Tiger of Jiangdong (6)
The mood inside Xiangyang Castle had been dreadful of late.
And with good reason—the general who had marched out so boldly, insisting the matter be left to him, had returned defeated without a single victory to his name.
By the time Sun Jian's army came crashing up against the very gates of Xiangyang, Liu Biao had summoned his civil and military officials to the government hall, and now he fixed his gaze on one man.
"...Have you anything to say for yourself?"
"Ten mouths would not be enough to excuse this!"
The defeated general, who had squandered his soldiers and their morale in equal measure, knelt before Liu Biao.
"Hoo..." Liu Biao made no effort to mask his lament, letting a long sigh escape him.
Just then, one figure stepped out from among the civil officials and spoke.
"General Cai Mao refused to heed a sound stratagem and has returned having suffered a crushing defeat. By military law, he ought rightly to be beheaded."
As Kuai Liang offered this counsel, the color drained from Cai Mao's face.
"I beg your forgiveness, my lord!"
As Cai Mao pressed his forehead to the floor in apology, Liu Biao's weathered brow knotted itself deeper. He sank into thought, and a suffocating hush settled over the hall—until at last, after a moment's deliberation, he reached his decision.
"There will be no repeat of this."
"...Thank you, my lord!"
The words amounted to forgiveness as good as any, and Cai Mao's face bloomed as he bowed deeply to Liu Biao.
Kuai Yue spoke up, plainly troubled.
"And yet, my lord..."
"That is quite enough."
Cutting Kuai Yue off, Liu Biao continued.
"Cai Mao is the elder brother of my second wife. If I were to punish him over a single defeat, with what face could I ever look upon my own family?"
"...If that is your will, my lord, then I shall abide by it."
Realizing how dearly Liu Biao cherished his second wife, Kuai Yue withdrew from the matter without protest.
Cai Mao breathed a sigh of relief that his head would remain where it belonged.
Neither had Liu Biao spared him out of affection for his wife alone.
Not long after Liu Biao had taken office as Inspector of Jing Province, the only reason he had managed to lay hold of the province's real power was the backing of its great families. That left him forever obliged to weigh their moods in everything he did—and his marriage into the Cai clan, one of Jing's most powerful houses, had been part and parcel of that very arrangement.
By forgiving Cai Mao's offense, he could use the occasion to loosen the gentry's grip on his administration and secure that much more influence over Jing Province for himself. Even from Liu Biao's standpoint, then, pardoning Cai Mao was hardly a bad bargain.
And so Liu Biao and the great families of Jing were forever wrestling for the initiative in one political skirmish after another—and every time such a struggle flared, Liu Biao found his thoughts drifting to Cao Cao, who ruled Yanzhou.
Word had it that the moment one of her gentry families showed even the tiniest opening, Cao Cao would strike them down without ceremony.
More astonishing still, for all her high-handedness, the gentry of Yanzhou could not so much as raise a whisper of rebellion against her.
Even Liu Biao himself, seasoned though he was by long years in the central government, had to tread carefully around the great families—yet Cao Cao had gone a full step beyond him.
So that was what it meant to be the adopted granddaughter of that illustrious Cao clan.
He had marked her ever since the day she beat one of the Ten Attendants' uncles to death, but she was a figure one could never afford to underestimate.
Liu Biao spoke.
"Let the Cai family continue to devote itself to the stability of Jing Province."
"...I shall obey your command."
Cai Mao caught the true intent behind the look in Liu Biao's eyes—the reason his life had been spared—and bowed his head low.
He was a man of some perception himself, after all; he could work it out well enough.
My sister is going to give me an earful over this later.
Blinded by the vanity of raising his family's name ever higher, he had misjudged his opponent's strength. Cai Mao had no defense to offer.
While Cai Mao sat stewing in his gloom, Liu Biao turned his head toward his civil officials.
"Are the preparations for receiving the enemy complete?"
"They are, my lord."
This time it was Kuai Yue, not Kuai Liang, who answered.
"With the men we have remaining, we have deepened the trenches and raised the walls as high as they will stand. However famed a Tiger of Jiangdong this Sun Jian may be, he will not breach Xiangyang Castle with ease."
"And the request for reinforcements?"
"It departed without incident only moments ago."
Cao Cao, by all reports, had personally led her army out to suppress bandits, which left Yuan Shao as the only power in any position to send Liu Biao reinforcements.
"Then all that remains is to hold."
Hearing Kuai Yue out, Liu Biao gave a slow nod.
"Regard this Xiangyang Castle as our final bastion, and stand against Sun Jian's host."
"Yes, my lord!"
Not one of the assembled generals raised a question; they simply obeyed.
If they could not hold the enemy at Xiangyang Castle—a fortress favored with every natural advantage—then it was self-evident that any retreat to Jiangxia would be breached in short order as well.
Sun Jian, in the midst of spreading his encirclement around Xiangyang, turned to look at a courier who had appeared without warning.
"You've caught a suspicious character?"
"Yes, General! When we searched his robes, we found this..."
The courier held out a single sheet of paper, and Sun Jian unfolded it and read through its contents at his leisure.
"I see. Someone's been using their head."
"What does it say?"
Sun Ce asked from beside him as Sun Jian nodded along to the letter.
Sun Jian answered with a perfectly easy expression.
"A letter begging Yuan Shao for reinforcements."
"...That nearly turned into real trouble."
Having read every word, Sun Jian tossed the letter away as he spoke.
The missive that would never reach Yuan Shao tumbled across the ground, gathering filth.
"Luck was with us this time."
Sun Jian called over an aide standing nearby and gave his orders.
"One request for aid will hardly be the last. See that the watch is tightened."
"Yes, sir!"
The aide withdrew to carry out his orders.
Little by little, Sun Jian's encirclement was closing complete.
With the noose drawn tight, Sun Jian's army finally began the siege in earnest.
As in any siege, the defenders hurled spirited war cries down at the enemy, loosing arrow after arrow over the walls.
True, they had deepened the moats and raised the walls—but Sun Jian was a commander who had bled on a hundred battlefields, and he answered every measure with a veteran's ease, steadily pressing Liu Biao's army back on its heels.
Liu Biao's men poured boiling water and dropped stones on the attackers, holding out against Sun Jian's host with everything they had, but there was no stopping the weariness that crept over them day by day.
At length, Liu Biao summoned his generals to take counsel.
"Still no reply to our plea for reinforcements?"
"None, my lord."
Kuai Liang answered the question with a bow of his head.
At that answer, a puzzled look crossed Liu Biao's face.
"Something about this is strange. Reckoning from when the courier departed, Yuan Shao's camp should have reacted long before now..."
Given the relationship between Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, Yuan Shao would hardly sit idle and watch Yuan Shu devour Jing Province.
Fierce as Gongsun Zan's offensive might be, a Yuan Shao who had swallowed all of Jizhou whole was hardly left without room to breathe.
What was more, Gongsun Zan—Liu Biao's own bitter enemy—had joined hands with Yuan Shu. If only to check that alliance, Liu Biao reasoned, Yuan Shao would send troops.
At length he arrived at a single conclusion, and put the question to Kuai Yue.
"It seems the courier we sent to Yuan Shao was intercepted along the way?"
"...It would seem so."
When Kuai Yue lent his assent, Liu Biao pressed one hand to his brow as if his skull ached.
"Hah. To think affairs would come to this. Does Heaven truly take Sun Jian's side?"
"My lord, it is not too late even now. Send out another courier."
At Kuai Yue's proposal, Liu Biao asked,
"Is Cao Cao still off hunting bandits?"
"She is. From what intelligence we could gather, having wiped out the bandits of Qing Province, Cao Cao is now marching on Xu Province with her army under her personal command."
"Xu Province... whatever can she intend by that?"
That old man Tao Qian was not the sort to stand idly by and watch his borders be trampled.
He would march out to drive Cao Cao off a hundred times in a hundred—and Cao Cao would know it perfectly well.
What intent lay behind Cao Cao's march on Xu Province, Liu Biao could not begin to fathom.
But that was not what mattered to him at present, and so he turned his mind back to the matter at hand.
"So in the end, Yuan Shao is the only one left to petition."
"It appears so."
"There is nothing for it, then."
Liu Biao looked around at the generals gathered about him.
"Is there any man here who can cut through Sun Jian's encirclement and see my letter delivered?"
"Entrust it to me!"
At Liu Biao's question, one fierce general stepped forward.
"I, Lü Gong, will smash through Sun Jian's army barring the road and carry the plea for aid to Yuan Shao!"
"Good. Then I shall place it in your hands."
With no better recourse of his own, Liu Biao nodded to Lü Gong's stalwart figure.
And so, while Lü Gong—newly charged with this vital mission—made ready to burst through Sun Jian's lines, Kuai Liang slipped quietly up to him and spoke.
"As you make your way out of Xiangyang Castle, why not follow a little stratagem of mine?"
"What do you mean by that?"
At Kuai Liang's proposal, Lü Gong asked, baffled.
Kuai Liang said,
"When I examined the heavens last night, I saw a single star flickering as though it might be snuffed out at any moment."
"Hm..."
"That star belonged, beyond all doubt, to Sun Jian. Before long, disaster will visit him."
Having said his piece, Kuai Liang's eyes gleamed sharp and bright.
"With a little fortune, we may yet hunt the tiger here."