The Proclamation (2)
When the meeting at the government office concluded, I went to attend Liu Xie for an audience and delivered the news that the Guandong Coalition had been founded.
"...And so, under the banner of subjugating the archtraitor, the coalition army has been formed."
"Is that so?"
Young as she was, Liu Xie was carrying out her duties as an imperial princess with the help of her attendants, and at my report she smiled with what seemed genuine delight.
She looked purely happy at the news that the warlords of the realm had joined hands in alliance to remove the archtraitor Ding Yuan, who threatened the peace of the nation, and to rescue a people mired in turmoil.
...Even though most of them had no shred of loyalty to the Han house at all.
Yuan Shu and the great majority of those warlords were men who wrapped themselves in the guise of loyal Han vassals while grasping for power.
"The lords hope that Your Highness will personally make the journey to Guandong and take up the post of central pillar of the coalition army."
Central pillar in name—in truth, nothing more than a pretext.
That Ding Yuan had moved to depose the reigning emperor, Liu Bian, and set Liu Xie up in his place as the new Son of Heaven was already a fact so openly proclaimed that even a child of three knew of it.
It was to avert that catastrophe—an emperor swapped out, the nation degraded into a puppet state enslaved to Ding Yuan—that Cao Cao, deceiving the man's watchful eyes, had sent Liu Xie to me.
His attempt to enthrone her had only been the beginning; Ding Yuan went on to practice a tyranny that wrung the people's lifeblood dry and called up a chorus of resentment.
Toying with power for his own amusement, heaping indignity upon the imperial house—a litany of outrages, one after another.
Such was the grand justification: to raise Princess Liu Xie—imperial blood of the late Emperor, and a prince of the imperial clan besides—as the symbol of the anti-Ding Yuan coalition.
She falls short of Liu Bian, the rightful heir and reigning emperor, but she is still the late Emperor's own flesh—and where legitimacy of blood is concerned, Liu Xie yields to no one.
To the eyes of the world, this war would be a picture of a younger sister leading a coalition to rescue her brother, the emperor caught in a traitor's grip.
"I... am to go in person..."
Liu Xie, who had been gladdened that the warlords had united to save her brother Liu Bian, began to sink into dejection at the news that she herself must go to Guandong.
Not that it was an unreasonable demand.
The coalition was lined wall to wall with Clear Stream faction men, and not one of them would take Liu Xie's personal side—they approached her only to make use of her as a political instrument.
Though still a child in years, Liu Xie understood her own wretched circumstances all too well—and so she wore that expression.
"...Han Yeong. What do you think?"
Liu Xie looked at me—the man who had sworn his fealty not to a princess serving as a political instrument, but to her as she was: Prince of Fufeng, a liege of the Han court.
"Do you, too, judge that I must go?"
"...I know well what it is that troubles Your Highness."
After a moment's deliberation, I gave my answer.
"But this war has meaning only if Your Highness takes part in it."
In the official histories as in the Romance, the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition had ultimately failed, crumbling before it could ever bring Dong Zhuo down.
In the original history, the Guandong Coalition had broken into infighting and torn itself apart without ever achieving its purpose.
Worse, the only ones who had truly fought were Wang Kuang, Cao Cao, Bao Xin, and Sun Jian—and of those four, the only one who had traded blow for blow with Dong Zhuo in a running bloodbath was Sun Jian himself.
And since Sun Jian served under Yuan Shu's military command, that struggle had been, in effect, a duel between Yuan Shu and Dong Zhuo.
Of the countless lords who gathered, a mere four had shown any will to fight; then, after Liu Dai put Qiao Mao to death—the very man who had forged the imperial edict to rally the warlords—they fell to feuding among themselves until the coalition shattered.
But what if Liu Xie were to observe the campaign?
With the reigning emperor's own sister watching, the lords would grow desperate to catch her eye—driven not by any wish to avoid loss, but by the hunger to earn merit.
Of course, even then, some might prove of little use—or worse, fawn upon Liu Xie with treasonous designs—which was precisely why I intended to keep Xu Huang at her side.
"The fighting will be done by myself and the other warlords. It is enough that Your Highness look on with quiet dignity. And should any of them approach you with impure intent, I will drive him away myself."
At my words, Liu Xie's expression finally eased, as though she could at last breathe freely.
"...You are right. My brother cannot yet escape the traitor's clutches; even now he suffers. How could I, his sister, sit at ease?"
Liu Xie's face set with sudden resolve as she spoke.
"I shall make for Guandong as well. ...It is a shameless thing to ask, I know—but protect me."
At those words, I sank to one knee and paid her the full honors of a vassal.
"I shall serve you with all my heart and soul!!"
Having secured her answer that she would go to Guandong, I brought my private conversation with Liu Xie to a close—and on my way out, at the entrance, I came face to face with a woman.
Her hair was the soft pink of peony blossoms, and her beauty was of a kind that no one under heaven could hope to rival.
She was, quite literally, peerless—a beauty so exquisite she might have sprung from fiction, a woman counted among the Four Great Beauties of China.
She was Diaochan, whom Wang Yun had sent to accompany Liu Xie.
With a lovely smile like a flower in radiant bloom, she offered me a friendly greeting.
"It has been some time, General Who Pacifies the West."
These days she served as Liu Xie's most trusted maid, aiding and attending to her duties alongside her guardian, Shi A.
"...Yes. It has indeed been a while."
Though I was deeply wary of Diaochan beneath the surface, I gave her greeting a lukewarm reply.
Our differing stations meant I had met with Liu Xie many times, but with Diaochan personally, hardly ever at all.
In the Romance, she is beloved by later generations as the tragic woman who gave herself for her country's sake; to the man I was now, she was simply someone to be careful around.
And the reason was none other than Wang Yun.
Considering how, in the original history, Wang Yun had wielded Diaochan as the instrument of his beauty trap, I had concluded her to be an agent dispatched to keep watch on me.
Had I come away from our meetings with a favorable impression of the man, things might have been different—but Wang Yun had left me with nothing but distaste, and so I naturally kept my guard up around his adopted daughter and pawn.
...Better to slip away, and quickly.
Now that Diaochan had become the head maid attending the throne itself, I could hardly have her tucked away somewhere out of sight; keeping clear of entanglement was simply easier.
"...Then, I shall take my leave."
"One moment!!"
"...Yes?"
"Just for a moment—might we speak a little?"
I weighed her request briefly before answering.
"...Yes. Very well."
Part of me did want to sound out the true heart of the woman Wang Yun had sent, and so I accepted her offer.
For a while, the two of us strolled a circuit of the grounds of the residence where she and Liu Xie lodged.
...The air is heavy.
Even after a full lap of the grounds, all that lingered was a silence so thick it nearly choked the breath.
We had never been close to begin with, and our respective positions meant we rarely crossed paths; awkwardness was only inevitable.
Though granted, I was the one who had turned down what Diaochan had requested.
It was Diaochan who broke the long silence first.
"I arranged this meeting because I wished to offer you a personal word of thanks, General."
"...Thanks? Whatever for, may I ask?"
"You gave Her Highness courage, General—courage to a girl cowed into timidity."
Before she had met me in Hedong, Liu Xie's eyes had trembled with fear.
Scarcely had the upheaval the Ten Attendants had stirred within the palace ended when Ding Yuan seized power in his hands, and calamity visited the Han once more.
Fortunately, my own exploits and Cao Cao's quick wit had kept the throne from changing hands—but Liu Xie, still years short of adulthood, had trembled with fear until frailty and timidity became second nature to her.
"Under your loyalty and comfort, General, Her Highness now lives brightly and stands firm. And so, as the maid who serves her, I wished to convey my thanks in person."
"...I see."
Holding her in such suspicion, I felt little stir of feeling even at her gratitude.
Diaochan might be famed as a great beauty, a flower blooming upon a cliff's edge—but surrounded as I was by women of extraordinary looks, my reason had apparently been tempered by practice.
"Perhaps—as an inadequate token of repayment—I might perform a dance for you. If you would only watch me..."
The instant the word "dance" left her lips, I cut her off flat.
"No. I'm afraid that will not be possible."
Had she not bewitched Dong Zhuo and Lu Bu with a dance in the original history? Who was to say I would not fall under the same spell?
To be honest, I was still a man, and I did want to see the First Beauty of the Capital dance—but I knew far too well how the rulers who drowned in a woman's charms had ended, and so I held myself in check.
"Then this time, might I be the one to ask a question?"
"Of course. Ask."
When I bade her speak, Diaochan—who had been sulking after her proposal was refused—brightened, a gentle smile settling back onto her face.
...Is she deliberately putting on an act, feigning affection?
I had done almost nothing to earn her goodwill, so my suspicion could only deepen.
If anything accounted for it, it was the matter of Liu Xie that had drawn her thanks—but was it not strange to show such warmth on that alone?
I took care not to be swept away by her bewitching looks and gestures.
"I hear you accepted a request from the Intendant of Henan and took up the post of head maid attending Her Highness."
"Yes, that is correct."
"Then tell me—on what grounds did the Intendant of Henan appoint you to that position?"
"My adoptive father feared that the savage beasts of the Bingzhou army—men who commit every atrocity—might turn their claws upon me, so part of his purpose was to spirit me to safety. And his heart was troubled for Her Highness as well."
...That much was true.
Ding Yuan, whose ambitions had now bared themselves in full, would never have left Wang Yun in peace once Wang Yun began to defy him.
Remembering that the Bingzhou troops were as ferocious as a swarm of bandits, sending his adopted daughter Diaochan into hiding could well be called a wise course.
"Did the Intendant of Henan perchance entrust you with any particular word for me?"
"Nothing. The only thing I was asked to deliver was a letter."
"...I see."
That such a hidebound old gentleman—one who treasured incorruptibility above all and drew the line between his own people and outsiders with unwavering certainty—had truly trusted me enough to place Liu Xie in my care seemed doubtful.
That was why I had questioned her, sounding out her depths—yet her smiling expression did not waver by so much as a hair.
Fit for the mastermind who had set Dong Zhuo and Lu Bu at each other's throats, her management of her own face was evidently flawless.
...Well, I'll set it aside for later. For now, the anti-Ding Yuan coalition comes first.
However much I wished to keep plumbing the heart of the woman Wang Yun had sent, I had preparations for the coalition to see to—it was time to be going.
"Then, duty calls—I shall take my leave first."
"...Ah. I have kept you far too long. Forgive me."
"Think nothing of it. Then..."
Han Yeong bowed his head and left the residence, and Diaochan, standing quietly where he had left her, murmured in a voice both pitiable and forlorn.
"...Why do you distrust me so?"
Diaochan, who had longed to build a deep friendship with Han Yeong—the man who spread benevolent rule among his people—murmured the words with a note of quiet hurt she could not quite hide.