Liu Biao (3)
When I asked how Liu Biao would respond to my forces, Jia Xu and Xun You answered without a moment's hesitation.
"There is no recourse but the Vertical Alliance."
"The Vertical Alliance?"
"Yes."
When I pressed her to elaborate, Jia Xu calmly obliged.
"Liu Biao will, without question, ally himself with other powers and attempt to squeeze us from all four directions."
"Hmm..."
"And those other powers will, in all likelihood, be Cao Cao and Yuan Shao."
I nodded, conceding that it sounded plausible. Which meant the awkward moment had arrived yet again—the one where someone had to ask whether they would end up standing against me without ever truly meaning to. If events played out the way Jia Xu and Xun You foresaw, the whole business promised to be a colossal nuisance.
I asked for their counsel.
"Then what course would you have me take?"
"For now, Yuan Shao's forces need not concern us overmuch."
I had a fair guess as to why Jia Xu made that claim.
"Gongsun Zan, I take it."
"Yes."
Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan had kept a brief peace after I sent an imperial envoy to mediate and order them to lay down their arms. And through that brief peace, both of them, without exception, spent every waking day preparing for the next war. Yuan Shao methodically purged the powerful clans that had risen in Gongsun Zan's support and thrown her realm into discord, while Gongsun Zan wrung his own people dry all over again to hoard war materiel to the absolute limit.
People tend to picture You Province as a wretched land that nomads trample at every turn, but in truth it was nowhere near as bad as its reputation. Like Xuzhou and Qingzhou, it had absorbed great waves of refugees fleeing the chaos of the Central Plains, and like Jizhou its terrain was flat and its roads decent.
The simple fact that Beijing—the capital of modern China—sits on what was once You Province soil tells you the geography wasn't half bad. There's a reason the old saying goes that whoever masters the Hebei region has all but unified the realm.
And Bing Province, you ask? It sits right beside Hebei, so surely it's fine too? Bing Province is trash. To begin with, it was less populous than just about anywhere else. What was Bing Province's population at the time of the Yellow Turban Rebellion? One hundred ten thousand households, seven hundred thousand souls. You could stack three Bing Provinces together and still lose to a single commandery of Jing Province—Nanyang, with its five hundred thousand households and two and a half million people.
This godforsaken land... Strip away the one virtue of a respectable army hammered into shape by endless fighting with the nomads, and there wasn't a single good thing to say about the place. Not that you could expect much from a madhouse where senior officials dropped dead the moment you looked away...
In any case, the moment spring arrived and the weather broke, Gongsun Zan, master of You Province, declared war on Yuan Shao and invaded yet again. Yuan Shao was hardly the sort to sit still and absorb it, so her counterattack began at once. These days, Jizhou and You Province were one endless battlefield where the armies of Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao collided day after day.
I stroked my chin and spoke.
"Gongsun Zan grinds his teeth at Yuan Shao, so there's little chance of them making peace..."
I didn't know the precise reasons behind all that tooth-grinding, but the two had well and truly fallen out after Yuan Shao swallowed Han Fu's forces, so it was probably tied up with that. What on earth had Yuan Shao written in that secret letter she'd once sent Gongsun Zan? History never recorded it, and the mystery only deepened.
Hearing me mutter to myself, Xun You spoke up.
"As things stand, Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan have yet to settle which of them holds the advantage, both sides lurching forward and falling back in turn—so even if Yuan Shao wished to send Liu Biao reinforcements, they would be very few indeed."
Was I supposed to be grateful for that?
Perhaps Gongsun Zan had learned something from his recent clash with Qu Yi, because he had kept up a thoroughly manly exchange of blows—taking one hit to land one hit. As I turned the original history over in my mind, a question suddenly occurred to me, and I put it to Xun You.
"Is Yuan Shao the only power fighting Gongsun Zan right now?"
"Whatever do you mean by... ah."
Xun You began to ask in puzzlement, then nodded as something dawned on her.
"Yes. The remnants of Liu Yu's forces were absorbed into our own, and though I cannot say why, I hear the nomadic tribes have lately been in turmoil among themselves."
"Hm? The nomads?"
If we were talking about the tribes straddling the You Province frontier, that meant the Wuhuan and the Xianbei. In the original history, Yuan Shao had drawn in the remnants of Liu Yu's followers and the nomad tribes alike to bring Gongsun Zan down—so this was nothing I had anticipated. Yuan Shao's own forces, the remnants of Liu Yu, and the nomads Yuan Shao had roped in besides: those three had pooled their strength and pounded him from three directions at once, which was exactly why even Gongsun Zan had never managed to gather his wits. But with that three-pronged assault off the table... what would become of this war?
Xun You went on.
"I'm told clashes among the nomadic tribes themselves have grown frequent of late."
"..."
I held my silence. When people hear "nomads," they tend to picture horsemen careening across some vast open steppe. In truth, those bastards were mad enough to ride their horses through the mountains. The very names of the Xianbei and the Wuhuan came from Xianbei Mountain and Wuhuan Mountain, where each had made its stronghold—nothing strange about that. And in fact, they had originally been one and the same people, called the Donghu, the Eastern Hu, until the Xiongnu living next door beat them senseless and wiped them out, after which the survivors splintered into a dozen branches as the ages passed.
The Xiongnu really were thugs.
And the trouble with people like that was how they raided at the drop of a hat. The Han court, in the name of showing mercy to those half-witted Xiongnu, sent annual gifts north every year—though "gifts" was a generous word for what was, in practice, tribute flowing one way. I mean, what kind of gift comes with a princess bundled in and shipped off to be married? Still, the Han hadn't simply kept absorbing the blows. In the end it split the Xiongnu into the Northern and Southern Xiongnu and succeeded in gutting their strength. Compared to the days when they had soared across the steppe, the Xiongnu of today were a mere pinprick of their old blood.
If China was ever to trade on a grand scale with the far-off lands of Europe, the nomad problem would have to be settled first. The trade route through Xiliang was choked off by the likes of the Xianbei, and the route through Yi Province was sealed by the Nanman tribes—famed, of course, for the tale of the Seven Captures and Seven Releases.
A low hum escaped me.
"Mmm..."
"Is something weighing on your mind, my lord?"
"No, nothing at all."
If those tribes were too busy fighting one another to look outward, that ought to have been news to celebrate—so why did this uneasy foreboding cling to me? Chalking it up to needless worry, I shook the thought loose and spoke again.
"If Yuan Shao is nothing to fear, what about Cao Cao?"
"Might I take that one?"
At my question, Sima Yi cut into the conversation.
"I don't mind either way, but..."
I said, glancing uncertainly between Jia Xu and Xun You.
"I merely follow my lord's wishes."
"I confess I'm curious myself what our little strategist thinks."
Jia Xu closed her eyes and inclined her head slightly, while Xun You's eyes curved into soft crescents as she smiled. Their reactions were agreeable enough, so I nodded.
"Then go on—let's hear it."
"Ahem. Then listen closely."
Sima Yi cleared her throat briefly and laid out her view.
"Much as it pains me to say it, Cao Cao isn't squeezed the way Yuan Shao is."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
Sima Yi continued.
"I can't vouch for everything else, but Gongsun Zan fights well and has Yuan Shao properly pinned down, whereas there isn't an enemy worth the name anywhere near Cao Cao. That's the problem."
"..."
"Yuan Shu, who lost his entire domain and got chased off to Gangdong, isn't even worth mentioning. The only enemies she has left are Inspector Gong Ju of Ye Province and Inspector Tao Qian of Xuzhou, and neither of them so much as entertains the thought of attacking Cao Cao's forces."
She was right. Inspector Gong Ju had yet to bring even his own post of Ye Province under control—no doubt because the remnants of Zhang Jue's forces, the so-called Yellow Turban Army, had him by the ankles. The Yellow Turbans had moments of near-absolute consistency, and this was one of them: come what may, they made life hell for government troops. Travel through Ye Province and they would spring out of nowhere, land one sudden blow, and vanish again—so uncannily elusive that, by all I heard, even the Inspector himself had no answer for them. Their numbers were nothing impressive, and the men they could field were few, but it was more than enough to put the brakes on his every move.
And Inspector Tao Qian of Xuzhou? He did occasionally trespass on Cao Cao's borders, but Cao Ren turned him back every time, and he never reaped anything worth the trouble. Small wonder, really—when the great Xuzhou campaign had come around, he'd done nothing but get shoved backward.
From Gongsun Zan's standpoint, it had to be maddening. His allies, every last one of them, kept losing and losing, never managing to punch through a single Cao Cao...
Laid out like that, the conclusion was stark: there was truly no power left to keep Cao Cao in check. In the original history, that role would have belonged to Liu Bei and Lü Bu—and the two of them now served under me.
"So you'd have me station a separate detachment facing Cao Cao, just in case?"
"Yes. There's no other way."
I nodded.
"Then that is what we shall do."
There was no harm in erring toward caution. I still couldn't say for certain how Cao Cao would move.
"My lord."
It was Zhuge Liang calling me. I turned my gaze slightly and met her pale white eyes.
"What is it?"
"I have watched you closely for some time, and it seems you have been unable to pass a firm judgment on Cao Cao."
"..."
She'd picked up on it perfectly. And she wasn't wrong. Cao Cao had shown me nothing but goodwill so far, but asked whether I could truly turn my back to her in trust, my head would tilt ever so slightly.
Unable to refute her, I let Zhuge Liang continue.
"How would it be to send Cao Cao a secret letter?"
"A secret letter?"
I echoed.
"If any will to follow the Han yet remains in their hearts, they will accept the General-in-Chief's proposal."
"Hmm..."
"But should Cao Cao refuse it and instead raise her hand against the General-in-Chief—then she is an enemy."
With that, Zhuge Liang lifted her White Feather Fan, touched it lightly to the corner of her lips, and smiled.