Stirring (2)
Having seized Ji, the seat of power long held by You Province Inspector Liu Yu, the White Horse General Gongsun Zan marched his army toward Ye, where Han Fu resided.
Hearing the news, Han Fu, Governor of Jizhou, hastily scrambled to assemble a defensive force, but holding back a man who had spent years hunting down the northern tribes across You Province proved beyond his strength.
“A report, my lord! General Zhang He has clashed with Gongsun Zan in fierce battle near Anping County, here in Jizhou!”
“Wh-what did you say? That man should still be in You Province—how has he already reached Anping County?”
At the shocking news, Han Fu felt his head begin to swim.
“If Gongsun Zan crosses Anping County, the next thing in his path will be Julu.”
And once Julu fell, Ye would lie within easy reach.
Pressing a hand to his forehead, Han Fu turned to his civil officials and spoke.
“Has the envoy I sent to Yuan Shao not yet returned?”
A civil official standing nearby answered him.
“He should arrive any day now, my lord.”
“I pray he brings good news...”
Just as Han Fu let out a weary sigh, a messenger came hurrying in. Han Fu regarded him with a tired face.
“...What is it this time?”
“The envoy of General Yuan Shao has arrived!”
“Is that the truth?”
At the messenger's report, Han Fu's face brightened. He hurried to speak.
“Then what are you waiting for? Bring him in at once!”
“Yes, my lord!”
The messenger pressed both hands together in a bow and rushed off. Before long, a figure emerged from behind the envoy Han Fu had sent—a man whose face carried a sly, obstinate air—and bowed respectfully.
“I am called Guo Tu, courtesy name Gongze.”
With a welcoming expression, Han Fu received Yuan Shao's envoy warmly.
“Oh ho. An envoy of the Administrator of Bohai? This is a welcome sight.”
“Yes. On my lord's orders, I have made the journey here to Ye.”
Even as he welcomed Guo Tu, Han Fu raised the question weighing on him.
“You could have simply sent your reply back with the envoy I dispatched. What brings you all this way in person?”
“Because these terms are far too weighty for a mere envoy to decide upon.”
“……”
Han Fu held his silence for a long moment before speaking.
“And what might these terms be, that you speak of them so gravely?”
“My lord has but a single condition for sending reinforcements.”
Meeting Han Fu's gaze squarely, Guo Tu delivered the word.
“Submission.”
“……!”
At the word that left Guo Tu's lips, Han Fu's eyes went wide.
“My lord has declared that unless this condition is accepted, he will not send a single soldier.”
No sooner had Guo Tu finished than voices began to rise around the hall.
“What in the world is this nonsense!”
“Governor! This proposal is not even worth hearing!”
Every man in the hall fixed Guo Tu with hostile eyes, yet he went on with unruffled calm.
“Governor. Consider this coldly. If that White Horse General takes Ye, do you truly believe he will leave you alive?”
“Insolent nonsense, even now—!”
“Enough.”
When the generals around him moved to heap curses on Guo Tu, Han Fu cut them off.
“But, my lord—!”
“There is time enough to decide once we have heard all he has to say.”
As Han Fu's gaze turned to him, Guo Tu bowed with careful courtesy.
“Judging by the temperament of Gongsun Zan—a man more savage than the very barbarians of the north—the moment he decides you are a threat to his power, he will swing his sword without the slightest mercy.”
“That man is more than capable of it.”
Han Fu nodded. He had seen it with his own eyes: Gongsun Zan had genuinely tried to execute Liu Yu, the Inspector of You Province whose virtue was renowned throughout the realm. That man did not weigh the consequences before he acted. Why, had the Inspector not surrendered to him after a single battle? If that was how a man who knelt was treated, then Han Fu's own fate would be little different.
“And what of the lord I serve? Behold his magnanimity, the generosity that wins a nod from every man who meets him. Is there any respect in which my lord falls short of Gongsun Zan?”
“……”
“My lord has sworn that you will find his treatment of you wanting in nothing.”
Han Fu could not bring himself to decide so rashly.
“My lord! We have no need of anyone's help! Refuse him this instant!”
“Quite so! If we meet him properly, we are more than able to drive off a man like Gongsun Zan!”
As Han Fu sank into thought, the civil officials around him joined their voices in urging refusal. But the very fact that he was deliberating was itself proof that he was weighing surrender favorably. Guo Tu drove the wedge home to make his decision easier still.
“You still appear to be deep in deliberation, I see.”
“……”
“Then how does this sound to you?”
So saying, Guo Tu looked at Han Fu with a smile cold as drawn steel.
“If you do not surrender, my lord will march on Ye at the head of his army in person.”
“What did you say?!”
Han Fu shot to his feet, alarm written across his face. He had committed the bulk of his troops to holding back Gongsun Zan, who now possessed all of You Province; were Yuan Shao to attack him now, he had nothing left to withstand it with. The generals around him stiffened in an instant, plainly shaken.
“Think it over carefully. Under attack from Gongsun Zan and my lord at the same time, how long could you possibly hold out?”
“Hmm...”
“Did you not once campaign alongside my lord in the coalition army? Hand Jizhou over to him, and you will unquestionably be treated with the greatest generosity.”
Between the honeyed coaxing and the threats threaded through it, the faint-hearted Han Fu had no chance left to gather his wits.
“...You there. Answer me honestly. If Yuan Shao attacks together with Gongsun Zan, can our forces withstand them?”
“……”
The civil officials who had spoken so firmly against surrender fell silent.
Under ordinary circumstances, Han Fu had planned to cut off Yuan Shao's grain supply and slowly strangle the Yuan army to death. But that plan had dissolved into nothing the moment the General-in-Chief dealt generously with the Yuan family then residing in Luoyang. It was said that beneath Yuan Shao stood fierce generals who would not yield an inch even to Gongsun Zan's finest; to fight would be to lose.
“Is there truly no other way...” Han Fu said, his voice trembling faintly.
“……”
The strategists who, in the history that should have been, would have objected to Han Fu's surrender kept their silence. If asked whether Yuan Shao's soldiers were a ragtag mob, they could only shake their heads; if asked whether he lacked capable generals under him, that was not true either. His renown stood so high that men traveled from distant lands out of sheer admiration for him, and with the backing of his wealthy family he had secured provisions enough to hold out on his own. Worse still, a general under Han Fu named Qu Yi had recently risen in revolt, leaving even his own house in disarray—no matter how hard the strategists racked their brains, no countermeasure would come.
“Yes. As in the tale of the sage king Yao, yielding one's seat to a worthy man out of regard for virtue is a quality the whole world prizes.”
Recalling that he had once served as an official of the Yuan family, Han Fu nodded.
“Bear this word to General Yuan: I shall hand Jizhou over to him.”
“You have decided wisely.”
Guo Tu bowed in formal gratitude to Han Fu.
In Bohai, Yuan Shao—who had been awaiting glad tidings—was looking at Guo Tu, the man she had dispatched as her envoy. Guo Tu bowed respectfully before her.
“Governor Han Fu has resolved to surrender to you, my lord.”
At Guo Tu's report, a smile crept across Yuan Shao's lips. Just as her officials had predicted—and just as she herself had expected—the faint-hearted Han Fu, once coaxed with a measure of threat mixed in, had capitulated at once.
“I shall see that you are rewarded separately later. You are dismissed.”
At her command, Guo Tu withdrew with respectful bearing.
She had sent a secret letter to Gongsun Zan, persuading him to strike at Han Fu, and incited Qu Yi—a general who nursed a grudge against his lord—into open rebellion. With his domain shaken from within and without at the same time, a man of Han Fu's limited ability had never stood a chance of coping. Perhaps, somewhere deep in his heart, he had only wished for someone to protect him.
Mengde, it was said, had been quietly putting the Yanzhou region in order since her appointment as its Governor. And word had it she was on poor terms of late with Yuan Shu, who had planted himself in Ye Province—once she swallowed Yanzhou whole, her hand would surely reach for Ye Province next.
Cao Cao.
Her old friend—the one who, like Yuan Shao herself, had refrained from actively antagonizing the General-in-Chief back in the days of the coalition army.
In an age when the whole world had fallen into chaos, what was needed above all else was a strong ruler capable of leading everyone. What had Mengde seen, back in those days? Even Yuan Shao, her friend of so many years, could not read what lay in Mengde's heart.
Yuan Shao pictured the territories Cao Cao would come to possess in the future.
“Yanzhou and Ye Province...”
Yuan Shao had already settled it in her mind as certain fact that Cao Cao would drive out Yuan Shu and take control of the Ye Province region. Picturing Cao Cao holding the very heart of the realm, Yuan Shao smiled.
“I cannot very well fall behind Mengde, now can I?”
Now it was her turn to cross blades with Gongsun Zan over who would rule Jizhou.
The White Horse General, Gongsun Zan. No easy foe—a man who had shown exceptional talent at commanding soldiers since years past and weathered countless battles against the northern tribes.
If she drove Gongsun Zan from Jizhou, she too would be granted the title of Provincial Governor, just as Cao Cao had been.
He was, without question, a man of that same caliber.