Where None Can See
The fiercest struggle is the one no one sees.
What a stupid thing to do...!
Guo Tu swallowed a silent groan and squeezed his eyes shut. Before every official gathered in the main hall, the one thing Yuan Tan must never have shown was this impious defiance of Yuan Shao, a man who was sovereign of Jizhou in all but name. It was the worst blunder imaginable.
The water was already spilled, yet a crisis thin as ice could not be left entirely in Yuan Tan's hands. Guo Tu dragged his cold reason up and stepped quickly forward.
"My lord. Colonel Yuan has spent these nights sleepless, thinking of nothing but the brilliant prosperity of the Inspectorate of Jizhou and the safety of the Yuan clan. In his desperation to lighten even a little of your heavy cares, that urgent loyalty and filial devotion simply burst out rougher and more hasty than he meant. It was never disloyalty intended to challenge your august authority."
"......Speak on."
Yuan Shao's icy gaze turned upon Guo Tu. Guo Tu continued his counsel in a voice that was calm, and yet firm.
"This may be a household matter too contentious to debate in the main hall. Even so, Colonel Yuan proposed it as a man coughing blood from the heart, and I beg you to weigh it deeply, just this once. If you will recall that the firm prosperity of the great Yuan house is bound directly to the safety of the entire Inspectorate of Jizhou, then even amid the present crisis this is a grave affair well worth our putting our heads together over."
"Out of the question."
Yuan Shao struck the desk lightly with a rigid palm and sheared through Guo Tu's clever logic at a stroke.
"This is absolutely not a matter for civil and military officials to wrangle over in the main hall. It is a private affair that I myself will settle, by disciplining the house and deciding it strictly in a family council. Guo, of the Commandery Bureau."
"Yes, my lord."
"Henceforth you will refrain from meddling in this matter again, beyond your station."
At Yuan Shao's cold and naked warning, a chill sweat ran down Guo Tu's spine.
"This humble official has committed a truly grave error. I beg your forgiveness. I only entreat that, when the family council comes, you will weigh deeply Colonel Yuan's burning loyalty and filial heart as eldest son, in his wish to serve the house."
Guo Tu bowed his head with scrupulous courtesy and carefully stepped back. To press any further and provoke Yuan Shao would mean nothing but ruin. He drew himself in as if walking on thin ice, and still, to the last, secured a justification for Yuan Tan. It was a bold piece of conduct.
"Colonel Yuan."
"Yes, my lord."
Yuan Tan forced a look of confidence, answered stoutly, and met his father's eyes.
"Do not repeat today's foolish mistake before me a second time. Understand this clearly: one rash act of yours is a smear upon your father's face."
"......I will carve it into my heart."
Yuan Tan bowed his head and acknowledged the order, but a thick, unhidden discontent still rippled across his face. Yuan Shao gave his eldest son's dullness one cold glare, then rose from the seat of honor without a backward glance.
Leaving the main hall, he walked the corridor with only Feng Ji, the Biejia he trusted most, at his side. Once outside he went a long while in silence, taking the cold wind of late autumn full in the face, before tossing out the weight on his mind all at once.
"Colonel Yuan... He is timber far better suited to swinging a spear on a battlefield than to politics."
"Indeed. Colonel Yuan carried out his duties admirably in the camp at Sanzhao County as well."
Unable to read his lord's true mind, Feng Ji answered for the moment in a safe, unobjectionable tone.
"Though I am still in my prime, the truth is that a chronic illness has settled deep in my bones."
"My lord... I beg you to master your inner fire, and not to neglect the decoctions the physicians present. Then your body will mend."
Feng Ji knew the ruin of Yuan Shao's festering flesh better than anyone. In years past, enduring two three-year mournings back to back, the young and robust body of Yuan Shao had withered as swiftly as an old man drained of every drop of vital essence. A three-year mourning was brutal labor. Through cold that froze the marrow and heat that seemed to steam, a man could neither eat nor sleep as he ought, and had to prove a harsh grief with his whole body. The countless scholar-officials of the realm had watched him from hiding, eager to pick a flaw in his filial devotion, so Yuan Shao could not indulge even a hair's breadth of cleverness.
There was a grim old saying: set out to keep a three-year mourning, and you may end by keeping a funeral of your own. Yuan Shao had done it twice in succession. It would have been strange if he had not fallen gravely ill.
"The realm has now entered an age of chaos from which there is no turning back. We can never return to the peaceful days of before."
"So it is, my lord."
"If... I were to collapse without warning, could Colonel Yuan take my place and lead the Inspectorate of Jizhou whole and intact?"
"......If it is Colonel Yuan, I believe he could bear it well enough."
"Is that sincere? Do you truly think so?"
Yuan Shao stopped dead and looked at Feng Ji with eyes gone cold. A shiver shot up Feng Ji's spine. In extreme tension he swallowed dryly. Meeting that gaze, he knew that any hasty counsel in Yuan Tan's defense now would be a disaster.
"I ask again. Is it truly sincere?"
When Yuan Shao pressed him once more, heavy as a weight, Feng Ji hastily turned his words and adjusted their pitch by a hair.
"His spirit as a fighting man is excellent... but to fill out the political judgment needed to steer the board of this grim age of chaos, he will need more study, I fear."
"Study. Yes, he ought to study. But he is past the age of the cap, and still we are talking of study. What am I to do with that? The times grow more savage and more vicious by the day! That boy Cao Ang is already..."
Yuan Shao recalled Cao Cao's eldest son, Cao Ang, whom he had seen in the camp at Sanzhao County, and irritably knit his brow. At eighteen the boy had followed his father onto that battlefield. Yuan Shao had had no spare strength to look after Cao Ang as well. But the idle stretch in camp had grown long, and as he deepened his bond with Cao Cao he had shared a single cup of wine, and a single conversation, with the son.
The boy had not seemed as chillingly brilliant as his father, Mengde. Even so, he was clearly clever timber, fit one day to succeed Mengde and command a faction. And my son Tan—what is he, beside that? If he is of my blood, he ought to show more talent for the politics of governing Jizhou than for a general's skill with spear and blade. How is it that he grows older and still tears about so recklessly?
A long sigh, shot through with bitter disappointment, slipped from Yuan Shao's lips.
He himself had originally meant to protect the legitimacy of his eldest legitimate son, Yuan Tan, by expelling Yuan Mai, born of a concubine, and entering him by lineage adoption into Yuan Ji's line. It would be so only on the household register. Yuan Mai would still live in Ye. But today, faced with the disappointing political level of a Yuan Tan who could not tell right from wrong, his mind set the boy beside the brilliance of Yuan Shang. At that, Yuan Shao's cold heart began to pound, wild and beyond his control.
Suddenly there rose in his thoughts the wretched end of Duke Huan of Qi in the Spring and Autumn era: his sons had waged a bloody civil war over the succession until their father starved to death. There was also the tragedy of King Wuling of Zhao, starved hideously while shut in his palace amid the power struggle of his two sons. The reek of blood from the Shaqiu Incident seemed to linger at the tip of his nose.
This cannot be left half-done. The day my strength fails, foolish Tan and brilliant Shang will tear at each other's throats over Jizhou, and the Inspectorate will be split in two and burned to ash. While I still live, I must put out this spark completely with my own hands. Otherwise some other man will take Jizhou from us.
Yuan Shao clenched his chilled fist tight as stone. Alarm bells rang loud in his head. Yuan Tan's clumsy, hasty blunder—provoking his father merely to cling to some paltry place—had come back as a fatal poisoned move that drove the eldest son to the edge of a cliff.
Yuan Shao walked on slowly, and Feng Ji followed in silence. Then Yuan Shao revealed his mind in a low voice, and Feng Ji listened, and took it to heart.
Returned to his office, Feng Ji sent men to summon Xu You, the Chizhong, and Ju Shou, Chief Military Supervisor. A short while later the second and third men of the Inspectorate's civil order, and the second man of its military order, were gathered in one place. Setting aside Yuan Shao, Inspector of Jizhou, it was a secret meeting of the highest powers who truly held Jizhou in their grip.
"Our lord is thoroughly disappointed in Colonel Yuan. From the way he lamented, even invoking Grand Administrator Cao's eldest son, Cao Ang, one can well guess how deep that disappointment runs."
Feng Ji opened in a heavy tone and set the mood. Xu You, lounging askew in his seat, clicked his tongue.
"Tsk, tsk."
Ju Shou, who had been quietly turning his teacup, spoke in a cautious, weighty voice.
"Did our lord give any clear direction on the matter of the lineage adoption?"
When Feng Ji shook his head without a word, Ju Shou stated his position with calm.
"Then it is not right for us, his subjects, to raise the matter first. Continuing a house's line is wholly for our lord to decide through a family council. If later he asks our views first, it will be enough to answer then, after careful thought."
It was the prudent attitude characteristic of Ju Shou, who drew a strict line between public duty and private affairs. At this Xu You rolled his eyes, stole a glance at Feng Ji, and sneered with a sly smile at the corner of his mouth.
"Colonel Yuan's luck is rotten, that's all. Nothing he touches works out. And whose fault is that, if not the brilliant third young master's?"
"Xu, the Chizhong! Watch your tongue, I beg you. There are many eyes watching, and many ears listening!"
Feng Ji stopped him in alarm, but Xu You paid no heed and let out a frivolous laugh.
"Well, when your luck's out, you fall flat on your back and still smash your nose. Am I wrong?"
"Enough! Can you not shut that flippant mouth?"
Only after Feng Ji flushed and roared did Xu You shrug and, infuriatingly, clamp his lips shut. Ju Shou, who had watched the two of them bicker in silence, quietly cut in and cleared the air.
"I suspect the Biejia did not summon us merely to unburden himself."
Feng Ji cleared his rough breath with a dry cough and brought out the true business.
"Our lord... intends, from the beginning of next year, to seat the third young master formally in the meetings of the main hall. As you both well know, there is no room to doubt that young man's brilliant talent and keen insight."
"The talent, truly, is more than enough. The trouble is only his youth. Next year he'll be barely thirteen."
Ignoring Xu You's grumbling, Feng Ji drove the point home.
"Our lord says he will bestow upon the third young master the grave office of Acting Sima."
"Acting Sima..."
"An early debut is problem enough, but for a first office in a lifetime, it is far too exceptional, and far too high."
Thick unease burst from Xu You and Ju Shou at once. A heavy silence wrapped the room, and Ju Shou spoke first.
"To my mind, if the third young master is suddenly named Acting Sima and sets foot in the main hall, the Inspectorate of Jizhou will be turned upside down. In particular, the many officials who follow Colonel Yuan will rise as one in protest, and our lord's position will become exceedingly awkward. This is clearly overreaching. Ah—if only the third young master's years were not so few."
Somehow this clash had to be tuned gently, before it exploded.
"It is precisely to prevent that uproar that I have asked for the wisdom of you two. What is your thought, Ziyuan?"
Feng Ji pressed his fingers to the space between his brows as if his head ached, and looked at Xu You. The man's mouth was light as a feather, and frivolous besides, but when it came to producing a dazzling scheme to unravel a tangled skein, no one in Jizhou could match him.
Xu You, lost in thought as he twisted his beard, opened his mouth with a glint in his eye.
"First, our lord must tie off that troublesome matter of the lineage adoption. If he suddenly sends young master Mai out as an adopted son, next year's main hall will be loud as a fire, with Colonel Yuan's faction rioting to block the third young master's debut. But... if we enter Colonel Yuan as the adopted son of Grand Coachman Yuan Ji, there is a brilliant device that can set this whole snarled situation to rights at a stroke."
In that instant Ju Shou seemed to read at once the uncomfortable intent of the move Xu You had thrown down, and the tail of his eye trembled faintly. He had no wish, however, to step to the front of a problem belonging to the Yuan clan, so he kept his prudence and held his tongue. Taking that silence as a foothold, Xu You poured out his scheme as if delighted.
"Even if Colonel Yuan is entered as his uncle's adopted son, it isn't as though he'll be driven out of Ye. He'll remain in the city, and he must assist our lord. So we enter him by adoption and, in name, drop him from the line of succession, while strictly guaranteeing the military authority and rank he holds now, and soothing him with that. And as the price of that sweet compromise, we seat the third young master as Acting Sima and fold him naturally into the meetings of the main hall. Then they won't resist."
Feng Ji slapped his knee.
"Ah! You mean we should strike a secret political bargain with Director Guo, who serves as Colonel Yuan's strategist!"
"Exactly!"
Xu You clapped his hands with frivolous delight.
"In any case, Colonel Yuan's being pushed out by adoption has already become an irreversible tide. So coax Director Guo gently, along these lines: 'We'll persuade our lord well, and somehow we'll be sure to protect the Colonel's real power and rank. So look to the future, and keep your mouth shut about the third young master's debut this time.' That man's insides are black, and he's very sharp. He'll finish the reckoning of gain and loss in a moment and understand."
"And if Colonel Yuan, blinded by the injustice, refuses?"
"Hmph!"
Xu You snorted.
"Have you already forgotten the sight of him in the main hall just now, defying our lord in ignorance with that dull head and being humiliated to the bone? What's a fool like that going to do by refusing?"
"Hey! I told you to watch that mouth!"
"Anyway, sharp Director Guo will coax Colonel Yuan himself and see that he receives our lord's will. Smash the board and refuse here, and even the paltry chance and rank they have left will be stripped away entirely. There's no way that viper Guo fails to read a situation I grasped at a glance."
Xu You closed his mouth with a light expression, as if he had spilled all he had to say. Under the cascade of that clever counsel, Feng Ji quietly turned his gaze to Ju Shou, seated beside him.
"What is the Military Supervisor's esteemed view?"
Ju Shou hid his inner thoughts, let out a short sigh, and agreed with weight.
"I, too, judge the Chizhong's keen assessment to be correct. Our lord has surely already hardened his resolve in his heart, and we have not the strength to turn so vast a current. Then is it not the proper duty of us, his subjects, to tune the matter gently so that Jizhou is not thrown into uproar, and so tie off this difficulty?"
The moment Ju Shou calmly agreed, Xu You rose from his seat without lingering.
"Well, the tiresome aligning of opinions is roughly done. Now the Biejia may take responsibility, sound our lord's mind once more, and coax that viper Guo properly. I'm busy, so I'll be going."
Xu You flicked his sleeves infuriatingly and sauntered out of the room. Soon Ju Shou, too, quietly rose.
"For tuning two factions and mediating on a knife's edge, I think the skilled Biejia is the right man. I leave it in your hands."
"I understand. But, Military Supervisor—war with the command of the Dudu of Youbeiping may break out next year, so keep the troops in firm order. The situation is very heavy, and grave."
"I will bear it in mind."
Ju Shou knew Gongsun Zan's danger well. When he had paid his courtesies and withdrawn, Feng Ji, left alone in the empty office, let out a long, heavy sigh, as if the ground itself were sinking.
Damn it... I truly did not want this charge. Do it well, and praise will still be hard to come by. Do it badly, and I will make enemies on every side.
He had never wished to set foot in the Yuan clan's struggle for power. But fate was shoving him, the man with the most delicate gift for tuning, mercilessly into the middle of a political tightrope.