The Interval Between Wars
With Jing Province and Yi Province already his, and now Hanzhong Commandery and Wudu Commandery besides, seized in the late struggle for Hanzhong, Liu Bei's star was climbing like the morning sun. Even Cao Cao had failed to break him, and Liu Bei's confidence had never stood so high.
His ascension as King of Hanzhong was that confidence made manifest.
A memorial had been sent up, but the emperor's sanction scarcely mattered. Liu Bei announced to the world that he would rise as King of Hanzhong upon a righteous pretext, and the ministers and common people who followed him gave the decision their assent. That was enough.
No sooner had he taken the title than he overhauled, root and branch, the offices of every man who served him. He invested Fa Zheng as Director of the Secretariat and concurrently General Who Protects the Army, and named Huang Quan Registrar of the Household.
One appointment stood out as peculiar. Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong, Liu Bei's right hand and left among the civil officials, remained Military Advisors. Their grade did rise, of course, from colonel to general.
The elders—Jian Yong, Sun Qian, Mi Zhu—received offices of high rank that were little more than honorary, while the men who did the work, Liu Ba, Yi Ji, Dong He, and the rest, were given posts fitted to their duties.
Civil offices had clear ranks and clearly bounded work, and so no one murmured over them. The trouble began with the military appointments.
Discontent among underlings might end in grumbling. Bad blood among those at the top was another matter.
The highest military offices a King of Hanzhong could bestow were the Generals of the Four Directions. Of these Liu Bei set Guan Yu, the foremost, as General of the Front; Ma Chao in his own former post as General of the Left; Zhang Fei next as General of the Right; and Huang Zhong, the lowest of the four, as General of the Rear.
That was the spark.
"What? I am General of the Front, and Huang Zhong is General of the Rear? Unthinkable! How can my elder brother set me in the same file as some old campaigner like Huang Zhong? I will not have it. Take the seal back."
Guan Yu spat the words in a rage and refused the office, and Guan Ping, watching at his side, spoke in alarm.
"Father, it is our lord's command."
"To name a wrong a wrong is a vassal's duty as well."
Even so, the mention of Liu Bei seemed to call a little reason back into him. Guan Yu set out his grounds and braced the claim with them.
"Ma Mengqi was master of a power that stood against Cao Cao even before he came over to us. Zhang Fei is my younger brother, and in the merit he has stored up and the skill he has shown, he falls nothing short of me. But how, on the strength of one feat at Hanzhong—the taking of Xiahou Yuan—can Huang Zhong be set in our rank?"
Fei Shi answered at once.
"There is a flaw in what you say, Lord Guan. Long before he took Xiahou Yuan on Mount Dingjun, General Huang had already done service in aiding our lord and winning Yi Province."
"Hmph. And how is that Huang Zhong's merit? It was Lan'er's—saving Military Advisor Pang, and bringing Luocheng down. Was it not Lan'er, too, who urged that Ma Chao be brought in, the very stroke that made Liu Zhang surrender?"
Zhang Lan's name had slipped out unbidden, but once he turned it over, the comparison was not half bad. Huang Zhong might claim the credit for killing Xiahou Yuan, yet had Zhang Lan not cut down two men, Cao Hong and Zhang He? Weighing it point by point, Guan Yu found the notion tolerably convincing, and nodded along at his own argument.
"Yes. Had they named Lan'er General of the Rear, I would have allowed it—a little short of the mark, perhaps, but with growth yet in her. But Huang Zhong, old as he is? What further use is there for a veteran like that?"
"The General Who Garrisons the North himself said that General Huang was more than worthy to rise to General of the Rear."
Upon becoming King of Hanzhong, Liu Bei had conferred on Zhang Lan the office of General Who Garrisons the North.
It stood immediately beneath the Generals of the Four Directions, and since it held the north, the quarter that mattered most, it was no exaggeration to call it the highest place in the army short of those four. There were officers who in practice stood above her—Chen Dao of the household guard, whose post lay outside the regular grades, and Zhao Yun, a General of the Four Campaigns whose rank sat a shade lower but whose years of service were anything but ordinary. Even so, there was no denying that Zhang Lan had climbed into high office.
"Even so, it still stands below General of the Rear, does it not?"
"In the reign of Emperor Wu, the Marquis of Champion ranked beneath a full marquis, and yet he was revered as the foremost man of the army. The General Who Garrisons the North may sit lower in grade than the General of the Rear, but who would dare look down on the office and slight it?"
Huo Qubing had served under Wei Qing, yet by the emperor's favor he was treated as first in the army. Fei Shi's meaning was plain enough. Zhang Lan, like Huo Qubing, had her sovereign's favor at her back, and so a somewhat lower title was no matter at all.
"Nor did Xiao He and Cao Shen, who had been with Emperor Gaozu from his youth, nurse resentment or pour out complaint when they later ranked below Chen Ping and Han Xin, who joined them afterward. Our lord has made General Huang the General of the Rear—but how could he ever set him level with you, Lord Guan, and weigh the two of you as one?"
Calling first on Emperor Wu and then on Emperor Gaozu, Fei Shi pricked the smallness of Guan Yu's conduct. Only then did Guan Yu admit he had been forcing the point, and accept the office of General of the Front.
What Liu Bei granted him was not that office alone. Once the seal of General of the Front was in Guan Yu's hands, Fei Shi brought out something more.
"The King of Hanzhong has also bestowed upon the General of the Front the acting authority of tally and axe."
Acting tally and axe.Jia meant false, or temporary. The tally was the credential that proved one's authority; the axe was the sign of command over soldiers. In short, the sovereign had temporarily ceded the greatest power a vassal could hold: the right of life and death over his ministers, and the operational right to raise an army.
"To bestow the axe... so my elder brother has given his assent."
Unlike the wrangle over the generalship, Guan Yu received the tally and axe with a gravity that had no end to it.
"Yes. That is so."
Fei Shi, too, was plainly taut now, nothing like the even voice he had used a moment before.
"The King of Hanzhong has set the northern campaign in motion."
In the original history, Guan Yu's march north had begun in summer. Now it was opening a full season early.
After Liu Bei's enthronement as King of Hanzhong, conducted in Nanzheng County of Hanzhong Commandery, I was stationed at Shangyong.
The brothers Shen Yi and Shen Dan had submitted at once and been promised that their existing power would be left to them, but command of the troops itself passed to me. That was proof Liu Bei was wielding a stronger hand than he had in the original history.
Ma Zhong had been posted to Xicheng as well, and Wang Ping had advanced into Fangling.
Their stations told the story. Unexpectedly, most of the eight lieutenants who had won their merit under my banner remained under me still. Their ranks had risen, yes—but I had been promoted along with them, and climbed enough in weight to keep hold of them.
A General of the Four Garrisons is granted the right to open a bureau. In my case, that meant opening the Bureau of the General Who Garrisons the North and taking generals beneath my standard.
Weighing merit, talent, and office, Liu Bei had drawn Wang Ping and Ma Zhong out from among my lieutenants, given them generalships of their own, and set them apart. Even so, they sat at Xicheng and Fangling, which left them under my command in all but name.
For the record, Wang Ping was General Who Pacifies the North, and Ma Zhong was General Who Pacifies the West. By the descending order of Four Directions, Four Garrisons, Four Campaigns, and Four Pacifications, that put them two full steps beneath me.
In the general's bureau I had established at Shangyong, I was busy putting my weapons in order: the spear and sword Pu Yuan had forged for me, and one small axe. That axe was the one Liu Bei had given me at the recent reckoning of merit—the axe of command.
While he wavered between Huang Zhong and me for General of the Rear, I had asked him to yield that office to Huang Zhong and grant me the axe instead. Fa Zheng opposed a request so far above my station, but Liu Bei said I had an eye for the shape of a war, and he gave me the axe.
Guan Yu, General of the Front, held the acting tally and axe. Ma Chao, General of the Left, held the acting tally. My father, General of the Right, held the acting tally as well. By strict order of rank the next ought to have been Huang Zhong, General of the Rear. But with the office of General Who Garrisons the North and the acting axe bestowed on top of it, I stood tied for fourth.
Chen Dao, now General Who Campaigns in the West, and Zhao Yun, now General Who Campaigns in the South, were nominally my juniors. In truth, as elders of the army and Liu Bei's closest men, their real weight was greater than mine.
I was polishing my precious little axe with some devotion when the attendant outside the door announced a visitor.
"Colonel of Military Affairs Zhang Yi and Secretary of the Bureau of the General Who Garrisons the North, Wang Si, beg audience."
"Send them in."
Zhang Yi and Wang Si paid their respects and began their report. Ma Zhong was absent, but the two of them were able men, and there was no slack in the way they handled affairs. Their methods and temperaments differed—Zhang Yi a little stricter than Ma Zhong, Wang Si more lenient—and the balance fell out with uncanny neatness.
"And they say Sun Quan, the General of Chariots and Cavalry, has proposed a marriage alliance to the General of the Front."
So it's come.
"He refused, I imagine."
"Yes. They say he raged at the envoy—how should a tiger's daughter be married off to a dog's son?—and refused him outright."
"As he would."
The flatness of the answer seemed to chafe at Wang Si, and he pressed on.
"However much the General of the Front dislikes Sun Quan, this is too far. After what passed with Lady Sun it is hard to feel any warmth for the man, but he is still an ally of our state, is he not?"
"Hm. Is that how you see it, Shengzong? And what do you think, Boqi?"
Wang Si's view had the look of the orthodox opinion, but Zhang Yi shook his head, blunt as a slammed gate.
"Sun Quan is playing his tricks again."
He did not even bother with the title General of Chariots and Cavalry. He simply said Sun Quan, and cut the man down by it. I laughed under my breath.
"Yes. I think the same."
"Tricks? What do you mean?"
"Shengzong, your wish to think well of people is a virtue, and it is also your flaw."
"What are you saying?"
Zhang Yi glanced at me, asking with his eyes whether he might explain. I nodded, and he laid it out in earnest.
"Look. Sun Quan has already bound himself to His Highness the King of Hanzhong by a marriage alliance. And now he proposes marriage to the General of the Front? That is as good as daring to set His Highness and the General of the Front on the same footing."
Wang Si was neither slow-witted nor short of understanding. Once Zhang Yi had taken it that far, the whole of it seemed to reach him, and the color drained from his face.
"Had the General of the Front accepted Sun Quan's match, it might well have been read as a treasonous heart toward His Highness."
"No! How could that be? All under heaven knows the extraordinary bond between His Highness and the General of the Front..."
"Their hearts may be as one, but the eyes of the world will not change for it. As I see it, the General refused so fiercely because he had no other choice."
Refuse without force, and suspicion takes root. Refuse with force, and you hand Sun Quan a pretext for invasion. He had taken hold of a hand that won no matter how it was played, and he was shaking it for all it was worth.
And this piece of scheming foretold the storm already drawing near—the return of the three kingdoms' struggle over Jing Province.