The Coalition (2)
The march to Guandong with Liu Xie in tow proceeded, somewhat surprisingly, without a hitch.
That isn't to say I wasn't attentive — I made a point of asking the young princess, not yet of age, whether she was comfortable at every step of the way.
"Your Highness, are you quite comfortable?"
At my question, Liu Xie shook her head.
"I'm fine. You all are the ones working so hard, compared to me riding along comfortably in the carriage."
She was roughly middle-school age by modern reckoning — old enough to fuss and complain about everything without anyone batting an eye — yet here she was, putting on a brave face. All I could feel was admiration.
We had to pass through Nanyang Commandery in Jing Province, so I half expected to run into that Honey Water Emperor squatting there and end up sharing an awkward stretch of the road together. As it turned out, he had already departed for Yanzhou a step ahead of us.
"Ah, there you are, Han Yeong."
Cao Cao had evidently heard from her scouts that our army had arrived, for she came out beyond the camp gates to meet us.
At her side stood Xiahou Dun, whom I had seen before, along with another woman who resembled Cao Cao overall but came across as considerably more blunt.
The women of my army — everyone except Xu Huang — were meeting Cao Cao for the first time, and they frowned at her casually familiar way of addressing me, each silently wondering what exactly our relationship was.
So it's her again... I'd better keep an eye on that woman.
Ma Chao had sensed on instinct that Cao Cao was not her kind of person, and her wariness climbed another notch.
What's this? Is she close with my lord?
Fa Zheng, who had only ever heard that Cao Cao had lent us her support, was flustered to see how familiar she seemed with her lord.
...Women do have a way of gathering around my lord wherever he goes, don't they.
As for Pang De, she could only marvel, in a certain sense, at Han Yeong's uncanny habit of becoming entangled with women every time he set foot somewhere new.
"Stand down."
"Heheh. How cold you are. And after you shared such passionate times with this big sister of yours..."
...What is she even saying? When did that ever happen?
I had merely accepted her conversation in hopes of gaining connections and assistance. I had most certainly never done anything that could invite such a misunderstanding.
Seeing my beleaguered expression, the woman who had been putting on her most seductive airs let the smile playing at her lips deepen all the further.
Evidently, teasing me and savoring my reactions was her idea of good fun.
At Cao Cao's coquettish remark, the gazes boring into my back grew fiercer and sharper still.
"Let's set aside greetings to me, shall we? Oughtn't we first pay our respects to His Highness?"
At my words, Cao Cao gave a nod and approached Liu Xie, who was stepping down from her carriage.
"I have the honor of beholding His Highness the Prince of Fufeng. I am Cao Cao, Colonel of the Vanguard."
Her manners were impeccable and perfectly measured — a far cry from her playful teasing a moment before. It was more than enough to leave me and every commander in my army taken aback.
"Oh, so you are Cao Cao! I've heard your clever counsel has been a great help to us. My sincerest thanks."
"It is simply the duty of a servant of the realm."
Knowing the relationship these two would come to share in their original history, I couldn't help finding the exchange profoundly awkward.
Emperor Xian had first thanked Cao Cao for saving him — never in his wildest dreams imagining that he would one day become her puppet.
How the two of them would turn out this time, no one could say.
Only the battles yet to come would decide it.
"...It has been some time, General Who Pacifies the West."
While Cao Cao and Liu Xie exchanged pleasantries, Yuan Shao came over and offered her greeting.
Unlike Cao Cao, she showed little warmth, but honestly, this kind of distance suited me better.
Yuan Shao and I had cooperated politically as circumstance demanded, nothing more. We were hardly old friends.
"It has been a while, Colonel of the Central Army. ...Ah, should I call you Administrator of Bohai now?"
"Yes. Administrator of Bohai, if you please."
Yuan Shao had secured the endorsement of the celebrated scholars of Ji Province, and through their memorials to the court, obtained the post. Considering how thoroughly she had been snubbed by Ding Yuan, it was a considerable feat.
Watching our conversation remain so stiffly formal, Cao Cao clicked her tongue.
"Tsk tsk. Honestly, you two are so businesslike and rigid it's hard to believe you're a man and a woman at all. Members of the same coalition, and what on earth is there to be so stiff about..."
"...The other warlords are gathered over there. This way, please."
"...Yes. Your Highness, I shall pay my respects shortly."
Yuan Shao and I let Cao Cao's mischievous, off-the-wall remark slide right past us and made our way toward the tent where the warlords were assembled.
The lords taking part in the coalition had gathered under one half of the great command tent.
I, too, took my seat there as a warlord of the Yong-Liang region in my own right, and looked the gathering over. Ma Chao and Pang De stood behind me as my guards, while Fa Zheng stood at my side as my strategist.
Taking part in such a historic event, I couldn't help but be moved.
And yet the atmosphere flowing through that crowd was anything but harmonious — hardly what you'd expect from an alliance risen under the banner of righteousness with the common enemy before their eyes.
Beneath the surface, rivalry and mutual suspicion simmered, each lord eyeing the others.
As the warlords introduced themselves one by one, my attention settled on the general seated beside Yuan Shu.
...No doubt about it. Sun Jian.
True to his epithet, the Tiger of Jiangdong, he radiated — quietly but unmistakably — the presence of a great beast baring its fangs.
Once Governor Kong Zhou of Yu Province finished his introduction, it was Yuan Shu's turn to present himself. Instead, he looked straight at me and sneered.
"Hmph. Well, if it isn't the country bumpkin who got thrashed by Ding Yuan and slunk back to Chang'an in disgrace."
It seemed Yuan Shu found my very presence here distasteful — a frontier-born nobody sitting among his betters — and so he picked the fight first.
Every other warlord's attention swung toward me as well.
"You failed even to protect His Majesty the Emperor from that traitor! What claim do you have to stand shoulder to shoulder with warlords?!"
...This bastard opens his mouth and pure garbage comes out every single time.
The idiot who had been born into better circumstances than anyone else in this room, only to squander every last bit of it thanks to his temper, was once again exposing his base little satisfactions by tearing into others the moment his mouth opened.
If he'd just kept his mouth shut and watched his step, he could have come closer to unifying the realm than anyone.
In a way, one could call heaven truly fair.
It had made Yuan Shu — holder of the Han dynasty's finest silver spoon — into a personality equivalent to garbage, yet that same temperament seemed to have been the decisive factor in letting Cao Cao found the state of Wei.
Hmph. Looks like you've got nothing to say.
Yuan Shu had intended to dress down Han Yeong — who, being not yet even twenty, seemed easy prey — and seize control of the room's mood.
Through it, he meant to win the lords over to his side, and go further still: to claim for himself both the leadership of the coalition and the honor of serving as the Prince of Fufeng's guardian.
He acted on the conviction that this young whelp, facing a man backed by one of the great aristocratic houses of the Four Families and Three Excellencies, would never dare talk back.
But,
Han Yeong was not a man shallow enough to miss such a transparent scheme.
He kept strategists like Fa Zheng and Jia Xu at his side, and had been steadily absorbing their knowledge and their silver tongues all this while.
"You Xiliang peasant. If you have some excuse to offer—"
"Pfft!!"
Han Yeong deliberately let out a loud, dismissive laugh, cutting Yuan Shu off mid-sentence.
"I'm sorry, I just had to laugh. It's too absurd for words."
"...What did you say?"
At Han Yeong's "absurd," the crease between Yuan Shu's brows deepened.
"What exactly do you mean by that?"
"You're rattling on about all the things I supposedly haven't done... but when I was actually fighting Ding Yuan's army, might I ask what the General of the Rapid Crusaders was doing?"
At that, Yuan Shu's face froze solid — and the faces of most of the warlords present went pale as well.
Han Yeong hadn't been aiming at Yuan Shu alone. The jab was quietly aimed at most of the Clear Stream faction worthies seated in that room.
"While my soldiers bled and sweated, fighting Ding Yuan's army — what were you doing for His Majesty's sake, General? ...Oh, my apologies. You were comfortably making your way down to Nanyang Commandery, weren't you? A slip of the tongue on my part."
Of course, it was no slip of the tongue. It was open, dripping sarcasm.
What Han Yeong was really saying was: While I was out there fighting with my soldiers, you did absolutely nothing for the Emperor — did you flee to Nanyang out of fear of Ding Yuan and slurp your honey water in peace?
And that went for the other Clear Stream lords with their glossy mouths and empty hands as well.
They had lent their voices to Ding Yuan's rise and helped birth this whole calamity. Any abuse they took, they had earned.
No troops, not a single grain of military rice sent to the front — and this bastard wants to shoot his mouth off...
Cao Cao and Yuan Shao had at least moved behind the scenes. This bastard had done nothing at all. He'd probably just sat there seething over Ding Yuan's ascendancy, taking his frustrations out on his household slaves.
"You insolent—"
Yuan Shu ground his teeth in fury, but no more words came.
If he spat anything further at Han Yeong, it would amount to spitting in his own face — a man who had done nothing. Even with his famously short-sighted mind, he had at least that much situational awareness.
As the mood in the command tent turned uglier still, it was Yuan Shao who stepped in to mediate.
"That will be quite enough. We have gathered to bring down the traitor Ding Yuan. We did not gather to slander and tear at one another."
"...Ahem. The Administrator of Bohai has the right of it, I believe."
"Quite so, gentlemen. Let us all calm our tempers."
The regional officials, who had been hovering awkwardly without the nerve to mediate, chimed in at Yuan Shao's words as well.
They were afraid their own failings might be dragged into the light next, and were eager to wrap up the clash between the two men as quickly as possible.
I, who had been silently glaring at Yuan Shu, nodded my assent with a smile hidden inside.
"Very well. I'll defer to those words. After all, I too crossed a long and winding road to strike down the traitor Ding Yuan — I didn't come all this way to waste my strength. I beg pardon for my discourtesy."
Like a smooth serpent, Han Yeong wound down the fight at Yuan Shao's word.
...Why, that little—!!
Watching Han Yeong defer to Yuan Shao and slither into compliance, Yuan Shu seemed to feel his blood boil all over again.
His own adversary, by yielding so gracefully, had lent Yuan Shao's authority a natural weight — and the other warlords were already backing her opinion as it was.
Cao Cao, observing it all, wore a faint, delighted smile at the corner of her lips as Yuan Shu found himself caught in an untenable position.
With things having unfolded this way, one could clearly see the case for Yuan Shao as the coalition's leader.
Humiliated... by the mediation of some girl barely of age...
Shame burned through Yuan Shu, and he gnashed his teeth — but losing his temper here would only expose how little he had to show for himself, so he had no choice but to swallow it quietly.
...Hm. The boy's got nerve, I'll give him that.
Sun Jian, watching the affair unfold from the side, was impressed by Han Yeong in the plainest, most honest way.
The others had feared the great house standing behind Yuan Shu — even the famous Clear Stream scholar-officials merely watched his mood, never daring to oppose him openly. Han Yeong had simply ignored all of it and driven his fist straight in.
Granted, the territory Han Yeong governed lay in the Yong-Liang region, beyond the reach of the Runan Yuan clan's immense influence over the Central Plains — but even so, for a man so young, it was a thoroughly audacious move.
He can't be more than a year or two older than my Ce, and already he operates as a full warlord. Remarkable timber for a ruler, I'd say.
Judging the young man outstanding — leading a faction of his own as a warlord before he'd even come of age — Sun Jian felt, anew, how vast the world truly was.
For the gall and courage to stand up to Yuan Shu at such a tender age, Sun Jian rated Han Yeong very highly indeed.