The Wind from the North
Nanzheng County, Hanzhong Commandery.
He was there: the man who had seized the hegemony of the age, the conqueror who had swept the Central Plains. His name was Cao Cao.
Cao Cao looked down with weary indifference upon the man bowing his head at his feet.
"My lord, I beg you to forgive this foolish man, who dared to set himself against you."
The one pleading his guilt was Zhang Lu, who had once ruled this Hanzhong. Against his own wishes he had failed to keep his subordinates in hand, chosen resistance against Cao Cao, and in the end had failed.
What power is left to the defeated? To beg the victor's mercy is the only thing a loser can do.
And Cao Cao was willing to grant Zhang Lu that mercy.
"Lord Zhang, rise. I saw that you left the records preserved just as they were. How could that be the act of a man bent on fighting to the last? I know it was not your true intent. Lift your head."
"M-my lord..."
Overcome, Zhang Lu raised his head and looked up at Cao Cao.
The man stood taller than the average of the age, yet he was no giant of eight feet. His frame was compact and hard, as if he still trained even after winning wealth and glory, but he was no colossus. Even so, in Zhang Lu's eyes Cao Cao loomed larger than anyone alive. A small giant. Cao Cao was that sort of man.
Long ago Zhang Lu had seen the emperor with his own eyes. It had been from far off, and only a stolen glance, but for all the renown of the Son of Heaven, Zhang Lu had found him no different from an ordinary man. The man before him now was another matter. Cao Cao carried an overwhelming presence that could not be set beside the swagger Zhang Lu himself had once put on as master of the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice.
"I name you General Who Subdues the South, and invest you as Marquis of Langzhong."
"Your grace is boundless."
Zhang Lu thanked him in language fit only for a sovereign king. The words and the bearing were plainly improper by the rites, yet no one seized upon it.
"You shall go on governing Hanzhong. The military authority, however, I take back."
"Of course, my lord."
Any man of Hanzhong who might have resisted was long since dead in the fighting against Cao Cao, or his will long broken. In this moment, in Hanzhong, Cao Cao's word was law.
"Miaocai. Junyi."
"Yes, my lord."
Xiahou Yuan and Zhang He stepped forward at his call.
"I entrust Hanzhong to you."
"By your command."
Having set a capable kinsman he trusted, and one of his finest generals, over Hanzhong, Cao Cao meant now to turn the army home and recover the strength the war had consumed.
The strategists who had helped him take the commandery did not agree.
"My lord, how can you mean to turn the army about here?"
A man who dared to dissent from Cao Cao's judgment. Beneath the mildness of his gaze lay a cold ruthlessness, and his kindly voice carried a hard resolve. Even Cao Cao, who had awed the realm, felt his wariness stir at the veiled menace the man harbored. His name was none other than Sima Yi.
At the words of Sima Yi, who had marched as Registrar to the Chancellor, Cao Cao hid his displeasure and spoke.
"What do you mean, Zhongda?"
"Zhang Lu, who contended with Yizhou, has surrendered, and with Hanzhong in your hands all Yizhou trembles at your renown. Ride this momentum and strike Shu, and they will shatter like roof tiles."
At the proposal to drive the army on and smash into Yizhou itself, Cao Cao clicked his tongue as if to slap the man down.
"Tsk. Zhongda, your appetite is truly great. A man must know when he has enough. It is because they cannot be satisfied that men meet ruin and suffer. I've already taken Long; why should I covet Shu as well? That is greed past measure."
Cao Cao had invoked the old tale from the Annals of Emperor Guangwu — that once a man has gained Long, he begins to hunger for Shu — and Sima Yi could only bow his head low and withdraw. Confirmed once more in Cao Cao's wariness of him, he bit down on a blameless lip.
Yet he was not the only one who thought as he did. Liu Ye, likewise a Registrar to the Chancellor, shared the view.
"My lord, Liu Bei raises the banner of righteousness, so men flock to him and bind themselves fast — and for that very reason he chooses the long way round. What is more, though he has taken Shu, his conduct has contradicted the righteousness he proclaimed, and he has not won the full trust of the people of Shu. Leave him as he is, and Zhuge Liang within and Guan Yu and Zhang Fei without will shore him up until a heaven-favored fortress stands complete. I believe it right to strike now and cut away the trouble of later days."
"Ziyang's argument knows the one thing and misses the second."
Cao Cao refuted him at once.
"More than half a year has passed since Liu Bei occupied Yizhou. Even if he lost the people's regard for a time, he will have recovered it by now. And have you not heard? Zhang Lan, said to be Zhang Fei's daughter, swept away the Ba tribes who had been inclining toward submission to us, and the tale of it runs through all of Yizhou."
At those words Xiahou Yuan, who had stood as still as a stone statue, gave a start. He too had been watching Zhang Fei's daughter with care. Zhang Lan, daughter of Zhang Fei, was none other than his own grand-niece.
Whether he noticed the flinch or not, Liu Ye pressed on without hesitation.
"Zhang Fei's daughter may have shown some martial merit, but how could that be the unvarnished truth? There must be falsehood mixed in, to catch the people's hearts. Besides, Liu Bei is not in Yizhou — he is tangled with Sun Quan over Jingzhou — and Guan Yu, the one most to be feared, is likewise bound there. If this is not the hour Heaven has appointed, what is?"
In the original history, little time had separated Liu Bei's taking of Yizhou from Cao Cao's taking of Hanzhong. And Zhang Lu's surrender to Cao Cao, apart from the fall of Hanzhong itself, had been a matter of the eleventh month, not of now.
But history had long since twisted on account of Zhang Lan.
Liu Bei had seized Yizhou half a year early, and because Zhang Lan had settled Baxi Commandery, Zhang Lu chose surrender to Cao Cao rather than flight into Bazhong. Thanks to that, Cao Cao had all of Hanzhong beneath his feet months ahead of time. In the original course, Liu Bei, hearing of Zhang Lu's surrender in the eleventh month, had hastily sealed an agreement with Sun Quan over the rights to Jingzhou and turned back; with the surrender come early, he could not readily return at once.
As Liu Ye said, the Yizhou of the present was more vulnerable than at any other moment. Yet the situation in the original history had not been so different, and even then Cao Cao had held to withdrawal — even when the Ba tribes' submission would have made his position still more favorable. Seeing that choice, Fa Zheng had guessed that Cao Cao turned back not for want of wisdom or courage, but because some affair within his own camp constrained him.
And so it was. Cao Cao judged that he no longer had the strength to carry the war onward.
From 208 through this late summer of 215, save for the interval in which he gathered himself after the wreck of Red Cliffs, he had made war without rest: the Battle of Red Cliffs, the struggle for Nan Commandery, the Battle of Hefei, the Battle of Daling, the Battle of Tong Pass, the Battle of Ruxukou, the Battle of Xingshui, the conquest of Xiliang, and at last the conquest of Hanzhong.
It was by no means that Cao Cao slighted Liu Bei. Rather, he prided himself that in all the realm he alone saw clean through to Liu Bei's true worth — that under heaven the only heroes were Cao Cao and Liu Bei. Neither Sun Quan, who had broken him at Red Cliffs, nor Zhou Yu, who had defeated Cao Ren, the man he trusted above all others, was enough in his eyes.
Liu Bei. Will you grasp the dragon pearl as well?
He closed his eyes, and the banquet where they had discoursed on heroes rose clear before him. How had Liu Bei's eyes looked then, when thunder startled him into dropping his chopsticks, his face gone white with fear? Had that truly been fear?
No. He may deceive all under heaven, but he will not deceive this Cao Cao.
Like a tiger hiding its claws and crouching in the brush to watch for an opening, Liu Bei had only drawn himself in — all for a rising like the one he was making now.
Xuande. You, of all men, must be the mandate Heaven has laid upon this Cao Mengde.
Heaven sends trials for heroes.
Until now Cao Cao had passed through countless trials and hardships to arrive here. For the great work of unifying the realm he had endured the bitterness of loss and defeat and walked on unbowed. Even when, with the fulfillment of his long-cherished wish before his eyes, he had stumbled on the stone called Red Cliffs, he had risen again. And he had come to a fresh certainty: that Liu Bei was the greatest, the strongest, the final wall he would ever face.
"Junyi."
"Yes, my lord."
When Cao Cao called Zhang He, expectation showed on Liu Ye's face, and soon that expectation turned to rapture.
"I'll give you troops. Twenty thousand."
There was only one reason to give the soldiers to Zhang He rather than to Xiahou Yuan. He would leave Hanzhong to Xiahou Yuan, and use Zhang He to strike Shu.
"No need to push deep into Xichuan. It is enough to throw the Three Ba into disorder."
Had Liu Bei not gone from triumph to triumph without a single failure, as he was doing now — had he, as in the original history, tasted defeat at Luocheng, and failed to crush the Ba so that Yizhou was never wholly his — then Cao Cao would have drawn off, leaving the future for another day. But the Liu Bei of the present hour was so rampant in his momentum that he had pricked Cao Cao's sense of danger.
Someday, if not now, the hour of the decisive battle would come. Judging that the momentum must be broken at least once before that day, Cao Cao resolved to raise an army even if it strained him.
"Ziyang. You will remain in Hanzhong with Miaocai, and support Junyi from behind."
"Yes, my lord."
Zhang He and Liu Ye — men who, posted to any front, could be trusted to send back news of victory. And twenty thousand troops besides. Guides could be had in Hanzhong in any number.
"Zhang Fei remains in Baxi, and his daughter Zhang Lan with him. Be wary of them."
"I will bear it in mind, my lord."
Upon Ba and Shu, only just restored to peace, the winds of upheaval were gathering once more.
Xuande. This Cao Mengde will uncover the truth of that niece you so cherish.
It was a wind blowing from the north.