Liu Biao (5)
Ye County, Wei Commandery, Jizhou.
Among the many cities of Jizhou, it was a metropolis that could rightly be called the region's true heart, overshadowing even Julu and Bohai. The lands once ruled by Han Fu, Governor of Jizhou, had now fallen entirely into the hands of a single woman.
Hair of gold that seemed to drink in the sunlight and shimmer whenever she stood beneath it. The woman wore that golden hair—so often set against Cao Cao's silver—in a neat braid down her back, and her name was Yuan Shao.
As on any other day, she had gathered a host of strategists around her and was mediating between their clashing counsel when a report reached her ears.
"You mean to say they have refused our proposal yet again?"
"That is so! They claim their own house is in such disarray that they are in no condition to march against anyone!"
"…"
Yuan Shao blinked her golden eyes—eyes the very color of her hair—then slowly closed them.
"…I see. You may return now."
"Yes, my lady!"
The moment the envoy who had been dispatched to the northern tribes bowed and withdrew, opinions burst from every side.
"Honestly! Think of the treasures we sent them as tokens of goodwill, and now they pretend not to know us!"
"It only proves what barbarians have always been—barbarians!"
"My lady! To court such ungrateful wretches who know no debt of kindness is to invite betrayal down the road, nothing more!"
Nearly every civil official gathered around Yuan Shao heaped insults upon the nomads, one after another.
Yuan Shao could understand their indignation. How much gold, silver, and treasure had been lavished on those tribes already? And what of the grain—enough to fill the bellies of thousands—that had gone north alongside it?
Just as Liu Yu, the former Inspector of Youzhou, had done before her, Yuan Shao had cultivated warm ties with the Wuhuan tribes that faced her across the northern frontier, and yet nothing had come back in return. Heaven only knew how much painstaking effort it had taken to smuggle those gifts out past Gongsun Zan's airtight watch…
"Hoo…"
Opening her eyes at last, Yuan Shao let out a long sigh and spoke in a level voice.
"It cannot be helped. I am scrapping the original plan to join hands with the Wuhuan and squeeze Gongsun Zan from the north."
"We thank you, my lady!"
The officials bowed in unison, gratified that their counsel had been heeded.
Watching them, Yuan Shao sank into thought.
…This will take far longer than I hoped.
Gongsun Zan, Bogui by courtesy name. The nightmare of the northern tribes, the White Horse General, the hegemon of Youzhou. True, he had once fallen to her at the Battle of Jieqiao, but the strength of his domain still stood ahead of her own.
With the breathing room she had won after their last battles, Yuan Shao had put her own house in order and nearly caught up to his national power—nearly, but not quite. One victory, then one defeat; advance, then retreat, over and over in endless repetition.
To break that stalemate, she had devised a single stratagem: join hands with Gongsun Zan's enemies and crush him from three directions at once. If Liu Yu's remnants pressed in from the flank while her own armies attacked from the south and the Wuhuan swept down from the north with their horsemen, she judged that Gongsun Zan could well be beaten.
And part of that plan had come undone most neatly.
The commanders Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei—women she had once found deeply impressive. The three who had held back the Peerless Under Heaven at Hulao Pass, forcing even Lü Bu herself to give ground. She had been genuinely alarmed when word came that they had entered Gongsun Zan's service.
But lo and behold, they had turned on Gongsun Zan in spectacular fashion, and together with collaborators inside his walls, rescued the Inspector of Youzhou from his cell and fled toward Bing Province. Those who had once stood against the General-in-Chief had, somewhere along the way, passed beneath his banner.
Once the Inspector of Youzhou escaped with his life and joined the General-in-Chief, the remnants of Liu Yu's followers—people who had gathered out of old grudges against Gongsun Zan—were absorbed wholesale into the General-in-Chief's camp.
In effect, her options for striking back at Gongsun Zan had shrunk by one.
A bitter taste rose in Yuan Shao's mouth, but she did not resent the General-in-Chief for it. Considering the debt of gratitude he had paid her in Luoyang, she could let something of this size pass without complaint. Liu Yu's remnants had never been more than a minor piece of her design.
After all, had those remnants been strong enough to accomplish anything meaningful against Gongsun Zan, they would never have lost to him in the first place. They had been, at most, a lure for the eye—a force it would cost her nothing to see vanish, and one she would merely be pleased by if they held out longer than expected and bought her time. By some measures it was a cold-blooded reckoning, but Yuan Shao did not trouble her conscience over it.
The Wuhuan turning their backs as well, however, was a serious blow she had never foreseen.
Those tribes had been hammered by Gongsun Zan's punitive expeditions time and again—to the point that a joke now made the rounds that they fled at the mere sight of a white horse—and yet their strength was nothing to sneer at. These were peoples who were set on horseback with a bow in hand almost before they could walk, who endured the brutal climate of the north their whole lives long.
The world lumped them all together as "barbarians" and "savages," but Yuan Shao knew that even among themselves they were split into countless clans and tribes, quarreling over blood and grazing grounds—and so she never made the mistake of underestimating them.
"Their internal affairs are in disarray," was it?
As she remembered it, the Wuhuan group she had dealt with was a fairly large power even among their own kind. She could not know precisely what had befallen them, but Yuan Shao resolved to keep a close eye on their movements for the time being. Whether they had simply pocketed her gifts and chosen to play ignorant, or whether their circumstances were truly so desperate that they could not accept her proposal, time would tell.
Having sorted her thoughts, Yuan Shao raised her eyes and looked straight ahead. The officials gathered around her held their silence, careful not to disturb her while she pondered.
"The policy stands as before," Yuan Shao said, her expression as composed as ever. "Gongsun Zan's forces split into small bands and pillage wherever they please. Every commandery and county is to tighten its defenses accordingly. And if word arrives that Gongsun Zan himself has taken the field, report to me at once."
"Yes, my lady!"
"When that day comes, I shall march out myself and meet Gongsun Zan face to face."
As the civil and military officers assembled there bowed as one, Yuan Shao turned her head toward her most trusted subordinates.
"Yan Liang. Wen Chou."
The two generals whose names were called practically sprang into place before her, dropping to one knee.
"You called for Yan Liang, my lady!"
"Wen Chou, reporting as ordered!"
The two women, blessed with voices that could carry across a battlefield, each answered in her own distinctive style and saluted Yuan Shao with clasped fists.
"Whenever I take the field, you two are to lead the cavalry and face Gongsun Zan directly."
"We obey!"
Yan Liang and Wen Chou cried out as one.
"My only regret is that we failed to take Gongsun Zan last time!"
"This time I'll bring you his head, that I swear!"
The two were recalling their victory in the previous battle, when they had personally given chase to Gongsun Zan himself. Beaten in the field, the man had torn off his own helmet as he fled, and—White Horse General indeed—his horsemanship had been nothing short of astonishing. In the end, unable to lay hands on him, the pair had settled for cutting down the soldiers who had not escaped in time, their faces dark with disappointment. Yuan Shao remembered wearing a wry smile at the sight of them.
Now, to Yan Liang and Wen Chou shouting with such confidence, she smiled just as she had that day.
"Then I shall look forward to it."
"Yes, my lady!"
Once the two withdrew, Yuan Shao turned her head again toward another officer.
"Zhang He."
"Y-yes! You called for me!"
The slender young general flinched visibly at the sound of her name and stepped forward. Whether it was simply her nature or not, this woman watched Yuan Shao's every mood to an almost excessive degree.
To the officer visibly tensed, a faint sheen of cold sweat on her brow, Yuan Shao said, "The way you supported the other units and shattered Gongsun Zan's host last time left a deep impression on me."
"Thank you! It is an honor far beyond my deserts!"
"You too shall march with me, charged with holding Gongsun Zan's main army in check. You can manage that, I trust?"
At this plain declaration that Zhang He was to be entrusted with weighty responsibility, the surrounding generals' eyes went wide. Zhang He was no less astonished—but refusal was unthinkable, so she hurried to answer.
"I-I will give it my utmost!"
"I trust you."
Thinking only that she wished the girl would one day outgrow that stammer, Yuan Shao moved to dismiss the assembled officers.
"Then let us end the council h—"
"Please wait just a moment!"
A civil official cut her off, stepping forward. Yuan Shao turned her head and regarded him.
"What is it? Have you some proposal to offer?"
The surrounding generals frowned at the man's rude interruption, but Yuan Shao herself looked entirely unbothered. Taking her question as his cue, the official spoke quickly.
"Forgive my presumption, but—when might Your Ladyship intend to send reinforcements to the Inspector of Jingzhou…?"
"…Ah. That matter."
Yuan Shao remembered then: the man who had interrupted her was one of the officials Liu Biao had dispatched. Looking at this envoy sent to bind the two powers more closely together, she smiled faintly.
"I'm afraid that will be difficult at present. My regrets."
"…I understand."
Watching her reaction, the official found himself wondering whether she had simply forgotten Liu Biao altogether—but he shook off the suspicion with all his might. Surely she only could not spare troops now because Gongsun Zan's assaults raged so fiercely; once she had breathing room, the reinforcements would surely come. So he chose to believe, and kept on believing.