Wrap-Up (4)
Though I had brought the forces of Yi Province and the Nanman tribes beneath my banner, not every problem had been laid to rest.
...Should I be calling them the people of Nanzhong now, rather than Nanman?
Anyway, you know the one.
Hadn't I mentioned before that there was a group in Yi Province called the Ba tribe?
Back in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States era, long before my time, there had been a minor state called Ba. Unluckily wedged between great powers, it left behind not so much as a memorable episode before being snuffed out wholesale.
And what were the great powers hemming it in, you ask? Chu and Qin.
Qin would one day grow mighty enough to unify China for the first time in its history, while Chu had been a powerhouse everyone knew to fear in a fight since time immemorial.
Indeed, it was Chu that held out against Qin to the very last, even with unification of China all but sealed—enough to gauge just how formidable they were.
Ba, caught between those two giants, became a vassal of Chu in the blink of an eye without mustering any real resistance, and then, once Qin marched on Chu, it took the beating alongside its master and perished.
That was where the trouble began.
The state of Ba had, of all places, made its home in Yi Province—a land the central government's hand never touched, not until Han Gaozu fled there to escape the Hegemon-King of Western Chu.
Certainly, a great many talents who followed Han Gaozu went on to govern the province and lay down a political foundation, but Yi Province was like Gangdong over there: nothing but sprawling land, its dominion never truly secured.
It probably didn't help that the Ba, being a minority people, were never properly looked after. They never fully melded into the Han, and even now, hundreds of years later, they kept insisting Yi Province was theirs and kicking up trouble.
So what did all this mean?
Well.
It meant that plucking capable officials out of Yi Province was a delicate business.
Their forces weren't large, but like some recurring game event, they rose up on schedule to jab me in the side, and it never failed to grate on my nerves.
"A-are you worrying about the Ba tribe now, instead of Nanzhong?"
"That's right."
Having heard out my troubles, Pang Tong fidgeted for a moment before speaking.
"This is only my guess, but... I think it will work itself out, given time..."
"Hm? Will it, now?"
"Yes..."
Pang Tong gave the smallest, most tentative bob of her head.
"After all, they've already lived within the Han for hundreds of years, and little by little their culture and customs have come to resemble ours..."
"......"
"If we extend a policy of assimilation to the southern peoples, I think the Ba will be absorbed naturally as well—save for a handful of hardliners...?"
Then why are you asking me, though?
Pang Tong had been making her case nicely, and then, all at once, her confidence seemed to drain away, her words trailing into a mumble.
Not that her argument was wrong.
I could more or less guess why the Ba were resisting so tooth and nail even now.
They were probably terrified that, under the noble pretext of "developing the land," they'd end up worked like slaves.
That was the same reason Meng Huo had bawled her eyes out refusing to surrender, after all.
As I believe I've mentioned before, the Han had a truly spectacular tendency to hold other peoples in contempt.
Take the word for "barbarian," man: it had originally been nothing more than a neutral label for another people. But these folks used it so relentlessly with a sneer attached that it curdled into pure contempt.
These days, anyone who insists on "barbarian" when "foreign peoples" is sitting right there might as well be called a racist.
"General-in-Chief! How can you possibly employ the western barbarians?"
"Is that so."
"They are barbarians with no concept of gratitude, my lord!"
"I see."
The moment I accepted Qiang-born talents like Ma Chao, Ma Teng, and Han Sui, complaints came bubbling up from inside the court.
These were, plain and simple, the sort of insufferable men who believed, without a sliver of doubt, that the Han people were the noblest of all.
"So from this point on, you ought to watch them closely and keep them at arm's length..."
"Hey."
I—until then answering like an automaton—quietly told those fucking racists, in a tone that said shut your mouths.
"If one man fails to honor a debt of gratitude, that's that man's failing. Is it the fault of his entire people?"
"B-but taking them in without discrimination could sow chaos!"
A fair point, admittedly.
I answered with a single nod.
"True."
"At last, you underst—"
"Meaning I must look dim enough that you assumed I hadn't already considered that."
Watching the official's face drain paper-white was a fairly entertaining sight, I'll admit.
Truthfully, that fellow had probably abandoned his actual argument and was flailing at whatever came to hand.
I waved my hand as if to say I had no further need of his voice.
"If you want to change my mind, mend that emotion-driven attitude of yours first and come back."
"......"
"That look of yours—blindly loathing and judging others—isn't a pretty one."
As an aside: the official who had submitted that opinion to me vanished from court before long.
Knowing full well that only one person was capable of such a thing, I had no choice but to feel a chill creeping over me.
I had most certainly confirmed that only my own people surrounded us before we spoke—so where, exactly, had the information leaked?
...Or was the problem that my people were there in the first place?
People capable of casually erasing a single official whose name I couldn't even remember—my ranks had them to spare.
I put one more question to Pang Tong.
"Then what should be done with the hardliners left over after all that assimilation?"
"W-we will simply have to keep working at them, until they have no choice but to turn their hearts..."
Pang Tong answered in a timid voice.
"The Ba are living hidden away in remote corners as it is, you see."
"......"
"Their strength is already wanting, so if nothing but hardliners remain, they won't be able to stir up any real trouble..."
She had a point there.
After all, right up until now, whenever the Ba kicked up trouble, the Han had calmly crushed it with a shrug of there they go again.
But if their strength shrank further still from that, the Ba would end up in a position where they couldn't do a single thing at all.
"Ten years pass. Then twenty. And by then, they too will come around in the end, and... ...won't they?"
Pang Tong continued on, wet her lips once, and then tossed the question straight back at me.
I mean, seriously—why ask ME of all people?
Not one word of her opinion was wrong, so why did she keep tiptoeing around my reaction like this?
I really did wonder where that backbone had gone—the version of her from the original history who'd swaggered up to Liu Bei herself without a flicker of fear.
I gazed at Pang Tong's bright, sparkling eyes for a moment, then smiled.
"All right. If you vouch for it that much, there's nothing to worry about, is there."
"Aah... thank you."
The instant she heard my answer, Pang Tong bowed her head deep, as though embarrassed.
So a few days passed, and once I judged Yi Province's problems settled the way Nanzhong's had been, I sat down for a meeting with Liu Tan.
"I think I've got a feel for how things flow in Yi Province now."
"Is, is that so."
Liu Tan still floundered hopelessly the moment he so much as laid eyes on me.
In a way, this was the normal reaction. I was, after all, the General-in-Chief commanding every army in the Han. In an age where strength was law, the people who weren't the least bit daunted by me were the strange ones.
"Hmph. And what, exactly, do you plan to do if all you ever show me is that dorky side of yourself?"
"BOOHOOOO──! Your humble servant Ma Teng has brought you a present again today──!!"
...Past "unusual," some of them had graduated all the way to "extraordinary."
At any rate, talents whose individuality could never be doubted.
I addressed Liu Tan, who kept stealing nervous glances my way, in a level voice.
"From what I can see, the magnates of Yi Province don't listen very well."
"Ye-yes. They're, ah, people who built up their power even before my father took office as Governor of Yi Province, you see..."
Liu Yan, from what I could tell, had kept those magnates firmly in check in his day, but his sons appeared to lack that same caliber.
Sure enough, the moment Liu Yan died, the Yi Province magnates—who had been steadily stripped of their long-held privileges—seized the opening and rose in revolt.
Had capable people not served beneath Liu Tan, Yi Province would long since have been devoured by the magnates, or swallowed whole by Meng Huo.
Having heard Liu Tan out, I nodded.
"Then this is simple."
"...?"
I knew perfectly well how to bring those magnates to heel—the ones who strutted about with rigid, upright spines as if they were the province's native worthies.
You offered gifts with one hand, saying let's get along nicely, while the other hand gripped a gun and made threats.
Wasn't this the very essence of negotiaaaaaation?
Squeezing the magnates too hard, of course, could end up inviting yet another revolt. Once they judged they had nothing left to lose, they would come charging heedlessly, dead or alive.
Thinking of it that way, Cao Cao—who had slashed the magnates' authority down to a fraction—really did have extraordinary ability.
But treat them too warmly instead, and the problem reversed itself: they'd come creeping up again, all slithery and patient.
Sliding bribes my way while angling for a post for some member of the family, or getting grand ideas all on their own and starting to peddle my name around...
Anyway, watching them single out precisely the acts that infuriated me, it was as though they were holding a grand competition over who could discover the most innovative way to blast their own clan to smithereens.
Of course, I couldn't stop at negotiaaaaaation. Whittling away at the magnates' authority bit by bit mattered just as much.
But as the central government's power grew, the magnates would come slinking in of their own accord, offering up this and that, so there was no great need to fret over it.
Besides, I had the little chick strategists and all my other civil officials on hand.
I trusted that those capable people would see to the rest and handle it themselves.
Had Sima Yi known I was thinking this, wouldn't she have fixed me with her sharpest glare?
Ah, whatever.
I believe in you all~
Channelling the kindly heart of a certain tangerine-loving pirate captain, I gave Liu Tan's shoulder a couple of friendly pats.
"If any magnates take issue with my policies, report them to me."
"......"
"Fellows like that, I'll deal with personally."
Liu Tan, unable to squeeze out a single word, could only bob his head.