade being whetted, she had leapt to the conclusion that her host meant to kill her—and slaughtered the entire family. Only after fleeing did she realize it had been a misunderstanding; meeting Lü Boshe on the road, she and Chen Gong traded one excuse after another, until at last Cao Cao hardened her heart and cut him down as well.
The words she spat at the aghast Chen Gong were the moment that laid bare why she would one day be called the Hero of Chaos.
Truly a line—and a famous saying—that spoke for the ruthlessness and cruelty of Cao Cao, the Hero of Chaos. Chen Gong, thereafter disillusioned, would come to regret ever sparing her life, and the two would part ways.
But with history bent off its course, none of that will come to pass now.
In a sense, it had been the very incident in which Cao Cao, a loyal servant of Han, first showed the sprouting of her true colors—the omen of her darkening into the Hero of Chaos—so I honestly couldn't decide whether to call it a mercy that it would never happen.
Well. I'll think about that later.
First, there was Dong Zhuo to deal with...
"...For now, marching out immediately is beyond us."
"Agreed, my lord. The men are worn hollow from the march to Luoyang, and the cold and snow make any advance punishing. Best to wait—keep the troops drilled and ready until the skies clear and the snow has melted down a little."
I nodded at Jia Xu's answer. With impeccable timing, that bastard had pulled out just as the blizzard came down—he had lucked himself into a longer life.
The chill that gnawed beneath the skin like a north wind driving bitter snow, and the white flakes dyeing the world, had frozen the rivers solid and laid frost across the earth. Our army's strength was its cavalry, and cavalry died easily in a deep freeze; the enemy, for their part, knew perfectly well they couldn't win an open battle and would choose to hole up behind their walls. Stockpiling provisions and arms until the snow melted, readying ourselves for Dong Zhuo's subjugation, was indeed the soundest course.
Of course, that stretch of time wouldn't be long. The moment the snow melted, we marched.
"By the way—how are we to attend to His Highness the Prince of Fufeng?"
Fa Zheng, who had entered court office through me barely a short while ago, wore an uncharacteristically troubled look. She had never imagined a prince of the imperial blood would be dropped in her lap without warning, so it couldn't be helped.
"We serve her to the very best of our ability, as befits a prince of the realm. With complete devotion. And we'll be careful about the people we assign to her."
Unlike Ding Yuan, I intended to show her sincerity at every turn and win her trust.
"Yes, my lord. For the present, we have given her the most spacious and far-reaching estate in the recovered Chang'an County."
Chang'an had been designed as a city for high officials to dwell in, a place that stood comparison with the capital Luoyang itself; for one of imperial blood like Liu Xie, it would cause no great discomfort.
I carried on the council after that, talking matters through with my staff of strategists.
That night, under a hazy moon.
Since returning to Yong Province, Ma Chao—her shoulder wound from Lu Bu finally treated—had shut herself away in the training grounds, rehabilitating a body gone dull and slow.
KWAANG-!!
Her spear, thrust straight and true, split the empty air and slammed into the training dummy with a fierce, dull boom.
"Hah... hah..."
White-blonde hair streaming, Ma Chao gulped down ragged breaths and swung the training spear in her hands without mercy. With every violent movement, the sweat beading sharp on her forehead dropped away and darkened the ground.
The wound on her shoulder had all but healed, but at the sight of the faint scar that remained, the events of days past would not be shaken loose from her head.
Her first defeat—handed to her by Lu Bu, the Unrivaled Under Heaven. The world was wide, and she had always supposed that somewhere in it were generals her equal, or stronger, than herself, the strongest in Liang Province. She had thought, at the very least, that such a foe would be near her level, that they would fight to a standstill. Instead, she had been stretched to her limit just holding her guard, and in the end she had taken a wound on top of it all.
If it had been a simple duel, a bare contest of martial skill, she might have chafed at the thought that her own ability had fallen short—but she could have accepted it. But this—
If only I hadn't lost so helplessly...
If she had beaten Lu Bu... no, if she had at least held her own, matched her strength for strength, then Pang De or Yan Xing could have taken the head of the fleeing Ding Yuan, and they would have held power in Luoyang on the merit of driving out the traitor. The guilt of it—that the retreat had come about because of her own wound—would not leave Ma Chao's mind.
In that battle, everyone had done their part. Jia Xu had turned counter-espionage and fire to sweep away the enemy and sow chaos, and Pang De had snared Xu Rong with bow-work nothing short of divine. Yan Xing, playing the decoy, had likewise taken the heads of Sun Jing and Wang Fang, generals out of the Black Mountain Bandits.
But her?
She alone had failed to win any shining merit in that battle, and had taken a wound besides, dragging the whole situation down. Han Yeong had told her not to dwell on it—had worried over her injury instead—but the fact that she had been the one to hobble Han Yeong set Ma Chao's blood boiling.
She had let Dong Zhuo slip through her fingers. She had let Ding Yuan escape. And against Lu Bu she had been smashed, crushed, and beaten. Ever since Han Yeong had become her first friend, she had striven without pause, from childhood on, to be of use to him. Had she grown complacent, drunk on her own fame after flaunting the name of Splendid Ma Chao across the Central Plains?
Impatience and unease she had never once felt in her life came flooding in.
...I have to get stronger.
Acutely aware that her own martial skill was still far too wanting to stand against the Unrivaled Under Heaven, Ma Chao swung her spear once more, sunk deep in self-loathing, and hammered it into the dummy. The physician had told her to rest for the time being—but if she didn't put a weapon in her hands this instant, she felt the helplessness and the self-loathing would drive her mad.
And watching that back of hers from behind—having been ordered by Han Yeong to keep an eye on her—Pang De looked on with worried eyes.