Pondering the Future

Alone upon the gate tower, I watched in silence as Father led the armies of Jizhou out to war. The sight was solemn, and grand. Ambition seethed in me. I wanted, even then, to stand at his side and do my part in the war against Dong Zhuo, yet the bodily limit of my years had caught me by the ankle and would not let go.

I had been staring after the receding columns for a long while, sunk in a thick regret, when a single rider broke from the tail of the Jizhou host. A pale veil of dust rose behind him as he drove his horse furiously back toward Ye.

What is this?

I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head. He did not look like a courier racing with urgent news, nor a cavalryman who had simply peeled away for some trivial cause. From the man in the saddle there came a heavy martial presence. He was, without question, a fierce general.

As the distance closed, the familiar lines of a face beneath the helmet grew sharp.

Zhang Liao. The man who ought to be riding at the vanguard—what urgent business could possibly be dragging him back?

Beneath the shut gate, Zhang Liao caught sight of me and signaled that he had words to deliver at once. I did not hesitate. I came down from the tower.

Once inside the walls, Zhang Liao bowed with scrupulous courtesy, still drawing hard breaths. I returned the bow with the warm, measured propriety I kept for my own men.

“I have come to deliver His Lordship’s secret command, Young Master.”

I sent the guards well back and composed myself. Zhang Liao stepped in close and relayed Father’s order in a low voice.

“Should His Lordship one day send a personal letter from the field, you are to answer at once, without the slightest delay. That is all.”

Father still remembered my insight. I answered with a bright smile.

“Understood. Please tell His Lordship that I have received his strict command in full.”

I regarded Zhang Liao steadily—a man armed in fierce loyalty—and encouraged him in a grave voice.

“Colonel Zhang. The Liangzhou and Bingzhou troops under the traitor Dong Zhuo are savage and cruel beyond measure. See that you are not wounded on the field. Come back safely.”

“I will bear it in mind. I am grateful for your concern, Young Master!”

A flicker of feeling passed through Zhang Liao’s eyes. He bowed to me once more, then swung into the saddle, swift as a flying tiger, and rode out of Ye. Watching that dependable back recede without a moment’s hesitation, I felt a deep reassurance settle in my chest.

“I too wished to join that column and swing a spear in Luoyang. It galls me.”

The heavy sigh came from Zhao Yun, who had been standing silent guard at my back. Across that handsome face lay the thick regret and longing of a warrior left behind when the army marched.

I turned a gentle smile on him and sought to ease it.

“Do not take it too hard, Zilong. A chance to show your martial skill to all under heaven will surely come, and soon. Two years at the longest… or perhaps far sooner than I expect. Train hard against that day, and raise your cavalry.”

When I offered that counsel—calm, and full of certainty—the wavering light in Zhao Yun’s eyes burned clear again.

“Understood, Young Master! Until that day comes, I will fill our ranks here in Ye and drill them until the bone grinds, and raise an elite cavalry. They will obey none but your command. They will be your hands and feet alone.”

“That sets my mind truly at ease. Thank you, Zilong.”

I gave him a bright, warm smile.

After Zhao Yun withdrew with his resolve set firm, I was able at last to shake off the regret over the battlefield that had been circling in one corner of my chest. For now, the field of decision that mattered more than any battlefield was here in Ye.

With Father briefly absent from the heart of Jizhou, I needed to seek out Tian Feng, Ren Jun, and the other key officials, and learn the practical work of rule. Only by mastering that work in all its parts could I command those beneath me with certainty. More than that, Father had placed a heavy trust in my uncommon mind. Was the order just delivered in secret through Zhang Liao not perfect proof of it? If the fighting at Luoyang tangled and I laid a decisive solution before him, my standing within the provincial government of Jizhou would rise onto bedrock that no one would dare to shake.

The biting winter wind withdrew, and a warm spring came. Time passed, and before I knew it we stood at the tail end of the third month. A full month had already gone by since Father led the Jizhou army out toward Luoyang.

Fortunately, welcome news arrived as well. My young brother Mai, sent north as a hostage, had reached Gongsun Zan’s camp unharmed. It felt as though I had set down one of the heavy stones pressing on a corner of my chest.

Father had sent no separate letter since he marched, but Wu Yi, my trusted man planted in the camp, sent meticulous reports every ten days on Luoyang, Suanzao County, and Luyang County. Thanks to him, even from distant Ye I could read that taut balance of forces as clearly as the lines on my own palm.

Just as I expected, the struggle for command among the regional officials is severe. The General of the Rear, in particular, is checking Father in the open. But what truly grates… is my uncle, cut off in Luoyang, and the Yuan clan with him.

Not a single line in the letters Wu Yi sent mentioned Uncle Yuan Wei. Before departing Ye, Father had certainly dispatched a personal letter, earnestly begging him to flee. Uncle, it seemed, had refused to bend either his righteous principle or his stubbornness, and remained in the imperial capital. The Yuan clansmen still lingering in Luoyang numbered more than fifty. If the war turned against the coalition, Dong Zhuo would restrain himself no longer. He would kill the Yuan clan.

I shook my head slowly, my expression dark. A path to survival had been opened for them, and still they insisted on choosing a place of death. How was I to stop that?

I folded away, without lingering attachment, any sympathy for the wretched end awaiting the Yuan clan in Luoyang, and at once drew the whole board of the coalition in my mind. To flick the beads of an abacus with such cold reason even in the face of my own blood’s death—there was a ruthlessness in me so severe that I myself was taken aback.

At present the coalition’s vast host had torn into two great branches, each pursuing a course entirely its own.

One axis was Suanzao County in Chenliu Commandery. There the renowned powers of Guandong had massed thick as clouds, and Father, as leader of the alliance, overawed them and directed the war. Searching the memories of my previous life, I recalled him joining as Grand Administrator of Bohai at the head of volunteers, only to be blocked by the schemes of Han Fu, then Inspector of Jizhou, and unable even to cross the Yellow River. Set against that wretched past, Father’s present standing and the strength of his host were a dazzling advance.

The other axis was Luyang County in Nanyang Commandery. There my uncle, Yuan Shu, General of the Rear, had pitched camp on his own authority, jealous of Father. In numbers alone he fell short of Suanzao, but at his side stood Sun Jian, the man called the Tiger of Jiangdong. Where the officers and men at Suanzao floundered for lack of real combat, Sun Jian was a fierce general seasoned in major campaigns, the suppression of the Liangzhou rebellion among them. Above all, he knew better than anyone the savage nature of Dong Zhuo and the Liangzhou troops under his command. That knowledge was his deadliest weapon.

On the strength of that weapon, Sun Jian had, in history, advanced from victory to victory against Dong Zhuo’s Liangzhou army. The odds were high that he would do so again.

And then there was the most interesting fact to fall into Wu Yi’s net. Liu Bei had joined Cao Cao’s command.

At the councils where inspectors and grand administrators of note gathered, Cao Cao had barely won a seat by presenting his old credentials as Colonel of the Army. Under those circumstances, Liu Bei, once Magistrate of Gaotang, could not attend at all. To the other officials, he was nothing more than a general under Cao Cao. Had I not ordered Wu Yi to identify the three—Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei—word of them might well have been left out entirely. So faint was Liu Bei’s presence at this moment.

I rose slowly, clasped my hands behind my back, and paced the room at an unhurried pace, turning over the link between Cao Cao and Liu Bei.

Cao Cao raised volunteers in his home of Qiao County and trained them there. He poured in the lofty reputation and the vast wealth of his father, Cao Song, and so it was possible. But Liu Bei? By what means did he gather volunteers in a foreign land where he had no roots? Nine times out of ten, Cao Cao stood behind him, quietly supplying the funds. Their bond runs far deeper and tighter than the history I knew. They must have met by chance in Luoyang and opened their hearts, and when Cao Cao went down to Qiao, Liu Bei followed.

I was deep in thought, brow furrowed, when a place-name flashed across my mind.

Pei County.

In the history of my previous life, when Liu Bei came south to relieve Tao Qian of Xuzhou, he defied even his direct superior Gongsun Zan’s order to return, and remained in Pei County of Yuzhou. Later, when Lu Bu’s betrayal stripped him of Xuzhou entire, the place where he pitched a new camp and sought to rise again was Pei County as well.

As if struck by lightning, I hurried to the desk and spread open, with rough hands, a map of Yuzhou and Xuzhou. As my eyes swept down it, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a deep and strange light gathered in them. To my astonishment, Qiao County, Cao Cao’s base, and Pei County, where Liu Bei had stayed, lay within a stone’s throw of each other. The scattered pieces snapped together at a stroke, and a picture so perfect it raised the hair on my neck completed itself in my mind.

So that was it. With Cao Cao’s active support, Liu Bei put down roots in Pei. He would have summoned volunteers and raised an army, winning the favor of Pei’s great clans and forging tight bonds as he went. That was why, in every desperate crisis when his life hung by a thread, he could crawl back into Pei like a ghost and bide his time.

A tangle of old questions had, to some degree, come undone. But what truly mattered was how I meant to deal with this monster of such terrifying potential.

If history ran as it now stood, Cao Cao would pursue Dong Zhuo in high spirits, suffer a crushing defeat, and weep tears of blood. After the defeat he would flee to Qiao, and Liu Bei would escape north into Gongsun Zan’s service.

If events follow the history of my previous life… Liu Bei must set foot on Jizhou soil to reach Gongsun Zan. Nine times out of ten he will pass near this very Ye. That is the moment I take. He is a man who will become a great dragon, one who divides the realm into three. I must pen him in a small pond and keep him from the open sea.

To pacify the realm completely, Father would one day have to take Yizhou whole. By any means, I had to stop Liu Bei from becoming its master. The difference between Liu Zhang holding Yizhou and Liu Bei in that seat was the difference between heaven and earth. If Liu Bei became master of Yizhou, the conquest of that province would, in effect, have to be abandoned.

I would have to lay the method carefully, in time. There was still time to spare.

The tiger cubs of Jiangdong, Sun Ce and Sun Quan, lay beyond my reach for now, and there was nothing to be done about them. Liu Bei, at least, I would fit with shackles the moment he set foot in my own yard.

If he bared his teeth at me…

Then I would have to kill him.

I set my heart on it, cold and hard. I had already resolved to conquer the realm and sit the imperial throne. Any hero who would one day bar my path had to have his sprout trampled before it could rise. Once I gripped a greater and mightier power here in Ye, the other heroes holding their breath in every corner of the realm would be unable to dodge the blade I swung.

Before long it was the beginning of the fourth month, and the full breath of spring was waking the earth. A letter from Father arrived.

He means to fight Dong Zhuo in a full-scale battle?

As I read down the page, my thoughts fell briefly into confusion. The history of my previous life, as I had known it, was twisting little by little. Of course it would. I had made Father’s strength far ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠greater than it had been then.

What if, contrary to history, Father’s main force at Suanzao and Uncle Yuan Shu’s army at Luyang did not fall to quarreling, but drove forward fiercely at the same time? Before that vast pincer, even Dong Zhuo in the full of his arrogance might collapse at a stroke. And Dong Zhuo’s early fall might become a variable all its own.

I forced my mind to settle as far as I could.

Luoyang, the heart of the realm, was a heaven-sent stronghold, ringed fold upon fold by the steep skirts of Mount Song like a standing screen. However the coalition’s momentum might pierce the sky, if he defended with efficiency—the army of Suanzao at Sishui Pass, the army of Luyang at Dagu Pass—Dong Zhuo would not fall easily.

I quietly set my thoughts in order, then took up the brush, loaded it thick with ink, and began to write my counsel.

I set the brush down and bit my lip lightly. The wording had come out somewhat round and ambiguous.

If the memory of my previous life held true, Dong Zhuo, driven into a corner, would set fire to Luoyang, massacre the fifty-odd members of the Yuan clan who remained, and move the capital to Chang’an. But I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could not write that part. It was a matter on which the lives of the Yuan clan hung, and if those contents leaked outside, both Father and I would be placed in difficulty. I could only hope he would move with caution and avert the worst.

Xu Rong’s name, however, I had set down plainly. In the memory of my previous life, Xu Rong was a true fierce general who had dealt the coalition a wretched defeat. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠That Cao Cao, who had only just raised his volunteers, was trampled beneath him might be set aside. But had not even Sun Jian—whose fame stood only a little below Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun, yet whose martial might shook all under heaven—suffered a crushing defeat at Xu Rong’s hands?

The generals under Father, who must one day become my own sure hands and feet—I had to prevent, without fail, the misfortune of their losing their lives or taking grave wounds on Xu Rong’s blade. That was why I had named him and urged caution.

Please… Father. Accomplish the great cause you have set your will upon, and return unharmed.

Toward my enemies I was cold without limit, but the heart that feared for my family’s safety was not something I could counterfeit. I folded the letter neatly, my earnestness pressed into the creases, and sealed the envelope tight lest it grow damp upon the road.

The courier tucked the letter into his breast and at once spurred his horse for Suanzao County.

I stood with my hands clasped behind my back, sunk in thought. Perhaps, in this life, the day would not come when Cao Cao and Liu Bei suffered that crushing defeat at Xu Rong’s hands. Then how would they move?

An unexpected assignment had been set before me.