Alliance (2)
“Your Majesty, an envoy has arrived from Shu.”
Upon hearing that an envoy from Shu had come, Sun Quan turned to the ministers around him and sought their counsel.
“...What do you suppose has brought him here?”
“It appears they wish to restore diplomatic relations and form an alliance,” Zhang Zhao guessed at Shu’s true intentions.
In the past the two states had joined hands against Wei, yet their relations had since deteriorated badly.
“Having just driven back Cao Pi’s armies, they no doubt mean to renew the alliance with us once more.”
“...Quite so. I myself have no desire to keep Shu as an enemy.”
Still smarting from the disastrous campaign at Yiling, Sun Quan found the prospect of facing both Wei and Shu at once an intolerable burden. That was why, when Cao Pi’s forces invaded, he had sent envoys of his own to make peace with Shu.
Of course, I have no intention of returning Jing Province.
In a bid to soothe the enraged Liu Bei he had even floated the extraordinary offer of restoring the province. But once Lu Xun’s armies had shattered Liu Bei’s host, there was no longer any need to surrender it.
Still, Wu alone was not strong enough to stand against a Wei that forever eyed the lands south of the river. In his heart Sun Quan wanted the alliance; yet he also had to watch the faces of the civil and military officers whose feelings toward Shu remained raw.
Wu was a confederation of the great southern clans. Deferring to their opinions was simply the way of things.
“What, then, should we do?” Sun Quan asked his strategists.
“The initiative in any alliance rests with us. We should exploit that fact to the fullest and seize the diplomatic advantage.”
“Any envoy sent by Zhuge Liang is certain to be a silver-tongued orator. Perhaps Your Majesty might intimidate him into a slip of the tongue?”
If a frightened envoy made a mistake, they could rebuke him and thereby claim the upper hand—that was the thinking.
“An excellent notion.”
The earlier alliance between Wu and Shu had been forged solely to resist Cao Cao’s overwhelming might. At the Battle of Red Cliffs, Wu had played the leading role, and so they had always sought diplomatic precedence.
Through Zhuge Liang’s cunning rhetoric and Guan Yu’s stubbornness they had been forced to yield Jing Province, yet the hard truth remained: without Wu there would be no Shu today.
Shu is the one extending its hand first. We must hold the diplomatic high ground.
Sun Quan ordered his officers to stand in ranks with swords drawn, and beside his own seat he had a great cauldron of oil set to a furious boil. In that atmosphere thick with killing intent, he received the envoy.
“·······.”
Deng Zhi, the man who had come as envoy, calmly surveyed the hostile surroundings. Far from cowed, he strode straight toward Sun Quan.
The warriors about him could not help clicking their tongues in secret admiration at a man who refused to flinch before such menace.
Deng Zhi faced Sun Quan and inclined only his upper body in greeting.
When the envoy did not drop to his knees in full obeisance, Sun Quan’s brows shot up.
“Why do you not prostrate yourself?”
“An envoy from a great state does not bow to the king of a lesser one.”
“What did you say?”
Sun Quan’s temper flared at the words. Talk of great states and lesser ones could only infuriate him—especially when, by any measure of present military strength, Shu was the weaker of the two. Coming from a man who had accepted the title of King of Wu by submitting to Wei, the remark felt like a deliberate insult.
“The dog dares to slight me! Throw him into the oil cauldron at once!”
Normally expansive and open-handed, Sun Quan also possessed a violently hot temper.
“Your Majesty!”
“One must not lightly slay an envoy from another state!”
The assembled officers hurried to restrain him. To kill a foreign envoy out of childish rage would bring the scorn of every renowned scholar under heaven.
Yet Deng Zhi did not so much as blink at Sun Quan’s roar.
“I have come to show Your Majesty what is profitable for Wu and what is harmful!”
He pressed on in a clear, flowing torrent of words, seizing control of the ugly atmosphere.
“To threaten a man who arrives as an envoy—the scholars of the world will laugh at Your Majesty for a narrow, petty spirit!”
Stung in return, Sun Quan mastered himself and cooled his anger.
“...Hah. Forgive me. It seems I grew over-excited.”
He sighed. He had meant to seize the diplomatic advantage, yet now it was he who looked the small-minded one.
In a calmer voice he asked Deng Zhi:
“What teaching do you wish to offer us?”
“That Shu and Wu should reconcile and form an alliance.”
The answer he had expected.
“If allying with Shu truly serves our national interest, would it not be more profitable still to join hands with Wei?”
If we side with Wei and attack your country, what then?
At the question freighted with that meaning, Deng Zhi laughed aloud.
“Haha! Your Majesty, who is called a tiger—how can you think of crawling under a bandit not even fit to be called a dog?”
The covert praise that named Sun Quan a tiger and Cao Pi a dog pleased the king greatly.
“True enough, Wei is mighty.”
Holding the vast north and the Central Plains, ruling nine of the thirteen provinces, its military power was truly enormous. Zhang Liao and Cao Ren might be dead, yet talented men to manage great affairs still overflowed its ranks. For Sun Quan’s personal safety alone, siding with Wei would be the wiser course.
“But if you join Wei and destroy Shu, will Wei then treat Wu as an equal?”
In Wei’s eyes Wu would be a vassal, never a peer. And with a man more arrogant and vicious than Cao Cao himself—Cao Pi—there was no need even to speak the words.
They already demanded I send my heir, Sun Deng, as a hostage.
Such insolent demands had in truth been made; neither Sun Quan nor his officers could refute them.
“If you join Wei and extinguish Shu, Cao Pi will not miss the chance. He will turn next upon Wu and seek to settle the realm under one rule.”
“······That is not wrong.”
When Liu Bei had marched on Yiling, Wu had submitted as a vassal of Wei simply to obtain reinforcements. All it received was the empty title of King of Wu. Worse, the moment Wu triumphed at Yiling, Wei launched a massive invasion of Jiangdong and Jing Province.
“Shu, however, is weak. That is precisely why it values an alliance.”
The opposite was true of Shu: its national strength was limited, and so it needed the pact.
Deng Zhi set forth the reasons Shu and Wu must ally, persuasively winning Sun Quan over.
“...I understand your meaning well, Master.”
By now Sun Quan acknowledged Deng Zhi and listened with care.
“Yet Shu has lately lost many great generals. Can it truly stand against the mighty state of Wei?”
It was a sensitive subject for Wu to raise—whether a Shu that had lost pillars such as Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Huang Zhong could even defend itself.
Deng Zhi answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“His Majesty remains in vigorous health, and Chancellor Zhuge is likewise unharmed.”
“In the court, young generals have taken the lead and are newly drilling the troops.”
Men like Guan Xing and Zhang Bao, who at young ages already held key military posts, were numerous.
“If Your Majesty truly means to annex Wei and settle the realm, then Shu and Wu have no choice but to form a genuine alliance.”
Forget every old grudge, he urged, and fight as equal partners.
“······Hmm.”
Sun Quan fell into deep thought at Deng Zhi’s words. The great local clans were not absolutely loyal to him; having Shu Han as a solid ally would be to his advantage. Yet the proposal of an equal alliance left him wrestling with himself.
“It seems Your Majesty does not yet trust my words.”
Sensing that the decisive moment had come, Deng Zhi stepped forward.
“...Hm?”
“I shall prove with my own body that I am no mere sophist peddling empty rhetoric.”
His face set in iron resolve, Deng Zhi made to fling himself into the cauldron of boiling oil.
“W-wait!!”
Aghast, Sun Quan sprang from his seat. The civil and military officers beside him seized Deng Zhi at once. To allow a foreign envoy to die would brand their king a petty man. Yet they were also deeply moved.
...Without a second’s hesitation he would hurl himself into the oil cauldron!
True to his open-hearted nature, Sun Quan despised glib-tongued officials. He preferred scholars of upright, unbending character like Deng Zhi.
“Release me! Let me show you I am no mere smooth-talking scholar!!”
Zhuge Liang had declared that this alliance must be secured at all costs, and Deng Zhi had staked his life upon it.
“I understand your resolve well. And your teaching I have taken deeply to heart.”
Sun Quan himself caught hold of Deng Zhi and prevented the suicide. Moved by such extraordinary courage and determination, the king’s heart was won.
“Shu shall be our equal ally. I will send envoys of my own before many days have passed.”
Before the assembled officers Sun Quan proclaimed the alliance with Shu.
So well did Deng Zhi please him thereafter that Sun Quan held a farewell banquet in the envoy’s honor.
Through Deng Zhi’s efforts, the alliance between Wu and Shu was sealed.
Two years flowed past like water.
224 (the fourth year of Zhangwu).
In that span the Three Kingdoms remained locked in stalemate, free of any great upheaval.
When Cao Pi learned that Shu and Wu had formed an alliance he flew into a rage, yet the heavy losses his armies had already suffered prevented him from acting. Whether from fury at the loss of his famous generals or at the joining of Shu and Wu, he took to his sickbed.
Sun Quan, for his part, was hard-pressed by the mountain Yue tribes of the south and by the alien peoples of the Five Streams. He also had to repair the damage left by Yiling and by Cao Pi’s southern campaign; no opportunity for offense presented itself.
Seizing that interval, Shu swiftly restored its national strength. With its characteristic productive power it filled the treasury and rapidly retrained its officers and men.
There were, of course, headaches as well.
Liu Shan, who had been entrusted with the regency, was so widely judged a dull mediocrity that Liu Bei himself had once told Zhuge Liang that if the prince proved hopeless, the Chancellor should take the throne. Timid and lacking in confidence, Liu Shan handled affairs passively and tried to dump every decision upon his ministers.
Because Liu Bei still lived, he remained at the young man’s side, teaching him one matter after another and gradually lightening Zhuge Liang’s burden.
Then one day, at a court conference, Zhuge Liang raised a single subject.
“Yong Kai, a powerful clan leader of southern Yizhou, has risen in rebellion.”
Reports that the movements in Nanzhong were ominous had already arrived, yet in the end the storm had broken. Ever since news of Shu’s defeat by Wu had spread, Nanzhong’s course had grown unsettling. Intelligence now confirmed that the ambitious Yong Kai had betrayed Shu and joined hands with Meng Huo, King of the Southern Man.
“If we stand idle while Meng Huo and Yong Kai unite, a great calamity will follow in days to come. We cannot merely watch.”
Zhuge Liang judged that, with national strength restored and the great neighboring states unable to spare attention for Shu—
“I shall personally lead an army and subjugate the Southern Man.”
—the time had come to pacify Nanzhong.