A Capable Minister in Peace, a Treacherous Hero in Chaos (1)
Xiapi County, Xiapi Commandery, Xuzhou.
Here stood the administrative seat of the Governor of Xuzhou—and here, in the history that should have been, was the fortress city where Lü Bu held out against Cao Cao to the bitter end.
Since the dawn of the age of warlords carving up the realm—an era in which heroes great and small each seized a seat of power and flaunted their might over it—Xuzhou had known the rule of a single man.
Tao Qian, courtesy name Gongzu.
Charged by the court with dealing with the Yellow Turbans in Xuzhou, he had settled into the province under the pretext of restoring stability, and when Dong Zhuo later seized the reins of government, he joined hands with the local gentry to bring Xuzhou entirely under his thumb.
Xu Shao, whose character assessments would be recounted for generations, passed this judgment on Tao Qian.
"Tao Qian merely feigns modesty on the surface; inwardly, he is far from honest. He treats men generously, yet he is one who will surely bare his true nature in the end."
It was a verdict that reduced a man who had crushed rebellion after rebellion and proven his ability to all the world to nothing more than a petty scoundrel.
And Xu Shao's assessment proved terrifyingly accurate. When renowned scholars fleeing the chaos of the capital refused his invitations, he threw them into prison, and from then on he kept company only with the sycophants who nodded along to his every word. Fairness drained from his governance, and the innocent were persecuted.
None of this was to say Tao Qian lacked ability.
He simply did not possess the caliber that true rulership demanded.
And before long, events proved it.
Cao Cao, mistress of Yanzhou, and Tao Qian, master of Xuzhou, had begun to collide in earnest.
While Cao Cao was occupied standing off against the General-in-Chief in answer to Liu Biao's plea for aid, Tao Qian marched a great army into Yanzhou.
Onlookers weighed Yanzhou's devastation after years of war against Xuzhou's famed prosperity and predicted victory for Tao Qian—but events unfolded entirely otherwise.
Every time Cao Cao and Tao Qian met in battle, the side that lost was always Tao Qian.
It was true on the open plains, where few variables remained, and no exception in the forests that favored whichever army knew the terrain.
Even the Danyang soldiers, the elite corps under Tao Qian's command, were fortunate merely to escape with their lives—no match for Cao Cao whatsoever.
When the war first broke out, Tao Qian's forces had been by far the larger. But Cao Cao flipped that disparity on its head as if to ask what of it—and the fire Tao Qian had kindled came roaring back to scorch his own feet.
Defeat after defeat.
With the losses mounting, Tao Qian abandoned any thought of beating Cao Cao in the open field and threw himself into defense, raising the ramparts high, stockpiling arrows in vast quantities, and waiting for aid from beyond his walls.
Watching it all unfold, Xiahou Dun put the question to Cao Cao.
"Mengde, those bastards have no intention of setting foot outside those walls. What do we do now?"
"That's simple."
Cao Cao answered as though nothing in the world could be easier.
"We ring them in so tight not a single worm crawls through."
"Got it."
A siege, as a rule, is the gambit of whichever side can bring overwhelming numbers to the field. And what does that signify? Simply that unless the defenders produce a stroke of brilliance or rescue arrives from without, the attacker cannot lose. Regrettable as it might be to someone, Tao Qian fit neither case.
The schemes Tao Qian devised himself were fortunate merely not to be turned back against him by Cao Cao, and the talents under his command could only flounder, unable to cope with Cao Cao single-handedly.
Accomplished in both letters and arms.
Was there anyone to whom those words applied better than Cao Cao?
Since defeating Cao Cao's forces through stratagem was impossible, all that remained was aid from without—and the trouble was that avenue, too, was closed. Every power that might have helped Tao Qian had long since been destroyed, or was too busy warring with someone else to spare anyone a hand.
Yuan Shu, in his idiocy, had usurped the imperial title and been crushed personally by the General-in-Chief, while Gongsun Zan, the "White Horse General" in name alone, kept trading victories and defeats with Yuan Shao.
The sole remaining hope was the very General-in-Chief who had destroyed that same Yuan Shu—and the General-in-Chief refused Tao Qian's request.
"My apologies. Jing Province and Bing Province have both been in turmoil of late."
The first request was denied on the grounds of the river pirates running rampant in Jing Province and the nomadic tribes raging near Bing Province.
Tao Qian erupted in fury at the rejection, but the General-in-Chief's words were not entirely false either, leaving him with nothing solid to argue.
As for the second request he sent afterward... to put it precisely, he never so much as laid eyes on the General-in-Chief.
"The General-in-Chief has departed on his campaign to conquer Yi Province."
"Th-then what am I to do..."
"What other choice is there?"
With a smile, the brown-haired woman who had received Tao Qian's envoy delivered her answer.
"You will simply have to wait until the General-in-Chief returns to Luoyang."
"..."
"By my reckoning, that means waiting until early autumn at the very least... What will you do?"
Hearing this, Tao Qian's envoy finally trudged back the way he had come, shoulders slumped.
To receive outside help, he would have to wait a good half year or more. It was a desperate state of affairs, yet Tao Qian had no choice but to stake everything on that one slender hope. Yes—he had endured Cao Cao's siege this long already, so what was another year tacked on?
Besides, Cao Cao had scarcely shown herself all year. No one knew the exact reason for her absence. Perhaps she had taken a wound on some battlefield, or perhaps she lay groaning with an illness never before heard of. Either way it boded well for Tao Qian, so he chose to read the situation as optimistically as he could.
"M-My lord! Cao Mengde has appeared!"
"What?!"
That is, right up until Cao Cao appeared out of nowhere and launched her general assault.
Cast off was every trace of the passivity she had shown until now; Cao Cao threw her soldiers into the fray with startling aggression.
"There is nothing to fear! Do not panic—hold steady and... Gahk!"
"General!"
On the wall, a Tao Qian officer steadying his men took an arrow and crumpled where he stood.
"Damn. She's a hell of a shot."
Marksmanship of the highest order.
Xiahou Dun whistled in admiration as she watched her younger sister work.
"Maybe I ought to get some archery practice in too? Picking enemies off with arrows is pretty damn cool."
"...Yuanrang, big sis. Focus on the battle."
"Ugh, enough with the nagging already."
At that brusque reply, Xiahou Dun shrugged.
"So how long do you figure they can hold out?"
"If what that strategist Mengde has been doting on lately says is true... they won't last long."
A woman who couldn't even be bothered with courtesy toward her own lord, and carried on like some idle rake.
Xiahou Yuan could not begin to fathom what talent could possibly reside in someone who did nothing but drink herself blind, day in and day out.
At her little sister's reaction, Xiahou Dun burst out laughing and thumped her soundly on the back.
"Don't you worry! Mengde's eye for reading people is uncanny!"
"Ugh... you're shaking my aim. Please stop."
Even as she said it, Xiahou Yuan loosed arrow after arrow with practiced ease, felling enemy after enemy.
With her great saber propped on her shoulder, Xiahou Dun murmured in an even voice.
"Well... honestly, I'm curious too."
One week from now.
The rake's boast—that within that span, it would all end one way or another—drifted through Xiahou Dun's mind. The person Cao Cao had brought home after abruptly setting out on a walk one day, claiming a good omen had struck her. The satisfied smile she wore as she declared that now, at last, the great enterprise was within reach—an expression even Xiahou Dun had rarely seen.
Birds of a feather flock together, as they say.
Eccentrics only ever gather around other eccentrics, Xiahou Dun thought, nodding to herself.
"You bitch...!"
Exactly one week to the day after the siege began, Tao Qian knelt in a humiliating posture—bound fast in rope, his knees forced to the ground.
The reason was simple. His body and spirit already worn ragged by the long encirclement, with savage fighting piled on top, several of his able men had judged there was no hope left and turned their backs on him.
The circle Tao Qian had kept close were petty men chasing nothing but their own riches and glory, and the moment the tide turned against them, they flocked to Cao Cao as though nothing had ever happened. When Cao Cao pressed the attack once more, the city gates were flung wide open, and a few officers went so far as to seize Tao Qian and present him as an offering, angling to catch her eye.
Ever since taking Xuzhou, the old man had walked nothing but a road of disappointments.
No one remained who gave him their loyalty out of genuine devotion.
"Now that's quite a sight."
At the old man trembling from head to toe, unable to contain his fury, the woman let out a soft laugh.
"How were the years you spent living like a king in Xuzhou?"
"Silence!"
The instant the mocking voice reached his ears, the old man shrieked, the veins of his neck standing out red.
"How dare a wench from that beggarly clan of eunuchs—the ones who gnawed the Han to the bone—!"
"The old man who never once managed to beat that 'wench' certainly has plenty to say."
Zhuhuang Feidian—"Yellow Hooves, Flying Lightning." The name of a horse said to have yellow hooves and run like a bolt of lightning. Atop a steed anyone would hail as a famous horse, the silver-haired woman held the reins in one hand, her expression one of perfect ease.
"Even I was surprised."
"..."
"To think the man who ruled Xuzhou would fold this easily."
A warlord who had personally put down the rebels who once rose against the Han, and who had displayed his exceptional talent from his earliest years.
Tao Qian, Governor of Xuzhou, had failed in the end to overcome Cao Cao.