Summary (3)
Fa Zheng. Courtesy name, Xiaozhi.
By any measure, he was a man who had lived like a flame — brief, fierce, and gone all too soon.
No, hold on. "Brief and fierce" might be doing him a disservice.
Contrary to the common impression that he died young, Fa Zheng lived well into his mid-forties — a full decade longer than Zhou Yu or Guo Jia, both of whom perished in their mid-thirties. ...Though from where I stood, whether thirty or forty, it was an early death all the same.
If Wei had its Guo Jia and Wu had its Zhou Yu, then Shu had its Fa Zheng.
And yet the "died young" label clung to him despite that extra decade, for a simple reason: his window of true distinction, under a lord who finally recognized his worth, had been far too short. When the chaos of the age tore his homeland apart, the refuge he fled to was Yi Province — and the lord ruling Yi Province, of all people, happened to be Liu Zhang. Under the incompetent Liu Zhang he went unnoticed; only after Liu Bei seized the province did he at last begin to be valued as he deserved. But then he died scarcely a breath after fighting the Hanzhong campaign — his debut, so to speak, in Liu Bei's service — and so the impression of a life cut short took deep root. Considering the string of great battles that followed, Fancheng and Yiling among them, Shu had every reason to grieve what it lost.
Just as Cao Cao, smashed to pieces at Red Cliffs, had cried out for Guo Jia, so too did Zhuge Liang, on hearing that Liu Bei hadn't merely lost at Yiling but been annihilated outright, sigh as she called Fa Zheng's name.
Chen Shou, author of the Records of the Three Kingdoms, judged Fa Zheng a man fit to stand beside Guo Jia and Cheng Yu. Oh — and for the record, it was Pang Tong he measured against Xun Yu.
Beyond that, he was a strategist who knew exactly how to wrap his own lord around his finger. When the battle turned against them and Liu Bei refused to fall back — she would not retreat from Cao Cao, her nemesis of a lifetime — Fa Zheng strode straight out onto the arrow-raked field himself. Liu Bei, naturally, jolted in alarm and ordered him to take cover at once, and his reply was a masterpiece.
"When Your Excellency yourself bears the arrows and stones, how could I possibly retreat?"
In other words: keep being this stubborn, and you are going to die for certain. Liu Bei — who had already lost Pang Tong, a talent rivaling Zhuge Liang, in the most hollow way imaginable — scrambled back the instant she heard it, or so the story goes. Even in the Three Kingdoms, a stage crowded with every kind of legend under heaven, he had talked down in a single stroke a woman whose stubbornness, at least, was second to none.
...Was that persuasion, or blackmail built on trauma?
But Fa Zheng had exactly one fatal flaw.
Fa Zheng.
His character had... issues.
His temperament itself was poor; he mixed badly with others and quarreled often. Worse still, he was a terrifying man who remembered every grudge thus born until the day he died — and paid each one back in full. So all you did was shoot him a dirty look, point a finger his way once? Irrelevant. Fa Zheng would hunt down even the pettiest grudge to the bitter end and settle it.
To be fair, he repaid kindness with the same exacting fidelity. The Records note that he returned the favor for every meal he'd been treated to, every coin he'd ever received, item by item. That was why he'd been willing to put his own neck on the line to talk Liu Bei down. The method was a touch extreme, granted.
Quite literally a man who memorized every kindness and every grudge, one and all, and repaid them to the letter. That someone who actually lived the Golden Rule — treat others as you yourself wish to be treated — had truly walked this earth never ceased to amaze me.
The trouble was that Fa Zheng, in settling his grudges, now and then killed people outright, on his own private authority. Given that the histories remark he "killed without warrant those who had slandered and injured him," his past was clearly no spotless affair. Petitions begging someone to rein him in did come in, naturally, but Liu Bei doted on Fa Zheng far too dearly for any of them to go anywhere. And this is only my personal guess, but I'd wager whoever filed those petitions ended up on Fa Zheng's list as well.
"……"
I held Fa Zheng's gaze — the silver hair, the ice-blue eyes — for a long moment, then spoke.
"Fa Zheng, was it?"
"Yes."
"Then first, allow me to apologize for cutting in on the two of you mid-conversation."
"……"
Her eyes widened slightly the moment the words left my mouth. She hadn't expected me to apologize out of nowhere, it seemed.
But every one of my actions had its reasons. Fa Zheng was a woman who forgot not even the most trivial grudge — and repaid every last one. If the Fa Zheng I knew ran true to character, she might not think kindly of the man who had barged into a conversation with her dear friend. I had no intention of handing her a single thing to view in a negative light.
"If it pleases you, I'll withdraw and let you carry on."
"...No. There is no need for that."
Fa Zheng rejected the offer I'd floated on the off chance, her voice cold as frost. Which was, in its own way, another headache entirely. With a voice that frigid, I couldn't tell whether the woman before me was pleased or displeased. Was an unreadable heart the common trait of silver-haired women?
Cao Cao, who wore the very same silver hair as Fa Zheng, treated people with such sly, teasing airs that I couldn't parse her intentions at all until we grew close.
"Heh heh. You're the first man who's ever treated me this way."
"……"
"And that face you make, pretending not to hear out of embarrassment — not bad at all."
...Come to think of it now, I suspect she wasn't being sly so much as simply enjoying the sport of teasing me.
While I was thinking this, Fa Zheng picked up the thread.
"I, too, had hoped to speak with you before you departed Yi Province, General-in-Chief."
"……"
"It is nothing more than a matter destined for the future occurring a little ahead of schedule. How could that possibly pose a problem?"
Whether my apology had done its work I couldn't say, but Fa Zheng showed no negative reaction.
"That's a relief, then. So — what is it you wished to discuss with me?"
"Any topic at all will serve. Please, speak of whatever you wish."
And there it was — the choice handed straight back to me.
Fa Zheng had said any subject would do, but that hardly meant I could open with just anything. I turned the matter over for a moment, then opened my mouth.
"In that case, I have just the topic."
"……"
Fa Zheng squared her posture, poised to answer whatever question I might put to her. But the question I was about to throw was nothing of the sort.
"I intend to recruit you. How does that sit with you?"
No asking her read on the latest situation, no quizzing her on how to beat which army — I came out with the recruitment offer point-blank.
"...?"
At the sight of me, Fa Zheng startled all over again, a question mark practically hovering above her head. A man who apologizes out of nowhere the instant they meet, then flings out an offer of employment without so much as a probing exchange first. Even I would have been thrown off balance.
Well — there was a method to it. In everything I had experienced to date, not one person had ever fallen short of the abilities recorded in the original history. If anything, some had proven even more formidable. Xiang Yu and Lü Bu wielded martial might so transcendent you'd wonder whether they were the same person, and the pint-sized strategists pierced the future like prophets. Fa Zheng, then, would hardly be an exception.
The genius strategist who, together with Zhuge Liang, carried Liu Bei to her golden age — and brought down Cao Cao herself. Beaten in the Hanzhong campaign and robbed of Xiahou Yuan besides, Cao Cao was apparently angry enough to declare:
"There is no way Liu Bei could ever defeat me alone! The reason I lost is that Fa Zheng creature at her side!"
...I don't remember the exact wording, so a touch of dramatic license has crept in, but the substance should be about right. The point is this: Fa Zheng had handed Cao Cao — who right up to the Hanzhong campaign had sung Liu Bei's praises as one of the two great heroes of the age, alongside herself — a defeat so miserable it drove her to pure cope.
What earthly skill did I have, then, to judge a talent like that?
"Zhang Song rated you a finer talent than herself."
"……"
"And I, for one, am quite confident in my eye for talent."
Of course, that was a lie. I was simply leaning on future knowledge to recruit talent. When you possess no real ability of your own, you make diligent use of what you do have.
"A trustworthy person vouched for you, and I judged for myself after meeting you face to face."
While Fa Zheng held her silence, I kept going.
"Which leaves nothing further to weigh."
Smiling, I extended my hand.
"Will you join me?"
At those words, Fa Zheng deliberated a moment, then bowed to me, slow and deliberate.
"...If these meager abilities of mine can be of use, then I will gladly follow you."
As I thought — laying your cards on the table beats all the circling around. And had she refused? I could simply have kept at her, the way I did with Sima Yi.
Hearing her answer, I nodded in satisfaction.
Now then — with Fa Zheng off the board, who else of note was waiting in Yi Province? There was Zhang Ren, and Huang Quan as well, if memory served. And then there was...
"...See? I knew it. You are seducing them."
"……"
And there she went, chiming in again. Lü Bu. Just you wait — I'll deal with you later.