Inspection (5)
As for the captured Beigong Boyu, I dispatched him ahead to Luoyang under a separate escort of soldiers, along with a letter reporting the situation.
Once delivered to the capital, Beigong Boyu would now get to spend his days in a Luoyang prison, enjoying cozy companionship with his fellow inmates until the day I returned. How he would be treated depended entirely on the crimes he had piled up until now — and not that I needed to check, it would surely be the harshest punishment imaginable.
Whether he grasped any of that or not, Beigong Boyu followed the soldiers in mute obedience as he was marched off toward Luoyang.
I had expected as much ever since I saw that guard being insolent with me, but the sight of Jincheng was ugly indeed. Starving, half-clad people were visible everywhere one looked, and in the deserted back alleys, far from any foot traffic, corpses had even been left abandoned here and there.
Wuwei, under Han Sui's rule, sat on barren land, yet its people went about their lives with sturdy, hardy faces. Jincheng, under Beigong Boyu, was a city of people so broken they simply waited, hollow-eyed, for death.
Just how many years of torment had it taken to reduce them to this? I would have preferred to be wrong — to have it all be nothing more than a bad feeling — but unfortunately, the city fell squarely within my expectations. And in that moment, the last faint perhaps I had been harboring inside me died, and Beigong Boyu's fate was fully decided.
To sell the General-in-Chief's name as he pleased, turning his soldiers loose to plunder travelers and bleed a city dry. Then again, from what I had just witnessed, the man was stingy and harsh even with his own soldiers — heaven only knew how he had treated people with no power whatsoever. Keeping men like this alive served no purpose at all.
That left only one question: who was to be entrusted with Jincheng? Even granting that I would stay for a time to settle the city's affairs, in the end I had to return to Luoyang.
Here, the original history offered a famous answer — one name towered above all the warlords of Xiliang — so I did not have to think long. With a warlord even better known than Han Sui, a man known only to those in the know, standing right there in plain view, to whom else could I possibly hand it?
Ma Teng, courtesy name Shoucheng.
To speak plainly, if not for Ma Teng, there was no one to give Jincheng to. A man like Huangfu Song was far too old by now, and men like Xu Rong and Zhang Xiu already had posts of their own.
I called Han Sui aside and sounded him out, and he raised no particular objection to seating Ma Teng there. There might be difficulties in governing a city, he allowed, but he himself would lend a hand, so there was nothing to worry about.
With my mind made up, I summoned Ma Teng — who had trailed along in Han Sui's wake — to the government office and told him the news.
"This Ma Teng will not forget the General-in-Chief's grace, even in death!"
The moment the words left my mouth, Ma Teng flung himself face-down on the floor and burst into loud, heaving sobs.
As I stood there nonplussed, Han Sui, waiting nearby, leaned in with a quiet word of explanation.
"He is a man who has worked himself to the bone all these years for one purpose alone — raising his impoverished family back up."
"He was poor?"
That, at least, was news to me.
Against the backdrop of Ma Teng, still bawling his eyes out, Han Sui continued.
"Ma Teng's father was too poor to take a wife until he met a Qiang woman and finally managed the match, and Ma Teng himself once scraped by as a woodcutter, barely keeping body and soul together."
"Hmm…"
And here I had assumed the man had been born to a family of some standing and coasted through life on it. Another surprise. Few in this world escape hardship, I suppose — Ma Teng, too, was one of those who had lived his life the hard, honest way.
"It feels a bit like gilding my own sworn brother to say so, but he is a fine man at heart. Short of some unreasonable demand, he will follow the General-in-Chief for the rest of his days."
"I see. My thanks for the counsel."
"You honor me."
So saying, Han Sui quietly withdrew a step to the side once more, and I turned my attention back to the man still weeping in front of me. Left to his own devices, Ma Teng looked set to expel every last drop of moisture in his body, so I had no choice but to open my mouth.
"That's enough crying. Get up."
"G-General-in-Chief…"
At my words, Ma Teng's sobs stopped, and he slowly raised himself from the floor. Watching a full-grown man of such towering build shed tears was a strangely surreal experience.
"A man built like a mountain, and this much of a crybaby."
"…Forgive me."
Composed again, Ma Teng seemed to belatedly recall what a sorry spectacle he had made of himself, and hung his head, unable to meet my eyes.
"Anyway — you can do the job properly, yes?"
"Yes, sir! I will stake everything I have and follow the General-in-Chief's command!"
Voice brimming with confidence, Ma Teng dropped to one knee and saluted with a clasped fist. Judging by the look in those eyes, at the very least, the man would never slack at his post.
Her father — the man she revered above all others. A founding general who had helped Emperor Guangwu establish the Later Han; a descendant of Ma Yuan. He had single-handedly raised their fallen family back onto its feet, and he had always impressed one lesson upon her.
"Do you understand, daughter? Getting along in this world isn't nearly as hard as people make it out to be."
Time had blurred many memories since, but those words, at least, she remembered with perfect clarity.
"Grace and grudges must always be repaid."
Strange things to tell a girl not yet seven, perhaps — but her father had meant every word.
"Never put up with unfair treatment. If someone hates you for no reason, then you give them a proper reason to hate you!"
When had that been, again? Ah — right. It was the day the big boys had bullied her. Her father had swatted each of them in turn, chased them off, and then said this to her.
Nowadays she knew they had only been pranks — boys so bewitched by her looks that they were trying to catch her attention — but back then she had been too frightened to do anything at all. Her father, exasperated at the sight of her, had thumped his chest in frustration.
"Punks like that are nothing! Hit them hard, just like I did, and they'll run off bawling!"
The heart of a parent who would sooner see his own child do the hitting than be hit.
"That's right! Whose daughter do you think you are?!"
Hoisting her up onto his shoulders, her father had declared:
"One kick from you and those brats' leg bones would snap clean right—"
"What sort of talk is that for a child's ears, you oaf?!"
"W-wife! Stop! The child is right here! Oof!"
What a merry scene it had been.
Her father had surely only grumbled the words out in passing frustration, but they became nothing less than the girl's creed for life.
"Grace and grudges must always be repaid."
Grace, with gratitude. Grudges, with vengeance.
"Ow!"
A wooden sword dropped abruptly onto her head, and the girl let out a short yelp.
"Nnngh…"
Cradling her head against the searing sting, she sank to the ground.
"No matter how much talent you were born with, the battlefield cuts you down the instant you let your guard slip."
The man helping with the girl's training at Ma Teng and Han Sui's request heaved a sigh.
"Drifting off in the middle of a bout? Just where do you get that kind of confidence?"
The girl glared up at him with blue-silver eyes gone misty with tears.
"Tch… That's so mean, mister."
"…Not 'mister.' The name is Yan Xing."
"Mister."
Honestly, this insolent little brat. Like father, like daughter, one might say — the girl had inherited her father's fiery temper in full.
The man adjusted his grip on the wooden sword.
"Very well. Today I'll drill that habit out of you for good."
"Go ahead and try!"
Her spear already back in her hand at some point, the girl growled at him. But just as the two of them were about to clash again, a familiar man's voice rang out from nearby.
"Hahahaha—! Ma Chao! Your father's made it big—!!"
"Father?"
Hair the same silver-blue as her eyes whipped around.
Ma Teng, whose frame dwarfed that of any ordinary man, hoisted the girl up into the air.
"H-hey, wait — what's gotten into you all of a sudden?!"
"I'm the Administrator of Jincheng now! Our family has risen again!"
"Administrator?"
The girl's eyes went perfectly round. However bad she might be with her head, even she knew what an Administrator was. Wasn't that the high office that governed an entire commandery? It was unquestionably wonderful news, and yet the girl voiced a single nagging doubt.
"But Father, you don't have any money. How did you buy the post?"
"…What kind of slander is this?"
???
Something was off. She had heard that an office that high cost a small fortune.
"Was I wrong?"
"The Emperor and the Ten Attendants who used to peddle posts like that are all dead and gone by now."
No way!
The girl could not hide her astonishment. While she had been pouring everything into her training, the world had been turning over and over without her!
"These are the days when warlords nursing every ambition under heaven rise up in every corner of the land."
"Warlords?"
Still too young to keep up with the difficult word, the girl scrunched her brow, then let it smooth out again.
"Anyway, this is a good thing, right?"
"It is! A tremendously good thing!"
So saying, Ma Teng let out a hearty laugh.
"I've received the General-in-Chief's grace, so now I must repay it in kind!"
"Grace?"
To the girl, no word in the world mattered more. Oblivious to the thoughts turning over in her head, Ma Teng went on cheerfully.
"Thanks to him, our family lives again. If that isn't grace, what is?"
"Hmm…"
— Grace and grudges must always be repaid.
The line that had since become the girl's very life. After a moment deep in thought, she declared, chin held high:
"Then I'll help too!"
"With you at my side, what father could feel safer!"
Grace, with gratitude.
Grudges, with vengeance.
So thought the girl — Ma Chao — as she broke into a radiant smile.