Interlude
While a victory feast roared within the walls of Jiangling, a cold, knife-edged current coiled through the city of Ye.
In this battle the kingdom of Wei had lost far too much—territory, men, and majesty alike.
It had been a crisis without precedent. One misstep, and the danger might have swept past Xiangfan and set even Xudu at hazard. Only by dragging Sun Quan into the war had they managed, barely, to bring the matter to a close where it stood.
Yet the affair had taught Cao Cao something. The mandate of this chaotic age still lay drowned in a turmoil where not a single outcome was fixed, and he would remain not the man who ended it, but a challenger. Worse still, he understood that not even the chance of a fresh challenge was left to him.
And so he summoned the sons who would come after him.
The eldest, Cao Pi, heir to his gift for statecraft and already named his successor. The second, Cao Zhang, heir to his martial talent, who had campaigned at his side. And the third, Cao Zhi, heir at the last to his genius with letters. Setting aside the fourth son, Cao Xiong, dead before his time, every son born of his principal wife, Empress Wuxuan, was gathered in that room.
The face Cao Cao turned upon them was so mottled with pain that it seemed to confess how little time remained. He studied each of them in turn, and then he spoke.
"Looking back, I have always repeated the same mistake."
After the great battle of Guandu he had fancied the initiative his, let his guard fall, and been beaten by Yuan Shang. And this time as well—because he had mastered the Central Plains, Hebei, and Guanzhong, and grown too certain that unification was merely a matter of time—he had been made to taste frustration at the hands of Sun Quan and Liu Bei.
"So this time, I do not mean to repeat it."
The choosing of an heir. How many powers had crumbled for failing to settle that matter cleanly? Cao Cao himself had watched the ruin of Yuan Shao, his greatest enemy until the eve of Red Cliffs.
A man learns from the past, and grows by it. In truth Cao Cao had come within a breath of repeating the very errors Yuan Shao and Liu Biao had put on display. He had lost his surest heir, the eldest, Cao Ang, through his own blunder, and Cao Chong—the most brilliant of them, the boy he had watched with the keenest eye—had died in childhood. For that reason he had hesitated over the succession for a very long time. That even now, after naming Cao Pi heir apparent, he had never stepped forward to set the shape of it in order, systematically and cleanly, was proof enough of that hesitation.
But now he had resolved to decide.
"Zijian."
"Yes, Royal Father."
The third son, Cao Zhi, came forward on his knees. A faint hope and a heavy dread were plain together on his face.
"I believe I showed my will when I put Dezhu to death."
Dezhu was the courtesy name of Yang Xiu. Attending Cao Cao through the struggle for Hanzhong, Yang Xiu had presumed to read on his own the order Cao Cao had couched in the words chicken ribs, and in making ready to withdraw had brought Zhang Lan's raid down upon the army. He was the very man responsible. He had also been Cao Zhi's chief counselor, and for the failure of the Hanzhong campaign he had been put to death on the spot.
But how could it have been for that alone? Cao Cao had killed Yang Xiu partly to hang the blame for Hanzhong about his neck, and just as surely to cut down the faction around Cao Zhi, which had grown too large.
He watched his son's face drain to the color of ash, and spoke with a cold detachment.
"I will not say it twice. Withdraw to your residence and confine yourself in reflection. In due course I will pass judgment on you."
On its face it was only an order to go home. Who in that room could fail to hear it for what it was—a death sentence upon a political life? At the sight of Cao Cao casting off, in a single breath, the son he had weighed against Cao Pi to the very last, even Cao Pi and Cao Zhang, who had no part in it, felt a chill run the length of their spines.
Struck dumb, Cao Zhi worked his mouth and could not force out a proper word. The sight of so pitiable a son might have stirred pity, yet Cao Cao's cold gaze did not soften in the least.
"What are you waiting for? Do you want me to have you dragged out?"
"Royal Father…"
"I command you for the last time. Go."
Cao Zhi could hold out no longer. Then and there he bowed, slowly, and with the fullest measure of courtesy. Trembling so hard he could barely finish the second prostration, he left the chamber backward, never turning his back upon his father. Where he had knelt, tears not yet gone cold fell, drop by drop.
Cao Zhang saw them and bit down on his lip. Next would be his turn.
"Ziwen."
"Yes, Royal Father!"
Dread had tangled his thoughts past sorting, but he cried out with a warrior's boldness all the same.
"I will give you a choice. Will you bow to me, as Zijian did—or will you bow to your elder brother?"
The first would be, as with Cao Zhi, the last greeting of a lifetime offered up to Cao Cao. The second would be an oath: to acknowledge Cao Pi's succession, and to pledge him loyalty.
"Choose the latter, and I will take an oath from Zihuan as well."
Cao Zhang turned his head toward Cao Pi. The greatest rival was gone, cast out by Cao Cao's own hand, and Cao Cao himself had stepped forward to fix the succession beyond all doubt. Already Cao Pi wore a merciful look, as though he meant to forgive and receive everything Cao Zhang was.
The current had been decided. With Cao Cao himself in the stream, to resist would be to stand against a torrent that could not be stood against.
Slowly Cao Zhang bent, and bowed to Cao Pi. For years Cao Zhang had been a thorn in his eye, quietly favoring Cao Zhi; the moment he submitted, Cao Pi was quick to take him by the shoulders and pat his back. They might have seemed brothers of rare affection. In Cao Zhang's heart, though, there was only humiliation, and in Cao Pi's only the savor of superiority—a scene in which nothing existed but the form.
"Ziwen may withdraw."
"Yes, Royal Father…"
"And I shall invest you as General Who Conquers the West. Make your preparations."
Unlike Cao Zhi, stripped of office, Cao Zhang received the very post Xiahou Yuan had held. In the hierarchy of Wei, the Four Campaign Generals—conferred upon commanders of the blood—stood higher than the Generals of the Four Quarters. Read in that light, it was a decision to entrust him with the western front against Shu: the theater of Guanzhong.
Cao Zhang departed, and with only the two of them left a silence settled over the room. Cao Pi sat ill at ease, wondering whether, having come this far, the words might yet be taken back. At last Cao Cao spoke.
"Do you know why I wavered between you and Zijian?"
"…Was it not because Zijian's gift for letters is the foremost under heaven?"
Cao Cao shook his head.
"Wrong. Zijian's literary gift does indeed surpass even mine, but I know yours is hardly its inferior. If you imagine I kept him in mind over a difference so slight, then I have misread you. I will give you one more chance. Why do you think it was?"
Under the weight of the question Cao Pi felt his very organs twist, and he answered with difficulty.
"Because Zijian… commands greater virtue and renown than I."
"Correct."
Cao Cao forced his body up. The giant who had bent an age was wringing out the last of his strength. Cao Pi started and made to rise and support him, but Cao Cao struck his hand away with finality.
"Royal Father, your body—"
"Keep listening!"
The shout of a hegemon who had come within reach of ending the age of chaos still carried a conqueror's authority, dying flesh or no. Before he knew it, Cao Pi found himself on his knees, head bowed. However old the dragon, how should it be likened to the birds and beasts that creep upon the ground? Father and son they were, and still the gulf between Cao Cao and Cao Pi was as vast as that.
"Did you think I would not know? That you plied Zijian with wine, so he could not obey my command."
"R-Royal Father…"
When Guan Yu first laid siege to Xiangfan, the man Cao Cao had meant to send as commander of the relief was not Yu Jin, but Cao Zhi. Sunk in drink, Cao Zhi had failed to obey the royal order. In his fury Cao Cao had stripped him of rank and office and dispatched Yu Jin in his place.
"Look at what came of it. The kingdom this father built is falling. Liu Bei has found his wish-granting pearl, and Sun Quan has gained a staff to keep himself upright. And you—still blind to the way of the age—were busy only with knives turned inward. Were you not?"
"That—Royal Father, your son, your son only—"
"And that is why I am entrusting it to you."
"…Pardon?"
If the chaos was not to end in Cao Cao's own generation, then the heir who followed would need the same cunning, and the same cold heart, with which Cao Cao had cut his way through the age. In that respect Cao Zhi had fallen short. He resembled Liu Bei more than he resembled his father. Yet for all a literary genius that history itself would rank among the greatest, in the use of men, in the making of decisions, in the restraint of the self, he was not of a level to be set beside Liu Bei. And so Cao Zhi could never stand against him.
"Your enemy will be Liu Bei. Sun Zhongmou will not be enough. Liu Bei said it, did he not? That he could exist because he had done the opposite of me. I am the same. From now on, so must you."
"Royal Father…"
"This father embraced his kinsmen, and through them seized power and raised the state of Wei. Had I not had Zixiao—had I not had Miaocai—had I not had Zilian—how should I be standing here as I am? You must do likewise. Kinsmen are the most dangerous of enemies, and at the same time they will be your own hands and feet, more to be trusted than any other."
As Cao Cao had had Cao Ren, so he bound Cao Zhang to Cao Pi. In gift for command and in martial might, Cao Zhang was in no way Cao Ren's inferior. He had once been beaten by Zhang Lan in Hanzhong, true—but that had been because he went improperly armed, and because the attack took him by surprise, not because Cao Zhang himself was wanting. When the fight had been fair and open, the advantage had been his.
"The age is going down. Liu Bei cannot shine forever, and for Guan Yu and Zhang Fei as well nothing remains now but to grow old and fail. Next is your turn. Your generation's turn."
The wick of the candle burned down to its last. It was Cao Cao's life. Brushing the tears that stood at the corners of Cao Pi's eyes, he spoke at the end with a father's tenderness.
"I will take Zijian with me. Those around him, I will clear away as well. But those this father does not touch—draw them into your arms."
"Father…"
How long had it been since he had felt a father's warmth like this? Cao Pi laid both his hands over the hand that was stroking his face.
"Keep this father's words in your heart."
"Yes. Yes, Father. Your son will follow your teaching, without fail. He will. He must."
"You will? Then it is enough."
A few days later, a bloodletting swept through.
On the pretext of Wei Feng's rebellion, Cao Cao scoured away the faction that followed Cao Zhi. At the same time he had Cao Zhi entered in the registers as the adopted son of Cao De—the younger brother who had died together with their father, Cao Song—and thereby shut him out of the succession altogether. He could not bring himself to kill the man; the literary gift was too precious to waste. But never again would Cao Zhi rise as Cao Pi's rival.
Having set the succession in order and, through that bloodletting, seized the reins of rule once more, Cao Cao at the last carried out the transfer of the capital from Xudu to Ye. Because the city of Ye already functioned as the capital of Wei, the cost could be kept down—but to move the capital of the Han, an imperial dynasty, was to call down the resentment of the common people driven out for the corvée. Cao Cao forced the transfer through so that he himself might take his heir's burden and bear it.
And in the twenty-fifth year of Jian'an, on the day the new year dawned, Cao Cao quietly closed his eyes.
Forever.