The Imperial Envoy (1)
The war between Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan.
Fought over dominion of Jizhou, the conflict had seemed destined to end in a swift victory for Yuan Shao after Gongsun Zan lost the opening engagement. But Gongsun Zan commanded his men with such brilliant leadership, steering the fighting with practiced ease, that the war everyone had expected to be over in days dragged on and on.
It was exactly what one would expect of the White Horse General, a man who had forged his skill through long years of campaigning against the northern tribes.
The two armies encamped on the Pan River—the Jieqiao—had waged endless skirmishes across a single bridge, yet nothing of consequence had come of it. Yuan Shao's faction and Gongsun Zan's faction alike were simply too massive; crammed into so narrow a theater, neither could land a meaningful blow.
And so a purposeless war of attrition ground on, as time flowed past and the weather turned steadily colder.
A sentry of Yuan Shao's army, standing watch at the edge of the camp, rubbed his aching hands together and huffed warm breath over them.
"My whole body's gone icy."
Winter's really settling in now.
"Damn them all. Aren't those bastards cold? Not one of them so much as twitches."
Glaring across the river, the soldier wore a look of pure disgust. On the far bank, Gongsun Zan's soldiers stood watch exactly as his own did, staring back without moving a muscle.
After a long while of trading glares with them, the sentry heaved a sigh.
"Just how long do they intend to keep this up?"
They barely even fight these days. Why not simply end it here and each side go home? Winter is a cruel season for men like us even at the best of times.
"It should be wrapping up soon."
His fellow sentry spoke up at the grumbling.
"That's a rather optimistic take. Any particular reason?"
"It just will be."
The answer seemed off somehow, and the sentry turned his head for a moment. The man beside him was trembling from head to toe.
"This war had better end before I freeze to death standing right here."
"……"
So this one can't handle the cold at all.
Leaving his shivering comrade behind him, the Yuan soldier turned his gaze back toward Gongsun Zan's camp.
"What's with that murderous glare of his?"
Anyone watching would think the man's parents had been murdered. That face glaring at him was the kind that had plainly killed four or five men in its day, and it raised gooseflesh across his whole body. He was already freezing to death, and now those bastards had to stare at him like that on top of it—it was enough to drive a man mad.
"Haah... I want to go home."
The words spilled from the soldier's mouth—the same words every man in an army has sighed at least once. Winter had only just begun, so for now they could endure, but given more time, men would surely start losing flesh to frostbite, and some would simply freeze to death outright. All he could do was pray, endlessly, that the fighting would end before then.
"...Ah-choo!"
Now I've gone and caught a cold.
It was truly enough to make a man lose his mind.
"How stands the men's morale of late?"
Inside the camp, Yan Liang answered Yuan Shao with a respectful bow.
"It is not good, my lord."
"……"
"The cold deepens by the day, and the soldiers complain of grave exhaustion."
A season when the knife-edged wind froze hands and feet and flayed the very flesh away. The feeling of bones stiffening until every movement became a labor—that pain was known only to those who had lived through it. If even the officers, stationed in comparatively better conditions, suffered so, what must the common soldiers be enduring? No matter how carefully one managed their surroundings, eating and sleeping in the open field took a punishing toll on the body.
Having listened to Yan Liang's report in silence for a time, Yuan Shao spoke slowly.
"And Gongsun Zan's army? How do they fare?"
"Fortunately, their situation is little different from our own."
Elite as Gongsun Zan's soldiers were, they were men all the same. One might excuse the nomads who roamed the harsh northern climes year-round, but Gongsun Zan's troops were, in the end, the same people of Han as their opponents—settled folk who warmed themselves inside snug homes rather than bedding down on bare earth beneath the open sky. There was a reason so many otherwise capable generals had failed in their expeditions against the nomadic tribes.
"Indeed, Gongsun Zan seems well aware of it himself. He grows more cautious with each passing day."
He had failed to shatter Yuan Shao's army on the momentum of an early victory, so the situation could hardly have sat well with him either.
Having heard Yan Liang out, Yuan Shao murmured evenly.
"...Then the war may well end before long."
Rather than strain himself pressing a winter campaign, Gongsun Zan would surely withdraw, regroup, and raise his army again when the time was right. For all that single early defeat, his forces were still the larger.
Yan Liang showed no sign of either agreeing or objecting, but she raised one concern.
"The difficulty lies in how we are to end this war."
Gongsun Zan had raised his army under the banner of avenging his brother Gongsun Yue, and Yuan Shao had risen in opposition, cataloguing his crimes and declaring her resolve to defend Jizhou. A bit of hardship on the battlefield was therefore hardly sufficient grounds to lay the war down.
What was to be done?
Unless some legitimate pretext for ending it presented itself, Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan would have no choice but to keep glaring at each other across the Pan River, bleeding men and gaining nothing.
"My lord."
While Yuan Shao sat lost in thought, Tian Feng, the aide who had joined the campaign at her side, approached and addressed her respectfully.
"What is it?"
Yuan Shao turned to him and asked calmly, and he answered in an even tone.
"An imperial envoy has arrived near the camp, on the Emperor's command."
"……"
At the report, Yuan Shao closed her eyes and held her silence for a long moment. As it stretched on, the assembled commanders gradually began to exchange puzzled looks. And just as every face had turned to her in confusion, Yuan Shao slowly opened her eyes and gave her orders to Yan Liang and Wen Chou.
"...I will go out to receive the envoy. See to the preparations."
"Yes, my lord!"
Yan Liang and Wen Chou received the command with crisp, disciplined bearing.
Escorted by her guard commanders, Yuan Shao led a portion of her soldiers out of the camp. Her yellow armor caught the light as though she were girded in solid gold.
Having ridden out a full hundred li to meet the Emperor's envoy, Yuan Shao stationed herself before him with scrupulous courtesy. The envoy, who had made the long journey from Luoyang to Jizhou, proclaimed his message in a proud, ringing voice. His words ran long, but reduced to their essence, they came to this:
Yuan Shao, Administrator of Bohai, is hereby commanded: make peace with Gongsun Zan at once, and labor for the tranquility of all under Heaven!
"I humbly receive the Son of Heaven's command."
Without a moment's hesitation, Yuan Shao bowed twice before the envoy, paying full honor to the Emperor.
"...So once again, I find myself in his debt."
How many times had it been now? Dong Zhuo, that veritable wolf, who had driven her from Luoyang's political world—the beast who had toppled in a single instant everything she had painstakingly built in the capital. No words could capture what she had felt, watching him flee headlong in disgrace, stripped of everything just as she had been.
Then there was her brother—a fool so senseless it was shameful to share a clan with him. He had spread vicious slander against the General-in-Chief and stirred up coalition armies in every corner of the realm. The General-in-Chief must have been utterly beside himself at the time. And yet, even so, he had chosen to deal generously with the Yuan household residing in Luoyang.
The upshot was that Yuan Shu's standing within the Yuan clan was obliterated. She would have given much to know what expression Yuan Shu had worn when word of that reached him.
And now, at last, he had handed both sides a pretext to pull their armies back. Gongsun Zan, too, surely understood that fighting on past this point would win him nothing; he would withdraw without a fuss. And then she would be free to deal with the rebels who had risen across Jizhou in answer to Gongsun Zan's call, and lay the foundation for securing the province at last.
Too little time had passed since she absorbed Han Fu's faction, and Jizhou remained unsettled. Bohai Commandery, which she had governed since before, was sound enough, but sporadic resistance still smoldered across Julu and Wei Commandery—Ye.
Gongsun Zan had invoked the secret letters, cursing her as a faithless creature who kept no oath. What precisely had the insults been, again? Something about a heart like a wolf and conduct like a cur—a treacherous, ungrateful bitch? Something about how she dared show her face in the world at all?
Truly, a tongue that had startled even her. Yan Liang and Wen Chou, who attended her in those days, had flushed scarlet to the ears—needless to say, then, how well that provocation had struck home.
"...And yet perhaps the man was not entirely wrong."
Born the ice-blooded daughter of a great house, she had lived her whole life chasing honor and power, and nothing else. She had resolved that no one would ever look down on her for being an ice-blooded woman. Above all burned the desire to sit in the highest seat of all—and for that desire, Yuan Shao had always stood ready to sacrifice whatever was required.
In the handful of encounters she had shared with the General-in-Chief—could he, in so short a time, have seen straight through her?
Yuan Shao watched the imperial envoy make his way toward Gongsun Zan's camp, her eyes unreadable.