Lineage Adoption
"A moment, Father."
He had finished their talk and was turning to leave the room when a single variable flashed through my mind.
"What is it? Was there something more you wished to say to your father?"
Seeing my face, he stopped, smiled gently, and bent until his eyes were level with mine.
"The great native clan that truly rules Liaodong Commandery is the Gongsun house. Left untended for years after Administrator Yang's death, their strength will only have grown."
"Hm..."
He sank into thought before I had even finished, and when he spoke, the words came heavy.
"You mean that even if we send Ju Zong down as the new Administrator, Gongsun Du—already rooted there—may bare his vicious fangs and work his sabotage in secret."
"Yes. A man who once rose as high as Inspector of Jizhou will have read this chaotic age more clearly than anyone. It may be that Xu Rong in Luoyang did not recommend him on a whim at all—that Gongsun Du first offered bribes and actively coveted the Administrator's seat himself."
"I see exactly what you fear."
For a moment his face was severe. Then, as if to set me at ease, it softened.
"It is not so tangled a knot as that. Draw the snake from its hole, and the matter is finished. Name Gongsun Du Administrator of a commandery in Jizhou and summon him here."
"However vast his ambition, he will not dare play tricks against your father. If he shows even a hint of it, I need only send an army and put him down."
"And when Ju Zong goes to Liaodong, we will attach a generous force of elite troops and put real strength at his back. Well? Does that ease your mind a little?"
"Yes, Father. Perfectly clear."
Father was, after all, a man fit to command the realm. From the shard of a worry I had tossed him, he pierced straight to the heart of the problem and laid down a perfect answer at once. More than that, the sight of him looking down on the world with arrogant ease—overwhelming power, boundless confidence—was splendid enough to swell my chest. When I grew up, I wanted to be like him.
"You rascal. Your father is not so soft a man as to earn that kind of worry."
He smiled with quiet pleasure, stroked my head once with a warm hand, and left the room.
In this life, Father would close far faster on Gongsun Zan, that beast of the north. Unlike my previous life, when Han Fu had checked him at every turn, he had already built overwhelming strength at a crushing pace, and before long he would press Gongsun Zan's rear from Liaodong Commandery.
Cao Cao and Liu Bei. Before those two heroes gather their full strength and plant their feet, I have to break Gongsun Zan, unite the power of Hebei, and march south. Can it be done?
Men lay the plans. Only Heaven knows the result. History had already bent a great deal, and there was no telling how many unforeseen variables still waited ahead. Even so, I clenched my fist and swore I would not give ground.
Nor did the matter of a lineage adoption—continuing the broken line of my uncle Yuan Ji, once Minister of the Imperial Clan—trouble my heart any longer. In the history of my previous life, my eldest brother, Yuan Tan, had been expelled from the house and made our uncle's adopted son. In this life, had I not won from Father a trust beyond anything that other self could have imagined? The horror of my own expulsion would never come to pass. Of that I was certain.
The next day, in an evening thick with dusk, some dozen officials gathered in secret at Yuan Tan's residence, Guo Tu and Xin Ping foremost among them.
The air inside was rigid, and Yuan Tan, seated in the place of honor, wore a scowl, plainly out of sorts. That Yuan Shao, upon returning to Ye, had granted his first private audience to Yuan Shang scraped hard at his pride.
Guo Tu's eyes flashed, cold and thick with ambition, and he offered a keen-edged counsel on behalf of the gathering.
"Colonel. His Lordship met alone with the Third Young Master. That is not a matter to be lightly passed over."
His voice was low, but a chill ran through it.
"While His Lordship stayed at Suanzao, every time a letter came from the Third Young Master he sat alone in his tent, sunk in deep thought. Proof enough that the boy's counsel was great enough to move the board of the war."
Xin Ping, seated beside him, brightened with a clever gleam and objected.
"Oh, come now, Guo. You can't truly think a child conceived all that alone. Tian Feng must have advised him from behind, and the Third Young Master merely dressed it up as his own and sent it along. So young, and already he knows the taste of power—how viciously quick that mind turns. Tsk, tsk."
These were officials who knew Tian Feng's clear eye and outstanding stratagem well, and they nodded as one, siding with Xin Ping's plausible inference.
But Guo Tu would have none of their complacency. He raised his voice and thundered like a lightning bolt.
"Spare me that foolish talk! Whether Tian Feng stands behind him or someone else, the Third Young Master must not be taken lightly. What matters most, here and now, is this: after resting in Ye, His Lordship set aside the Colonel, his eldest son, and sought out the Third Young Master first for a private audience!"
At that sharp rebuke the room went quiet again, as if cold water had been dashed over it.
His eyes flashed like a beast's as he threw down the most urgent question of all.
"I am told His Lordship is weighing, in all seriousness, a lineage adoption to continue the severed line of the Minister of the Imperial Clan, whose house was unjustly exterminated."
"I know that much well enough. Mai, I should think, is entirely suited to the place."
When Yuan Tan answered in irritation, Guo Tu struck coldly at the heart of it.
"Young Master Mai is, strictly speaking, a concubine's son. He falls far short of the standing required to succeed as heir of a great house, and His Lordship will not find the decision an easy one."
Yuan Tan stared at him, plainly displeased.
"What, exactly, are you trying to say to me?"
"Colonel, it means this is not yet the time to rest easy."
"Ha! I am the rightful eldest son of the Yuan clan—what nonsense is this? If Mai truly will not do, we have only to send Xi, the second son, or Shang, the youngest, and be done with it. Lord Guo, from time to time you go too far, conjuring fears out of nothing."
His ambition was large, but the vessel with which he read the situation was ordinary, and he deliberately raised his voice in addressing Guo Tu, straining to display that he was the superior.
It was then that Xin Ping turned the matter over once more and offered a reasonable middle course.
"Guo Tu's concern has its logic. Since the board already stands thus, why not strike first ourselves and press hard to have Young Master Mai entered as the adopted son? Ordinarily, in an adoption of this kind, proper order would send the Third Young Master, youngest in sequence—but His Lordship dotes on him so fiercely that such a thing is nearly impossible."
Yuan Tan nodded at the proposal.
He had no wish to drive his full brother, Yuan Xi, out into another house, and he judged that Yuan Shao would never give up Yuan Shang, his half-brother. Better, then, to make a sacrificial pawn of Yuan Mai—the one with the least power in the clan, the boy who had already been sent as a hostage to Gongsun Zan's camp.
"Good. For now, we press hard for Young Master Mai as the Minister's adopted son. Opposition will be loud enough, but if our faction locks together and refuses to yield, His Lordship will decide as we wish."
Yuan Tan meant to close the matter as if it were nothing. Guo Tu looked coldly around at him and the officials, and let fall a single remark like a bomb.
"Colonel. If you retreat in complacency here, then in the worst case... you yourself may be expelled from the house and entered as that adopted son."
"What kind of absurdity is that!"
Yuan Tan shot to his feet in shock, but Guo Tu did not so much as blink, and pressed on, cold.
"Look clearly at the officials of true weight gathered around the Third Young Master as if to shield him! On top of that, he monopolizes His Lordship's favor, and even Lady Liu—the principal wife, born of the imperial clan—is pouring enormous strength behind him from the shadows. The Second Young Master never wanted any part in a struggle for power and has already stepped back, so that venomous pack will fix on you alone, Colonel, the legitimate eldest, and tear at you with everything they have. From their point of view, where is there a chance more perfect, more lawful, to shove you aside? And yet you dismiss it out of hand as groundless worry!"
In an instant the room froze, cold as if cold water had been thrown across it.
Guo Tu had named, without mercy, the reality they had all tried so hard not to see.
Lady Liu's influence, as a woman of the imperial clan, was very great. Yuan Tan's own mother had died early, and he had no backing to lean on. He had trusted firmly in the justification of being Yuan Shao's eldest son, yet Yuan Shang's rising storm now threatened to tear even that justification out by the roots.
"If His Lordship shows even the slightest sign of casting the Colonel out as an adopted son, every one of us must stake his life and block it to the death. If things roll on as the Third Young Master wishes... none of our futures can be assured. I will say no more."
When Guo Tu, having poured out his rebuke, fell silent, the room stirred with fear and unease.
Taken alone, the child Yuan Shang was easy enough to snort at. Woven together with the vast shadow of power around him, just as Guo Tu had said, the situation was urgent enough to raise the hair. Yuan Shao's extreme favor toward Yuan Shang had clearly crossed the line. Unlikely as it seemed, no one could swear it was impossible that Yuan Tan might be expelled and entered as an adopted son.
"...Very well."
Yuan Tan's face, which had gone red and pale by turns, returned to normal as the moments passed.
He lacked the brilliance to bear up his enormous ambition. Turning to the officials, he cried out in haste.
"Join your strength and aid me! I will never forget your kindness. When I hold power in days to come, let us share wealth, rank, and glory together in Jizhou!"
"We receive the Colonel's will!"
The dozen officials bowed their heads as one.
After the failed Guandong Uprising, the scholar-gentry and the great clans had awakened to the truth that the board of the world had been overturned completely. A provincial inspector or a commandery administrator was no longer a mere local official receiving the Emperor's orders, but a king who held the power of life and death over his territory. The struggle over this lineage adoption, then, was no mere household matter. It was a war over who would be set up as heir apparent of that vast kingdom called Jizhou.
The officials gathered here were men who had staked their wager on Yuan Tan.
"Mark this. When the first council opens in the administrative hall, we must strike first and rock the board. Before His Lordship reaches any decision, we make our view known a step ahead, and drive it until it becomes the prevailing tide."
Guo Tu looked over the officials and laid down his final charge.
"When that hour comes, everyone gathered here must join without yielding an inch, and the Colonel must press Young Master Mai hard upon His Lordship. For the present, we stake everything on the Minister's lineage adoption."
The man who led the dozen was Colonel Yuan Tan. The one who set the board and drove it was the ambitious strategist Guo Tu.
Several days later, the administrative hall lay under a heavy tension.
In the heart of Jizhou, the foremost civil and military officials stood quietly arrayed. From the high seat, Yuan Shao received from Tian Feng, the Duoguan Shuzuo, a full accounting of the administration that had piled up in his absence. He had remained at Suanzao, yet Tian Feng had sent couriers at regular intervals, and so he saw through the situation in Jizhou with perfect clarity. A few keen questions, and the report was done.
"Now."
When Yuan Shao spoke, his expression calm, Yuan Tan—standing at the front of the ranks—went tense enough to stiffen his shoulders.
The moment the lineage adoption was raised, he meant to offer counsel at once and strike first, just as he had plotted with Guo Tu.
"The General of the Rear is linking arms with the Inspector of Xuzhou and scraping other powers together, meaning to press the Inspectorate of Jizhou from every side. Every civil and military official gathered here knows that reality well. For the moment it is quiet, like the lull before a storm—but there is a very great chance that the Dudu of Youbeiping in the north will accept the General of the Rear's sweet offer and take a hostile stance toward us. He, too, watches fertile Hebei with hungry eyes. If it comes to that, the Inspectorate of Jizhou and the Youbeiping Command will no longer be colleagues. They will turn on each other as dreadful enemies who must see blood."
Every official in the hall held his breath and waited for what Yuan Shao would say next.
He looked them over, unhurried, and went on.
"Therefore I have resolved to bring that barren Liaodong Commandery under the control of the Inspectorate, so as to check the Youbeiping Command. As you know, the Administrator's seat in Liaodong stands vacant. I mean to recommend Ju Zong as the new Administrator and dispatch him. Of course, if he is to break the impure faction coiled there like a snake and set the place in order, overwhelming military force must stand at his back. I therefore intend to give Colonel Zhang Liao three thousand elite troops of Jizhou and send him to Liaodong Commandery together with Ju Zong."
At that firm declaration, the officials turned as one toward Ju Zong and Zhang Liao, standing in the ranks.
To install an Administrator in Liaodong by sheer fiat, without so much as an imperial edict, was an unlawful measure. Yet not one of them opened his mouth to oppose it. No—they chose not to oppose it. Those gathered here had grasped the desperate chaos of the age, and they assisted Yuan Shao in accordance with it.
"So as not to fall short of Your Lordship's high expectations by a single inch, I will give my life to pacify Liaodong!"
Ju Zong swore his loyalty with fierce ardor, and the fierce general Zhang Liao answered the order at once in a ringing voice.
Chief Military Supervisor Ju Shou and Tian Feng, standing in the ranks, merely nodded in silence. Yuan Shao had summoned them in secret beforehand and persuaded them completely. This was the fruit of finely wrought politics.
"I am truly grateful. You have read my intent well."
He offered Ju Zong and Zhang Liao a thanks short and weighty, then swept the officials with a fierce gaze and charged them, grim.
"Now wipe the empty shell called the traitor Dong Zhuo from your minds, and do it without regret! From this moment, our true chief enemy is the General of the Rear, who covets the Inspectorate of Jizhou—and the cold blue blade about to fall before our eyes is the Dudu of Youbeiping. Each of you, in the post entrusted to him, prepare for war with the resolve of a man coughing blood. If we fall to them here, both the Yuan clan and the Inspectorate are finished."
"Yes, Your Lordship!"
The resolute answer rang until it seemed the hall itself might shake. Hearing it, Yuan Shao added a few further administrative instructions, calm and cold, then slowly rose from his seat.
It was the signal that the council was done. Because this was the first meeting, he had touched only what mattered, and it had not run long.
And it was then.
"Your Lordship! This humble officer dares a word!"
Yuan Tan stepped one pace forward and, in a ringing voice, roughly caught Yuan Shao's departure.
"Speak."
Yuan Shao paused, then sat once more upon the high seat and looked down at Yuan Tan with a dignified face.
"We must take the measure of the deep grievance of the Minister of the Imperial Clan, unjustly slaughtered by the traitor Dong Zhuo's vicious blade, and hasten to mend the severing of his bloodline. So that he may close his eyes in peace even in the Nine Springs, the matter of a lineage adoption to continue his house must be weighed at once, and without delay!"
Yuan Shao's brow drew in, ever so slightly.
"That matter will be discussed later. For now it is burden enough to steady the Inspectorate, and even to think of Liaodong and the Youbeiping Command."
"It is not so! Firming the roots of the house is precisely the grave affair that must be brought to a clear end, and soonest of all!"
On any other day, Yuan Tan would have tucked his tail beneath his father's pressure. Today he did not yield an inch.
In the middle of this solemn hall, with dozens of civil and military officials watching, the eldest son dared to cross his will.
A deep puzzlement flickered through Yuan Shao's eyes. Then that gaze turned cold as thin ice.
"...Go on, then."
His voice dropped low, like a beast's growl.
Yuan Tan understood that his father's mood had soured. Even so, he swallowed against a dry throat and raised his voice.
"All the way from Suanzao back to Ye, I thought of nothing but the unshaken prosperity of the Yuan clan. In particular, continuing the Minister's broken line is, I believe, a grave matter, bound directly to the unity and flourishing of the house..."
"The preamble runs far too long. Come to the point."
At the chill that locked into Yuan Shao's tone, Yuan Tan clenched his fist inside his sleeve and set his teeth.
Jealousy and a sense of wrong whirled in his chest.
Damn it. If I had received even half the blind favor Shang enjoys—no, even a third of it, whole and mine—then I, the eldest son, would not be thrashing so wretchedly before all these officials!
He stared straight into the cold gaze Yuan Shao turned down on him, and let the venom he had nursed fall, each word distinct and hard.
"Expel Mai from the main house, and at once enter him as the adopted son of the Minister who died unjustly!"
At that outrageous demand, the officials in the administrative hall—until then silent as a dead mouse—reeled, and a low murmur stirred among them. On the high seat, the sharp corners of Yuan Shao's eyes swept upward, fierce with anger and astonishment, and his tightly closed lips twitched with displeasure.
Power was not a thing to be shared, not even between father and son. Yuan Shao believed that here and now, Yuan Tan was challenging his authority.