An Unexpected Visit (7)
Ji.
The city where Liu Yu, Inspector of Youzhou, currently held his seat. It lay so close to Bing Province that a man who tripped at the border would land with his nose against it — and there, Liu Yu clutched his head in his hands.
"Gongsun Zan... what exactly is he doing?"
"Administrator Gongsun Zan of Beiping has invaded the villages under our rule and is carrying out raids as we speak!"
"Th-this despicable wretch..."
At the messenger's report, Liu Yu clenched his fists, his arms trembling.
"It is not that I failed to foresee this. I simply never imagined he would prove so utterly lawless."
A leader who governs those beneath him bears a duty to care for the people who trust him and follow in his wake. The people offer up their wealth to keep the state running, and give their very lives as soldiers who guard its cities. In return, the leader shields them from injustice at the hands of outside invaders, and supports them so that they may live like human beings, never starving. It is a relationship of mutual care, each side sustaining the other. Without the people, a leader could not exist at all.
But what of this Gongsun Zan, who now styled himself the White Horse General and presumed to drown his rule in tyranny? Under the pretext of funding his armies to fight the nomadic tribes, he plundered his own territory without restraint. He levied crushing taxes to grind his people into poverty, then dragged every last one of them into forced labor in the name of expanding his fortress walls. It was a betrayal of the people's hearts, plain and simple. And as if that were not enough, he now trampled into lands governed by another leader and acted however he pleased. Liu Yu could endure it no longer.
"Prepare for war."
Liu Yu declared to the generals gathered around him, his voice solemn.
"The Administrator of Beiping has forsaken benevolence and righteousness. So I, in turn, shall answer him in kind."
Provoked past bearing by Gongsun Zan's outrages, Liu Yu finally raised his banner — and the host that answered his call numbered well over ten thousand.
When word reached Gongsun Zan that Liu Yu had raised an army, he laughed so hard it seemed the corners of his mouth would split.
"Hahaha—! At last! That wretched whelp has finally crawled out to face me himself!"
The day had come to punish the coward who hid behind his walls and did nothing but bark.
"P-please, spare m—"
Crunch!
At that moment, the commoner begging for his life beneath Gongsun Zan was trampled flat under the hooves of the white horse he rode. Gazing down at the man who had died in a state too mangled for words, Gongsun Zan murmured, cold as ice.
"I do believe I told you — you were grating on my nerves, so don't so much as open your mouth."
The white horse beneath him had long since lost its original color, drenched in the spray of so much blood. All around, buildings burned and crumbled into ruin, while the White Horse Volunteers plundered the village, their smiles brimming with elation.
The weak have everything taken from them. The strong take everything. And he belonged to the latter.
"Yes. Is this not simply the natural order, turning as it ought to?"
In an age like this one, the strong were justice. An era where lacking strength was, in itself, a crime punishable by death — and, by the same token, an age of opportunity where strength could clasp anything in its grasp. Boundless wealth. Beautiful women. Renown that would ring through the generations. Gongsun Zan let slip a smile that chilled the blood, savoring them all as prizes he could clutch in his hands at any moment.
"First things first — Liu Yu. You're up."
He had never, not once, been able to stomach how the man grated on his nerves.
A paragon of benevolence and righteousness? A pillar of the imperial house? What were titles like that worth in an age of chaos such as this?
"This benevolence and righteousness you insist matters so much — will it be enough to protect you?"
With those words, Gongsun Zan took the reins in hand and urged his horse forward with practiced ease. All that remained behind him was a village reduced to ash and corpses, the earth stained red with the blood its people had shed.
Having released Liu Bei and returned to the government office, I was making my way down the corridor when I came face to face with Jia Xu.
"..."
She held her usual expressionless face as she regarded me. Seo Yeo was one thing, but Jia Xu was hardly lavish with her expressions either.
Gazing at her — at the woman who always kept an imperceptible arm's length no matter how long we'd worked side by side — I sank into thought, and a question surfaced unbidden. Having watched my greenhorn antics from close quarters for so long, how did Jia Xu judge me now?
"Jia Xu."
"Yes."
"How do you see me?"
At my abrupt question, a flicker of surprise crossed her face.
"...May I ask what prompts such a question?"
"Well, looking at it through someone else's eyes, I fall short in a great many ways, don't I?"
Among everything I had done until now, there were surely acts that even Jia Xu could not make sense of. Just consider the present. I had deliberately spared people who had once been my enemies, then strong-armed them even as I insisted they could be won over as allies. I had shown myself a fool, rushing to another's aid without so much as gauging the state of my own soldiers. The ideals I carried were lofty — and precisely for that reason, divorced from reality. A man who wanted to do something but had no skill of his own to do it with, and so leaned on everyone around him. A blockhead who didn't know his own place and brandished nothing but ideals like an idiot. That was who I was at this moment.
Judged by the measure of a leader who must guide an entire faction, I was a failure no matter how you looked at it. Talents who weighed a lord's own ability above all else would have turned their backs on me and gone over to some other warlord. And those disappointed in me for that reason would most likely make for Cao Cao or Yuan Shao. Compared to me, they were simply in a different league altogether.
I looked at Jia Xu and spoke.
"You can be honest with me."
"That is..."
"You know I'm not the sort to hold a grudge over a little harsh criticism."
Recalling what she might be worrying over, I added,
"You don't need to worry about Seo Yeo, either."
"..."
"Without an order from me, she never steps forward on her own."
There was only one circumstance in which Seo Yeo would harm another without a command from me — when that person had already moved to harm me first.
Jia Xu went on studying me with those blue eyes that gave nothing away.
"I'm merely asking for your opinion. If answering is truly too difficult, then don't."
Honestly — when your superior is carrying on with "You're disappointed in me, aren't you?" — how is a subordinate supposed to come right out and agree? Unless they were genuinely prepared to stake their life on worrying for you, the most they would do is mumble something evasive and quietly slip away. And if that superior held power over their very life and death, they would be all the more careful.
And the person I had asked was Jia Xu, of all people. A grandmaster of self-preservation whose own survival might as well have been her purpose in life. The odds that I would hear a straight answer were slim indeed.
And yet there was exactly one reason I had put the question to her: I had judged that, right now, Jia Xu was the only person capable of giving me a cold, honest assessment. Seo Yeo and Lü Bu were out of the question — they were the type to follow me no matter what I did, cooing that it was all fine. Hell, if I went mad one day and massacred the common folk, they would still be at my side. Generals like Zhang Liao, Gao Shun, and Xu Huang were too loyal by half to ever speak a harsh truth to my face. Zhang Jue would only pat my hand and soothe me; the odds of her rendering a dispassionate verdict were slim. Xun You? She had joined this faction barely any time ago, making an assessment of me hard to come by — and if I asked now, she would likely just send me soaring with flattery, same as in that little exchange we'd had before.
And so I had turned to Jia Xu. I believed that she — who had watched me from close by for so long, and who could weigh any situation with an unclouded eye — would hand me an answer I could actually accept.
Then Jia Xu, who had kept her silence until now, slowly spoke.
"General-in-Chief. Why do you believe a strategist exists?"
"Why do I believe they exist?"
I mulled over her question for a moment before answering.
"Well... to put forward counsel and aid their lord?"
"Precisely."
At my answer, Jia Xu gave a slight nod.
"We exist to point out what the one we serve has failed to grasp, and to offer counsel better than his own."
"..."
"Then allow me to ask in return. General-in-Chief, have you ever once dismissed my counsel out of hand?"
"...I don't believe I have?"
Even as I answered, I stole a careful read of her expression. Her thoughts might run differently from mine.
"Not 'probably not.' You have not."
Jia Xu swept my hedging aside in a single stroke.
"Carrying yourself with humility about your shortcomings is a fine thing — but from time to time, I would ask you to stand tall."
"It isn't humility. It's just the truth..."
"General-in-Chief."
Jia Xu locked her piercing blue eyes onto mine. Under that glacial chill, I couldn't help but glance away.
"You always lend your ear to the counsel of others, and the moment you judge that counsel to be right, you set aside your own position without the slightest hesitation."
"..."
"That is, beyond any doubt, one of the finest qualities you possess."
Having said her piece, Jia Xu still regarded me with that same unchanging, expressionless face.
"Where in all the world would I find a reason to be disappointed in such a lord?"
Perhaps I had tumbled into a kind of self-loathing. I couldn't say for certain. It was simply, undeniably true that my abilities fell short.
"Have confidence in yourself."
I truly never expected to hear an assessment like that from Jia Xu.
"Had you truly been incompetent, General-in-Chief, no stroke of luck, however great, could have carried you this far."
A faint smile touched the corner of her lips. Looking at her, there was only one thing I could say.
"...Thank you."