Yuan Shao's Resolve
A grim tension hung over Deyang Hall.
Ministers of the court and princes of the imperial clan lifted their voices, denouncing Dong Zhuo in a rising chorus. He had expected their fury to spend itself and die, yet it spread instead like wildfire racing across a parched plain.
Dong Zhuo would endure it no longer. He drew his sword at once, sent Lu Bu to pin Yuan Shao where he stood, and ordered Niu Fu and Dong Yue to throw a cordon around Deyang Hall so tight that not a drop of water could slip through.
The order, however, reached Cao Cao's ear before it could be carried out. A spy planted in Dong Zhuo's General-in-Chief's Manor leaked the news in secret, and the moment the urgent report arrived — that Dong Zhuo, so long holding his breath, had at last drawn the sword of treason — Cao Cao moved.
At that same hour Yuan Shao was making ready to set out for Deyang Hall. A short sigh escaped him. Everything he meant to do felt suddenly vain.
"Benchu! Stop!"
He turned at the urgent cry and found Cao Cao there, face flushed crimson, breath ragged, barring his path.
"Mengde? Why this unseemly haste?"
"This is no time to worry about appearances. That bastard Dong Zhuo has finally made his move."
Yuan Shao's eyes narrowed. A gesture sent the men around them back, and Cao Cao steadied his breathing before dropping his voice.
"Walk into Deyang Hall and you're finished. Lu Bu is coming this way with three thousand men. Niu Fu and Dong Yue have taken an even larger force to the hall itself. What do you think that means? He's climbed to the peak of power and means to glance at no one's face. Damn the cur."
"...Already?"
"Let them take you alive in there and they'll strip you of every soldier you have. Hold here, and you can still read the ground and act. In all Luoyang, you're the only power left that can check Dong Zhuo. Stay."
"The information is certain?"
"I'll stake my head on it."
Yuan Shao looked him straight in the eye. Finding no lie there, he decided at once.
"You have my thanks."
He shifted his stance without delay. Sleeping troops were roused and summoned, the armory thrown open, weapons pressed into their hands. They were nearly ready — spears in fist, the cords of their armor drawn tight — when the three thousand under Lu Bu closed around Yuan Shao's manor in ring upon ring.
Lu Bu took in the barred gate, the spearpoints glittering along the wall, and the killing intent that packed the estate, and ground his teeth. He had come certain of a surprise. Yuan Shao was already prepared for war.
"I knew it. More than one rat in the walls. I'll have to root them all out."
Men under Yuan Shao standing armed were plain proof that word had leaked from within. Lu Bu clicked his tongue, and Li Ru's voice cut in at his back.
"Rider-Commandant, seal this place so nothing gets through. I will speak with Yuan Shao myself."
"Understood."
Lu Bu obeyed without protest. The encirclement and the standoff were his; the negotiation belonged to Li Ru. Dong Zhuo himself had divided the roles.
Three heavy knocks struck the gate.
"This is Li Ru, Chief of the Palace Gentlemen. I would see the Colonel of the Sili."
He announced himself almost lightly as he knocked, and the gate creaked open. Wen Chong held it to a narrow gap and made his demand with crushing force.
"Only the Chief of the Palace Gentlemen may enter."
Li Ru turned and gave Lu Bu his charge.
"Until the talks are finished, you are not to attack. Do not forget the Grand Commandant's order."
"I know. Get in there."
Lu Bu waved him on with open irritation. Li Ru stepped into the manor as if he had not noticed, and the gate boomed shut behind him.
He walked slowly into the house. Killing intent poured in from Yuan Shao's soldiers on every side, yet he might have been out for a stroll. He stopped squarely before Yuan Shao, offered a brief military salute, and received one in return.
"Colonel of the Sili. I am Li Ru, Chief of the Palace Gentlemen. Might I have a cup of tea?"
"...Follow me."
Yuan Shao finished a swift reckoning and led him toward an inner room. Once the master of the house was gone, Yuan Tan and Yan Liang took the remaining men in hand, their eyes cold and keen, braced for Lu Bu's assault.
Watching that, Cao Cao felt a bleakness settle over him. He had thought them comrades who would cross the line of death together, yet in the true hour of crisis every man gathered here looked only to Yuan Shao. He himself was nothing more than one of the crowd that followed.
What am I even doing here?
All at once he remembered the retreating back of Kuai Yue, who had already gone home to the provinces.
I stayed too long. Luoyang is finished. This is Dong Zhuo's world now.
Cao Cao made up his mind. Once this uproar was settled, he would leave for his homeland without a backward glance.
A fragrant breath of tea hung in the room, but between the two men seated face to face there was only a cold that seemed to cut the skin.
Yuan Shao watched Li Ru with eyes gone cold and still. Li Ru was the first to speak.
"Colonel of the Sili. What would you say to leaving Luoyang and broadening your experience as a shepherd of the people in the provinces? Look upon the hardship of the common folk with your own eyes and store up virtue, and who would object if in ten years you rose even to the Three Excellencies? Every minister at court would welcome you with both hands raised."
The voice was smooth as oiled silk, and the intent beneath it was plain to see. Yuan Shao did not open his firmly closed mouth. Had he followed his heart, he would have lifted the cup before him and dashed it into that shameless face.
"I hear Liangzhou is still in turmoil. Would the proper order of things not be for the Grand Commandant to return there himself and settle that first?"
At the edged retort, Li Ru twisted the corner of his mouth into a strange smile. Then, without warning, he struck the teacup from the desk with the back of his hand. Porcelain burst with a sharp crack, the cup rolled across the floor, and tea bled into the boards — a provocation rude beyond all measure.
Yuan Shao's brow twitched, only for an instant. Li Ru did not miss that flicker. A wicked light flashed in his eyes.
"As I thought. There is a reaction."
"Spare me the probing. Speak to the point."
"Soon the Grand Commandant will hold the power of all under heaven."
Yuan Shao was silent. What had to come had come — the very thing his youngest son had foreseen, the deposition of the emperor and the elevation of the Prince of Chenliu. He waited like a beast for those words to leave Li Ru's mouth.
"My, the Colonel of the Sili is a truly difficult man to bargain with."
"I will ask again. What is it you want of me?"
"Choose the place you wish to go."
"I am asking what the Grand Commandant truly wants."
"And if you knew, could you stop it?"
"Because Lu Bu has me surrounded, you imagine I can do nothing? In Luoyang the men who follow me are beyond counting. What is the Grand Commandant's true intent?"
Yuan Shao drove the point with a hardness that went too far, and Li Ru's eyes wavered. Something had slipped out of joint.
"...He will enthrone the Prince of Chenliu."
He had meant to settle the matter before the day was out in any case. He cast it down like a tile turned faceup, brief and blunt. Yuan Shao's reaction was utterly calm. A single brow lifted, no more — the look of a man who had already known.
"Choose a commandery. I will send you as its Grand Administrator. Refuse, and there is only death. An imperial command will order you to surrender your army, and the Grand Commandant will bring every force he has to bear. The Colonel of the Sili cannot possibly hold. Leave Luoyang while the words are still kind."
It was naked threat. Yuan Shao looked up at the ceiling for a moment and steadied his breath. His youngest son's voice seemed to sound in his mind. Slowly he lowered his gaze and drove it straight into Li Ru's eyes.
"A province. The likes of a commandery will not content me."
"...Your greed goes too far."
"If that displeases you, then it is war. Should I break Lu Bu with the men I have and march on Deyang Hall, could you withstand it?"
"With that handful? An egg dashed against a rock."
"An egg may prove harder than the rock. Have you forgotten the Battle of Kunyang? Emperor Guangwu swept away an army of four hundred thousand with a mere ten thousand."
Li Ru's fist clenched and opened, again and again. Cold sweat ran down his back. The lead in the negotiation had passed entirely out of his hands.
Yuan Shao... this man feels as if he knows our plans down to the last detail. When I spoke of enthroning the Prince of Chenliu, he hardly even blinked. How? This is a secret none but the Grand Commandant's innermost circle should know!
Dismay stole his breath. He shook his head hard to throw it off, and made his offer.
"Inspector of Bingzhou."
"Have you lost your mind? Absolutely not! Inspector of Jizhou, if anything!"
"Is your greed not excessive?"
"If you mean to drive me out of Luoyang, is the foremost province under heaven not the least that would suit my station?"
He was hooked. At the demand for Jizhou, richest of all the realm, Li Ru's breath caught in his throat.
"If it is not Jizhou, I will not negotiate."
Yuan Shao rose, and his voice turned cold as he pressed the threat home.
"Go, report to the Grand Commandant, and bring back his leave. I will wait one double-hour. If no word has come by then, I move as I see fit. When I move, the powers of Luoyang will come in with me. Go. You have no time."
Li Ru glared at him with a viper's eyes, but no sharp stroke came to mind. If Yuan Shao raised his banner in earnest and the great clans joined him, there was no telling where the matter would fly. Dong Zhuo would likely win — yet the other outcome had to be weighed as well.
In the end Li Ru turned on his heel and left the room. The door shut with a bang.
Left alone, Yuan Shao at last let out the breath he had been holding.
"Hah... What uncanny farce is this?"
A hollow laugh broke from him, bleak and empty. Everything had run as his youngest had foreseen. The accuracy of it raised the hair on his neck, so exact he could scarcely believe this was the real world. Yet what washed over him was sorrow more than joy.
Where, in the end, is the Han bound?
Li Ru charged Lu Bu once more to keep an iron watch, then hurried on. His destination was Deyang Hall.
Deyang Hall — the sacred seat of the emperor who ruled all under heaven. The name was a mockery now. Beneath the brilliant painted eaves, elite soldiers stood in ranked lines with cold blades raised, and the air had sunk into a heavy stillness. The emperor and the ministers of the court were penned inside that fence of steel, resisting only in fits and starts. Empress Dowager He, who ought to have remained in Changxin Palace, had been dragged to this place as well.
"What is it?"
Dong Zhuo, perched askew on the high seat and browbeating the ministers, caught sight of Li Ru and asked it short.
"There is a matter I must report."
One look at Li Ru's darkened face, and Dong Zhuo jerked his chin to clear the room.
"Speak. What did Yuan Shao say?"
"He has shown he means to fight to the death."
"Tch. Difficult bastard. I told you to toss him some Grand Administrator's seat and be done."
"That... A commandery will not do, he says. He wants to be Inspector of a province."
"What? An Inspector?"
"Yes. And of all places, Jizhou."
Dong Zhuo's fist crashed down on the desk.
"Have you ever seen a thief's greed so foul!"
He had never imagined Yuan Shao would demand vast and prosperous Jizhou. Blood threaded the whites of his eyes.
"What do you think? Do I simply crush him?"
Under that killing gaze, Li Ru felt a chill run the length of his spine. He swallowed once, then spoke as calmly as he could manage.
"Refuse him, and Luoyang falls into chaos. In open field, your loyal army would trample the likes of Yuan Shao in a breath, but a fight through the streets has too many variables. Should the matter tangle..."
"So I just hand over prime Jizhou on a whim? Later, if I try to take it back and the wretch digs in, it'll be a plague."
"Grand Commandant. Grant him Inspector of Jizhou for now. Then we set barbarian against barbarian."
"Catch a barbarian with a barbarian?"
"Yes. Make use of Gongsun Zan in the north."
"Gongsun Zan."
At the name, Dong Zhuo's eyes drew thin. Gongsun Zan was the only man he feared.
"Dangle a suitable office before him as bait, and he will bite Yuan Shao of his own accord. After a fitting span of time, revoke Yuan Shao's post. If he still holds out, Gongsun Zan strikes down from the north while you scrape together the troops of Yanzhou, Qingzhou, and Yuzhou and push up from the south. Attack under the banner of punishing a traitor who defied an imperial command, and what can Yuan Shao do — a rat in a jar?"
"Hmm..."
Dong Zhuo tapped the table with a thick finger. The proposal tempted him, yet the unease lodged in one corner of his chest would not fade. Yuan Shao alone kept doggedly blocking the road ahead. The skill with which he had swallowed the troops of Wu Kuang and Zhang Liao in the blink of an eye was no common feat.
But if it is Gongsun Zan, that is another matter.
The only man the great Dong Zhuo found awkward was Gongsun Zan. Checked by that mighty cavalry, Yuan Shao would not escape a hard fight.
Yes. Let the bastard fly or crawl — he is fated to be ground beneath Gongsun Zan's hooves.
The reckoning was finished. A greedy smile crossed Dong Zhuo's face as he made his decision.
"Good. One year. No more. In that time I take the Inspectorship of Jizhou back, even if I have to wring the bastard's neck to do it. Leave him to fatten an army, and we are the ones who suffer."
"I will remember. I will plant spies and watch him down to the breath he draws."
"Granted. See to it at once."
Dong Zhuo waved a hand as if the matter already bored him. Li Ru turned at once, entered a eunuch's chamber, and ground the ink. In one bold sweep of the brush he wrote a letter bearing Dong Zhuo's will, then stamped it hard with Dong Zhuo's official seal.
"The edict can wait until after we enthrone the Prince of Chenliu."
"Understood. First I will deliver the Grand Commandant's own letter and set Yuan Shao at ease."
Li Ru tucked the letter into his breast and left Deyang Hall, and behind him Dong Zhuo's voice rolled out once more, vast and booming.
Sophistry, shameless past all bearing. A thin laugh escaped Li Ru as he quickened his steps toward Yuan Shao.