Dangtugo (4)

With that storm of a session with the Emperor finally at an end, I slipped out of the room and made to open my mouth at once — before Seo Yeo could sense that anything was off.

"My lord."

"……"

But when the gulf between us began at the level of basic physical ability, what hope was there of managing that? As though she had been waiting for me to step out, Seo Yeo had beaten me to it, and now she fixed me with a long, unwavering stare.

"……"

Having called out to me, she then said nothing further — uncannily, absolutely nothing. She simply held her mute vigil, sending across nothing but glances whose intent I couldn't begin to fathom.

Unable to bear the awkwardness a moment longer, I broke the silence myself.

"...What is it? Is something the matter?"

I forced the words out in as casual a tone as I could manage. Honestly, judging by Seo Yeo's behavior, the odds that I'd already been caught were astronomically high — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but this was my desperate scramble to cling to whatever sliver of a chance remained.

Whether that plea of mine got through or not, Seo Yeo, after holding her silence a while longer, at last let an air of resignation show.

"...It is nothing."

She closed her eyes for a moment as if weighing something, opened them again, and answered in her usual manner.

"We should be going."

"...Right."

There was something in her words — an undercurrent of force I couldn't name — and I started slowly down the hall, praying the whole way that the strange tension hanging over that room had been nothing more than my imagination.

As I remembered it, the powers currently gathered at Yuan Shu's side looked something like this.

First, Ye Province, pressed directly against Shuchun, his stronghold. It was presently ruled by Gong Ju, the Inspector of Ye Province, a man whose presence was so faint it bordered on the absurd. In truth, even setting Gong Ju aside, a force of considerable size had taken root in the Ye Province region — but I'll put off explaining that one until next time. It was not the Yellow Turbans, of course.

Next came Cao Cao, who ruled Yanzhou, seated above Shuchun much as Ye Province was. This one, well... was there really any need to elaborate? Even in the original history, the moment Cao Cao so much as crossed paths with Yuan Shu, she would beat him so one-sidedly it was almost comical, carving huge swaths out of his forces every single time. It was Cao Cao who drove him to abandon his base and flee, and Cao Cao, again, who inflicted the worst of the damage after his usurpation of the throne. Simply put, it would be no exaggeration to say that Yuan Shu's downfall began the day he met her.

And below Shuchun sat Liu Yao, locked in a running feud with Yuan Shu in real time. Some might be tempted to take him lightly, but he was no pushover either — in the original history, this was the warlord who resisted Sun Ce's conquest of Jiangdong for a full year. The duel between Sun Ce and Taishi Ci, famous enough in its own right within Romance of the Three Kingdoms, took place at precisely this juncture. A man who could hold out for a year even against Sun Ce, the so-called Little Conqueror — was there any real chance he couldn't handle a single Yuan Shu, a man far Sun Ce's inferior?

Last of all, Xuzhou — the domain of Tao Qian, who could fairly be called Yuan Shu's ally, and at present it warranted no concern whatsoever. Why? Because the old man had recently picked a fight with Cao Cao in blissful ignorance and been smashed to pieces for it.

Which left Tao Qian exactly two possible moves. Either send reinforcements to Yuan Shu and have his own neck branded a traitor's and sent flying — or at least put on a show of loyalty to the imperial house and turn against Yuan Shu like everyone else. Tao Qian had once moved in Luoyang's political circles, so the mind under that old scalp still turned well enough, and old men with a viper coiled in their breast tend to switch allegiances as easily as flipping a palm.

In other words, to sum it all up: Yuan Shu had played the worst self-destructive move imaginable, and in doing so had tumbled into the classic plight of being besieged on all sides. And the end of a faction left wholly alone, without a single ally in the world, always arrives at the same destination.

Nodding along to myself, I unrolled the bamboo slips spread across my desk one by one.

First, the reply from Tao Qian — until recently Yuan Shu's ally — read as follows:

Tao Qian had invoked the uprising in Xuzhou with practiced skill, taking the stance that soldiers were simply out of the question.

"My, what an amusing excuse."

Zhuge Liang, who had read through Tao Qian's reply, spoke with a faint smile touching her lips. ...I call it a faint smile, but the expression was really closer to open mockery of someone who wasn't even in the room.

"An excuse? What do you mean by that?"

"It is true that the bandits run wild — but those bandits are operating under Tao Qian's orders."

Fielding my question, Zhuge Liang carried on in a tone that made the deduction sound effortless.

"The bandits currently stirring up Xuzhou, it seems, plunder none but the territories of the magnate clans who have earned Tao Qian's displeasure."

"……"

"The moment the Governor of Yanzhou withdrew in full, they surfaced as though they had been waiting for precisely that, raiding the domains of the clans who had crossed Tao Qian — and thereby concentrating his power in his hands?"

Zhuge Liang flashed me a grin.

"Is that not far too convenient to be mere coincidence?"

"...I see it now."

I caught the gist. Given the state of Xuzhou after the thrashing Cao Cao had handed it, every last soldier was precious beyond measure right now — a situation where supplies could be sacrificed, but his fighting strength had to be preserved at any cost. And so Tao Qian, without a moment's hesitation, had deliberately turned loose upon Xuzhou the very bandits who had once surrendered to him. Meaning they were plundering the very people he was sworn to protect. And, as a bonus, he had bent the imperial edict to his own advantage along the way.

Wow. The man really did squeeze out every last drop of profit there was to squeeze, didn't he?

In the past, hadn't there been an uprising of some three hundred thousand people spanning Xuzhou and Qingzhou? Now I understood exactly why they had risen in revolt. Birds of a feather, I suppose — at the end of the day, Tao Qian was cut from precisely the same cloth as Gongsun Zan. If the two differed at all, it was that Tao Qian's head turned a little more smoothly, while Gongsun Zan was, quite pointlessly, better at fighting.

Yuan Shu? That man couldn't manage either one.

Honestly, I had meant to decide how to deal with him based on his conduct — but now I knew for certain. This old man, too, could not be left to his own devices. He was the sort of elder who might work himself into any manner of senile frenzy if it meant keeping his grip on power.

A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠man ought to age gracefully — then maybe someone would actually have a use for him.

"Looks like I'll have to deal with Tao Qian sooner or later as well."

"A most judicious decision, my lord."

Perhaps Zhuge Liang found Tao Qian's conduct no less distasteful than I did, for she nodded along in ready agreement.

Having tucked Tao Qian's reply away somewhere out of sight, I turned straight to Gong Ju's letter. His position was much the same as Tao Qian's: with the Yellow Turban remnants currently so rampant, rendering aid posed certain difficulties.

...Yeah, that one's actually fair.

The remnants of the Yellow Turbans Zhang Jue had once led were still giving the government troops fits in Ye Province. I would have to absorb them quietly one of these days as well. With Zhang Jue herself among our ranks, the absorption itself would hardly be difficult — what mattered above all was making sure the surrounding warlords sensed nothing strange. The Yellow Turbans had been such an extreme movement that if word spread they had simply laid down their arms, plenty of people would smell a rat.

...So I really will have to stage a mock battle after all, won't I? One big theatrical fraud of a fight.

Having confirmed that Gong Ju, too, could spare no reinforcements, I unfolded the last remaining sheet of paper. I had sent no edict to Liu Yao, who was presently too occupied fighting Yuan Shu to have any attention to spare — which left exactly one name outstanding.

Cao Cao, styled Mengde — a woman I still couldn't make up my mind about. She had shown me goodwill time and again, that much was unmistakable, yet her faction remained too ambiguous to count as a full ally. Not when her power, having swallowed all of Yanzhou and a good slice of Xuzhou, was nothing even I could afford to disregard.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

I kept reading through the letter, penned in a remarkably fluid hand. And then I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"……"

What was with this familiarity, tossing out my courtesy name without a shred of hesitation? No — wait. Did it even make sense to write a reply to the Emperor in this manner in the first place? She behaved exactly as though she knew the Emperor had delegated full authority over such correspondence to me. She really was as sharp as her reputation promised — she was Cao Cao, after all. After a moment of standing there dumbfounded, I read on.

Being told that out of nowhere did nothing but fluster me. But whether I liked it or not, the letter marched on.

...Is she just messing with me?

I read up to that point and very carefully put the letter away. I truly could not fathom why Cao Cao, of all people, reserved this treatment for me alone.