Dong Zhuo's Offensive
Zhang Liao had decided to remain for a time in the camp of Wu Ban and Wu Yi. The two officers led him out, but Wen Chong stayed behind.
"Have you something to say, Acting Major?"
Wen Chong's brow tightened.
"Please, spare me the title. It makes my back itch."
"You have been given a proper office. How long am I to treat you like a child? You are no longer a bodyguard. You are an Acting Major, and it is only right you be treated as one."
"Even so..."
"If I accord the Acting Major his due, others will not dare slight him either. Take it as a matter of my own face, and accustom yourself."
"As you command."
Finding nothing left to argue, Wen Chong cleared his throat and quietly turned the talk.
"On another matter, young master."
"Speak."
"While we waited at Wushajin for Department Director Zhang, I took note of the man who runs operations there — Port Chief Ren Jun. He is only a minor official, but his work is meticulous. Not a gap in it."
Ren Jun.
I closed my eyes and drew up the memories of my previous life. Lesser officials seldom leave their native ground. That would make Ren Jun a man of Henan, from the jurisdiction of the Intendant.
Don't tell me this is the same Ren Jun who proposed the duntian agricultural colonies to Cao Cao and took the whole of his household in hand? If it is, I've stumbled onto a fortune.
Scholars who live by their mouths alone lie thick enough underfoot to trip on. What an age of chaos truly needs is a practical man who can put his shoulder to a real increase of grain. Meet him, and I would know the genuine article from the counterfeit.
"Summon him at once. I want a word with him myself."
"I was about to send a letter in any case. He seemed likely to be of use."
"He holds the post that controls the ferry at Wushajin, so he will be useful regardless. Further talent would only gild it."
I laughed under my breath and added, "Your eye has grown rather wide since you rose to Acting Major."
"I still have far to go. There is so much I lack that I latch onto my writing tutor every day and will not let him go. I'll send word at once."
Wen Chong offered a crisp military salute and withdrew. His retreating back was solid. They say the office makes the man, but what pleased me was the stubborn honesty of one who had not lost his first purpose, and meant to do his own share of the work.
The Office of the Grand Commandant.
Dong Zhuo flung a thick sheaf of papers onto the table. They struck with a dull slap, and dust rose.
"This is more than enough. We go to Changxin Palace at once."
Changxin Palace was where Empress Dowager He resided. The sheaf was a record of the demands that Yuan Shao surrender military authority, and of the replies by which Yuan Shao had slipped away, time and again, like an eel through the fingers.
Jia Xu, seated opposite, showed a troubled face.
"A month has not yet passed. The pretext is thin. If we waited only a little longer..."
"Pretext? What pretext!" Dong Zhuo's shout cracked across the room. "Do you mean to move only after I've died of old age?"
Jia Xu flinched. Once, Dong Zhuo had taken hard counsel well enough. These days it was as if a stake had been driven into his ear; he heard nothing at all.
"Grand Commandant, the man is Sili Xiaowei Yuan Shao. He is not an opponent to be taken lightly."
"Enough!" "Fine. We fill out exactly one month, and then we march straight into Changxin Palace. No more argument. Make ready."
"...I obey."
Jia Xu added nothing further and withdrew. He knew not a seed of it would take.
"Hah. That stifling fool."
"And where would Wenhe's nature go?"
The door opened, and Li Ru came in.
If Jia Xu drifted from Dong Zhuo like oil from water, Li Ru was honey that folded smoothly over the tongue. Dong Zhuo's expression eased at once.
"You're here?"
"You look displeased."
"How does it look to you? Will that old hag in Changxin Palace meekly grant her leave for this?"
"Her leave... I wonder. Argue from principle, and she ought to take the general's side. But she knows perfectly well that the military authority Yuan Shao holds is her own lifeline. Will she hand it over? Her Majesty will not want you holding every power there is."
"You mean Jia Xu failed to think even this far?"
"Hardly. He seeks the orthodox path. That is why he chose this course, however hard it may be."
"Then what am I to do? Come back empty-handed?"
Dong Zhuo's brows twitched, and Li Ru curled the corner of his mouth in a thin, cold smile.
"What?"
"Raise His Highness the Prince of Chenliu, and make him the new emperor. You are only changing the puppet. In the course of it, you may curtail Her Majesty's power."
"...!"
Dong Zhuo's eyes blew wide as bowls.
"A pretext can be stuck on after the fact, and however the ministers bark, who is it that holds the sword? Is it not you, Grand Commandant? As for Yuan Shao, drive him out to the provinces. His fame is too high and his followers too many. Kill him, and you buy yourself a headache."
Silence held for a moment. Dong Zhuo stroked his chin, then burst into laughter that shook the flesh of his belly.
"Hahahaha! Yes — this is it!"
Jia Xu had a fine mind and a liver no bigger than a bean. To plot a great work, one had to keep company with a man whose nerve matched one's own.
"Everything Jia Xu was handling — you take it all."
"As you command."
"Once the month is past, go to Changxin Palace and give her a prod. If it turns sour, we overturn the whole board, just as you said."
"Yes. I'll settle it so cleanly that not a whisper follows."
Li Ru smiled a cold smile and bent deep at the waist.
Changxin Palace.
There was no hesitation in Li Ru's step. He carried a golden tray upon which lay a thin booklet, and went straight into the Empress Dowager's residence.
"What brings the Director of the Palace Attendants without so much as a word of notice?"
Empress Dowager He knit her brow. Annoyance was plain on her face — or, more precisely, she had no wish to smell the unpleasant odor given off by Li Ru, Dong Zhuo's creature.
"Your Majesty, I am sorry to trouble your peace, but a fire already burning must be put out, must it not?"
"A fire?"
"There is a man in the very heart of Luoyang who throws imperial command and the law into disorder."
Li Ru wore an oily smile as he offered the golden tray. The Empress Dowager took up the booklet that lay upon it.
The pages fluttered. After only a few, her hand stopped dead. She flung the booklet roughly back onto the tray.
"Sili Xiaowei Yuan Shao?"
"Yes. At this pass he ought to be stripped of office and charged with his crime. The troops of the General-in-Chief's Manor in his hands must be recovered as well. Those troops, of course, the Grand Commandant would hold for the time—"
"Wait."
Empress Dowager He cut him off mid-sentence. The corner of her mouth twisted.
"You spoke of the law?"
"I did."
"Then the Grand Commandant must be a most scrupulous keeper of it, to have swallowed the Inspector of Bingzhou's army whole — the very moment the inspector died, as if he had been waiting?"
Li Ru's brow twitched. He had not expected the blow to come back.
"By your logic, Director, should we not strip the Grand Commandant's robes before we strip Yuan Shao's? For the scales to balance, ought he not at least be sent into exile on a charge of inciting murder?"
"Your Majesty. Incitement? That is absurd."
"If not that, then what? There was no investigation of the truth, and His Majesty never gave his leave — so why do the late Inspector of Bingzhou's troops stand beneath the Grand Commandant's banner? You will not tell me the soldiers strolled in on their own two feet!"
Her palm cracked down on the desk.
She had been holding her fury in, and now she let it burst — yet Li Ru did not so much as blink. He only stared at the Empress Dowager with a face gone hard.
As expected. She will have to be replaced.
A butcher's daughter had climbed by luck into the Empress Dowager's seat, and now she could not read the situation; there was nothing in the world she deigned to see. Li Ru finished the calculation in cold silence.
"...I understand Your Majesty's will. This servant will withdraw."
He gathered the booklet in a rustle and rose. The forms of courtesy were observed, but in his eyes there was not a speck of respect.
Only when his back had vanished entirely did the Empress Dowager drag in the breath she had been holding and spit the words out.
"A butcher's mongrel, and they call him Director of the Palace Attendants. The gall of it could kill me."
She thought this would buy her quiet for a while. At the same time, she resolved that Yuan Shao must be told.
"The audacity of it."
Yuan Shao clicked his tongue and set Empress Dowager He's letter carefully upon the desk. As if Dong Zhuo's conduct had fouled his hands, he wiped them with a silk handkerchief, then passed the letter across to Xu You and Feng Ji, seated opposite, and bade them read.
Xu You spoke first.
"Sili Xiaowei. Submit a memorial impeaching the Grand Commandant at once. We must show him we are not to be handled lightly, or he will try this again."
"And will that sly old man of Liangzhou lay down the Grand Commandant's office because of it?"
"He will at least know fear. Show him that the Sili Xiaowei is watching with both eyes wide open, and the Grand Commandant will stop his attacks. Sit still, and he will certainly keep coming."
Yuan Shao's gaze turned to Feng Ji. Feng Ji answered with a grave face.
"Ziyuan is right. The gap in troops is great, yet if the ministers of the court close ranks around the Sili Xiaowei and bring pressure to bear, I do not believe Dong Zhuo will dare act rashly."
It was sound. A perfectly textbook answer. But the nape of Yuan Shao's neck remained cold.
Was Dong Zhuo the sort of man to flinch at a counter this mild and halt his attack? The Dong Zhuo he had watched until now was a wild boar that charged without looking ahead or behind. What use was a fence to a boar tearing up a field in search of something to eat?
Then his youngest son's counsel cut through his mind.
Words poured out in the desperate press of their standoff with Dong Zhuo.
Yes. Dong Zhuo will not withdraw so easily. He may be preparing something larger still. Wait... don't tell me... Was this what the boy meant when he said we must leave Luoyang?
Yuan Shao's thoughts snarled into a tangle. There had been many crises before, but the sense rose strong in him that this was the greatest of them.
Fail to answer it properly, and my head may leave my shoulders. I am Dong Zhuo's greatest rival now. What in the world is that man plotting? What?
Then another counsel, buried deep in his chest, surfaced once more.
Yuan Shao's heart began to hammer. At the time he had thought, surely not — yet events were turning exactly as his youngest had foreseen. Could the warning that they must leave Luoyang have been a prediction of the emperor's deposition?
If that is true... this is no contest of politics. It is a wilderness that moves by raw instinct alone.
His face went pale. The point of Dong Zhuo's sword was aimed squarely at him.
"Sili Xiaowei."
Feng Ji's call snapped him back.
"Ah — forgive me, Yuantu. We'll move in two days. Have the ministers informed."
"I obey."
"Ziyuan, you'll assist Yuantu as well."
"Yes."
The moment Xu You and Feng Ji withdrew, Guo Tu entered the office as if he had been waiting. Yuan Shao pressed hard at his brow. His head already throbbed, and the thought of the edged counsel Guo Tu was about to offer seemed to double the ache.
"Gongze. I'm occupied. Keep it short."
"It is a matter of weight."
"What is it?"
"The discipline of the clan is being shaken at the root."
Yuan Shao's brow twitched. Starting again.
"Acting Major Wen Chong's conduct is past bearing. He seems to have forgotten how low his station once was. He goes about declaring, quite openly, that he is the Third Young Master's man."
"He was Shang's bodyguard. Of course he does."
"If it ended there, I would not open my mouth. Colonel of the Imperial Guard Wu Ban, Major Wu Yi, and Department Director Zhang Liao as well. They never so much as show a nose to the Eldest Young Master, yet they pass in and out of the Third Young Master's residence as though the place were their own house."
Heat entered Guo Tu's voice.
"The Third Young Master is only eleven. Those generals are plainly hiding behind a child to clutch at their own profit. The shoot must be cut before it grows. If the Eldest Young Master's footing wavers, it means a crisis for the clan."
"And so? You want them pried apart by force?"
"Yes. Separate them, before vain air gets into their heads. And order the Third Young Master to devote himself to his studies."
Guo Tu closed his counsel with grim resolve. Yuan Shao barely swallowed the empty laugh that wanted out.
Used by them? Not in the slightest.
It was his son who held them in his grip. He knew well how brilliant his youngest was, and how keen his eye. There was no need to explain it to Guo Tu. The loyal heart that looked to his eldest, Yuan Tan, was commendable in itself, and it was not yet time to lay Shang's ability too bare. For now, concealment was right.
"Very well. Leave it."
"A wise judgment."
Only then did Guo Tu withdraw, satisfaction on his face. Pride soaked every step he took along the corridor.
"Just as I thought. I am the only man who will speak bitter truth to our lord. This is what a true loyal subject looks like."
He called to mind Feng Ji, Xu You, Xin Ping, and the rest, and sneered. The arrogance of standing far above them settled into place within his heart.