A Capable Minister in Peace, A Cunning Hero in Chaos (4)
Just as I had predicted, Cao Cao smashed Tao Qian to pieces in the blink of an eye. According to our intelligence, the officers and men, sensing there was nothing left to hope for, had thrown open the gates and surrendered. Apparently Tao Qian had been even more incompetent than I'd given him credit for.
Still, the man had once fought shoulder to shoulder with Huangfu Song out in Xiliang, crushing the Qiang tribes — I'd expected him to hold out a good deal longer. Or perhaps the simpler explanation was the right one: Cao Cao was simply that capable. Either hypothesis stood on solid ground, so I couldn't rush to a verdict.
One thing was peculiar, though: Cao Cao's advance did not end there. There is an old idiom about the momentum of splitting bamboo — once the crack starts running down the stalk, you ride it all the way to the end. It was a phrase born in a later age, when the Kingdom of Wu went to its ruin.
Cao Cao put that idiom into living practice. Hardly had Xuzhou fallen before she drove straight up into Qingzhou.
Qingzhou…. Now, wasn't that a land bound to Cao Cao by fate itself? In the history I knew, she had exterminated the vast bandit hordes that had risen across the province and folded the surrendered men into her own army — the Qingzhou Troops that anyone who knows the Three Kingdoms has heard of at least once.
Having devoured tens of thousands of soldiers for the price of nothing, Cao Cao grew formidable from that point on. Had those men passed into the hands of an incompetent lord, the Qingzhou Troops would have ended up mere window dressing — bright fruit on the outside, rotten at the core. But Cao Cao was a commander so exceptional that the whole sweep of Chinese history offers precious few to compare.
Then there was the Art of War — a book anyone with even a passing interest in history knows by name. As it was handed down into the modern era, the text spawned countless editions, and the foundation beneath every last one of them was Cao Cao's own annotated masterwork, Wei Wu's Annotations on Sunzi.
In other words, Cao Cao had taken Sun Tzu's dense original and rendered it in plain, digestible language, and later strategists built their reinterpretations atop her work. Which tells you Sun Tzu must have written the thing in an absolutely punishing style. Fair enough, I suppose — for a man hailed as one of China's greatest strategists, the word choice alone must have been a nightmare.
Even I have flung more than one book across the room mid-read, and more than once at that.
This blockheaded General-in-Chief cannot understand the original text at all….
The quick, easy-to-read annotated edition, please. That is my request.
If there were truly something I needed to read, I could always drag over the pint-sized strategists loitering at my side — but I wasn't about to go that far just to read a book. It wasn't a matter of grown-man pride about needing a child's help. I just plain didn't feel like reading.
Han Gaozu Liu Bang, after all, hated study for exactly that reason — too hard to understand. Wasn't he the one who'd take a leak on a Confucian scholar at the mere sight of one? If a man named Shusun Tong had not later cooked up the equivalent of Master the Court Rites with This One Book! and rehabilitated that pack of layabouts — deadbeats who, uselessly, took after Liu Bang himself — the imperial palace would have gone to ruin long ago.
I had gone one step further than even that. Mine was not a question of understanding or not — the will to study itself simply did not exist.
Anyway, if you asked me to name the famous figure residing in Qingzhou, the province Cao Cao had just invaded, there was exactly one answer: Kong Rong. None other than the twentieth-generation descendant of Kong Qiu himself.
Yes — Kong Qiu. The very Confucius who founded the scholars' learning. In an age where bloodline counted for so much, the title of Descendant of Confucius carried staggering weight. Natural, perhaps — to every scholar raised on the Confucian classics, he was the heir of the master they all revered.
In a way, Kong Rong had even owed a debt to Dong Zhuo — the tyrant's habit of flinging official posts in every direction had swept Kong Rong up in the scatter. Thus appointed Chancellor of Beihai, he headed straight for Qingzhou, steadied the people's hearts, and when a bandit horde numbering in the hundreds of thousands later rose up, he barred the gates fast and worked himself ragged to keep the damage from spreading.
And while the Chancellor of Beihai was doing all that, what was the Inspector actually governing Qingzhou up to, you ask? That gentleman, drowning in worry, did nothing but stage shamanic rites and offerings until he sickened with grief and died. Jiao He, if I recalled the name correctly. What sort of prayer-meta strategy that fool imagined he was running, I will never know.
Well… the reason I hadn't kept a particularly close watch on Kong Rong was a simple one. This man was the very archetype that sprang to mind at the words true Confucian scholar.
Loyalty upward to his lord; comfort downward to the people. He guarded his devotion to his lord just as faithfully as he paid filial duty to his parents. So strictly did he walk the teachings of Confucius that at the tender age of thirteen he performed the three-year mourning period his contemporaries liked to quietly gloss over. They say the rites brought him within a breath of death, so far gone that those around him had to hold him upright — that alone tells you what manner of man Kong Rong was, does it not?
When Dong Zhuo seized total control of the government and ran riot, it was Kong Rong who butted heads with him over every last affair, standing alongside Lu Zhi. And of course, the man also happened to have a devastatingly sharp tongue.
They say even Cao Cao first entertained his verbal assaults in kind, then, after losing a few rounds, settled into ignoring him altogether. The only one to ever defeat him in argument was Xun Yu — her very own Zhang Liang — and that says everything, doesn't it? For Dong Zhuo, eating freestyle abuse with no reply possible, it must have been a living death.
But the man's fame rested on being the Sage's own blood, and so no one dared lay a careless hand on him. Dong Zhuo, who had enemies to spare, finally settled on pressing an official post into Kong Rong's hands and banishing him far from the capital. Considering that the Yellow Turbans were running rampant through Beihai at the time, the intent was unmistakable: go there and be so kind as to die.
Yet Kong Rong endured far better than anyone had reckoned. He governed Beihai with tireless devotion, until in time he received an edict from Cao Cao — then the shield of Emperor Xian — and committed himself to her protection. Thereafter he clashed endlessly with the Cao Cao who trampled the Han imperial house, made himself thoroughly despised, and perished framed under a false charge of unfiliality, his three clans annihilated to the last soul. Even then, they say, he spent his final breath denouncing Cao Cao. One can only imagine how unbending — straight as a bamboo pole — his character had to be.
Kong Rong was the sort of man who, like Wang Yun or Dong Cheng, would choose death over living to see the Han imperial house fall. That was exactly why I hadn't troubled myself over him.
"Hmm…."
"My lord. Is something weighing on you?"
I had been drumming my fingers on the table, sunk in thought, when Zhuge Liang — with her downright uncanny eye for my moods — spoke up. Hoping to hear the little strategist's opinion, I answered in a level voice.
"Cao Cao is seizing commandery after commandery across Qingzhou and settling the land under her rule as we speak, is she not?"
"Yes. Her recent movements have set the whole realm abuzz."
Zhuge Liang offered a calm smile at my words. Watching the girl — grown a fair amount since the day we first met — I continued slowly.
"If this keeps up, a collision with Kong Rong, master of Beihai, becomes inevitable…. And I confess I don't know what would be best."
"So that is what has troubled you."
Zhuge Liang turned her eyes on me — irises as white as her hair, pupils black as ink.
"If that is all, then I have a very simple solution."
True to her reputation as a walking satchel of magical wisdom, Zhuge Liang did not betray my expectations; with a flutter of her White Feather Fan, she produced the answer on the spot.
"Petition Her Majesty to send an imperial edict to Kong Wenju — Kong Rong, that is."
"An edict?"
"Yes. If Kong Wenju is the man his reputation promises, he will relinquish his post and come straight to the imperial court."
Ah… so we would be serving up, word for word, the very method Cao Cao had used in the original history. Liu Biao, for the record, had refused this exact edict — mumbling about his aged body and telling us where to shove it — and his head had promptly gone flying, clanging all the way off.
What's that? Something about that account smells doctored? I merely stated the facts exactly as they were.
Having heard Zhuge Liang out, I nodded.
"Good. That way we spill no blood for nothing. My thanks."
"I merely did what is only natural for a strategist in your service, my lord."
So she said, but she looked thoroughly pleased with herself.
Pingshou County, Beihai Commandery, Qingzhou.
A man who had once made his name in Luoyang — before Dong Zhuo took a dislike to him and kicked him east — now stood facing down an army. Kong Rong, Kong Wenju. Ever since the court-appointed Inspector of Qingzhou had absurdly dropped dead in the middle of a shamanic rite, he had served as the region's rallying point, straining every sinew to steady Qingzhou. Immaculate in appearance. Etiquette flawless down to a hair's breadth. And a bloodline that every student of the Confucian learning could not help but look up to.
"Cao Mengde—!!"
Even with a force of utterly overwhelming military might arrayed right before his eyes, Kong Rong showed not a shred of intimidation.
"Why have you, shameless woman, strayed beyond the post the court assigned you and come all this way—!"
"Ahh… I see."
Cao Cao gave a small nod as she listened to his defiant cry.
"I did wonder why your strength never grew, even after I swept away the bandits running wild through Qingzhou. So you have devoted yourself, quite literally, to nothing but your duties as Chancellor of Beihai."
"…."
"I can't decide whether to call that deep loyalty or sheer inflexibility."
"Hold your tongue!"
Kong Rong met the faint mockery in Cao Cao's tone head-on, yielding not an inch.
"That you dealt fitting punishment to Tao Gongzu — when he trespassed upon another's territory and bared his ambition — I rate highly!"
"…And?"
"But now you would stretch your own power into Qingzhou for private ends. What is the meaning of this!"
"…."
"Does this mean you, too, are no different from the other traitorous rebels entrenched across the realm!"
At that question, Cao Cao let out a soft snort of laughter.
"I am merely keeping the word I gave."
"What did you say?"
"Yanzhou. Xuzhou. Qingzhou."
Cao Cao stopped there, and a bleak gleam rose in her eyes.
"My heart has grown impatient. I haven't the luxury of waiting long."
"…."
"Stand aside. Now. Otherwise I will cut you all down where you stand."
"…All forces—! Prepare for battle──!!"
Just as the mood hurtled toward the flashpoint, a woman with a crafty, impish face barged headlong into the standoff.
"Whoa, hold on! Just — just one moment, if you please!"
"…What is it, Fengxiao."
Her treasured strategist stepping forward, Cao Cao suppressed her agitation and spoke in a measured voice. The woman who had rushed out was streaming with cold sweat as she blurted urgently,
"If my prediction holds, this ends in a peaceful settlement before long — not a drop of blood spilled!"
"…."
"I understand your impatience, truly — but please, wait just a little longer!"
The strategist Cao Cao had cherished above all others in the original history. Faced with the plea of a military advisor whose sight pierced the future to the very edge of prophecy, Cao Cao closed her eyes softly and recovered her calm.
"Fine. For now, we shall wait."
"Whew…."
At that answer, the woman heaved out a long breath of relief.
Just who on earth was this 'husband' of hers, that my lord showed more and more impatience with every passing day?
The genius strategist Guo Jia could only pray that her prediction would not fail her.