Side Story: Cao Cao
Crack!
"Gah—!"
"You scoundrel! Do you know your own crimes?"
"You… A'man, you insolent little— I told you plainly I'd pay you, and yet you dare treat me like this?"
Crack!
"Urgh!"
"And still this wretch has no mind to repent—nothing but a wagging tongue! How many more blows will it take before you come to your senses?"
"Y-you little bastard, do you even know who I am…? When I get out of here, I swear I'll take your head first… You mark my words…"
Crack!
"Aaaagh!"
"Still no remorse for what you've done?"
"Listen, you dog. I am the uncle of the eunuch Jian Shuo… Jian Shuo, the one His Majesty the Emperor favors above all others. If you beg my pardon even now, I might yet spare your life…"
Crack!
"Aaaah! I—I'm dying—!"
"Don't you understand that a relative of an official must uphold the law all the more strictly? I will make an example of you, and show the world the majesty of the law!"
"Urrgh… You reckless, brainless fool… I'll…"
Crack!
"Aaaargh—!"
"If you cannot recall your own crimes, then I shall name them for you. The crime of violating curfew in the dead of night. The crime of offering a bribe rather than repenting the offense you committed. The crime of obstructing an officer in the performance of his duty. The crime of threatening a public official!"
"Ugh… I'll ruin not only you but your entire clan…!"
Such threats never reached Cao Cao's ears. Even as he brought the staff down without mercy, another voice was turning over in his mind.
These parasites devouring the nation! I will set them right—and set the nation right with them!
Crack! Crack! Craaack!
"Aaagh! Aaah! Aaaaah!"
Cao Cao had no further desire to trade words with such a man. He simply swung the five-colored staff with savage precision. The so-called uncle of Jian Shuo, his backside a bloody ruin, could manage nothing but raw, animal screams.
The officials standing nearby fretted that this might end in disaster, yet Cao Cao's aura was so ferocious that none dared intervene; they could only watch and wait.
With vermin like this strutting about unchecked, no wonder the realm has fallen into such a state!
Crack! Crack!
"Aaaagh! C-Cao A'man… n-no—Lord Cao Cao… please, spare my life at least…"
I will punish these creatures, restore discipline, and set this nation to rights!
"C-Cao Cao, you… this dog… ghk, ugh…"
Jian Shuo's uncle muttered something unintelligible, then his tongue lolled out and his body went slack.
So consumed was Cao Cao by rage that he failed to register the condition of the man he was thrashing, and simply kept striking.
"My lord! My lord! Something is wrong with this man!"
An official beside him, face gone pale, cried out to Cao Cao. The five-colored staff froze midair.
"What did you say?"
"Th-this man's condition is strange. He isn't moving at all."
Only then did Cao Cao notice that the mouth which had been babbling moments before no longer stirred. Not the mouth alone—there was no movement anywhere in the body. Only the blood-soaked trousers, dripping steadily onto the ground.
Cao Cao set down the five-colored staff and issued an order to his men.
"Examine him."
"Y-yes. Yes, at once…"
The officials moved in a fluster. As they checked the man's condition, they kept repeating the same silent prayer: Please let him be all right. Please let him be all right. If Jian Shuo's uncle had come to harm, nothing good would come of it for them.
But their hopes betrayed them.
The face of the official examining the man up close went rigid. In a trembling voice, he said:
"H-he's dead, my lord."
"Dead, you say?"
"Yes. Yes. There is no doubt—he is dead."
A chill ran down every official's spine.
Cao Cao himself was briefly unsettled, but he recovered his composure at once.
"My lord… what are we to do?"
"What is there to do? We have merely carried out the law. Still, as men we have our duties—see that the body is given a proper burial."
"B-but…"
The officials' faces remained frozen hard. They had killed a relative of Jian Shuo of the Ten Attendants—a man notorious for his excesses—and they feared the retribution that might fall upon them.
"Do not concern yourselves. We have handled this according to regulation; neither I nor any of you has done wrong. Should any trouble arise, I alone will bear the responsibility."
This was the young Cao Cao—newly entered into official service, freshly appointed Commandant of Luoyang's Northern District, charged with keeping the peace in the capital's northern quarter.
Trusting in nothing but his backers, Jian Shuo's uncle had swaggered about with arrogant abandon—and Cao Cao had beaten him to death with a staff. The incident set all of Luoyang abuzz, and more than a few wondered whether Cao Cao himself would suffer for it. Yet no meaningful punishment came.
He had done nothing improper, and so Jian Shuo and the rest of the Ten Attendants lacked any legitimate grounds on which to strike at him. Cao Cao's own family, moreover, wielded no small measure of power.
In consequence, Cao Cao's renown soared overnight, and in Luoyang there remained none who dared flout the law.
Thereafter Cao Cao advanced steadily along the path of preferment. He was promoted to Magistrate of Dunqiu, then rose again to the rank of Gentleman Consultant.
In time he was appointed Chancellor of Jinan—the chief administrator of the Principality of Jinan in Qing Province. The first thing he did upon arriving in Jinan was root out corruption.
"I will tear out, root and branch, every greedy official who takes bribes and neglects the people's livelihood."
He immediately subjected the dozen-odd county magistrates under Jinan's jurisdiction to rigorous investigation, and dismissed eight of them for putting private greed above public duty.
But that alone was nowhere near enough to stabilize the people's lives.
One day, while touring his territory, Cao Cao came upon a scene that gave him pause. The place appeared to be a shrine. That a shrine should stand there was unremarkable enough—but what was taking place within it was not something he could simply accept and move past.
Crowds of people burning incense and performing music. Offerings and coin flowing without end onto the sacrificial altar. Most of all, the sight of penniless farmers emptying what little they possessed kindled a deep suspicion in Cao Cao's heart.
The scale and atmosphere of it all struck him as anything but ordinary, and he gave orders to his subordinates.
"Investigate this rite thoroughly—leave nothing unexamined."
Before long, the nature of the worship was laid bare.
It was a cult devoted to King Jing of Chengyang, Liu Zhang. Liu Zhang, a grandson of Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang, had rendered great service to the Han. After his death a faith that deified him had spread, and the common people had raised shrines and offered sacrifice in his name.
In the Jinan region where Cao Cao now served, the cult had taken especially deep root; some six hundred such shrines were said to stand across the land.
Yet as the extravagance of the rites grew year by year, the people's lives sank deeper into poverty. Of all the officials who had held office here across the generations, not one had ever sought to correct it.
In short, the common folk were being bled dry in the name of venerating a man dead for centuries.
Cao Cao was different. He acted at once. He had every shrine torn down and forbade further sacrifice, putting an end to the wanton plunder of the people's wealth.
And so, one day, as he labored to right these abuses and govern with integrity, a man came seeking him out.
"My lord. I beg you—please accept this."
The man, who introduced himself as a blacksmith, held out a single sword.
Upon its scabbard was written:
At a glance, it was a rare and precious blade.
"Why would you give such a thing to me?"
"Because there was no one but you, my lord, fit to wield it."
"But to accept a treasure of this worth would make it a bribe beyond any doubt. I will take only the sentiment. Do not be disappointed—take it back with you."
"This is no bribe. Because you took charge of this region, the corrupt officials vanished and the unjust rites were cut off. This is a gift offered to one who has labored for the sake of us common people. You, my lord, are a man whose lofty purpose reaches even unto Heaven itself."
"Heaven? Preposterous. I shall pretend I never heard that word."
Cao Cao declined once more. The mention of Heaven, above all, left him uneasy. Heaven—spoken of a mere official?
But the blacksmith would not yield. In the end, unable to break the man's resolve, Cao Cao accepted the sword and said:
"Very well. I will take this blade as a pledge to govern this place all the better. Each time I look upon it, I shall renew my original resolve."
The blacksmith bowed many times and withdrew.
But that resolve did not last long.
Time and again Cao Cao submitted memorials to the Emperor, denouncing the misdeeds of the powerful favorites at court and urging that they be set right.
Yet the reigning sovereign, Liu Hong—Emperor Ling—paid Cao Cao's counsel not the slightest heed, absorbed entirely in the sale of offices and in luxury and pleasure.
And Cao Cao's remonstrances and petitions became, instead, a snare about his own ankles.
Pressure came from the Ten Attendants and the other powerful ministers—pressure that fell not on Cao Cao alone, but upon his entire clan.
At last, fearing harm to his family, Cao Cao resolved to resign his post on the pretext of illness and return to his native place.
"Burn everything of no use. We leave with only the barest essentials."
Before departing for home, Cao Cao ordered his servants to sort through his belongings.
When he had first taken up his post in Jinan, he had brought every manner of possession with him.
Now, disillusioned with official life, he meant to cast aside all that was unnecessary and go home.
Useless objects were flung into the courtyard and swallowed by flame. Black smoke blotted out the black sky.
Cao Cao himself went into the government office, checking whether anything had been forgotten. As his gaze roved about, it snagged on one particular place.
This…?
It was an object tossed carelessly into a corner of the office, lying discarded.
The five-colored staff.
The instrument that had once carried his convictions in the days when he was Commandant of Luoyang's Northern District. The same object he had brought with him to Jinan, determined never to forget his original purpose.
But how long had he neglected it? The colors had faded; worms had eaten into the wood. It was an embarrassment to call it five-colored any longer. It was nothing but an old club.
Cao Cao picked it up and walked outside. Then he flung the staff into the fire still roaring in the courtyard.
At once the flames began to devour it. And the purpose that staff had once held crumbled into a handful of ash and was gone.
He felt hollow. All the effort he had poured into his years as Chancellor of Jinan seemed to turn to cinders before his eyes. Once he left, this region would surely sink back into what it had been.
Then a single phrase drifted through Cao Cao's mind.
It was the appraisal he had once received from a renowned judge of character.
Why is this world not an age of peace?
The dream of becoming a capable minister in peaceful times had already been discarded—together with the five-colored staff now guttering into ash.
Will you abandon everything here?
A voice rose from within his chest.
Never.
The appraisal he had heard had not ended with "a capable minister in an age of peace." There had been more. If one dream had shattered, then he need only advance toward the next.
Cao Cao closed his fist around the Yitian sword at his waist.