Cao Cao's Condolences, and Cao Pi
The three who had betrayed Shu during Sun Quan's invasion of Jingzhou—Mi Fang, Shi Ren, and Pan Jun. Their fates twisted sharply off the road they might have taken, and came to wholly different ends.
Pan Jun had dealt in deceit, Shi Ren had cooperated, and Mi Fang alone had truly turned his coat.
So Pan Jun was recognized for the merit of it and raised to Inspector of Jingzhou, while Shi Ren received a grand administratorship. Mi Fang, sent under escort to the capital, was stripped of every office he held.
It was Liu Bei's last kindness to a founding meritorious minister who had shared life and death with him since the days in Xuzhou—and a mercy made possible only because the betrayal had, in the end, closed with scarcely any real damage done.
Oh, and for the record: Pan Jun's rise to Inspector of Jingzhou came, astonishingly enough, on Guan Yu's recommendation.
I had written a memorial asking that he be appointed a Master of Writing, as Liu Ba had been. But Guan Yu, as if this affair had taught him something, set aside the post of Commissioner Supervising the Affairs of Jingzhou that he himself held, and recommended that Pan Jun be raised to Inspector instead.
An inspectorship carries no military authority. Jingzhou was therefore split in two—Guan Yu keeping the armies, Pan Jun taking the civil administration.
According to Pan Jun's letter, Guan Yu had even apologized to him in person for the coldness of the past. That was enough to leave me staring.
When Liu Bei heard it, he was delighted. Yunzhang, he said, had now surpassed even Lian Po.
Lian Po, the famed general who stood for all the Warring States, had resented that Lin Xiangru—humble-born, and a civil official besides—should hold a higher place than he. Later, once he understood Lin Xiangru's true worth, he made his peace, and the two became friends without peer. From that tale comes the old story of bearing a rod of thorns upon one's back to beg forgiveness.
And Guan Yu was not the only one who bore the thorn-rod this time.
Mi Zhu, too, insisted that his younger brother Mi Fang's crime was his own failing as well, and came with himself bound, striking his brow to the ground as he begged to be punished.
"No—how can you do such a thing? His Lordship has already said you bear no guilt. Please, raise your head."
"His Lordship has pitied me and shown me mercy, but how could I be blameless? I failed to teach my brother as I ought, and so I caught at the heels of the two of you as you labored toward a great work for the realm. I can only beg to answer for it."
Mi Fang himself, by Liu Bei's order, had been confined to quiet reflection, forbidden both to step outside and to receive anyone at all.
Watching Mi Zhu go about in his brother's place, pleading his guilt and seeking pardon, that pitiful figure set the triangle in my heart to turning.
I had known Mi Fang would betray us. Perhaps there had even been a way to cut that betrayal off at the root.
But I chose the path of discarding him. I had judged it the more efficient course.
"No. The fault is mine."
To Mi Zhu, bent double in apology, I lowered myself just as deeply, and said,
"I am sorry. I used Lord Mi Fang. I knew of the betrayal and let it stand. If the General Who Pacifies Han is at fault, then so am I."
"It was my brother who plotted treason. How could I blame the General of the Rear for turning that betrayal to use?"
When it began to become a contest of who could bow lower and apologize more fervently, Pang Tong stepped in.
"Hahaha. At this rate there will be no end to it. Rather than keep this up out here at the gate, let us go inside."
Not even Mi Zhu could refuse the master of the house.
The three of us talked until the day went down.
Once the matter with Mi Zhu was more or less settled, and I had promised Pang Tong another meeting, I came home—and Yan'er, who had waited up for me late into the evening, came scurrying out.
My little sister, once so small, had shot up in the time I hadn't seen her, until the top of her head reached my chest.
Given that I stand somewhere around five foot seven, Yan'er was tall for a woman of this age as well.
"Sister!"
"You were still up?"
"Oh, come on. What time do you think it is?"
"And Mother?"
"She went to bed first."
Why that should have brought me relief, I couldn't have said. The day I returned to Chengdu, Mother had pulled me tight into her arms.
In her voice—asking whether I had suffered, whether I was hurt anywhere—I could still feel her love for me.
But if I felt relief at moments like this, it was surely because I myself carried guilt toward her.
Mother, grown thin. I was the one who had put that sorrowful look on her face. These two hands of mine.
"Sister, you're thinking that again, aren't you?"
Had I put on that sad face without realizing it? Yan'er set both hands softly against my cheeks, drew my eyes to hers, and spoke.
"Mm-mm. No. Just a little tired. Let's go in. It's still cold."
Forcing my expression back into order, I pushed my sister along by the shoulders. The face she could no longer see was probably wearing the same sadness as a moment before.
Yan'er, who had received her courtesy name last year, was already being spoken of as the substitute in the marriage alliance I had refused.
That I could roam the continent as I pleased and spread the wings of whatever dream I liked was only because my family's hidden devotion and sacrifice held me up from behind.
Without Yan'er I could not have escaped a life as Empress Jing'ai, and because I had entered the army in pursuit of Shu-Han's rise, I had given up the road of saving Xiahou Yuan.
Perhaps I was overreacting.
Perhaps, for the people who lived in this age and this world, it was simply a way of life one was meant to accept.
But the guilt I felt toward them would not wash clean out of me.
"Yan'er."
"Hm?"
"Shall we go see the market together tomorrow?"
"Really?"
"Really."
"I want to go!"
What should I wear, when are we leaving?—thoroughly wound up, Yan'er poured out chatter just as a swallow ought, true to her name.
At that adorable fuss I stroked her soft, fluffy hair. A faint smile rose, thin as moonlight.
So I'm looking forward to it too, am I.
A few days later, court was held.
I had been spending nearly all my time with Yan'er of late, and for the first time in a long while I took out my official robes. Not being a civil official, I don't ordinarily have cause to wear the things.
I did have the authority to open a general's headquarters, of course, but Wang Ping, Ma Zhong, Ju Fu, Liu Yin, and Wang Si had all gone out on their own, so there was nothing to open.
Still, it was a mercy that Zhang Yi, Ma Dai, and Fu Qian remained. Military administration to Zhang Yi, the cavalry to Ma Dai, the infantry to Fu Qian—that would do. Whatever talent we now lacked would simply have to be filled anew.
At any rate, the officials great and small gathered in the great hall for court were trading quiet opinions among themselves, all of them curious what decision Liu Bei might have reached.
"His Highness, the King of Hanzhong, enters!"
Liu Bei came in, and every official, myself among them, offered obeisance.
"Raise your heads, my lords. We shall begin court."
Three matters were under discussion in the great hall.
The first was the selection of a consort for the crown prince. In the original history there had been a candidate already set aside for the place—me—so the question had passed without trouble.
This time, though, I had done more than simply refuse. I had risen as far as General of the Rear in the army, and the matter had dragged on all the way to now.
On becoming King of Hanzhong, Liu Bei had named Liu Shan crown prince. At the time he had not yet let go of his lingering attachment to me, and so he left the consort's seat empty—but that, too, had grown difficult to sustain.
Liu Bei was getting on in years, and from the ministers' point of view an heir who remained unmarried could only be an unsettling thing.
Even so, Liu Bei was using his authority to force the question back, again and again.
Among the ministers the prevailing opinion was that my younger sister should be taken as crown princess, but Liu Bei—so ready to heed his ministers at other times—played the deaf man on this one.
It was a passage in which one could feel the stubborn obsession of the Liu Bei who had made Zhuge Liang and Liu Ba his own men.
The second matter was domestic government. The war was over, and it was time to fill the empty granaries in earnest and set right a livelihood left desolate.
The repair of Dujiangyan stood as the foremost of those works, and it was here that Zhuge Liang's true worth was on display.
Under his direct command each official did his duty, so most of court proceeded in the form of reports, with only a handful of items passing through Liu Bei for his approval.
And the third and last was the question of Cao Cao's condolence mission—the issue most prominent of late.
At the tail end of court, word of the mission finally left Liu Bei's mouth.
"The affair of the traitor Cao Cao is one we ought, by all rights, to welcome with both hands raised, and to rejoice over. Yet he at least maintained the outward show of assisting His Imperial Majesty, while his son Cao Pi is vicious in temperament and violent in his haste, and I cannot but fear for His Majesty's sacred person. Therefore I mean to borrow the name of a mission of condolence and send a mission of audience, that we may look into how things stand. I ask you, my lords, to understand that our intent lies not in mourning Cao Cao's death, but in an audience with His Majesty."
He added this explanation and that, but if one looked only at the result, he was saying he would send the condolence mission.
Yet victory had been piled upon victory, and to that was added the authority of the past Liu Bei had built. No one dared to oppose him.
"Han Yan, Officer of Military Counsel—attend."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"I bestow silk and plain cloth, together with a letter. Take them, and convey to Cao Pi our wish to pay a visit."
"I receive your command with reverence."
Once Liu Bei had rendered his decision, every affair of state ran before a favorable wind.
An outstanding founding sovereign, capable ministers, a settled frontier. An exquisite concord of the three.
In the midst of days when it seemed all things would go well, a report came back from Han Yan, who had been waiting in Shangyong for Cao Pi's answer. The reply came with it.
And what that reply contained turned the great hall of Chengdu upside down all over again.
Whether he meant to show off his literary gifts, Cao Pi's answer was written in ornate phrases, but the point of it could be cut very short.
I hear that girl Zhang Lan is quite the beauty. Let me get a look at her face. She comes, and I'll accept your condolences.
Cao Pi, as expected.
The man was mad.