The Unwelcome Guest
Ye, burning hot with fervor only yesterday, was turned on its head overnight.
Over the martial momentum of the march — raised as if it might pierce the sky — a heavy silence settled, like ice water cold enough to ache in the bone.
"By now the administrative hall must be in the thick of a debate fierce enough to draw blood..."
I murmured it, looking out through the window of my quarters. That I still had no seat beyond that firmly shut door, in the council of the hall, ached in me like a bruise. The moment word arrived that Gongsun Zan, the fierce beast of Liaoxi, had sent his trusted man Guan Jing as envoy, the taut air of the Jizhou Inspectorate sank all at once. That alone was enough to take the measure of the matter.
I had not been permitted to attend, and yet the words flying back and forth in the hall were already drawn, sharp and clear, inside my head.
So the wretch Gongsun Zan has gone and thrown a crude wrench into Father's expedition after all. Is the gearwork of this wretched age going to turn exactly as it did in the history of my past life?
Father has risen to Inspector of Jizhou on a rightful pretext and closed his grip on power this vast. I thought there would be none of the historical ankle-grabbing from Gongsun Zan. That was arrogance. I was too complacent. Viciously complacent.
I clenched my fist and reproached myself to the marrow. In this merciless age of chaos, a single moment of complacency is ruin. I swore I would harden my heart from this day on, and examine every matter down to the last thread.
Reason returned at once, and I began, on the knowledge of my past life, to infer the fierce war of minds between Dong Zhuo and my father. Dong Zhuo in Luoyang would have known full well that Father was moving busily to raise a coalition. Among the inspectors and grand administrators who received Father's messages, someone would have denounced him. And so, inevitably, Dong Zhuo would have prepared a poisoned move to check him.
That cunning beast will have set the frontier's Gongsun Zan subtly in motion. I'd wager on it.
I reproached myself no further. What mattered now was not lamenting water already spilled, but finding a wise way through this fatal crisis.
That afternoon the council in the hall, unable at last to reach a satisfying conclusion, adjourned for a brief rest. Not long after, Tian Feng came to my quarters. It was sooner than I had expected, and a question stirred in me. He set out the state of the hall quickly and without waste, and most of it did not stray from what I had already pictured.
One fact, though, caught even me off guard. Dong Zhuo had recommended Gongsun Zan as Dudu of Youbeiping — an extraordinary measure that let him legally control Youbeiping, Liaoxi, and the Liaodong Dependent State together. And Gongsun Zan had hidden it. He had never announced the appointment at all.
They call him the tiger of Liaoxi, but in truth he's nothing but an old fox with nine tails. Well — if it got out that he took that vast authority from Dong Zhuo, Father would have checked him in the open, so of course he buried it with care. And Father, iron-certain that the upright Inspector of Youzhou, Liu Yu, could keep Gongsun Zan in hand, would have set his mind at ease.
I shook my head, faintly incredulous.
"Young master, are you unwell?"
At that small motion a deep worry flickered, just for an instant, across Tian Feng's stern face. To see the cold man genuinely concerned for me warmed something in the chill of my head.
"No. I was only thinking of Gongsun Zan's cunning, and my tongue got away from me. His Lordship aimed at Dong Zhuo's neck, so Dong Zhuo was bound to aim at His Lordship's back — and it infuriates me that so obvious a move was overlooked. Reason it through for a moment. Using the beast of the north, Gongsun Zan, to seize Father roughly by the ankle is, from an enemy's seat, the most natural step there is."
Tian Feng shook his head, his face set hard.
"A natural step? That does not accord with reason. Gongsun Zan's superior in name is the Inspector of Youzhou. If Dong Zhuo meant to check His Lordship, the natural course for the court would have been to incite that direct superior, the Inspector of Youzhou."
I set down my teacup and cut him off, flat and certain.
"The Inspector of Youzhou is a loyal subject of the Han, straight as a split bamboo. He is not a man to be played upon by Dong Zhuo's shallow, revolting designs. Gongsun Zan, by contrast, is a beast with a vast ambition in his belly, and he clashes with the Inspector of Youzhou at every turn. Dong Zhuo slipped, very neatly, into the festering gap between those two. He chose a man who will lunge and bite the moment prey is thrown to him. That is why I called it the natural step."
"...!"
Tian Feng started as if struck, and his eyes flew wide. I had not even been allowed across the threshold of the closed council, and his face said he had never imagined I could read the board of Hebei — Luoyang bound to Youzhou — with a clarity that raised the hair. He had prided himself on knowing a great deal about me. The shock of this, it seemed, was of another order.
"To see a thousand li from where one sits...! That old saying — that a man may sit in his place and pierce, at a glance, a scheme a thousand li off — was it truly spoken of you, young master?"
His voice trembled, faint with astonishment.
"You flatter me. More to the point — what is your own thought now, Lord Tian?"
"Even if the sky splits in two, we must march on Luoyang at once. The inspectors and grand administrators east of the passes are hastening their preparations with their eyes on His Lordship's banner alone. If His Lordship is caught by the ankle and cannot take a single step..."
Tian Feng could not bring himself to finish. He did not need to. Father's vast fame and influence would vanish like water poured on sand, and the realm would mock him for a coward.
"Did the hall find any sharp way through?"
"Opinions ran wild, but no satisfying answer emerged that could stopper Gongsun Zan's ambition."
He closed his mouth and quietly fixed me with an anxious gaze — a gaze that sought something, desperately. Only then did I understand why the busy Tian Feng had come running to my quarters the moment the council broke.
Whenever a knot too hard to untie arose, Father had come to me in secret and borrowed my wits. But now far too many eyes watched his every move. For the sake of face he could not openly come and go from the quarters of his young youngest son, and so he was using Tian Feng — now wholly my man — as his proxy, pressing in secret for an answer. Had I not stood my ground against Father and kept Tian Feng at my side, Father would surely have sent some other trusted man hurrying to me instead.
"My humble thought is short enough..."
A swallow. The throat of Tian Feng, genius of the realm, rose and fell in silence. He was waiting for the answer to leave my lips, and I felt a thrill of pleasure. Proof, whether the world knew it or not, that my influence had grown to this.
"Please speak, young master."
"It is simple. Give Gongsun Zan, whole and entire, what he truly wants. Satisfy the ambition — and then, without a backward glance, march boldly on Luoyang. Have you grasped the true aim behind what the envoy Guan Jing demanded?"
"That... confound it. Those bandits have the gall to demand we hand over the tax rights of Bohai Commandery, the core territory of Jizhou."
"...!"
A demand outrageous enough to send the blood surging backward. For Father, who governed Jizhou, it would be a proposal nearly impossible to accept. And yet, in the history of my past life, had he not in the end come to terms with Gongsun Zan and made the man's younger brother, Gongsun Fan, Grand Administrator of Bohai? Father was a man who could negotiate whenever negotiation was required.
"The tax rights of Bohai matter greatly, but this is the moment to give them up without lingering regret and conclude a peace in haste. We cannot, however, give them for nothing. So that Gongsun Zan cannot later play at planting a knife in our backs, Father must take one of them as a hostage — either his eldest son, Gongsun Xu, or his younger brother, Gongsun Fan."
"If we cede Bohai and still demand a hostage, they will surely bite down hard on a matching condition. No — on a hostage from our side."
Tian Feng curled his fist in quiet objection. He looked somewhat anxious: the impatience of a man who had to report to Yuan Shao, and soon.
"The essence that matters most is the march on Luoyang, Lord Tian. If Gongsun Zan's pressure throws the march itself into disorder, His Lordship will no longer be able to lead the inspectors and grand administrators east of the passes. The work of cutting down the rebel Dong Zhuo's head and setting the Han aright will grow remote as well. Every capacity of the Jizhou Inspectorate must be poured into passing this fatal crisis. Nothing is more urgent than this."
At that cold decision Tian Feng seemed to come sharply awake. He rose abruptly from his seat.
"I am truly grateful for the young master's wise counsel."
"Not at all. I am only ashamed that a child with no experience of the battlefield should presumptuously step into the affairs of the Inspectorate."
"That is not so. How could the Third Young Master lack the standing? I will see you again."
Tian Feng hastily straightened his robes and once more offered me a deep bow of thanks. I had thought we might share a cup of tea and sound the situation more deeply, but he turned as if he had not a moment he could spare. Father must have pressed him like fire — go at once, hear the youngest's answer, and return. More dignified in the phrasing, of course. Even so, the urgency of that retreating back spoke, whole and unsoftened, of the tightness closing on Father and the Inspectorate.
The deep, secret inner chamber of the administrative hall.
When Tian Feng returned in secret from the youngest son's quarters, Yuan Shao dismissed every other official and summoned him in for a private audience.
"In the end... must I hand that man the tax rights of Bohai Commandery, the very core of Jizhou?"
Tian Feng had conveyed Yuan Shang's counsel without addition or omission, and Yuan Shao sighed as if in pain, murmuring it almost to himself. Tian Feng caught that small wavering. His face stayed blank, but within he was swept by a shock as vast as a lightning strike.
I knew well that the Third Young Master possessed a brilliance far beyond his years. But look at His Lordship — timber to command the realm. He was more than I had known. This is not the first time. His Lordship has relied on the Third Young Master's counsel again and again. And now he has come to trust him completely.
Tian Feng turned over the question of how Yuan Shang had persuaded him.
"Lord Tian."
At the call, Tian Feng woke from his thoughts. The sigh was already gone. Yuan Shao had returned to the cold bearing of the Inspector of Jizhou, the man who governed the whole province.
"What do you think?"
"This humble official also holds that the Third Young Master's rational judgment is right a hundred times over. No value takes precedence over restoring the House of Han, which the rebel Dong Zhuo has wretchedly ruined. The tax rights of Bohai, lost for now, can be taken back later. That is all."
At that cold, blunt counsel, Yuan Shao nodded quietly. He still grudged the handing over of Bohai's tax rights, but for the great cause he had to put the grudge aside.
"Your words are right. If it is to set this disordered realm upright once more, a passing discomfort such as this must be endured."
He made the resolve in silence, then slowly rose from the seat of honor and went out toward the hall. Tian Feng followed at his back, posture straight as a rule.
The administrative hall.
Heavy footsteps, and Yuan Shao entered in full dignity. The chief officials of the Jizhou Inspectorate who had been waiting, and Gongsun Zan's envoy Guan Jing, all held their breath at once and straightened where they sat. Tian Feng went quietly to his own place — the seat of the Duoguan Shuzuo — and sat.
"Biejia Guan."
"Yes, my lord."
At the majesty in Yuan Shao's voice, Guan Jing bent at the waist before he quite knew he had done it. A reasonable man, he hoped this negotiation would be settled, and he was taking care not to rasp his lordship's temper. The deference sat on him naturally.
"His Majesty charged this person with the full governance of Jizhou. And yet the Dudu of Youbeiping, scarcely settled in his post, dares to covet the tax rights of Bohai. A truly insolent and excessive demand."
"...!"
Bewilderment flickered across Guan Jing's face. He had not expected to be refused in a single stroke. Would Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao rush, then, into open war? He was hastily opening his mouth when Yuan Shao raised a hand, cut him off, and deftly turned the board over.
A precarious compromise, thrown down after a cold refusal. Guan Jing's mind turned quickly.
"So grave a matter is not one this humble official can decide rashly in this seat."
"Make all haste. If the answer from the north is delayed, the great army of this Inspectorate will have no choice but to bring Youbeiping to order before we strike Dong Zhuo. I say it again. If it is to punish the rebel and set the capital's discipline aright, there is nothing I cannot do. Bear it in mind."
"I will carve it into my bones, bear it in mind, and convey it to the Dudu of Youbeiping."
Guan Jing answered in a voice firm and unwavering. A rational strategist, he saw through at a glance that Yuan Shao's last words were plain bluster. He knew Yuan Shao could never absent himself from this undertaking, in which the chief regional officials east of the passes were all taking part. But the bluster was not what mattered.
Through this negotiation Gongsun Zan desperately wanted the vast tax rights of Bohai. Secure that, and he would no longer have to watch the face of his direct superior — Liu Yu, Inspector of Youzhou — who seized his ankle at every turn. The sole obstacle was that he would be defying Dong Zhuo's order to check Yuan Shao. Guan Jing finished the sum coldly, in the privacy of his own mind.
This is a decision our Dudu would welcome with both hands raised. When every hero under heaven is leveling his blade at the rebel Dong Zhuo and jabbing a finger at him, what need has our Dudu to keep a paltry loyalty with Dong Zhuo, that rotten rope? We need only make a temporary hold on Bohai's tax rights into a permanent one. As for reinforcements, a token show of effort will do.
The calculation done, Guan Jing bent his waist with courtesy.
"I will bring back the Dudu's affirmative answer as swiftly as I can."
"Good. If Dudu Gongsun will take part in the undertaking, send an elite reinforcement at once. And a figure of sufficient weight to represent the office of the Dudu of Youbeiping must lead that army and come in person. If even one of these conditions is broken, Youbeiping must be prepared for a bitter war with the Jizhou Inspectorate."
"I will bear it in mind and convey it without a hair's error."
Yuan Shao told him to wait a moment, then wrote a personal letter. He stamped the red official seal hard, sealed the envelope firm, and handed it over. Guan Jing offered a strict military salute toward the master of Jizhou, left the hall without delay, and mounted his horse.
A vast transaction of power was beginning. For Dong Zhuo it would be cause to beat the ground in rage — but this was the reality of a chaotic age, in which cold calculation came first.