The Proclamation (3)
The proclamation calling for the punishment of the traitor Ding Yuan spread far and wide—from the provinces of Yong and Liang to the four corners of the realm—and the warlords of every land answered its call, raising their banners to cast down the common enemy.
"Strike down the traitor Ding Yuan who has usurped the reins of state—raise the banner of righteousness, and revive the crumbling Han!!"
It was, all things considered, a fine pretext.
Wan County, Nanyang Commandery — Jingzhou
"...Hmph. So those old pedants, little better than bookish scholars, actually managed to use their heads for once."
The man draped in court robes of the finest silk, glittering with costly ornaments, spoke with the tone of one looking down his nose at Qiao Mao, who had penned the proclamation, and Liu Dai, who had lent his name to it.
Liu Dai and Qiao Mao were, respectively, a scion of the imperial house and the nephew of the famed minister Qiao Xuan—lineages that could hardly be sneezed at, yet both fell short of this man's own standing.
He had spent a long while reading the proclamation for the anti-Ding Yuan coalition with contempt written across his face before tossing the document aside as though it meant nothing at all.
The imperial edict, supposedly sent by the Emperor himself, was in truth a forgery out of Qiao Mao's hand—yet the man's bearing was arrogance all the same.
He possessed golden hair and a beauty fine enough to set the hearts of Luoyang's women aflutter and stain their cheeks crimson, and yet his countenance was venomous to the core.
Born into one of the most illustrious houses in the Han and blessed with remarkable looks besides, he had wanted for nothing from the day he drew breath—and so his temper had curdled into caprice and his arrogance into second nature. This was Yuan Shu, and he was grinding his teeth at the thought of the man who now held power in Luoyang.
"...Ding Yuan. That damned bastard..."
Yuan Shu harbored a grudge against Ding Yuan—now Grand General, with the Han court's reins in his grip—so deep it had festered into his very bones.
By all rights, it should have been himself, the legitimate son of an illustrious house, who succeeded He Jin, whose deceit knew no bounds, and rose to the Grand General's seat with the realm's power in hand. Even the time he had spent as a dutiful aide to that man—a nobody whose family had been nothing more than butchers—had been purely a stepping stone toward that end. He had set the palace halls ablaze and butchered the Turbid Stream faction and the eunuchs within it, certain that a merit so great would see his ambition realized before long.
And yet a mere Governor of Bingzhou—a frontier rustic of humble family—had somehow scraped together wealth from who knew where, won over the ministers of the court, secured Wang Yun's backing besides, and snatched power away in the blink of an eye.
From Yuan Shu's standpoint—having earned his own merit by purging the Ten Attendants—the gall of it was enough to curdle his mood. When word came that Ding Yuan, riding his success, had become Grand General in Luoyang, he spent days unable to choke down his fury, hurling expensive ornaments across the room and venting venomous tantrums on his subordinates and servants alike.
"And that young pup Han Yeong, whoever he's meant to be—what a sorry sight. Annihilates Ding Yuan's army with a fire attack, then simply trots back home to Yong Province."
Having finished spitting out his grievances at Ding Yuan, Yuan Shu turned his arrows on Han Yeong next, slandering and belittling him without restraint.
He burned with jealousy and envy toward the man—a creature of the lowliest frontier origins, no less—who had blunted Ding Yuan's momentum and was now reaping a reputation for righteousness on the pretext of sheltering the Prince of Fufeng.
"And that eunuch bitch saw to it that the imperial princess Liu Xie ended up under the protection of some Liang Province hick? Low-born trash flocking together, I see."
Strictly speaking, Cao Cao was merely the granddaughter of a powerful eunuch household, so "eunuch bitch" was hardly the accurate term—but Yuan Shu couldn't be bothered with such fine distinctions, far too engrossed in the pleasure of running others down.
"My lord. Do you intend to join the coalition?"
At Ji Ling's words, Yuan Shu nodded.
"Hmph. Of course I do. What could a pack of bookish scholars and low-born rabble possibly know of plotting a great undertaking? It falls to me, Yuan Gonglu—legitimate heir of the house of Four Generations and Three Excellencies that stands at the head of this Han—to take these half-wits in hand myself."
"Wisely said, my lord!!"
"You alone, my lord, are the master the coalition yearns for—the one to cast down the Han's traitors!!"
As if they had been waiting for precisely such pompous words, the generals around him dropped to their knees as one, vying with one another in flattery.
Perhaps their words pleased him, for Yuan Shu smirked arrogantly and squared his shoulders. After all, in his own eyes there had never been a suitable candidate but himself.
"Who else but I, Yuan Shu, could command the countless hosts now gathering in Guandong—warlords and provincial governors alike?"
Yuan Shu took it as self-evident that he should lead the anti-Ding Yuan coalition, by virtue of a status propped up by his family's reflected glory. Had even Liu Biao, Governor of Jingzhou, not submitted a memorial to the court begging that he be appointed to the vacant Administratorship of Nanyang—so cowed was the man by the might Yuan Shu wielded on the strength of his family name?
His aim was to blazon his name across the realm: "The traitor who defied the court and wrought tyranny upon it—Yuan Shu, legitimate heir of the Runan Yuan clan, personally led that ragtag coalition as its chief and crushed him!!"
"But... Yuan Shao. That sly half-sister of mine won't let a chance this golden slip past."
He thought of the concubine-born daughter—the stain upon the honorable Yuan name, the greatest shame of the family.
Unpleasant though it was, the baseborn girl who had inherited noble blood through a mother of commoner stock was judged, like himself, to be an outstanding talent of the Runan Yuan clan.
That wretch, scarcely worth the breath it took to curse her, had through the Confucian propriety of a six-year mourning period—leaning not at all on the Yuan clan's prestige—won herself high esteem from the noted scholars and gentlemen of the age as a heroine who joined righteousness to virtue.
Six years of mourning to proclaim her filial piety, plus her exploits in the upheaval that had erupted in Luoyang, had blazoned her name far and wide; countless guest-retainers and notables sought connection with her and placed themselves under her banner.
Of those six years, three had been mourned for Yuan Shu's own birth mother.
In a word, as Yuan Shu saw it, Yuan Shao had overcome her unfortunate birth by making a mockery of her own mother's memory—turning grief itself into a stepping stone for her career.
At her serpent-like cunning and craft, Yuan Shu gnashed his teeth in loathing.
Yuan Shao, born with a complex over her lowly origins, carried the temperament of an ambitious schemer hungry for power.
Yuan Shu had disliked her from their childhood days and worked her like a slave; and now that she had built herself a standing, on her own strength alone, that yielded nothing to his, he detested and despised his rival all the more.
"A servant girl whelped by a base concubine..."
Even if the sky itself came crashing down, he could not—would not—fall behind that girl.
"...And yet, my lord. If we too raise our banner, will your household in Luoyang not be placed in danger—the venerable elder above all?"
His strategist Yan Xiang was worried for the safety of the Yuan clansmen who remained in Luoyang.
If Yuan Shao or Yuan Shu joined the coalition, Ding Yuan—a man of such violent temperament that he would disregard even the Emperor's authority—would never leave the Yuan clan in peace.
"What choice do I have!!"
At Yan Xiang's words, which struck straight for the vitals, Yuan Shu flew into a rage instead.
The elders of the family, Yuan Wei foremost among them, trusted in a house that had produced Three Excellencies for four generations and wielded mighty influence in Luoyang—and perhaps for that very reason, not one of them had thought to flee to some other region.
"It's out of my hands either way—if that girl joins the coalition, I have no choice but to follow. At the very least, I, the legitimate son, must step forward for the family's honor!!"
Yuan Shu, who nursed an extreme inferiority complex toward Yuan Shao, proclaimed his intent to join the coalition—callously turning his back on his own clansmen while wrapping the abandonment in the rhetoric of unavoidable sacrifice for the good of the realm.
"...Mmm. So the opportunity has come at last."
At the news that the feudal lords were gathering for the coalition army of Guandong, the man in the red turban rested his chin on his hand and let out a low, thoughtful hum.
This man—whose commanding presence recalled the mountain god of Mount Tai itself, whose frame was built of tough, iron-hard sinew and bone—was named Sun Jian.
He was a peerless brave general whose fame as the Tiger of Jiangdong had shaken the realm during the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
He was currently, in his capacity as Administrator of Changsha, away from his post and sheltering under Yuan Shu's banner in Nanyang Commandery, Jingzhou.
When Ding Yuan had first seized power and begun to run rampant, Sun Jian had marched his army north from his post to punish him. But a falling-out erupted between himself and Wang Rui, the Governor of Jingzhou, who had long disrespected and looked down on him—and Sun Jian killed him. Then there was Zhang Zi, the Administrator of Nanyang: when Sun Jian asked for supplies on the road to punish the traitor, the man had obstructed him at every turn and treated him with contempt, and so Sun Jian, quick-tempered and belligerent by nature, put Zhang Zi to the sword as well.
With Wang Rui and Zhang Zi dead by his hand, no supplies would reach him from anywhere in Jingzhou, and with his army struggling to sustain itself on the march to Luoyang, he had ended up placing himself under Yuan Shu's command when the man happened to arrive in Nanyang Commandery.
At first Sun Jian had felt genuine gratitude toward Yuan Shu for taking him in so readily—but watching the man's shameless misdeeds up close, judging everyone by their birth and treating others with contempt, his regard for him had soured completely.
He had been drilling his troops all the while, quietly planning to slip free of Yuan Shu's shadow and strike out on his own—and he judged this to be a golden opportunity.
"...This is the chance. Earn merit in the coalition, and the renown of the Sun clan can be proclaimed throughout the realm once more."
He had won glory suppressing the Yellow Turban Rebellion and putting down the uprisings of Xu Chang and Ou Xing—but the affair of killing his own superiors, Wang Rui and Zhang Zi, had seen the notables of the Central Plains point fingers at him and denounce him.
If he himself took Ding Yuan's head and delivered the Han from the traitor's hands, he would be able to break away from Yuan Shu for good.
Having settled his thoughts after long deliberation, Sun Jian left his quarters to summon his generals.
A young man and woman who had only just reached their twentieth year came running like a pair of puppies toward Sun Jian as he stepped out of the command tent.
"Father!! Take me with you this time!! I'll cut off Ding Yuan's and Lu Bu's heads and proclaim the name and glory of me, Sun Bofu, and the Sun clan to all the realm!!"
"...Bofu!!"
The moment his hearty son declared his burning desire to join this battle, the boy's childhood friend—a woman of calm, composed beauty—moved to hold the young man back.
"You saw how I performed during the Ou Xing Rebellion, didn't you! This time I want to fight even stronger enemies!!"
"Haha, all right, I hear you. I'll take you along too."
Sun Jian, finding his son's fierce ambition and hunger for glory a fine sight in a warrior, ruffled the boy's hair with pride.
Perhaps because, of all his children, Sun Ce had inherited his blood most thickly, his eldest son was a warrior born and bred, his hunger for battle immense.
"A coalition means every hero under heaven will come flocking to it!!"
Burning to test himself against strong opponents, Sun Ce ached to cross blades at least once with the likes of the Unrivaled Under Heaven and the other famed warriors—and he was curious to see, just once, the face of this Han Yeong, a man younger than himself who was already operating as a warlord in his own right.
"...Haa. Bofu. You mustn't do anything reckless there."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Your problem is you nag too much."
At the sight of Sun Ce brushing off her advice yet again, Zhou Yu felt a throb of pain bloom behind her temples.