How to Capture a Woman's Heart (1)
Guandong, the crossroads connecting every region of the Han realm, was a land of chaos where countless warlords had fought their desperate battles for supremacy.
Who would seize control of Guandong?
The answer, remarkably, was Cao Cao of Yan Province.
When the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition first raised its army, Cao Cao had merely styled herself General Who Displays Martial Might, a miscellaneous general's title. If not for the prestige of the Pei Cao Clan, a renowned house of founding merit, and the aid of her old friend Zhang Miao, the Governor of Chenliu, she could never have raised an army in the first place.
Cao Cao, once a mere guest general, had seized hegemony over Guandong.
Now the eminent scholars of Yingchuan Prefecture in Yu Province, who had been biding their time while the realm bled, came flocking to the Cao Cao camp in a headlong rush.
"Cao-Cao! Word is the Southern Heir has sent a delegation, yes?"
"Who exactly is Cao-Cao?"
Cao-Cao.
It was a new nickname that had stuck to Cao Cao.
Strangely addictive.
Even the advisors who served her sometimes said "the Cao-Cao army" like a verbal tic.
The warrior woman who spat the hegemon of Guandong's name so fiercely was Lü Bu, Peerless Under Heaven. The beauty with her disheveled white hair strode into Cao Cao's office with utter indifference, as arrogant as ever.
"The Crown Prince... no, should I call him the Imperial Crown Prince now?"
"That lot arrogated the title for themselves. I doubt it matters what we call him."
"Then I'll just call him Liu Seong-hwi. Is that simple enough for you?"
"..."
That wasn't what she meant by calling her by her own name.
Cao Cao let out a long sigh.
"For what purpose would they send a delegation?"
"Most likely an alliance in mind."
"An alliance?"
"Because they're facing a situation where they're Besieged on All Sides."
Liu Chong's army was the hegemon of the south, having conquered Xu Province and Yang Province in a single breath. And now that power, no sooner done pacifying the south than it began arrogating a new imperial title, was asking for an alliance...
Which meant they wanted to borrow some muscle, didn't it?
The Southern Heir, coming to ask for help. Would wonders never cease.
"Hmm..."
Lü Bu shrugged.
She felt as though her recent exploits had been acknowledged.
A military alliance had to be a form of recognition. Naturally, the party requesting an alliance occupied the weaker position while the party receiving the request stood on the stronger footing. A thoroughly satisfied smile spread across Lü Bu's face as she basked in her own rising confidence.
"You two are acquainted, then. No reserve at all, as if you were dealing with an old friend."
"Fr... friend, my foot! When I think about the shameless things that bastard forced on me...! I was completely wrecked, I tell you!!"
Shameless outrages? Completely wrecked?
What was she talking about?
It sounded intensely suggestive and dissolute.
Cao Cao fixed Lü Bu with a penetrating stare, demanding a more detailed explanation. Meeting Cao Cao's questioning crimson eyes, Lü Bu's face flushed bright red and she bit her lip.
"I can't claim to know the specifics... but it's clear this is no ordinary relationship," Cao Cao observed.
"Gaaah! The more I think about it the angrier I get! That son of a bitch, I have to face him again!"
First blushing and happy.
Then hopping mad, practically frothing.
Lü Bu's volatile reactions only sharpened Cao Cao's curiosity.
"Let's get back to the main subject. The Liu Chong army's delegation is due to arrive at the Yan Province seat. Its purpose is a military alliance against Dong Zhuo's army."
"...Dong Zhuo."
The name of a man who deserved to die.
The arch-traitor of the age, who murdered the Former Emperor and the Former Empress Dowager and installed a child Emperor in their place.
The villain who torched Luoyang and desecrated the royal tombs of successive emperors.
The butcher who plunged hundreds of thousands of commoners of Sili Province into the abyss of despair.
Listing his crimes would fill rivers of ink.
No traitor in all human history, east or west, past or present, could match such cruelty and evil. The crimes Dong Zhuo's army had committed were so vivid and unequivocal that one could state that conclusion with absolute confidence.
Dong Zhuo.
The instant she heard that vile name, Lü Bu's exquisite face contorted with hostility.
"I hear that cadet imperial clansmen—Liu Yan, Governor of Yi Province, and Liu Biao, Governor of Jing Province—are cooperating with Dong Zhuo. Even for the Liu Chong army, it won't be easy to guarantee a sweeping victory against Dong Zhuo's army with Yi and Jing Provinces at its back."
"Because they have to fight the whole realm."
If the domains of Governor of Yi Province Liu Yan and Governor of Jing Province Liu Biao were added to Dong Zhuo's sphere, the resulting territory would amount to nearly half the Han realm. And if Liu Yu, Governor of You Province in the north, also entered the war on Dong Zhuo's side, Liu Chong's strategic situation would deteriorate even faster.
They were encircled on three sides.
Had Liu Seong-hwi failed to defeat Inspector of Yang Province Chen Wen and the other warlords to conquer Yang Province, they would be encircled on four.
"Mmm... I'd better summon my advisors."
"Is there really any point wasting time? The enemy is Dong Zhuo. Have you forgotten the reason you and I joined hands?"
The granddaughter of a eunuch house who had sought to assassinate Dong Zhuo.
And the frontier-born Flying General who had betrayed Dong Zhuo and raised her own army.
Cao Cao and Lü Bu had formed an alliance under the banner of opposing Dong Zhuo. So when Lü Bu saw Cao Cao hesitate, pausing to deliberate, she shrugged her shoulders.
"I agree to striking at Dong Zhuo. I swore an oath to hunt down that arch-traitor of the age."
"Then?"
"The problem is the Liu Chong army, which has arrogated the imperial title. To join the Liu Chong army is to consent to an act of usurpation aimed at bringing down the Imperial House and the Imperial Court. In the end, we too would sink into being traitors to the Han Dynasty."
"..."
The real aim of those old cadet imperial clansmen was surely to lure Dong Zhuo's army and Liu Chong's army into mutual annihilation on the Central Plains in an all-out war. A decision worthy of the Imperial Household's calculating old foxes.
"If those cunning foxes manage to seize the throne, the turbulent times will simply drag on with no sign of settling. Ultimately, they're nothing more than opportunists. So if it comes to that, I'd rather..."
The beauty with the lustrous black hair let her words trail off as she glanced outside.
Word had just arrived that the Liu Chong army's delegation had reached Pei Kingdom.
* * *
The Liu Chong army and the Cao Cao army appeared to be doing their utmost to avoid clashes. The proof lay in their deployments: along every border prefecture and county, each side stationed only a few hundred troops, just enough to maintain order.
There was no reason to fight.
More precisely, neither side wanted to fight.
They did not restrict the entrance and passage of merchant guilds traveling through Yu Province. And they allowed the province's commoners free movement, releasing them with a cursory check once their identities were confirmed.
"Hey! Bet you don't have fruit like this where you come from, right? This is a tangerine, all the way from Jiangdong!"
"Is that supposed to be a dig at our lord, calling her flat as a tangerine."
They handed over tangerines, and got walnuts and jujubes in return.
Bartering Central Plains specialties for southern produce, they traded idle small talk.
Every time soldiers from the Liu Chong army and the Cao Cao army ran into each other, they got better acquainted. They had served together in the Guandong coalition army, which naturally made them more amiable toward each other than toward other factions.
"Didn't you and Cao Cao build some rapport when you were recruiting troops together in Pei Kingdom, elder sister? And you served alongside each other in the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition Army."
"Yes, that's true enough... but we were never so close that we could bare our innermost thoughts."
They acknowledged each other as heroes but did not fully trust one another.
Liu Bei and Cao Cao's relationship was a taut tangle of half-belief, half-doubt.
No chance it could ever be easy.
They were the classic rivals of the Three Kingdoms, mortal enemies by nature.
Cao Cao's Hostile Character list contained only one name: Liu Bei. And Liu Bei's own Hostile Character list held both Cao Cao and Sun Quan. Because they were each other's Hostile Characters, they could not help feeling a distrust close to loathing, along with a constant, prickly unease.
"Hmm... I would very much like this alliance to succeed peacefully."
"And if this alliance with the Cao Cao and Lü Bu camps falls through, what then?"
"We'll defend the Central Plains front like an Iron Fortress and crush Jing Province. To keep Dong Zhuo's army from any reckless southern adventure, we'll burn every prefecture and county that could serve as a bridgehead to ashes."
"Heh heh."
There's no avoiding the need to plan for the worst case.
So I'd already prepared contingencies.
We would mobilize a fleet of hundreds of ships to scorch the earth in Xiangyang and Jiangxia Prefectures, the heartlands of Liu Biao's army. I knew it was an extreme, all-out gamble, but to halt Dong Zhuo's advance, burning Jing Province's prefectures and counties would be unavoidable.
"Imperial Crown Prince, a reply has arrived from Yan Province."
"The delegation only just arrived last night. That was fast."
Four days after the delegation had departed,
a reply promptly arrived from Dong Prefecture.
Their response was impressively swift.
It was just like the Cao Cao army, famous for its bold decisiveness.
"They want to discuss the alliance in Pei Kingdom... What are your thoughts, elder sister?"
"It's an exceedingly dangerous invitation."
Pei Kingdom was both the heart of Yu Province and the ancestral seat of the Pei Cao Clan. The Cao Cao army had chosen Qiao County, the Pei Cao Clan's ancestral home, as the venue for the alliance conference.
Nothing was settled yet, of course.
If we wanted to change the location, it was entirely possible.
I decided to convene my subordinate advisors and discuss the conference. Pei Kingdom was close enough to overrun in one push, but it was also territory the Cao Cao army occupied, so we had no choice but to proceed with caution.