The Coalition (4)
The thing I had been dreading finally came to pass.
The anti-Dong Zhuo coalition.
Or was I supposed to call it the anti-Jeong Reung coalition, here in this world?
Either way, it was safe to assume that nearly every power under heaven had declared war on me and was bearing down at once.
Still, there were differences of their own. The greatest was that Yuan Shu, not Yuan Shao, had taken the seat of coalition leader. By all accounts, Yuan Shao had yielded the position to him without a word of protest. Cao Cao had joined as well, though her army was remarkably small. The two who, in the original history, would have moved the most aggressively were showing no initiative whatsoever.
So how was I supposed to play this now?
As I sat drumming my fingers on the table, sunk in thought, Gao Shun entered the room.
"My lord. As ordered, every member of the Yuan household has been taken into custody."
"Good."
I straightened up from my seat.
It was Yuan Shu who had circulated the call to arms across the realm and raised the coalition, and Yuan Shu who now occupied its lofty seat as leader. In response, certain voices in Luoyang had argued that the Yuan clan — having fomented rebellion — ought to be exterminated. I could hardly ignore the demand outright, so I had ordered Gao Shun to round up every last member of the Yuan household in Luoyang.
"Anything unusual turn up? Anything at all?"
"...There was one thing."
"Hmm?"
I had asked half expecting nothing, so it flustered me a little that there actually was.
"What is it?"
"Even as the soldiers stormed in and seized them without ceremony, they did not resist. Not once."
"All of them? Even the children?"
"Yes, my lord. It appears the parents had instructed them in advance."
That genuinely bothered me.
What could they have been thinking, to surrender so meekly? How would they know what I intended to do? I'd find out when I saw them, I suppose.
"Let's go."
"Yes, my lord. I shall follow."
Unable to contain my curiosity, I set off. The moment I stepped out of the government office, the guards nearby fell in around me, and following my memory through Luoyang's streets, I arrived at the Yuan estate — where the whole Yuan family stood bound in a long line.
Setting aside servants and the like, the Yuan clansmen held before me numbered roughly fifty. Gao Shun's report had been the truth: they looked at me without a word. Facing that silent, unflinching waiting for my judgment, I opened my mouth.
"Untie them."
"Yes."
At my abrupt order, Gao Shun obeyed without a flicker of hesitation. The instant her command left her lips, the Camp Crushers soldiers silently loosened the ropes. I had expected her to at least ask why. She asked nothing at all.
She was the very portrait of a soldier. A level of loyalty that was, frankly, a little terrifying.
I suppose it takes devotion at that pitch to follow the one person you've chosen to the very end — even when that lord slights you and grinds you down.
The Yuan family said nothing, but they seemed to feel a certain dread toward these machine-like soldiers and their general.
Scratching my head, I approached the head of the household.
"So then... it's been a while?"
"It has, Grand General."
The head of the Yuan clan, striking with her golden hair, received my words with perfect courtesy.
"You will have heard the news by now, I imagine."
"...I have."
The founding of Yuan Shu's anti-Jeong Reung coalition. It was an event so vast that by now no soul in the realm remained ignorant of it. The warlords of the world were concentrating their strength in a single place with me as the target; sooner or later, a great battle would come.
Thinking of him, I let out a sigh and spoke to the clan head standing before me.
"I'll keep it short. Leave Luoyang."
"...You will not take our heads?"
"Pardon? Why would I?"
How else could I have seized the reins of Luoyang's government? It was true I had driven out Dong Zhuo — but even that had only been possible because the Yuan clan had supplied my army with provisions. Without their costly grain, I would have been forced back to Bing Province without ever fighting a single battle.
"I do not forget my debts. Consider yourselves repaid with this."
...
Not that I would have killed them had they never sent a single sack of grain. I might have clawed away a portion of their wealth, but I would not have put them to the sword.
There were reasons.
"In the first place — you all support Benchu over Yuan Shu, do you not?"
Most of the Yuan clan had already turned their backs on Yuan Shu and attached themselves to Yuan Shao. Between a human wreck who was a corpse the moment you stripped away his claim as the legitimate heir, and a capable ruler busily burnishing her own renown, the choice was hardly difficult. Judging by the rumors drifting about — streets paralyzed by crowds hoping for a glimpse of Yuan Shao, brilliant talents falling under her spell — she certainly possessed a devastating charm for bending people to her will.
Come to think of it, wasn't that precisely what Yuan Shu was counting on — that I would kill them? He would not have cared in the slightest what became of a clan that had already turned its back on him. If anything, he was probably hoping I would slaughter them and whip up sympathy for his cause.
"Well... I suppose there may still be a few short-sighted fools among you who back Yuan Shu..."
At my words, several of them flinched and broke into a cold sweat. I shook my head, then looked at the clan head with a smile.
"But that much, I trust you can settle yourselves."
"...We are grateful for your merciful treatment."
The clan head bowed low in respect. I laughed and said,
"Just pass my regards along to Benchu, that's all."
"I shall."
"And tell her this too — if the chance ever comes, to knock Yuan Shu down a peg for me."
Not that it mattered much. The man would be devoured by his own desires and destroy himself soon enough.
The clan head withdrew with courtesy, settled the family's affairs, and made ready to depart Luoyang. I watched the procession of carriages leave the city for a while, then turned away.
It was time to agonize over how to handle the coalition now all but at my doorstep.
Jeong Reung, who minded public order to a degree unheard of among warlords, had exterminated every last bandit in Sili Province without sparing a single man. And so the Yuan family, once clear of Luoyang, arrived in Yanzhou — where the coalition was even now pouring in — without a single tie to the land.
The coalition soldiers, puzzled by the line of carriages approaching their position, brought the vehicles to a halt.
"Halt! Identify yourselves!"
...
"If you refuse to answer, we will have no choice but to detain you for suspicious conduct!"
"If I said I was Yuan Shao's mother, would we be allowed in?"
At the soldier's demand, a woman stepped forward. The soldiers who saw her as she spoke with a smile began to lose their composure — and small wonder, for the hair of the woman who had faced them down was extraordinary. A brilliantly gleaming color, as though pure gold had been melted down and spun into it.
"Uh... hey. What do we do?"
"How should I know? Quit asking me."
Just as the soldiers began to flounder at that color — the very same one they had seen on Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu — the gate of the army camp swung open. At the gate swinging open without warning, the eyes of every soldier standing watch above turned to a single point. Just inside the camp stood a woman with the same golden hair.
The woman outside greeted her with a smile.
"Yuan Shao. Have you been well?"
"...Mother."
The jaw of the soldier listening to the exchange dropped wide open.
The woman chuckled softly.
"Honestly, this child. Forget 'Mother' — how about something a little friendlier? 'Mom,' perhaps?"
"That will never happen, so kindly stop your joking."
Yuan Shao's face set into a sulk at her mother's teasing. At her daughter's stoniness, the woman heaved a sigh.
"How did such an adorable little thing end up like this..."
"...The wind outside is cold. Please come in."
Ignoring the teasing entirely, Yuan Shao ushered her mother and her party through the gate. One of the soldiers watching the Yuan carriages roll in spoke up.
"We're not going to get in trouble for this, are we?"
"Spare me the dreadful talk."
Having escorted her mother into the camp, Yuan Shao dismissed the guards and spoke with her alone.
"I trust nothing untoward happened."
"Mm. The Grand General was very generous in seeing to our comfort."
Yuan Shao's mother regarded her daughter from an easy posture and asked,
"Benchu. Do you believe the rumors about the Grand General that drift about the realm?"
"...I would not say I believe them."
Slanders steeped in malice, all of it — that he had coerced the Emperor and made off with the imperial treasury, that he flung official posts about with abandon. The Jeong Reung she had watched with her own eyes in Luoyang was nothing of the kind.
"Then why did you join the coalition?"
"Because that is how the great tide of the realm is flowing."
Nearly every power under heaven had raised its army against a single target. Jeong Reung's forces were mighty, to be sure — but if everyone pooled their strength, crushing his armies was not impossible. Or so they believed. And yet he was not a man who would break beneath a trial of this scale.
"Mother. This coalition will fail."
They had gathered under the banner of punishing a traitor, yet most of the coalition did nothing but eye one another warily, shirking any real fighting. Warlords who had assembled in pursuit of nothing but their own interests would never achieve what they desired.
"I took part only to keep public opinion from turning against me."
Sure enough, Liu Yan and Liu Biao, who had declared they would not join the coalition, had become something very like public enemies. Hadn't they announced that the Yellow Turban devastation was too grave for them to bring themselves to join the alliance? But the truth of it was something no one could know. A little digging suggested that Liu Yan was, at this very moment, reigning over Yi Province practically as a king...
"From here, I intend to bide my time, then withdraw from the coalition under the pretext of escorting you home."
"You say that as though you already knew the Grand General would not kill us?"
At that question, Yuan Shao smiled, ever so slightly.
"Because he is that kind of man."
"My, my."
Had her daughter ever trusted anyone so completely?
As Yuan Shao's mother marveled, a single scene was flashing through her daughter's mind. The conversation they had shared before parting with Jeong Reung. He had spoken these words just before they separated:
In that moment, Yuan Shao had felt it, unmistakably — something twisted deep within her coming loose and falling away. To him, who had watched her with worry written across his face, she had been able to leave nothing in return but words like those.
Ever since, Yuan Shao had murmured those words over and over in her heart.