The System (3)
My attention had been stolen by Cao Ang for a moment there; I gathered my composure once more, lifted my head, and turned to Cao Cao and Liu Bei.
"Hmm? Is something the matter?"
"Ah... no, it's nothing."
By the time I looked over, the two of them were already projecting an air of perfect harmony—but I could tell.
...These two, for some reason I can't quite place, just don't get along.
Then again, this was Cao Cao and Liu Bei we were talking about, so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. In the original history, the two of them had been on good terms, at least in the early days of the Three Kingdoms era. During the campaign against Dong Zhuo, Liu Bei led her own force and marched alongside Cao Cao rather than Gongsun Zan. In the official records, mind you, that bastard Gongsun Zan never even joined the coalition—he was too busy rampaging around the northern frontier and keeping Yuan Shao in check.
There's a well-worn cheat code in the interpersonal politics of the Three Kingdoms, isn't there? Heroes recognize heroes. Cao Cao, who lost all composure the instant she spotted exceptional talent, naturally cherished Liu Bei. When Liu Bei later fled Lü Bu and placed herself under Cao Cao's banner, she was handed the office of General of the Left from day one—and when even that proved insufficient, the governorship of Ye Province was stacked on top, Cao Cao practically radiating how dearly she prized her.
The trouble was that by then, Cao Cao had already piled up a truly staggering mountain of sins, and Liu Bei looked upon her with bitterness. The Xuzhou Massacre needs no elaboration, and between that and her 'control of the Son of Heaven,' wielding the crown's authority as she pleased, Cao Cao had long since ceased to be a capable minister of a well-ordered age and become the Hero of Chaos of a fallen one.
What Liu Bei actually thought during her time under Cao Cao, no one can say. Did she watch Cao Cao's every move and conclude that this was someone she could never stand beside? In a way, she resembled Chen Gong, who joined hands with Lü Bu and drove Cao Cao to the very brink of ruin. Both received generous treatment from Cao Cao, and both betrayed her anyway, for reasons that remain a mystery.
And this one is a genuine mystery, at that. Chen Gong or Liu Bei—both turned on Cao Cao without any discernible cause. Chen Gong especially: Cao Cao tried to spare his life, yet he chose death to the bitter end. All the more baffling. Seen in that light, one thing at least seemed certain—something, at some point, had made them lose faith in her.
What followed, naturally, was Liu Bei stabbing Cao Cao in the back and seizing Xuzhou, a Cao Cao livid from crown to heel smashing Liu Bei to pieces, and then Yuan Shao picking a fight—thus the Battle of Guandu.
...The way I'm telling it, this sounds less like history and more like the biography of Liu Bei, who ruthlessly stomped on Cao Cao's one-sided crush.
At any rate, there was no reason for the two of them—on good terms in the original history—to be radiating this inexplicable tension the moment they met. Cao Cao had never demeaned the imperial house, never so much as triggered the Xuzhou Massacre; and Liu Bei had never blindsided her or carved off a piece of her territory.
"Mmm..."
"Now then, enough aimless daydreaming. Come inside. You did come because you have something to discuss with me, didn't you?"
"Well, that's true."
When I, still glancing between the two of them, showed a flicker of hesitation, Cao Cao took my hand and drew me along.
...Let's keep it a secret that her grip was strong enough to nearly sweep me off my feet.
Seriously, why are there so many people stronger than me? Is this right?
Perhaps to cut that train of thought short, Cao Cao whisked me into the room in an instant and spoke with a smile.
"So? What is it you wanted to tell me?"
"Ah, right, that. You see..."
I laid everything out for Cao Cao in a calm, measured voice—how we meant to bring new talent into government, and the new civil service examination system we would establish to make it happen. Listening, Cao Cao looked genuinely intrigued.
"Oh ho... So rather than letting the same old cliques fraternize among themselves, you intend to unearth entirely fresh talent from among those who've never held office. I see."
"Er... that's the gist of it, yes."
'Cliques fraternizing among themselves,' was it? Isn't that phrasing a little harsh?
Catching my bewildered expression, Cao Cao gave a derisive snort.
"Hmph. For those wretches who would stoop to every ugly deed imaginable just to hog their privileges among themselves, even a description this mild is high praise."
Apparently, stabilizing Yanzhou had put her through the wringer with one thing after another. Was that why, in the original history, she had run a government centered on her own kin, leaving the established power brokers no opening to worm their way in? Thinking of Wu, whose chain of command was so fractured that every offensive dissolved into wasted effort, it hardly seemed like a strange choice. Exhibit A: the First Siege of Hefei. Or the Second Siege of Hefei. Or, say, the Third Siege of Hefei.
No, seriously. They threw themselves at Hefei that many times? It was the Wall of Lamentations, plain and simple.
Hoo...
Cao Ang, who had been squirming so energetically in my arms mere moments ago, had at some point drifted off into a deep sleep. To think I could now swaddle a baby neatly with a single hand—I'd all but become a seasoned veteran. Still, holding her one-handed felt precarious, so whenever nothing else demanded my arms, I always carried her with both.
"...Hmhm."
Watching the scene with a contented smile, Cao Cao went on.
"In any case, there is a great deal to consider if we are to build the system you describe."
"Like what sorts of questions the exams ought to ask, that sort of thing?"
It was an examination, after all, so the questions surely mattered. Cao Cao nodded once at my question—but her words didn't end there.
"But what matters more is keeping the examiners themselves in line."
"The examiners?"
Now why would that be? Why would we need to police the very people grading the exam papers... ...Ah. Of course.
"You seem to have caught on."
"Yeah."
Because examiners could commit abuses—failing whoever rubbed them the wrong way on a whim, passing whoever caught their fancy. And what then, if they abused that power to entrench their own positions? A policy meant to draw in fresh, clean water could end up breeding an entirely new faction of stagnant rot. Sharp minds really did operate on another level. She had seized in a heartbeat on a flaw I'd never even considered, and was already turning over one solution after another.
"We shall also need to divide the scope in fine detail, as with the civil and military tracks, and..."
...
"Yes. And it would be no bad thing to let talents confident in both—myself, for instance—sit for both examinations."
Isn't that just you being the odd one, Cao Cao? Ordinary people find it punishing enough to devote themselves to one of the two. The civil track obviously demanded brains, so the questions themselves would be murderously difficult, while the military track required prowess beyond that of a common soldier—mastery of horsemanship and every other advanced skill under the sun. They say even the great Admiral Yi Sun-sin failed the military examination the first time around and only passed on a retake, so... you can imagine the difficulty. Even so, the land was vast and offices hungry for talent were plentiful; with honest, sustained effort, anyone could win an official post no matter how humble their birth. That was precisely what I was aiming for.
Of course, set against nobles bathed in every advantage their clans could shower upon them, ordinary citizens would be at a real disadvantage. Unlike aristocrats free to devote themselves wholly to study, they would have to farm or peddle goods while minding their livelihoods on the side. But if someone managed to pass despite such circumstances, I intended to treat them with every courtesy and trust them with real responsibility.
If it came to it, I could have the state lend out books as well. Books were ruinously expensive in this era, so no doubt some scoundrel would abscond with one and resell it for profit—but we would simply catch the man and make him cough up several times the book's value. He'd have stolen state property, after all; becoming a state slave would be a bonus on top.
What's that? He has no money? In all my experience, there had never once been a thief who stole from the state from whom a thorough scraping down to the bedrock failed to shake loose a single coin. How many corrupt officials did people think I had fleeced by now? With experience piled on experience, I'd learned roughly all the tricks of where and how such men hid their assets. Poke at a suspicious spot and watch them leap out of their skin in a cold sweat—honestly, it's great fun.
And what of those who genuinely broke the law just to survive because they had nothing to eat that very day? Er... they go to the government office and ask for aid; an official pays a visit, inspects their situation, and provides them grain. Not entirely free of charge, mind—they're asked to slowly repay a portion of it later. And the amount owed is no more than a handful. Unless someone truly had no will to work and meant to idle and freeload forever, it was a sum anyone could manage. Call it a device for confirming they hadn't simply drifted off somewhere to waste away. For the record, those who insisted on lounging about and living off others were conscripted to the work sites by force. Hopeless cases like that only put in an honest day's labor when you applied a little coercion.
Go to prison, stand trial, and then work VS come along quietly when called and work. The choice is yours.
This nation seeks hopeless slaves it can run on rock-bottom wages. Come on in and feel what it's like to be reborn as a new person.
At any rate, if crime still occurred despite all of that, it came down to one of two causes: either the citizen in question had never learned of the poor-relief policies, or they had applied and some incompetent administrator had failed to deliver aid to someone who genuinely needed it. If the latter, the official had neglected their duty, and the fallout would catch up with them from every direction. The cold shoulder from their superiors went without saying; they wouldn't even be treated as a senior by their own juniors. If it was serious enough, they would lose the post outright and revert to being a jobless nobody. If you're going to sit on the iron rice bowl, do your damned job properly.
...Why did my thoughts wander off in that direction again? So this is what they call a stream of consciousness.
Having taken in Cao Cao's advice, I spoke in an even voice.
"First things first, we'll need to appoint the examiners with care."
"Precisely. It isn't as though there would be no way to check them after the fact, but preventing problems from arising in the first place is far more certain, wouldn't you agree?"
Jia Xu, to whom I had entrusted the whole enterprise just recently, would be filling something like a director-general's role, so I would need to seat mid-level officers—the examiners and their ilk—beneath her as well. And Cao Cao, newly appointed General of Chariots and Cavalry, would before long be leading armies at my side while shouldering the nation's overall affairs. There are limits to what any one person can handle alone, after all.
I sank into brief contemplation. Someone with a discerning eye for character, a sharp mind, and the integrity never to wield their authority for private gain...
...As it happens, someone does come to mind.
I nodded, satisfied.