The Inspector of Youzhou (3)
Gongsun Zan, courtesy name Bogui.
Long ago, when his superior had been implicated in a corruption scandal and stripped of office, Gongsun Zan had chosen to follow the man into disgrace, serving as his soldier and refusing to shirk even the filthiest of duties — a man who kept faith with his loyalties to the very last.
For someone who prized loyalty so highly, it was hardly surprising that Gongsun Zan had taken a liking to Liu Bei back in their days under Lu Zhi.
Nor did Liu Bei view that side of him unfavorably. A man who valued loyalty, who never forgot even the smallest personal kindness and repaid it to the very end — that much of Gongsun Zan, at least, she could not fault.
The problem lay elsewhere. That very desire to be generous to those close to him had become the culprit that turned his eyes away from the people. Anyone outside his inner circle could suffer whatever fate befell them; it simply did not concern him. Worse, Gongsun Zan actively persecuted such people and seized their wealth — then distributed the plunder among his favorites, binding them ever closer to his side. Naturally, that share included a generous portion for Gongsun Zan himself.
Liu Bei paused for a moment, wondering what such men had been called back in her old home of Zhuo Commandery in You Province.
...Thugs, wasn't it? Yes, that was probably the word.
"Oh-ho! If it isn't my little sister Xuande!"
Barely had Liu Bei entered Ji when a familiar voice rang out from one side. Told that a welcome guest had arrived, Gongsun Zan had come out to meet Liu Bei's party in person, his face blooming into a wide grin.
A man blessed with handsome looks and a commanding presence. Having once wed the daughter of a governor who had marked his talents, Gongsun Zan now reigned, all these years later, as the undisputed hegemon of You Province.
"When I heard you'd suddenly found business elsewhere and had to leave, I worried myself sick!"
"To think you would fret so much over this lacking little sister of yours — I couldn't be more delighted."
"Hahaha! Still as courteous as ever, I see!"
Liu Bei handled Gongsun Zan's effusive welcome with practiced ease.
Gongsun Zan, who should have been in Beiping, was residing here in Ji — the city Liu Yu had ruled. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, catching what that implied, stiffened. Wearing a look of mild puzzlement, Liu Bei asked, quite naturally, why he was here at all.
"Though I confess, I never expected to find you here of all places."
"Heh-heh-hah! Seems I've startled you without meaning to, little sister!"
Stroking his beard, Gongsun Zan answered her unspoken question.
"Because the fool who dared stand against me without knowing his own place has finally surrendered."
"..."
A murderous glint smoldered in Gongsun Zan's eyes as he said it. A man who never forgets even the smallest kindness is, put another way, a man who remembers even the smallest grudge to the very end. His hard line against the nomadic tribes, Liu Bei suspected, was surely rooted in the same trait — and she could roughly guess how such a man would treat an Inspector of Youzhou who had crossed him at every turn for years.
When Liu Bei offered no word and only lowered her head a little, Gongsun Zan laughed and cleared the air.
"Dear me! In company this pleasant, and here I go blundering about without a shred of tact!"
"...No, you weren't."
"I can see the mood sinking plain as day — don't give me that! It's been an age since we last talked; why don't we trade old stories over a drink?"
Liu Bei answered his offer with calm composure.
"If you would have me join you, nothing could please me more."
"Haha! Then today I simply must bring out the rare vintage!"
Cruel as he was to the common folk, he treated anyone he counted as a friend with unfailing generosity. That, precisely, was the kind of man Gongsun Zan was.
Trailing after Gongsun Zan as he strode ahead, Liu Bei let her gaze drift over the city. The moment he showed himself, the townsfolk shrank back in terror, putting as much distance between themselves and him as the street allowed. It looked for all the world like a crowd fleeing a tyrant.
The city walls had been perfectly intact when they entered. Given what Gongsun Zan had just said, the Inspector must have surrendered without a siege. Then why were the streets in such disarray? Several houses had plainly caught fire and burned to nothing, and hunger was written across every face. And strangest of all, the streets were filled almost entirely with children and the elderly.
Liu Bei knew exactly what it meant that not a single able-bodied young man or woman was anywhere in sight. Just what was this city trying to tell her? She stopped looking around and closed her eyes.
...This, at the very least, was not the sight she wished to see.
"Back at the Battle of Hulao Pass, I came within a hair's breadth of dying!"
Gongsun Zan, deep in reminiscence over drinks with Liu Bei, roared with laughter.
Liu Bei smiled and played along.
"...You certainly were reckless that day."
"'Course I was! You're not wrong, little sister!"
Gongsun Zan bobbed his head again and again at her words.
"Whatever possessed me to charge the Peerless Under Heaven all by myself, I'll never know! I should have realized it from the start, when the other commanders couldn't even last ten exchanges before dying to Lü Bu!"
"..."
"She's not called the Peerless Under Heaven for nothing!"
Liu Bei fielded his boasting with a touch of playful mischief.
"Aigoo, I'm going to die!... I still remember it to this day."
"Ahem! Hm!"
The very cry he had let out on the brink of death at Lü Bu's hands — when Liu Bei hurled his own words from that day back at him verbatim, Gongsun Zan buried his embarrassment in a dry cough.
"Well, thanks to that I learned not to overstep my station — so it all worked out for the best, didn't it?"
"Did it, now."
"It did! The world is a vast, vast place — it's no wonder that once in a while, a monster beyond human limits turns up in it!"
If anything, he declared with evident satisfaction, holding out for twenty exchanges alone against the Peerless Under Heaven was a feat in its own right.
"What I can't get over is your little sisters. I had no idea they were that strong."
Even now, Gongsun Zan could summon that scene as vividly as if it stood before his eyes. Three women, holding back single-handedly a natural disaster no human being could hope to withstand. Any warrior in the coalition who witnessed that mythic battle must have carried it with them ever after.
The Peerless One's strike had been all but invisible to Gongsun Zan's eyes. A blow that no one could have parried alone, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei had stopped together, their hearts as one. When Liu Bei's sisters crossed Serpent Spear and Green Dragon Crescent Blade to catch the Peerless One's attack, how his jaw had dropped! The sight looked so perfectly coordinated, so rehearsed, that even knowing it was impossible, Gongsun Zan had frozen solid for an instant.
But their opponent was simply too much of a monster. Even with the sisters pooling their strength, gaps inevitably opened — gaps, he called them, though in truth they were mere instants too fleeting to deserve the name. Yet to that monster, even an instant was apparently enough; she steadied her guard and hurled back razor-sharp counterstrikes. And every one of those counterstrikes was turned aside when Liu Bei herself stepped in — having grasped exactly what role was hers to play, she moved to shore up her sisters. The moment Liu Bei joined the fray, the Peerless Under Heaven, that living calamity, could find no opening at all. They could not press forward, but neither were they driven back — a perfect, unbroken stalemate.
To annihilate the force the Peerless One led, only a single condition needed to be met: pin the Peerless One down — pin Lü Bu down — with enough commanders that she could do nothing. Even Lü Bu, Peerless Under Heaven, would have no answer if her soldiers were butchered while she was held in place.
Strength to uproot the mountains, spirit to overshadow the age. The Hegemon-King of Chu had won every one of the more than seventy great battles of his lifetime and held all under heaven in awe — yet even he could not overcome the songs of Chu rising from every direction, and in the end he took his own life.
A Match for Ten Thousand, able to hold ten thousand men alone? Then throw twenty thousand at her. Thirty thousand. A Peerless Under Heaven with no army at her back was, in the end, only one person. All their defeats to date had stemmed from one thing alone: until now, no one had existed who could handle Lü Bu.
But now, right before Gongsun Zan's eyes, such people stood.
Liu Bei. Guan Yu. Zhang Fei.
With these three at his side, the day he clutched all under heaven in his grasp would draw suddenly, dramatically near.
Even now, the memory gnawed at him with regret. Had they pinned the Peerless One down that day, they could surely have cut away the future threat at the root. The ruin of it had been those incompetent fools, unable to stop a single nameless officer, letting the encirclement be torn open. Some excused themselves, claiming the man who broke through was a warrior stronger even than the Peerless One — as if that were sense. They ought to try saying things that actually make sense. If such a warrior truly existed, why hold him in reserve and stand around watching instead of committing him from the start?
Incompetent fools had always been the same. Rather than own their inadequacy, they were forever hunting for some other factor to pin the blame on. Gongsun Zan despised men like that.
Taking a sip from his cup, Gongsun Zan stole a sidelong glance at Liu Bei.
"By the by, where have your little sisters gotten to?"
The sisters who never left Liu Bei's side were nowhere to be seen. Liu Bei answered, her smile unwavering.
"Yunchang is standing guard outside..."
Letting her words trail off, Liu Bei glanced toward the world beyond the walls.
"And Yide said she had some business of her own, so she's off wandering the city."
"Hm? What business?"
"...Who can say."
Even as she said it, Liu Bei went on smiling, serene from beginning to end.
For some reason he could not name, Gongsun Zan felt an unknowable distance in that smile.