The Year the Meteors Fell
If one were to pin a name on the twenty-fifth year of Jian'an—the year 220—the Year the Meteors Fell would not sit ill upon it.
In the original history, the dead of that year were past counting. History had kinked since then, and whether fewer would die than in that first telling, or more, was impossible to say; the difference, though, did not look as if it would amount to much.
No sooner had the new year broken than the stars began to tumble. It opened with the great names of Wei, Shu, and Wu going out, one by one.
On Sun Quan's side, Lü Meng met his end at last. A new ordeal had been laid on him in the struggle for Hefei, and perhaps because of it he had, astonishingly, outlived his counterpart in the original history by several months—but the reprieve ran out. He showed the miracle of a dying lamp flaring bright one last time, and after burning through the end of his life in splendor alongside Zhu Ran, Pan Zhang, Zhou Tai, Sun Jiao, and Xu Sheng, he died within the walls of Hefei. Sun Quan went so far as to insist on bearing the coffin himself, that Lü Meng might be honored as he deserved.
Watching a lord make a spectacle of carrying his own minister's corpse, one could almost believe it: had dotage never taken him, Sun Quan too might have remained a hero fit to stand beside Cao Cao and Liu Bei.
In our own realm, Huang Zhong, General of the Rear, breathed his last. Everyone had watched him fail by the day after spending the last of his strength in the fight for Hanzhong, and so the shock was mild. His son, Huang Xu, had died young before him, and there was no heir to carry the line. Grieving that, Liu Bei conferred the posthumous title the moment Huang Zhong was gone: Marquis Gang, the Steadfast.
Lü Meng and Huang Zhong. Grand Commander of Wu, and one of the Five Tiger Generals of Shu. Their fame was such that the ripples of their deaths ran wide—and yet, set beside the news that came down from Wei, they were a breeze before a storm.
Five characters, and no more. The weight in them was enough to leap the borders of any one realm and strike the whole world beneath heaven into shock.
Even in Shu-Han, where the mourning for Huang Zhong was still in full swing, talk of Cao Cao's death ran hotter than talk of Huang Zhong's. The question that split the court was a simple one: should a delegation of condolence be sent, or should it not?
"A condolence mission is impossible—not if it costs us our lives!"
The man who argued as if he might cough blood was Huang Quan. The irony was almost too neat. In years to come, after the disaster at Yiling, Huang Quan would flee into exile in Wei; now he was shouting that one must not set foot in Wei even at the price of one's life. Remembering how he had counseled, back when Liu Bei first entered Shu, that the invitation ought not to be accepted, one could only conclude that he gave, in each moment, the judgment most faithful to principle.
Raised to General Who Guards the West for his merit in the Hanzhong campaign, Huang Quan had plenty of voices behind him. Yet those who held that a condolence delegation must be sent were, surprisingly, hardly few. Chief among them was Liu Ba.
"Has the General Who Guards the West sunk so deep into questions of principle that he has forgotten the facts? Wei is in disorder after defeat upon defeat. And we are to throw away a chance worth its weight in gold—the chance to learn what is happening inside their walls?"
It was an argument worthy of Liu Ba the pragmatist. As Imperial Secretary, his authority yielded nothing to Huang Quan's. He had helped Zhuge Liang, Yi Ji, Fa Zheng, and Li Yan lay down the laws and institutions of Shu, and like Huang Quan he had proven his ability with distinguished service in the field. Considering that he would rise, after Fa Zheng's death, as far as Director of the Secretariat, one might fairly say he stood in the first rank of the civil officials in everything but name.
"It is you, Secretary Liu, who see the one thing and miss the two. The greatest foundation of our realm, the very basis of our strength, is principle itself. To send a condolence delegation that would put a scar in it is a woefully shortsighted claim."
The speaker was Yi Ji, one of the five who had framed the laws of Shu alongside Liu Ba. Treated as a senior statesman of the highest standing, in the company of Sun Qian and Jian Yong, and possessed of real administrative skill besides, he did not soften the edge of it.
But was Liu Ba the sort to bend for a speech like that? The stubbornness he had proven by following Liu Bei through flight after flight was already shaping its answer.
"Cao Cao may be a traitor, but they say that even when the parents of one's enemy die, one still goes to mourn. What, then, should keep us from the enemy's own mourning?"
The split was stark. With Liu Ba at their head, the party of assent gathered Li Yan, Liao Li, Zhang Yi, and the rest—men who prized practical advantage and had never clashed sharply with Cao Cao. Opposite them stood Huang Quan, Yi Ji, and Ma Liang at the core: those who put principle first, or who had crossed blades with Cao Cao themselves.
Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, and Fa Zheng, the three men of greatest influence beneath Liu Bei, held their silence, and so the noise in the great hall only grew. It might have been different had there been among them even one of the men who stood at the summit of the military—Guan Yu of Jingzhou, my father in Hanzhong, Ma Chao of Tianshui.
Astonishingly, the highest-ranking officer presently in the hall was me. After Huang Zhong's death I had been raised to General of the Rear for my service in the struggle for Jingzhou. Even so, I had chosen to watch.
This isn't a fight I need to join. Sending mourners belongs to the civil officials more than to the military. Why make enemies by stepping out before anyone has even asked what I think?
As it was, just as Palik had feared, nearly everyone had climbed into some higher post, and the Nanling Army was half disbanded. Rebuilding a force from nothing was headache enough on its own. And however they argued down below, once Liu Bei decided, it would be finished.
"Enough, all of you. I believe I have heard your views in full. This is not a thing to settle lightly. I will weigh it further and give my ruling by the next court."
He ordered the assembly dismissed and withdrew, and the civil and military officials left the great hall still knotting into twos and threes, trading arguments as they went. I made my way over to Pang Tong and put the question to him.
"Military Advisor Pang."
"If it isn't the General of the Rear."
"You can drop the formality. Tell me, though—how do you see this?"
"Hmm."
Pang Tong stole a glance at the crowd already turning our way.
"This is no place for it. Come to my house."
When he had finished his work in Jingzhou and returned to the center, Liu Bei had personally granted him a mansion. Pang Tong refused it and found a small house of his own. Small, of course, by the measure of high ministers; it was a long way from a thatched hut of three rooms.
We had barely passed the gate when a young man about my own age came out of the inner quarters and bowed.
"You've returned, Father."
"I have. The General of the Rear is with me, so have tea brought in."
"Yes. General, please come inside."
"Gladly."
Pang Hong, Pang Tong's son, was cast in his father's mold—that same air of confidence, large and unhurried.
"You have a fine son."
"He's still a lacking fellow. He said he wanted to enter service, so I told him that if he was as sure of himself as you are, Mingjing, he might as well try."
"And what did he say?"
"That he'd study five years more."
"Bold, I'll give him that."
There is a time for humility, and a time to wear one's pride out in the open. By any measure, objective or my own, I had piled up merits at this age that strained belief. Among my peers in this era there was no one who could be set beside me. Liu Bei had not taken to calling me Huo Qubing for nothing.
"Ambition is a fine thing, taken large. Here we are."
In the detached hall kept for receiving guests, Pang Tong shed his cumbersome cap and robes and draped them carelessly to one side.
"If you're uncomfortable, loosen up."
"I'll just take the cap off."
The thing was heavier than it looked. Nothing beside a helmet, but there was no reason to keep wearing it. I even drew out the pin that had been holding my hair in place beneath the cap, gathered it roughly into a single tail, and tied it. A ponytail.
"Right. You asked about the condolence delegation."
"I did. But honestly, there's something else I'd rather talk about."
"So the delegation was a screen."
"Yes. The world has far too many ears."
"If it's something you'd be this careful over…"
Pang Tong dropped his voice into seriousness.
"The northern campaign."
The words were barely out when Pang Hong spoke from beyond the door.
"Father, I've brought the tea."
"Come in."
Pang Hong set the tea down and then retreated in a slow backward shuffle. His intent was so naked that Pang Tong clicked his tongue.
"You want in on this, do you?"
"How could an unranked nobody like me sit in while the two of you discuss the business of the realm?"
He named himself a man with no office to his name, and still the hunger in his eyes would not stay hidden.
"Get your face under control before you say a thing like that. You've heard of Cao Cao's death. Speak, then. Do you think our realm will send mourners?"
It was not What do you think of a condolence mission? It was a clean choice: send, or do not. He was not asking for his son's insight. He was testing him.
Pang Hong answered at once.
"His Majesty the King of Hanzhong raised the destruction of Cao Cao, traitor to the imperial house of Han, as the great cause of his reign. To keep faith with that cause, I believe he will not send them."
"Tsk. This is why I stopped you from entering service. Off with you."
Puzzled as he was, Pang Hong could not cross his father, and he left the hall behind him. When the door had shut, Pang Tong let out a small sigh, half a lament.
"That's how the boy is. If it were you, Mingjing, what would you have said?"
"That he would send the delegation."
"Why?"
"Because he is His Majesty the King of Hanzhong."
"Yes. I trusted you'd see it. That boy thinks too simply. He can't read a man's heart, and he can't set many things together at once. How am I to rest easy and raise him to office like this?"
Simplistic, yes. And yet Pang Hong's words had their logic; in the great hall, his side had even been the majority. Pang Tong, though, wanted more than the surface. He wanted the depths under it read as well. Then again, that standard sat at the level of Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, and Lu Xun. Parents pinning their hopes on their children—east or west, past or present, there was no escaping it.
"Then you and I agree. The delegation will be sent."
"Kongming will have seen it too. Only his grudge against Cao Cao runs deep, so he holds his tongue."
To Zhuge Liang, a man of Xuzhou, Cao Cao could be nothing but the demon of massacre. He was, after all, the Zhuge Liang who had fled the great slaughter there and taken refuge in Jingzhou.
"In any case, principle can be made as needed. Saying we mean to use the traitor Cao Cao's death as a pretext to confirm that His Majesty the Emperor is safe would serve well enough."
My own thinking matched his. So long as the excuse was not sheer nonsense, the principle and the renown Liu Bei had built over the years would cover the rest. And above all, in the original history Liu Bei had sent mourners. True, the justification had been stronger then: preparing for Yiling, he had needed to know what was happening inside Wei.
"Enough of the delegation. Let's come to the real matter."
"Before that—how much longer do you think we need before we can raise an army again?"
Things had diverged a long way from the history I knew, and I stood far from any administrative post, so the inner workings of the realm were a dark room to me. Even if I had held such a post, it might not have helped. I had never worked an office job in my past life; what was I supposed to know?
Pang Tong turned the figures over, then said, "If we go about it steadily, two years at the least. If we force it, raising an army as early as next year is possible in itself."
Yiling had been two years out, hadn't it? We were in a far better position than in the original history, so if a northern campaign were launched, it would fall about then.
We were just about to take up the grand design of the campaign in earnest when Pang Hong brought word again from beyond the door.
"Father, the General Who Pacifies Han has arrived."
"Ah. We'll have to put this off. Next time we should call Kongming and Xiaozhi as well."
Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, and Fa Zheng. A roster to set the blood singing. He was offering to make the meeting; there was no reason to refuse.
"Let's do that."
Mi Zhu's real power stood lower than mine, but in precedence he sat directly beneath Liu Bei, above both Zhuge Liang and Pang Tong. We put our caps and robes back on and went out to the gate, and Mi Zhu, catching sight of us, was the first to bend at the waist.
"I have presumed to call upon you both, that I might beg your pardon for the trouble I have caused."