The System (2)
— I believe you will see it done well.
That was what I had told Jia Xu with a smile. She mulled it over for a moment as though weighing something, then answered in her usual composed voice.
"I will be sure to live up to your expectations, my lord."
Her expression remained as unreadably cool as ever, but I knew this woman was not one to speak falsehoods, so I gave a slow nod.
"Then I leave it in your hands."
"…Yes."
With that, I turned my back and started for the door — then deliberately halted mid-stride and asked over my shoulder,
"Ah, right — if the work proves too much to handle alone, I can always assign you more people."
"That is…"
Jia Xu let the words trail off briefly before replying with careful courtesy.
"…Your lordship's eye for talent has never once been wrong, has it? If you would assign someone to me, I would gladly work alongside them."
Well. She was suddenly handing me wings, wasn't she?
What she meant was this: as the saying goes, a ship with too many captains ends up sailing up a mountain — but she trusted I was not so incompetent a fool as to need that many hands, and so she would place her faith in me entirely.
Thanks ever so much. Say something like that out of nowhere and the pressure lands like a ton of bricks.
Still, if it was the person I had in mind, the two of them would cooperate beautifully and build a fine examination system between them.
"Good. I'll arrange for you to meet separately — when I call for you later, put your heads together and exchange views."
"Yes. …And, my lord?"
"Hm?"
I had been about to walk on when her call stopped me in my tracks. Jia Xu posed her question with unruffled calm.
"This method of selecting and employing talent through examination."
"……"
"What shall the institution be called?"
Ah, that. Was there even a question?
I answered without a heartbeat's hesitation.
"The Civil Service Examination System."
Gwa, a field of study; geo, to enter and be raised up through it. Loosely strung together, it meant something like "to rise by way of one's studies" — simple enough in meaning, though whether it made for an easily understood word, I honestly couldn't say. And of course, it was an entirely different word from the identically pronounced one meaning "days gone by." Different characters altogether.
"Understood. That is what it shall be called."
Having heard my answer, Jia Xu bowed at the waist with impeccable courtesy.
Now then — time to go have a word with the last person on my list.
The woman who, ever since arriving in Luoyang, had planted herself in place and devoted herself exclusively to childcare.
The talent I meant to attach to Jia Xu was none other than that woman.
Cao Cao, Mengde.
Anyone who had read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms knew it: when it came to hunger for talent, Cao Cao was in a league of her own.
"However unloving or unfilial, let talent alone decide advancement." That was her policy — no matter how deficient a man might be in virtue or filial piety, if he possessed ability and came forward to recommend himself, he would be employed. In short: character flaws be damned, anyone with outstanding talent would be recruited without the slightest hesitation.
Wasn't that the very line splashed across the Decree Seeking the Worthy, the proclamation with which the Cao Cao of the original history had summoned talent to her banner?
There was one problem with it, though: because the decree leaned wholly upon a single leader's personal judgment, it never really bore fruit after Cao Cao's death.
Say a man came forward singing his own praises — 'My character may leave something to be desired, but my abilities are first-rate!' In the end, watching the fellow and judging his worth fell to the ruler alone. He would have to work out for himself whether the man was merely blowing smoke to get his foot in the door, or truly the type whose character was dubious but whose talent was monstrous.
If someone else had recommended him, the ruler could always pin the blame on the recommender and cut the man loose when he caused trouble later, pleading ignorance — but with a self-recommender there was no one to pin it on. If anything, a bad pick would only leave the other talented men disillusioned with the ruler's judgment.
Thinking it through like that, I began to suspect the Decree Seeking the Worthy was never really a policy meant for posterity at all — it was a bespoke tool tailored to Cao Cao and Cao Cao alone.
In any case — setting aside whether the decree had actually worked — the words written in it told me plenty about what Cao Cao had thought of exceptional talent.
And I was off to ask such a person for a favor.
"You've arrived, my lord."
"…Er, yes. Right."
Barely had I stepped outside the building than a whole crowd came swarming after me, and I turned to eye them with a bemused expression. Was this another aftereffect of the attempted assassination? How had the escort managed to grow even larger? It was now nearly the equal of the guard that trailed Her Majesty the Empress whenever she stepped out for a stroll.
No — when I recalled the faces of the generals commanding this escort, ours left the Empress's guard in the dust outright.
"……"
"You're in danger enough as it is — why do you keep wandering about…"
Seo Yeo guarded me in her usual silence, while Lü Bu grumbled over and over, plainly displeased with my gallivanting.
"Aaah… so languid. I just wanna go find somewhere comfortable and sprawl out…"
"…Yide."
"Wh-what?! What did I do?!"
Guan Yu exhaled a long-suffering sigh; Zhang Fei jolted as if struck by lightning.
"……"
And there was Liu Bei, smiling gently at me as ever, alongside Zhao Yun keeping dispassionate watch over our surroundings.
Short of an act of God, nothing in this world seemed likely to lay a finger on me.
Though frankly, being handled like a sunfish that drops dead the instant you poke it left me with some rather complicated feelings.
No, scratch that — if any of them actually poked me, I probably would die with a squeak.
They were human weapons, every last one of them.
It was a small mercy that Liu Bei, at least, possessed skills that were somewhat human.
By my eye, you would have to call her roughly Cao Cao's equal.
An equal to the Cao Cao who, in the original history, single-handedly butchered a few dozen mutinous soldiers…
…Was that even a person?
I really didn't think so.
Even the strongman of Canghai — the legendary assassin said to have whirled a hammer of one hundred twenty geun, a good twenty-eight kilograms of iron, as he stormed the procession of Qin Shi Huang all by himself — would never have punched through this escort, I figured.
After all, the attempt failed only because Zhang Liang had pointed him at an empty carriage — which meant the man had smashed his way through the First Emperor's guard detail alone and demolished a carriage, only for it to be the wrong one.
So he had simply flung that fearsome hammer — a hundred and twenty geun, twenty-eight-odd kilograms — whistling through the air, had he?
Then the carriage exploding was only fair.
Had it struck a person instead, the aftermath would have been far too gruesome to describe.
And as if even that weren't enough, Xiang Yu was said to whirl a seventy-geun sword in one hand and an eighty-geun spear in the other, spinning them both about…
…That one, though, had long since drifted into the realm of urban legend.
She was simply strong to her core; whatever she happened to be holding, she'd have bludgeoned her way through everything just the same.
Hm… and yet nag at me it did.
Where on earth was the Chojin Spear — Xiang Yu's final rare drop?
The Chu Heaven Sword, after all, had been sitting in the Han imperial vault.
Chocheon. To leap beyond the heavens.
Chojin. To hunt the enemy down to the last man.
Really, what a bloodcurdling way to name a weapon.
"…?"
Catching my gaze, Seo Yeo tilted her head in an adorably puzzled way, as if to ask what was the matter.
Nothing — just thinking about your weapon.
"……"
Somehow she parsed even that, and turned her head slightly to glance back at the Chu Heaven Sword slung across her back.
Had I secretly been born with telepathy?
"Hwaaam—"
I turned toward Zhang Fei, who had been looking wearier by the minute.
Her belly had swollen to the point where you could pick it out even from a distance now.
Once today's business was done and I was home, I would have to put her on a nice long rest.
The Peach Sisters, at least, weren't as bereft of independence as Seo Yeo or Lü Bu.
I knew that much from how quietly they had stayed behind in Luoyang when I marched off on the Yi Province campaign.
"Whew…"
Liu Bei noticed where my eyes had drifted and let out a long sigh of her own, one hand stroking her belly — and the look on her face made it plain as day what she was thinking.
Frankly, I was curious about that myself.
Her first son, Liu Shan, may have come in her mid-forties, but she had borne any number of daughters before him.
Was her luck simply that wretched?
"Time we were moving, everyone."
"…Yes."
Liu Bei answered with due courtesy and fell in behind me.
"Oh — there you are?"
"That's right. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, I trust?"
At my question, Cao Cao broke into a mischievous smile.
"Fufu. We only just met yesterday — your concern borders on excessive."
"Ahem."
I put on a sheepish look.
This was simply what the head of a household did. I was only performing the duties required of me.
"Really, shouldn't the person being worried over right now be you, not me?"
Cao Cao said then, her voice turning serious.
"It hasn't even been a full day since the assassination threat, and here you are, traipsing about…"
"……"
"I truly cannot tell whether you are remarkably courageous or simply without nerves at all, nanggun-nim."
Cao Cao showed off her elaborately adorned appearance, declaring that she had been intending to visit me and ask after my health regardless.
"Abu-ah!"
Cao Ang, who shot up bigger by the day, had been nestling meekly in Cao Cao's arms — but the moment she saw me, she broke into a beaming smile.
Just who had she taken after, to be this adorable?
Certainly not me, I'd think…
Her mother, then?
"…Pfft."
"……"
Crackle.
For the briefest instant, I thought some unreadable look had flashed between Cao Cao and Liu Bei — but it had happened while my attention was stolen by Cao Ang, so I couldn't say for certain what I'd witnessed.
Don't tell me you two actually don't get along?