At the End of Ten Years
The opening Lü Meng's collapse left behind was absurdly wide—wide enough for me and Pang De, who had been waiting on even the smallest crack, to drive straight through.
The fissure that had opened inside was pried wider by blades from without, and blood poured from it in a rush, the way it had from Lü Meng's own mouth.
The man who took command in his place was Zhu Ran. Whether Lü Meng, knowing the state of his own body, had prepared for the worst, the transfer of authority went smoothly. True to the defensive genius who, in the history I knew, held Jiangling his whole life, Zhu Ran restored order at once and withdrew in good formation. We had never meant to pursue them. Even if we had, there would have been little sport in it.
"Hah… After Lu Su and Gan Ning died, I thought Sun Quan had no talent left beneath him. That was my arrogance."
Pang De was proud in the way Guan Yu was proud, slow to grant another man his due, and as a man of Xiliang he could hardly be expected to know the south well. His posting to Jingzhou had not been a long one. Even so, the officers under me—men I had thought understood Jiangnan better than he did—nodded along with him.
To be checked not by the commander-in-chief, Governor Lü Meng, nor by Lu Xun, whom I myself had marked as dangerous, but by Zhu Ran, a man still close to obscurity, had shaken them more than a little. Victory after victory against Cao Cao and Wei had given them confidence, and the drop from that height was steep. Still, I believed the lesson would keep them from arrogance. People sometimes grow more from failure than from success.
When the field had been cleared, I met a face I had missed for a long time.
"Congratulations on a great merit, Zhang Zhenbei."
Fatigue clung to every line of his face, but relief and gladness filled it, and I answered with a bright smile.
"Only because Military Advisor Pang lent us his strength."
Pang Tong laughed, awkward, and waved the praise away.
"Hardly. I boasted, and this is all I managed. I'm ashamed."
"All you managed? You held your ground against Sun Quan's full offensive and even shut a portion of his army inside Jingzhou. Who would slight that merit?"
"And was it mine alone? It belongs to Shengming of Jiangling, to Fang Yingming of Dangyang, and to Commander Wei, who rode all that distance to reach us."
They yielded the credit back and forth, and still the talk went on warm and easy.
The last crisis—the pressure on Gong'an—had lifted, and Sun Quan had lost Lü Meng, Lu Xun, and Jiang Qin, famous generals all. Lü Meng hovered at death's door. Lu Xun was trapped in Jingzhou. Jiang Qin was dead of illness. However Sun Quan might thrash now, he was no longer a threat that mattered.
The struggle for Jingzhou was drawing to its close. What sealed it was a pair of messengers: one from Yizhou, one from the Yangtze.
The envoy from Yizhou was Fei Shi, the same man who had once sought out Guan Yu to deliver the seal of General of the Front. In his hand was a letter in Liu Bei's own writing.
"Pang Tong, General of Military Counsel, is appointed plenipotentiary."
"I receive the command with reverence."
Almost in the same moment Liu Bei's decision came down—full authority over the affair vested in Pang Tong—an envoy arrived from the river as well.
"The General of Chariots and Cavalry requests an audience with His Majesty the King of Hanzhong."
The last page of the war had been turned.
The meeting place was set on the bank of the Yangtze, before the walls of Gong'an.
The principals would be Sun Quan himself and Pang Tong, acting in Liu Bei's name, and each side had agreed to keep its retinue to the minimum: two counselors to advise, two officers to guard. Ten men in all, five from each camp. The council of ten began in the early morning, as the east was just growing light.
On our side the faces were these. Fei Shi, the envoy Liu Bei had sent, and Ma Zhong, whom I had recommended, sat as counselors. For guards, the choice had fallen on me and Pang De.
Through the river mist that lay over the bank at dawn, Sun Quan's party was already in place, and it was much as we had expected.
Behind Sun Quan stood two counselors: Zhu Ran, who had shown such fine command, and Sun Jiao, commander of the follow-up force. I did not know Sun Jiao's face, but Pang Tong must have taken his measure already; he named him for me in a low voice.
"Pan Zhang. His martial skill was considerable, I'll grant him that."
One of Sun Quan's guards was Pan Zhang, a man we had crossed blades with more than once. Foul-tempered as he was, he was genuinely brave and headlong, and the impression had been strong enough that Pang De nodded.
But Pang De's eyes were not on the man he was praising. They had gone to the figure standing opposite, planted as solid as a temple guardian king.
Like Sun Jiao, the face was new to me. Even so, I thought I knew the name. If there was a guard Sun Quan trusted above all others, a man to whom he could entrust his own side, it could only be one.
"Zhou Tai."
Liu Bei had Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. Cao Cao had Zhang Liao and Cao Ren. Sun Quan had Gan Ning and Zhou Tai. As befitted one of the fierce generals who stood for Wu's martial power, the air around Zhou Tai was calm as a lake, and just as hard to sound.
"Fifty bouts… no. Seventy, perhaps."
"Would you win?"
"Hard to say. It would depend on the day."
If Pang De spoke like that, the man's skill was the real thing.
Just as we were taking the measure of their strength, they were watching us, taking ours.
"We've looked long enough. Sit."
However toothless and clawless the tiger might become in later years, a tiger's cub was still a cub. Sun Quan read the tension strung between the officers and stepped into that thin ice himself, forcing the fighting spirit down.
Liu Bei drew men with virtue and a breadth of righteousness. Cao Cao crushed a space with fierce charisma and a presence that filled it. Different from both—something between a general and a sovereign—Sun Quan's own peculiar authority settled over the meeting.
"I am Pang Tong, General of Military Counsel, vested with full authority by His Majesty the King of Hanzhong."
"We've been introduced. Did you think I would forget your face?"
Astonishingly, the man who had escorted the bier bearing Zhou Yu's body had been none other than Pang Tong. The people of Wu, hearing of his fame, had flocked to him in desperation for even a word of conversation; that alone suggested what a celebrated name he had been. He had passed into Liu Bei's service not long after, but it would have been no surprise if he had made Sun Quan's acquaintance then as well.
"I should have kept you at my side back then."
"What use is there in speaking of what is past? And Your Excellency's camp is still rich in talent. Even after Gongjin and Zijing died, men keep emerging from somewhere. Jiangdong is truly a treasury of talent."
"Empty courtesy, and you don't mean a word of it. I take your meaning. State your demands."
Well—Pang Tong was not wrong.
The history of Wu was a history of early death. Sun Jian, the founder, died suddenly in battle. Sun Ce, who actually built a power, perished in vain before his ambition could unfold. Nor was it only the chiefs. Zhou Yu, the prodigy Heaven had granted the house of Sun; Lü Meng, his successor, who had handed Jingzhou to Wu; Taishi Ci, a match for Sun Ce; Jiang Qin, dead of illness this very campaign—not one of them had lived past fifty.
There was a reason people spoke of Wu's curse of early death. And yet the line of supreme commanders ran on without a break—Lu Xun, Zhu Ran, Lu Kang—famous generals one after another. Call it a treasury of talent, and the words were not false.
If Wu's talents had lived out their years instead of dying young, might the end of the Three Kingdoms have been different? Imagine Sun Deng, the prepared heir who never died young, ascending in place of a senile Sun Quan, and commanding the five great governors—Zhou Yu, Lü Meng, Lu Su, Lu Xun, Zhu Ran…
A little horrifying, that.
While I wandered off into the thought, Pang Tong had left the flourishes behind and come to the point.
"We will restore jurisdiction over Jingzhou to what it was before the standoff at Yiyang."
"You mean to take Changsha and Guiyang."
"Do you object?"
"…Go on."
"Furthermore, the sons of your principal men will come to Chengdu to study, and you will make good the supplies our state expended in this campaign."
"Is that all? Then I will name my conditions."
Sun Quan raised a killing air more fit for a battlefield than a council, and yet his face stayed as blank as a wax figure.
"Lu Boyan, stationed at Yiling, and the officers and men under him, are to be returned unharmed."
A natural demand. For Sun Quan it was probably the most important of all. With Lü Meng's life uncertain, the worth of Lu Xun—the man Lü Meng had marked as his successor—went without saying.
"Cession of territory is unacceptable."
"Hm…"
"Guarantee me those two things, and I will send my own son as well."
Preserve land and troops at the price of a hostage who was Sun Quan's own blood. We had no wish to drive him further than necessary, but this was too easy a meal.
From his side, it was not incomprehensible. What he held now was Yangzhou, Jiaozhou, and three commanderies of Jingzhou—Jiangxia, Changsha, and Guiyang. Lose Guiyang and Changsha, and his grip on Jiaozhou would suffer for it. To Sun Quan those two commanderies were not merely two commanderies. They meant something larger.
And if he had charged in so boldly only to go home stripped of land, what would become of his dignity? Central authority had never truly taken hold; Wu was still closer to a league of great clans, and from here it would only grow harder. So he had no choice but to play a hard piece—offering his son as hostage—if that was what it took to avoid the loss.
"Not the eldest, of course. You mean to send the second son?"
"I have only two children as yet, and no more than four years between them. Thought of that way, it is not a bad offer."
Wu's early deaths were famous even in this age. One might say the land itself had a reputation for being hard to live in. In later centuries great cities—Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai—would crowd the south bank in flourishing ranks, but Jiangnan in this time had only just begun to be opened. Most of those early deaths had been from illness, and no one could say what would become of Sun Quan's eldest, Sun Deng, still a child. If Sun Deng died, the only heir left would be the second son, Sun Lü. True, from the third son onward—more than ten years younger—he would get sons readily enough. But that was later. For now, this was how it stood.
"Very well. I will give you the roster of those to be sent to our state as students. When they arrive, we will repatriate the men shut inside Jingzhou."
"That is too late."
"We can yield no further. The supplies consumed on their account will be included in the indemnity as well."
"……I understand."
"And now, as to territory—the matter of greatest weight."
"Is it not enough!"
Look at that. The thief raises the rod himself: he comes invading, gets his hide taken off, and then speaks like this.
As if to make plain how angry he was, Sun Quan shot to his feet and fumed. Pang Tong, posture unbroken, answered with perfect clarity.
"Sit. Otherwise I will take this negotiation as void."
If a glare could spit curses, his would have. Sun Quan stared at Pang Tong with eyes burning and bit down hard. The muscles of his jaw stood out. In the end he had no choice but to sit again.
"We will not ask for territory. And if need be, we will return the ten thousand officers and men under Lu Xun at once."
"Is that true?"
"There is, of course, a condition."
"Speak. I am ready to listen!"
A fine, sudden change of front. Yes. To rule Wu, that land of betrayals, a man had to be at least this much.
It was a posture worthy of the man who would one day throw the great banquet of treachery called the Two Palaces Incident and smash Wu to pieces—the destroyer of the three states, of Red Cliffs, of Yiling, and of the Two Palaces.
"Take the army you receive back, and attack Hefei."
"Hefei…? I heard you had concluded a truce with Cao Cao."
"That is our state, not Your Excellency. The seven armies have not yet been sent home, and Cao Cao has not yet steadied a Wei thrown into confusion by revolt after revolt. Now is the moment."
Sun Quan swallowed dryly, weighed the proposal in earnest, and asked,
"Do you return Boyan as well?"
"That is difficult. Lu Xun will be sent back after the students arrive."
Wei was still stronger than we were, and we no longer had the strength to carry on a war. Set aside the truce and strike a disordered Wei, and there was gain to be had—but also the loss of wringing out supplies we already lacked. We had weighed the two and judged the latter greater. Attack demanded far more men and materiel than defense. Nor could we ignore the reversal of alliances that had come in the midst of this very struggle for Jingzhou.
And yet to throw away the finest chance to gnaw at Wei's power, just like that, was too great a waste.
So Pang Tong answered both worries with a single move: Sun Quan's attack on Hefei.
Would Wei look kindly on a Sun Quan who struck them at their weakest? Unless we truly grew stronger than Wei, it would be hard for Sun Quan and Wei to join hands again. Pang Tong's proposal was also a threat—show us you mean to sever the relationship with Wei completely.
"My lord, this is the stratagem of killing a man with a borrowed knife."
Zhu Ran said it heavily. Sun Quan had shown many weaknesses in war, but he was a man with a sovereign's eye. He would already see what we were aiming at.
Before they could grope for some way around it, Pang Tong drove the wedge home.
"You will have to give it everything. If you truly mean to speak of the realm."
Lose in Jingzhou, and then lose again to a Wei already staggering? From that moment the danger would not be outside. It would be inside—the great clans who would doubt his rule and plot revolt.
"Good. When a man has drawn his sword, he ought at least to cut a radish. I accept. I, Sun Zhongmou, will be your knife."
The stratagem of borrowing a sword to kill a man. Sun Quan had resolved, of his own will, to be that sword.
Watching the agreement sealed, I sank into a feeling no one else could understand—a feeling only I could have.
The war was over. At last. With no one dead, and nothing lost.
The moment I had been drawing since ten years ago, from the instant I resolved to live as Zhang Lan.
The end of the struggle for Jingzhou, just as I had pictured it.