Zhang Song (2)
Ever since Zhang Song had come to call, I had been extending her my full hospitality. Not that "full hospitality" amounted to anything grand—I simply made sure she wanted for nothing and did my utmost to keep one careless word from souring anything. Lately it did feel as though I kept finding reasons to hold feasts; even if people shot me the occasional odd look over it, I could see where they were coming from.
For what it was worth, several days of playing host gave me a fair measure of what sort of person Zhang Song was. Ordinarily clever, ordinarily capable—solid talent of the perfectly standard variety. Not that such people grew on trees, but there was nothing about her you could point to and call distinctive.
...No, hold on. There was exactly one distinctive thing.
"General-in-Chief, I trust you have been well."
"I have."
I nodded to Zhang Song as she offered her greeting with the same practiced courtesy as always. Utterly, unremarkably plain looks. When you remembered that in this world, the more extraordinary a person's ability, the more breathtaking their face, Zhang Song was a genuine curiosity. For her very plainness to stand out as her defining trait—honestly, this world really was something else.
This made the third day running I'd found myself facing her, and I rationed my words. Zhang Song, having nothing particular to say either, kept her silence in turn.
Just as it seemed today, too, would drift past without incident, she spoke to me.
"...I believe it is time I returned home."
"Is that so?"
Frankly, her lingering much longer would have looked strange, so I had been thinking her departure was due. And yet—something nagged at me. There wasn't the faintest sign she intended to betray Liu Yan. Had she truly come only to request support?
Well... it was plausible enough. The lord Zhang Song currently served was Liu Yan, not Liu Zhang. In the original history, the reason she turned on her lord was, in the end, that her ruler was hopelessly incompetent. Liu Zhang, maybe—but that conniving old reprobate Liu Yan was no fool. He could at least manage his own affairs, so apparently she'd felt no urge to turn on him.
Since burying myself too deep in the original history did no one any good, I answered Zhang Song in an even voice.
"A genuine pity. A talent as fine as yours is not easily come by."
"..."
"Should fate bring us together again someday, we must meet once more."
Even so, a loss was a loss, so with my last shred of reluctance I sent her off with one final word of praise.
Now then, time to prepare Zhang Song's farewell—
"...Tell me, General-in-Chief—how much do you know of the present state of Yi Province?"
"Hm?"
I had been half out of my seat when the abrupt question stopped me dead. Something about Zhang Song's entire bearing had shifted, sharp and unmistakable. Don't tell me this is what I think it is. At that weighty question, I slowly shook my head.
"Liu Yan keeps his borders sealed so tight that nothing reaches me."
Western Shu was the very land from which Liu Bang—Emperor Gaozu of Han—had launched his great counteroffensive against Xiang Yu, the Hegemon-King of Western Chu. With Han Xin, that genius without equal in the realm, at the fore, his armies had driven north in the blink of an eye and seized Sili Province; that was how the counterattack began. It was no accident that Zhuge Liang urged Liu Bei to take Shu and bide her time for what came after. The land genuinely held that much promise—why else would she have proposed entering it?
The one difference was this: the Hegemon-King of Western Chu had been a maverick who knew nothing but war, while the Hero of Chaos, though her sword arm fell short of Xiang Yu's, had a far nimbler head on her shoulders. Where Xiang Yu spurned Fan Zeng's counsel again and again until it ruined him, Cao Cao heard Sima Yi's plan and put it into motion at once, driving a wedge between Shu and Wu. That Guan Yu—the fabled Match for Ten Thousand—died in the course of it was a windfall for Wei as well, and Shu hurling itself into the Battle of Yiling out of fury at Wu's treachery was a windfall on top of a windfall. What no one could have foreseen was Cao Cao dead within the year. Could Guan Yu's ghost truly have dragged her down to the underworld?
"In fact, hearing you out has left me with a question of my own."
"..."
"Yi Province is at war with Zhang Lu of Hanzhong, yes—but with a region that prosperous, I can't imagine any real hardship. So why..."
"You see it precisely."
The moment I let the thought trail off, Zhang Song agreed at once.
"The soil is rich, the forests deep, and neither drought nor flood ever visits—goods pile up there like mountains."
"..."
"Though I suppose it would still fall short of the lands you govern, General-in-Chief..."
No. It didn't just "fall short"—it fell flat. Only Sili Province and Jing Province let me keep up appearances at all; Xiliang and Bing Province were absolute dogshit, raided by foreign tribes every day of the week, gobbling up coin and soldiers by the fistful...
...In any case, wretched land, the pair of them.
Zhang Song had been discreetly reading my face; sensing that my mood was not too foul, she pressed straight on.
"But what would you say if I told you that very land is now collapsing into internal division?"
"Internal division?"
What in the world was that supposed to mean? Had one of the tribes on Yi Province's southern flank invaded? Ah—no, in that case she would have said invasion, not internal division. So what did she mean?
When my face clouded with puzzlement, Zhang Song dropped an enormous piece of intelligence.
"Liu Yan is dead."
"..."
So the old man had died. Somehow he'd outlived his scripted fate, but in the end, death could not be dodged, it seemed.
A ruler's death. Internal collapse. Those two clues admitted only one conclusion.
"...A matter of succession?"
"Precisely."
Zhang Song confirmed it in a level voice.
"For all his years, Liu Yan remained hale and vigorous—but after hearing a shocking piece of news, he wasted away with grief and passed from this world."
"Shocking news?"
"Yes. It seems Liu Fan fell in battle against the barbarian tribes."
"...Liu Fan?"
Now who was that again? When I tilted my head slightly at the name, Zhang Song caught it and spoke up.
"Liu Yan's eldest son, and the heir to his domain."
"Ah."
At that, a hazy memory stirred. Say "Liu Yan's successor" and anyone would think of Liu Zhang—yet Liu Zhang was in fact Liu Yan's fourth son. Which is to say, he'd had not a shred of a claim to the succession. So where had sons one, two, and three gone, that the fourth ended up heir? Simple. They were all dead. The eldest and the second had served as officials at the capital until Li Jue and Guo Si—the pair who seized power after Dong Zhuo's fall—struck their heads from their shoulders on fabricated charges of treason. The third son, I couldn't recall. Why had he died again? Either way, dead was dead. Who could ever presume to fathom a parent's grief at burying their own children?
In the original history, the day Liu Yan received word of his three sons' deaths, he handed everything over to Liu Zhang and wasted away in sorrow until he left the world. Thinking of him, I could see why this Liu Yan had lived longer than his historical span. During my campaign to topple Dong Zhuo, hadn't Lü Bu cut Li Jue and Guo Si clean in two? Li Jue, sliced through the middle—Li/Jue—and Guo Si, parted at the neck—Guo/Si—were in no state to go killing anybody, so Liu Yan's sons had all survived unharmed, and Liu Yan, spared the shock, had lived on past his appointed hour.
And now look what had happened. The eldest son had gone and gotten himself killed fighting the barbarians. From there, the future more or less wrote itself: Liu Yan would sicken with grief and die, and with the leader suddenly gone while Yi Province still teetered, the magnate clans he had kept pressed down and the barbarian tribes to the south would begin thrashing about in earnest. In other words, a miniature Three Kingdoms stood on the very brink of opening, with the throne of Yi Province as the prize. Wasn't that a far more gripping situation than I'd expected? And with it, I finally understood why Yi Province couldn't so much as contemplate facing Zhang Lu, and had come begging me for help instead.
...Still, I hadn't seen the barbarians moving. "Barbarian tribes" might sound a touch vague, but anyone who had read Romance of the Three Kingdoms knew them on sight. The Southern Barbarians—the Nanman—the very people made famous by the tale of Zhuge Liang and Meng Huo. Had they already unified the southern wilds and turned their gaze elsewhere?
Having pieced together the whole picture, I nodded along and asked,
"And why tell me all this?"
"Would it not be better for a capable ruler to govern Yi Province than for an incompetent one who looks only to his own gain to seize it?"
Zhang Song went on in the same unruffled, matter-of-fact tone.
"One who watches over the people far and wide, and cherishes those of talent..."
"..."
"Yes. Someone such as you, General-in-Chief."
I had heard reports, these past few days, of Zhang Song traipsing all over Luoyang. So that had been her own way of passing judgment on me. She bowed with formal courtesy and said:
"I beseech you—take Yi Province, and govern us with that surpassing ability of yours."
"..."
"This Zhang Song bows her head and entreats you, General-in-Chief."
Hearing the plea, I understood at last that my chance had come, and nodded.
"Very well. I shall grant your request."
"Thank you, my lord."
Zhang Song, her resolve apparently settled, had changed the title by which she called me.