Eastern Wu King of Virtue (3)
Thanks to Yan Baihu, Jiangdong had been thrown into an uproar—but there was nothing I could do about it.
Which was only natural. At the time, I was barely halfway there, let alone arrived in Jiangdong. What exactly was I supposed to do about it?
Still, it wasn't as if the situation were hopeless. Though Jiangdong's most famous faction had suffered absurdly heavy losses to a betrayal from within, it had yet to lose all of its territory, and the coalition of powerful clans that had rallied around Liu Yao remained very much intact. The Jiangdong magnates knew full well that if Liu Yao collapsed completely, they would be next in line.
And why was that? Because the goal of the Shanyue tribes, Yan Baihu included, was to drive the Han out of Jiangdong entirely and found a nation of their own. If the magnates joined hands with the tribes to stab their allies in the back, it might pay off in the moment—but they understood perfectly well that once the rabbit hunt was over, they would be boiled and eaten like the hounds that had caught it.
...Though Ze Rong, the bastard who had tried to assassinate me, apparently never learned that. For a bandit he'd possessed a rare, big-picture view—but perhaps, in the end, a bandit was still just a bandit.
Of course, if Liu Yao had actually died when he was stabbed in the back, the whole situation would have gone completely sideways. Leaderless, his faction would have shattered into fragments, and the clan coalition, robbed of its center of gravity, would have drifted about searching for a new one before the Shanyue picked them off one by one. A magnate was, quite literally, nothing more than a magnate. Unless, like Liu Yao, one had been appointed to office directly by the court, there was no legitimate grounds to stand above one's fellow magnates.
Sure, they strutted about with their shoulders squared within their own domains—but then, so did every other magnate. Gather a crowd of men of roughly equal standing, and naturally none of them cares to take orders. The only reason the magnates operated as a coalition under Liu Yao in the first place was that he occupied the office of Inspector of Yangzhou, a post charged with governing an entire province. Ignoring his commands offered them no justification, and openly defying him with a declaration of "I don't recognize your authority" would instantly brand them as traitors defying a Han official, isolating them at a stroke.
Then what about Sun Ce, who in the original history went around thrashing every last one of them? Uh... that was a thoroughly exceptional case. The Ten Attendants, Dong Zhuo, Li Jue and Guo Si—even Cao Cao. Thanks to that fantastic collaboration, the authority of the Han had plummeted straight into the abyss, and even the Emperor, who ought to have been leading the nation, had been stripped of all power and reduced to a mere folding screen existing only for legitimacy's sake. And behind Sun Ce at the time stood a heavyweight figure like Yuan Shu, solidly entrenched—so what could possibly have been the problem?
Of course, Yuan Shu was hardly dependable in reality, but on paper he was the legitimate heir of the Yuan clan of Four Generations of Three Excellencies fame, and his office had risen as high as General of the Rear, one of the Four Generals of the realm.
That reminds me—I really can't get used to that title. How is "General of the Rear" an actual government post...
The General of the Rear, naturally, meant nothing of the sort; it simply designated the general in charge of the rear. The rear... the rear... ...in charge of the rear? Ugh, there it went again—
I vigorously shook my wretched head, which insisted on connecting Yuan Shu with the "Rear General"—no, with the rear—and imagining something thoroughly indecent.
"...?"
Seo Yeo, watching from nearby, tilted her head in puzzlement, but I was in no position to answer her. This was a matter of my dignity.
I wrestled my thoughts back onto their proper track and sized up the situation in Jiangdong. On one side stood the Shanyue tribes, the old-timers of that land since time immemorial; on the other, the coalition of magnates striving to defend their territories against them. Anyone could see the two were set for one massive collision—and indeed they had already clashed repeatedly, broadcasting their mutual loathing to the whole wide world.
So what was my job here? Simple. If Jiangdong was in chaos, I would seize the opening and barge into the brawl like one of those thuggish challengers from a card game. There was the small matter of having to cross the Yangtze to reach Jiangdong, but with the region itself in such a shambles, I judged we could make our landing without much trouble.
...Though this did raise the question of why exactly we had trained the navy for two whole years. But war, by its nature, demands thorough preparation. As the saying goes—want peace, prepare for war—so even with no intention of fighting, one must always build up one's army with diligence.
As for the Shanyue, once I landed in Jiangdong, I could simply go around smashing in the heads of anyone who caught my eye. These were people who had resisted the Han for centuries and brewed every manner of trouble in Jiangdong, and in the original history they had spent decades trading blows with the Kingdom of Wu that took root there, seizing each other by the hair in a teamfight for their very souls. Would people like that truly agree to a peaceful settlement and join hands with the Han? As if. They would sooner rain a storm of arrows on us while telling us to get the hell off their land. I would try talking first, but the odds were high we would end up at each other's throats. And when words failed, all that remained in the end was fists.
As for the coalition of magnates under Liu Yao... I would decide how to treat them based on the attitude they showed me. Would they be wolves like the Jing Province magnates, forever watching for a chance to club me in the back for their own profit? Or would they be like the Yi Province magnates, who grasped the difference in strength at once and compromised without overreaching? If the former, there was a very high chance their necks would fly for the crimes they had committed; if the latter, I intended to toss them whatever official post they desired and then keep them under close watch. Of course, hidden among the Jing magnates had been a fine talent like Bang Deok-gong, and even in Yi Province there had been one who could not abandon his greed, stirred up trouble, and had his head sent rolling for it. Wherever people live, things are more or less the same.
In a situation like this, what I needed above all was flexibility.
With the general plan settled, it was time to attend to the single most important task before crossing the Yangtze. And what might that task be? What else could it be?
"We have been awaiting your arrival, my lord."
Meeting Sun Ce, who had been waiting for me at Shuchun. Ah, and Zhou Yu, who had commanded the navy, as well.
"……"
Of course, beyond the two of them, the veteran generals who had long served Sun Jian—men like Huang Gai and Cheng Pu—had likewise joined the campaign under his daughter, Sun Ce. Every time old men who looked every inch the battle-scarred warriors bowed to me in greeting, I felt something indescribable stir in my chest. Was the Confucian spirit lodged somewhere inside me wailing in protest?
I dipped my head in a small nod as I regarded the two women respectfully paying their respects before me.
"It has been some time since we last met face to face."
"...Yes."
Sun Ce replied in a calm, measured voice. Honestly, since going so long without seeing family had to weigh on her, I had once told her that if she liked, she could leave things to Zhou Yu for a few days and come visit Luoyang. ...Now that I thought about it, a few days would hardly be enough, would it? Jiangdong was simply too far from Luoyang. No, wait—a warrior of Sun Ce's caliber could ride day and night without rest and arrive within days. Hadn't even Yuan Shu, after his defeat at Kuangting, fled without pause from Yanzhou all the way to Jiangdong to shake off Cao Cao's Tiger-and-Leopard Cavalry? I couldn't imagine Sun Ce failing to manage what even that Yuan Shu had pulled off.
But Sun Ce had refused my suggestion, remaining in Shuchun all this while and preparing meticulously for the battle that would one day come. What had she said, again? Something about how she would know even without seeing me in person, so it was fine? However I looked at it, she seemed to trust that I would look after her family well. Wasn't she placing rather too much faith in me?
I studied Sun Ce for a moment, then put a question to her.
"I ask only to be sure—you haven't been making enemies with any needless antics, have you?"
"Of course not."
Sun Ce answered with perfect confidence, as though there were not the slightest thing to feel guilty about. Watching her, I opened my mouth in a voice utterly devoid of suspicion.
"Then I'm glad."
"……"
Sun Ce's temper was so violent that she collected grudges wherever she went—hadn't she been attacked for it? True to her title of Little Conqueror, she had cut down her assassins single-handedly even while wounded, but in the middle of her treatment she once again failed to master that infamous temper, flew into a rage, burst her wounds open, and died in the prime of her twenties. A shining star who resembled her father Sun Jian more than anyone, falling all too meaninglessly. Naturally, knowing that history, I kept a worried eye on Sun Ce. Ah, and in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the spirit of the Taoist Yu Ji appears to torment her as well. Guan Yu too—why were there so many people laying curses in this era? At this rate, I feared I would be seeing ghosts myself before long.
Since I was the benefactor of her father, Sun Ce too had been striving to smother her nature and follow my orders. Come to think of it, I seemed to be serving as some sort of restraint mechanism yet again. Uh... well, what's good is good, I suppose.
Taking my eyes off Sun Ce, whose head was still bowed, I turned to Zhou Yu beside her.
"……"
Thank goodness she looked healthy. For the record, with Zhou Yu I had not made a suggestion—I had issued an order: come to Luoyang whenever you find a spare moment. With Sun Ce it was a suggestion; with Zhou Yu, a command. From where I stood, Zhou Yu looked like a sunfish that might drop dead the instant I took my eyes off her, so I had no choice in the matter. Honestly, watching the way her body moved when she swung a sword, an ordinary fellow like me would be cut down in seconds—so why on earth was her constitution so frail? Was this the legendary sickly genius swordswoman I had only ever heard about? ...Come to think of it, given that in the original history Zhou Yu succumbed to illness in her mid-thirties, the sickly attribute did seem to fit. She received regular checkups from Hua Tuo that ordinary officials couldn't even dream of, and I steadily sent her medicinal herbs said to nourish the body—yet I still couldn't shake my unease.
I was about to ask Zhou Yu whether anything ailed her when I realized that everyone present was still holding their bows toward me.
Mmm... This really is uncomfortable. Perhaps some men felt a surge of superiority at the sight of others bowing before them, but for my part, the queasy feeling it stirred in my gut was not to my taste. In my heart I wanted to tell them there was no need for all this—but from a subordinate's standpoint, that would only make things more burdensome. A truly thorny problem.
"That's enough with the greetings. Rise."
"Yes."
Feeling sheepish, I addressed everyone before me and turned my gaze toward Shuchun.
"I'm starving, so food comes first. Let's hurry inside."
"...Yes."
For the General-in-Chief of Han, my tone was far too casual—but at present, no one here was in any position to call me out on it.
"……"
...No, hold on. Wasn't there one?
The pointed stare of one of my Little Strategists—the sort who, even on ordinary days, never ceased nagging me about maintaining the dignity befitting my exalted station. Sensing that ominous glare on my back, I hurried my steps.