Treason
Treason.
Yuan Shao sought out the residence of Grand Tutor Yuan Wei. The man was elder of the clan—an uncle in private, a high minister of the court in public—and though the audience was private, the air had settled cold.
"A lowborn butcher dares—!"
Yuan Wei's hands trembled as he read Empress Dowager He's personal letter straight through. The crackle of crumpling paper tore the stillness of the chamber.
"This is Li Ru's doing."
"Not Dong Zhuo's will?"
"Li Ru is nothing but a knife, so it may as well be Dong Zhuo's will. This is a ploy to swallow even the troops of the five colonels under my command. They are already men who fear nothing and acknowledge no one above them. If those forces are taken as well, and nothing remains to check him, who will stop Dong Zhuo from tyrannizing as he pleases?"
At Yuan Shao's cold appraisal, Yuan Wei clicked his tongue.
"Summon the ministers at once. We go to Deyang Hall!"
Deyang Hall, in the Northern Palace, was the largest and most magnificent building in Luoyang—the place where the state conducted its great rites and the emperor held morning court. The broad ground before it was wide enough to hold twenty thousand.
"Uncle."
Yuan Shao set the public title aside and called him uncle, low, as kin. Yuan Wei's brow drew tight. Whenever his nephew used a private form of address, trouble was sure to follow.
"And what do you mean to do once you're there?"
"I must rebuke Dong Zhuo's course, even if it costs my life. We have to show him a united strength. Only then will he stop grasping for more."
"And if that rebuke does not take?"
Yuan Wei found no answer. For generations the Yuan clan had chosen to grow its power by bending with the current of the age rather than opposing it. That the Yuans had become the greatest clan under heaven was itself because they had yielded to the muddy stream of the Ten Attendants. They had chosen a life that bends before it breaks. Yuan Shao—rigid against injustice, head of the Qingliu faction—was the clan's one mutation.
"If you can't stop him, will you bow and scrape beneath Dong Zhuo?"
Struck to the quick, Yuan Wei shut his mouth. Yuan Shao drove the point home.
"Uncle. Suppose."
"Don't draw out an ill omen."
"What will you do if Dong Zhuo moves to change the master of the throne?"
Yuan Wei's eyes bulged as if they might start from his head. It was a supposition he did not wish even to imagine.
"We must stop it! That is treason!"
"He'll force it through with arms. He'll ring Deyang Hall with troops, cow His Majesty into abdication, and raise a new emperor. If that comes to pass, will you bow your head, call it unavoidable, and think of nothing but the clan's safety?"
Yuan Shao's gaze was cold, and the question cut. Yuan Wei was silent a long while before he spoke.
"Truly... would the man go so far?"
"For the sake of power, he'll do anything. Look at the path he has walked until now. Answer me."
"I mean to stop him with everything I have. But if I cannot... then there is nothing for it but to yield. We can't row against the age and bring extinction on the house. What matters most to me is the prosperity of the clan."
He had expected as much. Hearing it with his own ears made it all the more bitter. Yuan Shao shoved back from his seat and stood.
"I will fight to the end."
"You fool, Benchu! You'd strike a rock with an egg?"
"You wretch! Benchu! Have you resolved to drag the clan into ruin?"
Leaving Yuan Wei's bellow behind him, Yuan Shao stepped out of the residence. Cold wind struck his face, and the fury he had swallowed surged up hot. Thick tears ran down his cheeks.
Better to die than wag my tail for that pig, Dong Zhuo.
He scrubbed the tears away roughly with his sleeve and swore, hard, that he would never yield.
Yuan Wei moved. He gathered the ministers of the court and made for Deyang Hall, and both Yuan Shu and Yuan Shao took their places there. Yuan Shao was at odds with his uncle, yet his reckoning was the same: Dong Zhuo's rampage had to be stopped first.
In Deyang Hall they denounced Dong Zhuo without quarter. As the denunciation ran on for days, the cry that he must be driven out of Luoyang spread like fire across a dry plain.
The Office of the Grand Commandant.
Sensing how the wind had turned, Dong Zhuo summoned his confidants, Li Ru and Jia Xu.
"We must begin now. The clamor to send the Grand Commandant's troops out of Luoyang is rising. Sit still and miss the moment, and it will be hard to take Yuan Shao's forces. To have one's troops driven out is to lose power itself. So make your resolve. Preside over the deposition. I will aid you at your side."
Li Ru pressed him as if urging him to draw the blade. Dong Zhuo's eyes fell on Jia Xu, standing silent.
"Jia Xu. What do you think?"
At the word deposition, Jia Xu spoke with a face as if the world were falling in.
"Grand Commandant, compose yourself. Deposition? Unthinkable. We must persuade His Majesty and Her Majesty the Empress Dowager by every means we have, and recover Yuan Shao's troops. Even if it takes time, that is the better plan. One misstep, and we may turn the whole realm against us. I beg you to think again."
"Persuade them? And if those old men throw me out beyond the walls while I do?"
"The military power of the realm rests in the Grand Commandant's hands. Who would dare cast you out? Their momentum may look high, but they cannot touch you. And politics is negotiation. To drag down by force a sovereign who holds Heaven's mandate—I fear the wrath of Heaven. Please, recover your cold reason."
Jia Xu pressed his palms together and pleaded. Displeased with the man's words and manner, Dong Zhuo clicked his tongue.
"Bah. Tch. Clever head, gall the size of a bean. You're rotten soft."
He waved a hand and carried out a posting on the spot.
"Jia Xu."
"Yes."
"From today, you assist Niu Fu. Right now."
"I receive your command."
Jia Xu's eyes wavered. He wanted to refuse. He wanted to persuade Dong Zhuo that deposition, of all things, must never be. But the command was absolute, so he offered a soldier's salute and withdrew. As he left the office, his shoulders trembled, just barely.
Once Jia Xu was gone, Dong Zhuo leaned toward Li Ru.
"There. The nuisance is gone. How should we lay the plan?"
"For now, watch in silence and keep your eye on things. If the Grand Commandant shows no reaction, the other side will lose its steam. Then, in the gap when they slacken, we hit them. Bang."
"Bang?"
"We pick an auspicious day, seize Deyang Hall by surprise, and bolt every gate of Luoyang. Not a single ant comes or goes. Then, in one stroke, we depose the reigning emperor and raise the Prince of Chenliu. That finishes it."
"And the ones who resist?"
"First we frighten them. Those who still make noise, we cut away without hesitation. Why spill blood if we needn't? Throw some in prison, press a little coin into other hands, raise the offices of those who are ours. The ones who truly won't listen, send into exile. Simple. Kill them and the backlash may only grow, so I believe exile is best. In the end, they'll be working for the Grand Commandant anyway."
"Kehehe. I like that."
At Li Ru's clean design, Dong Zhuo shook with a coarse laugh. He laughed a long while, then suddenly grew grave and dropped his voice.
"Wait. What about Yuan Shao? That bastard has fifteen hundred elite troops under him. My forces may be overwhelming, but if he raids us at night, it turns into a headache."
"With Yuan Shao, you must negotiate."
"Negotiate? Will a stiff-necked bastard like that agree?"
"Didn't Jia Xu and Feng Ji negotiate last time? Yuan Shao looks straight as a bamboo stalk, but he counts fast and he's cunning. He'll come to the table just to keep from losing his troops. He'll know he can't hold if imperial edicts keep pecking at him to hand the men over, so he'll agree."
"Toss him a suitable office and send him out of Luoyang?"
"Precisely."
"And if he goes out, lines another purse, and raises an army? He's the sort who would. Nothing says he won't copy the way I seized Luoyang."
"Watch him for about a year, then strip him of office in one stroke. An imperial edict comes down—what's a wretch like him going to do?"
"Puhahaha! Li Ru, you're my lucky charm!"
Dong Zhuo shuddered with the thrill of it. It felt as if the heavy mass of power were rolling into his arms.
Dong Zhuo's ambition stopped exactly there. Make himself emperor? He had not the faintest thought of it.
While Luoyang seethed in confusion, Ren Jun, come on Wen Chong's recommendation, sought me out. He was a minor official, easy to pass over, but to me he was a precious bond—a man with whom I would weather this age of chaos.
This must be the Ren Jun who urged the duntian, the military farm colonies, upon Cao Cao. Even if he isn't, he's an excellent man.
Speaking with him in person, I found him a finer talent than Wen Chong had described. He had nerve to spare, and a rare gift for administration—a man fitted to an age of chaos. Such men were truly scarce.
"Port Chief Ren. If one means to take hold of this disordered realm, where should one begin?"
Perhaps finding the question abrupt, Ren Jun's brow tightened. For the opinion of a boy of eleven, it must have been far too heavy. But I was the third son of Yuan Shao, of the greatest clan under heaven, and so he answered with due courtesy.
"First, the people's hardship must be lifted. There is a great deal to be done for that, but if I must name one thing, it is to increase the grain and ease their hunger."
"You mean the duntian?"
"That too is an excellent course. But wasteland, abandoned fields, and the government's own farmland must be given to the peasants, and they must be protected so they can farm without fear. Once they believe the grain they harvest in autumn will not all be taken from them, they will settle to their farming with peace of mind. That is the first condition of a stable realm."
A commendable answer. The right answer—one I wanted to applaud on the spot.
"To plant that belief, how many officials and how many troops would be needed?"
"Well. If we take a single small commandery as the measure..."
"No. Let us think larger. On the scale of a province."
Ren Jun flinched and stopped.
What is this young master saying?
I could see his eyes wavering plain as day, but I kept a blank face and pressed him for the answer. Ren Jun swallowed a dry cough and reckoned again.
"Officials alone, something over a hundred, and of troops, a thousand cavalry at the least. The grand administrator of every commandery must also cooperate actively with the province's policy. It is exhausting, grinding work—an endless round of checking, and checking again."
"Slack even a little, and someone will try to seize the peasants' fields. Fail to answer that properly, and the measure collapses like a castle of sand. It is very hard, and the results do not show themselves easily. Even so, if one means to grow rich and strong, it must be done."
"I agree it is a very hard post. And the method of manuring?"
"Pardon? Ah, you mean fertilizer? We mix night soil with the dung of livestock. It is a method settled since the Qin, and thanks to it the yields have grown greatly."
I nodded quietly. Parasites worried me, but it was better than starving to death. It was also why, ever since I had recovered the memories of my past life, I had been scrupulous about boiling my water and eating my food cooked.
Ren Jun stared at me, plainly puzzled.
"But why does the young master ask such things? Do you wish to learn how to farm?"
"A time will soon come when this must be carried out on a grand scale. I needed a man to oversee it, and I find Port Chief Ren well suited. Do you not take my meaning?"
He did not look convinced, but with my father in mind he answered carefully, and clearly.
"Frankly, I don't."
"And if I gave you the chance? Could you do it well?"
"...Can the young master truly offer me such a chance?"
"I may not be able to grant the post myself, but I can recommend you for it, and strongly."
At the word recommend, the light in Ren Jun's eyes changed at once. He must have taken the man I meant—the one who could give the post—to be my father, Yuan Shao. And he must have assumed my father was about to be named provincial inspector.
"If you recommend me, I will see that the people do not go hungry, and I will fill the inspectorate granaries to the brim."
Ren Jun bowed deeply from the waist. Looking down at the crown of his head, I laughed inwardly. Soon enough he would learn that the one to whom he owed his loyalty was not my father, but me.
No need to say it now. To anyone looking on, I was nothing more than a child of eleven.