The Call to Arms (1)
Just as I had predicted, a proclamation came flying in, urging the governors and magistrates of every commandery to rise up with their armies and crush Ding Yuan, the man plunging the realm into crisis.
This was the greatest event of the early story—the famous "national rice bowl" that anyone who knew Romance of the Three Kingdoms could recite by heart.
The Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition.
Here, of course, the tyrant who had trampled the imperial house and monopolized state affairs was Ding Yuan instead, making it the Anti–Ding Yuan Coalition... but there were a few differences.
For one, rather than Cao Cao drafting the proclamation as in the Romance, it had come down—as in the official histories—through Qiao Mao, who forged an imperial edict and dispatched it to the warlords across the land.
And for another, while the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition of history had formed in the year 190, this proclamation had flown out in mid-189.
Whether in the histories or the Romance, there was a reason the coalition against Dong Zhuo could never be glossed over in any telling of the Three Kingdoms: it established the justification for taking up arms.
The power of provincial governors had swelled under Liu Yan's policies, yet this campaign against Dong Zhuo remained a singularly rare case—provincial officials raising private armies to attack the central government despite holding no personal ties to the territories they ruled. Moreover, from the moment of that campaign onward, governors, administrators, and every other local official in the land carved themselves into forces utterly independent of the court.
The Yellow Turban Rebellion had already strengthened their hands. Now they had become fully autonomous warlords in their own right.
...I suppose I'll have to join in.
I, too, received the proclamation that had flown from Yanzhou to Yongzhou—along with a single letter accompanying it.
It would be a tedious route—out of Yongzhou, through Nanyang Commandery of Jingzhou, and finally east into Guandong—but our army, too, could join the coalition.
Granted, the place would be crawling with those Clear Stream Faction bureaucrats who had shunned me and backed Ding Yuan, which made the prospect of meeting them insufferably irritating...
And honestly, instead of joining the coalition, I could simply exploit the moment when the coalition and Ding Yuan's forces tore into each other, sweeping down through Hangu Pass to strike Luoyang from behind.
But there are certain commanders at the coalition I absolutely must meet—and leave a mark on.
Beyond Cao Cao, whom I had seen before, there were the men who could rightly be called the true protagonists of the Three Kingdoms.
Anyone with an ounce of affection for Shu would attend the coalition without question—whether to recruit them or to forge strong friendships for the future.
First, though, I read the letter from Cao Cao that had arrived with the proclamation.
It has been far too long, Han Yeong. Did you not miss your big sister's embrace?
...I never once rested in your embrace, thanks.
Though I am not yet even twenty, Cao Cao had written to me as though I were her own little brother.
Having fought a battle against Ding Yuan's army and annihilated the enemy at your rear, and now laboring to guard Prince Fufeng for the sake of the Han—your efforts do you credit.
Cao Cao had opened her letter with praise for my labors.
I still cannot forget that day. When we met alone in that chamber, the candle flames swayed and shimmered, and the white silk curtains caught your gaze burning hot as you looked at me. That fierce stare of yours—I find it hard to forget even now.
"...What kind of nonsense is this."
The thing was stuffed to the brim with content that anyone who read it would badly misread.
I skimmed past the unnecessary teasing with my eyes and moved on.
Enough with the jokes. Let us get to the point. The reason I write to you separately, Han Yeong, is this: I ask that you escort Prince Fufeng to Guandong and join the coalition with him at your side. His Highness will serve as the very heart of—and the justification for—our Anti–Ding Yuan Coalition.
So that's how it is...
Truthfully, from the moment Cao Cao had entrusted Liu Xie to me, I had suspected she intended to assign the girl some role in the coalition through her.
If Liu Xie, an imperial of the royal bloodline, becomes the spine and spiritual pillar of the Anti–Ding Yuan Coalition, we secure legitimacy in one stroke.
As for the forged edict—if it was framed as something done in order to rescue the Emperor, it would be pardoned under her protection.
Having finished the letter, I folded the paper neatly in half and set it down on the desk.
"That's the end of Cao Cao's business... Time to gather the civil and military officials and convene a council."
Thinking I would need to inform Liu Xie of this separately, I rose from my seat. Then, before the council began, I sent word to Uncle Ma Teng in Wuwei and to my father in Jincheng, asking them both to come to Chang'an.
"It's been a while, Han Yeong."
When my father approached—nearly two years since we had last met—I answered with a silent smile and an embrace.
"Have you been well, Father?"
"Lonely, without your face around, but I've been well. The trade is flowing smoothly, too."
My father was currently pacifying the foreign tribes and opening up the Liangzhou region to establish trade with the Western Regions—the Silk Road.
As for Uncle Ma Teng, I had seen him at the campaign against Dong Zhuo, so we skipped the pleasantries. Seong Sa'yeong, meanwhile, could not come, as he was holding Jincheng in my father's stead.
"It seems everyone has gathered."
The core commanders of our army had all assembled together for the first time since the Battle of Zhidi. The difference was that, unlike then, I now stood as the lord of this realm, and new figures filled the seats around me.
I cleared my throat and shifted into the tone of a lord addressing his vassals.
"The council will now begin. The matter that brings you all here today is the proclamation that has set the whole realm abuzz."
When I handed the proclamation to Jia Xu at my side, she drew every eye in the hall with her clear, elegant voice and read its contents aloud.
Once the assembled officers had heard the contents of the proclamation against Ding Yuan, they began offering their own opinions, each in turn.
"Do we actually need to join the coalition? While Ding Yuan and the coalition grind each other bloody, why don't we just push through Hangu Pass and seize Luoyang ourselves?"
In a word, it was a strategic proposal to reap the fisherman's profit while the coalition and Ding Yuan's army bled each other dry.
What stunned Ma Teng and several of the other commanders into silence was that this opinion had come from none other than Ma Chao.
For a girl whose approach to everything had always been headlong and impulsive, the strategic analysis drew gasps of admiration. Apparently her recent visits to Fa Zheng to study military strategy had opened something up in her head.
It's not a bad idea.
Even if Ding Yuan had scraped together a great host by forcibly conscripting troops from the Black Mountain Bandits, the White Wave Bandits, and every corner of his territory, the moment the warlords of the realm formed a coalition and invaded, he would naturally concentrate his forces on the eastern front.
Lu Bu, Zhang Liao, and his other finest generals would surely be posted at Hulao Pass, the gateway to Luoyang.
Ma Chao's proposal was to slip through Hangu Pass in the west during that window, seize Luoyang, and take the prize for ourselves.
However...
"Your idea has merit, but I see it differently."
"Why?"
"If we don't join the coalition, the warlords will look on us with hostility and brand us as schemers with ambitions of our own."
Refusing to participate in the Guandong Coalition—an army founded under the banner of defending the Han—would see us marked as an enemy of every lord in the land.
And if I simply seized Luoyang while Lu Bu and Zhang Liao held Hulao Pass, there was every chance the others would cook up any number of pretexts to drive me out as well.
The Clear Stream Faction already tried to shove me aside once. They'd hardly welcome me now.
Besides, Cao Cao had done me a good turn back in Luoyang—I owed her the favor.
And the biggest reason of all: I wanted to meet the three great strategists of Yu Province who would be at the coalition, and recruit them.
But that's knowledge only I possess. Not something I can say aloud.
"...So we are joining the coalition, then."
"We are. In exchange, I intend to make use of our geographical advantage and split the army into two forces."
I had been picking up military strategy and governance from Fa Zheng and Jia Xu now and then, and I already had a plan in mind to a certain degree.
And if there were any gaps or flaws in it, the two of them would be sure to point them out.
"Compared to the other provinces, our territory enjoys surplus in its civil administration and its armaments are in fine order, so dividing into two detachments will pose no difficulty."
"How do you intend to divide them, my lord?"
"One army to take Hangu Pass and march on Luoyang, and a separate detachment to join the Guandong Coalition. That's precisely why I asked Father and Uncle to come."
I intended to take fifteen thousand men and Liu Xie to link up with the coalition in Guandong, while committing everything else—aside from the minimum garrison needed to hold the frontier tribes and keep the peace—to Hangu Pass.
Of those, five thousand would be devoted to guarding Liu Xie closely, meaning the force I would actually command in the field was ten thousand.
"Uncle, I ask that you lead forty thousand men to take and secure Hangu Pass. Xu Rong and Yan Xing will be attached to your command as well."
My plan was to place Xu Rong—a commander of rare talent in handling large armies—and Yan Xing, a fierce general more than fit to lead the vanguard, under Ma Teng's banner.
Lu Bu would almost certainly be deployed at Hulao Pass, facing the coalition with its greater numbers.
And even in the unlikely event she were posted to Hangu Pass, it would be simple enough to order our men to retreat the moment she appeared—Lu Bu, after all, did not ride Red Hare.
"Why go to all this trouble, though?"
When my uncle asked, I laid out my reasoning point by point.
"First, I need an army that moves on my own initiative, regardless of what the coalition decides."
Once the coalition formed, someone would be elected its leader, and once we were folded into that organization, moving our forces freely on our own would become far harder.
That went doubly for a coalition as hopeless as the historical one—where Dong Zhuo's host terrified them into paralysis, while the other warlords, green with envy at anyone scoring a victory, squabbled amongst themselves instead of fighting.
A pack of mouths mouthing lofty slogans about the realm, the people, and the imperial house—while every one of them tallied his own gains and losses.
"Second, if I station an army at Hangu Pass, I can respond the moment any crisis erupts in Liangzhou—and I can press Ding Yuan in Luoyang from east and west simultaneously."
If we split his gaze and his troops with a two-front assault, the coalition's attacks and ours would come far more easily. Squeezed from both sides, Ding Yuan would not be able to hold.
And I must also guard against a cornered Ding Yuan setting Luoyang aflame.
Given how closely his temperament mirrored Dong Zhuo's, the moment he fell into dire straits he might well loot the treasures of Luoyang and flee to Bingzhou.
If I positioned the army with that in mind, then even if disaster struck Luoyang, we could race over from Hangu Pass in time to prevent the carnage.
At the speed of Xiliang cavalry, more than time enough.
"For the army joining the coalition, I will take the field myself, along with Ma Chao, Pang De, Xu Huang, and Zheng Tai."
With those three warriors at my side, we could ride out any disaster at the coalition and extricate ourselves safely.
Xu Huang in particular would be charged with holding off any treacherous elements who reached for Liu Xie. Trust between us was well established, but there was no telling who might come sniffing around at the coalition.
As for Zheng Tai, he had requested to join the army heading into Guandong, saying he had a means of contacting Xun You inside Luoyang.
And when commanding infantry rather than cavalry, Pang De would take over guarding Liu Xie in Xu Huang's place—the two of them alternating duties.
There was another reason I insisted on going to the coalition myself: to make Ding Yuan negligent in his defenses to the west.
If I, the lord of the realm, marched east at the head of my generals, he would naturally let his western vigilance slacken.
"Father, I ask that you govern Chang'an in my stead. Su Ze and Yang Fu will attend you at your side."
Then I turned to my chief strategists.
"And I would have one of you—Fa Zheng or Jia Xu—join each of the two armies as its strategist."
Father and Su Ze would handle the governing of Chang'an, while civil administration could be left to Fa Yan and Yang Fu.
I had agonized over how to deploy my two core strategists... but on this, better to let them decide for themselves.
"Then I shall attach myself to General Ma Teng's army."
Jia Xu volunteered herself and was assigned to Uncle Ma Teng's force, and Fa Zheng was naturally attached to the army under my command.
"Good. So be it."
Once the reorganization of the army was settled, we exchanged opinions at length on the coalition and the state of the realm.