Guo Jia
After the council in the administrative hall had ended, Guo Tu's back was soaked through with cold sweat.
He could feel it — a grave political threat already at his throat, its edge pressed sharp against the skin.
I cannot sit idle and wait to be ruined. Colonel Yuan's meager vessel is no match for that brilliant Third Young Master. If the board stays fixed as it is and time simply runs on, then no matter how splendid the merits Colonel Yuan wins in the field, in the end it will be that cunning boy who takes the victory. Colonel Yuan's sense for politics is far too poor.
All the long way back to his office, Guo Tu wracked his mind for some scheme that might overturn the board, and still no keen solution would come. Then Xin Ping, walking some distance ahead, snagged on his sharp gaze — and in the same instant, a perfect plan struck him.
Xin Ping was, together with Guo Tu, one of Yuan Tan's closest men, someone with whom he could speak plainly.
"Registrar Xin. How did you find today's council?"
Guo Tu drew quietly up beside him to ask, and Xin Ping shook his head, the astonishment still not gone from his face.
"I saw it with both eyes and heard it with both ears, and still I cannot believe it. He is only thirteen — how does he pour out judgment like that? And that composure, setting forth his views in the very heart of that suffocating hall, with seasoned and outstanding officials ranked all around him... The pressure must have been past imagining. How was he so unmoved?"
Xin Ping shook his head as if the spirit had gone clean out of him. To drive one's opinion through without so much as a tremor, under the gaze of scores of civil and military officials, was no easy thing even for veteran ministers who had weathered every storm.
"It seems to me... we seized a rotten lifeline from the very beginning, and lined up on the wrong side..."
"Put away that weak, pathetic talk!"
Guo Tu cut the faltering words off midway, his voice cold as a sheet of ice.
"If we wag our tails and run to the Third Young Master now, do you imagine he will take us in with open arms? We are already in the same boat as Colonel Yuan. Ought we not live, and share the wealth and glory together?"
"......"
"I have a plan. We will do it this way."
"What way...?"
Xin Ping looked at him with uneasy eyes. There was a snake's glint in Guo Tu's gaze, and he was certain some cruel and dangerous scheme was about to come out of that mouth.
"Once the warm spring wind begins to blow, those Heishan Bandits, starved all through the winter, will crawl down out of the mountains and run mad."
"That much is so. The grain laid up in their mountain forts will have run out. Even then, spring bandits are nothing but small bands, raiding here and there to fill empty bellies. The season when they mass in force and come down like starving beasts is the sixth and seventh months, when the barley yellows across the plains."
"Then what if we gave the suppression of those small spring raids to the Third Young Master?"
"That would be fastening wings to a tiger's back. A mere handful of bandits — let him take fierce generals like Wen Chong and Zhao Yun, who are his own arms and legs, and he will scatter them in a breath and send up a report of victory."
"Bring your ear closer."
Guo Tu swept the surroundings with a cold look, then set his mouth right against Xin Ping's ear and whispered a dreadful plan in secret.
"......!"
As he listened, Xin Ping's eyes flew wide as if they might split, and he lurched backward from Guo Tu in a startled retreat.
"H-have you lost your mind? This is madness! If even a shred of this scheme reaches our lord's ears, we will not have bones left to gather — we will be cut to pieces! Have you not seen with your own two eyes how fiercely our lord cherishes that young Third Young Master and wraps him in his protection?"
"No one will know. I will see it done so quietly that neither rat nor bird catches wind. Listen well. If the Third Young Master seizes the summit of power like this and Colonel Yuan is driven to the cliff's edge, our necks will fly as well, or we will be driven miserably back to our home villages. That is what it means to lose a struggle for power."
"Even so... this is too dreadful, too dangerous..."
"Fold away your useless worries. Wen Chong and Zhao Yun, peerless as they are, will be guarding his side, so the Third Young Master's life will not be cut short. We will merely use this chance to break his soaring momentum to pieces and plant terror deep in his bones. Once he understands how frightening a battlefield is, he will be seized by fear, tuck his own tail, and restrain himself. Only then does a road open for our Colonel Yuan to climb."
Xin Ping, with no rebuttal left to him, pressed his trembling lips shut and gave a heavy nod. It terrified him, and yet he too desired, more desperately than anyone, that Yuan Tan should rise to the summit of power in the Jizhou inspectorate. And so he squeezed his eyes shut and consented to Guo Tu's cruel gamble.
"Whatever else may come, the great war with the Youbeiping command has become a fate we cannot escape, so it is only natural that a fierce commander like Colonel Yuan should stand in the vanguard and win overwhelming merit."
"Hah... So your true aim, Lord Guo, is to shatter the Third Young Master's momentum completely in this suppression and plant fear in him — and then, when war later breaks out with the Youbeiping command, to cut off at the root any chance of his even daring to take the field. If he wins no merit, Colonel Yuan will naturally rise above him."
"Precisely. The Third Young Master is only thirteen. At that tender age, how could he step onto a battlefield reeking of blood? A dog passing in the street would laugh. It is enough that he study his texts diligently in the safety of Ye and learn the work of administration. Our lord, too, lest the boy he cherishes come to harm, will wrap him up tight and leave him quietly here in Ye alone."
"Truly... a scheme that chills the spine."
Xin Ping nodded, forcing his unease down. If Yuan Shang took no hurt in the flesh and merely came fleeing back to Ye, cowed by wretched defeat and terror, it would be a perfect picture in which everything fell out as they wished. But a battlefield was a place where blind blades and spears flew, and the variables too difficult to control were past counting. He was madly afraid that Yuan Shang might be gravely wounded — or truly lose his life.
"Remember this. No matter what happens, the Third Young Master must not die, nor take a wound from which he cannot recover. If that comes to pass, our lord's fierce wrath may fall upon us. I wish to enjoy wealth and glory. I have no desire to die so emptily."
"Do not worry. I will arrange it with the utmost care. The Third Young Master will not be harmed."
Guo Tu smiled a cold, unburdened smile, like a man who had just had an aching tooth drawn, and turned his steps toward his own office. Xin Ping stared blankly for a while at that upright back receding into the dark, then shook his head, his face gone pale.
"Hah... I only hope this does not become some dreadful accident that cannot be undone."
He forced his heavy feet into motion and made for his own office.
Early in the second month.
Cutting through a bitter winter wind sharp enough to flay the skin, Guo Jia — the rare talent born of Yingchuan Commandery — at last arrived at Ye, the heart of Hebei. He had thrown on a heavy outer robe, yet he hunched deep into it, as if the cold of Ye were something to which he simply could not grow accustomed. As he drew near the city gate he straightened his back upon the horse. Fine silk showed between the folds of the robe, and the attendants following behind lifted his dignity; above all, the keen gleam of his eyes flashing through hair slightly tousled by the wind dominated the air around him.
"So this... is Ye."
Guo Jia looked up at the vast walls rising in grandeur and let a low breath of admiration escape him. Their majesty would not fall short even set beside ancient imperial capitals such as Luoyang or Chang'an. The ostentatious splendor on the surface might be less, but in sheer immense and imposing scale they outstripped even Chenliu, Wan, and Qiao, those places men called great counties.
"I am Guo Jia, come from Yangdi County in Yingchuan Commandery."
He declared his identity to the guard atop the gate. The guard's eyes widened as he looked Guo Jia and his attendants over, and he hurriedly sent a man inside the walls. Before long an official in neat robes and light armor came running at speed. Watching that swift response, Guo Jia's eyes narrowed, and surprise passed through them.
Have they already taken control of the gates? This is beyond what I expected. What was I even doing, at Yuan Shang's age?
He drew a breath and tried to hide his discomposure. Gatekeeper Shen Rong, having steadied his rough breathing, offered a courteous salute with an unperturbed bearing, and Guo Jia returned the courtesy with equal politeness.
"May I ask your courtesy name?"
"It is Fengxiao."
"Please come inside. Sima Yuan is waiting. I will attach a guide; you need only follow."
"Thank you."
Guo Jia followed the guide a few steps, then stopped short before Shen Rong. He suddenly wished to test the man, and he whispered in a voice only Shen Rong could hear.
"I hear Gatekeeper Shen is of the Shen clan, a great house famed throughout Jizhou. And yet — are you not excessively devoted to Sima Yuan?"
In that instant Shen Rong's upright face hardened cold. Guo Jia expected, inwardly, to see him blaze up in anger; or if not anger, then at least to bare what lay within. He wanted, through Shen Rong, to grasp Yuan Shang's true nature. From what he had already learned through Guo Tu, Shen Rong's uncle Shen Pei was a hot-blooded man of high pride and an unbending character, and a nephew of such a man ought to resemble him in a great many ways. But Shen Rong showed him anger cooled and swallowed cold. It was truly the bearing of a son of a great house, and Guo Jia found himself nodding before he knew it.
"Sima Yuan is waiting. Do not delay. Please go in."
"I understand."
Guo Jia offered a courteous salute and made for Yuan Shang's residence. He could have provoked the man further, but that would have been an insult to Shen Rong.
Truly astonishing. Just now I clearly saw anger boiling up, and yet he swallowed that fiery pride. Plain proof that Yuan Shang has perfectly captured the heart of a man as upright as Shen Rong. What in the world...
He could not restrain his inward shock and admiration. To win a person's heart — the true heart of a proud scholar-official, at that — was a very hard thing, and Yuan Shang had done it. Of course the vast backing of the Yuan clan, greatest of the great houses, must have played its part; but when one considered the label of third son rather than eldest, there was nothing to say but that it was remarkable. And was the man not of the blood of the Shen clan, a great house of Jizhou?
I cannot tell. Just how extraordinary is he? Even I, Guo Jia, called a genius, could not manage this at that age.
Just as his mind was seething with complicated curiosity, he caught sight of a small figure standing before a door some distance off.
He has grown.
The boy was far taller than when he had seen him in Luoyang the year before. Having confirmed who it was, Fengxiao let out a disbelieving snort of laughter.
"Elder brother!"
"We have brushed sleeves all of once in our lives, and that is the whole of it. Does 'elder brother' come off your tongue so easily?"
Guo Jia came forward with his robe fluttering, then quietly bent so his eyes met the child's.
"You have shot up since I saw you. Far taller than others your age."
"You have had a hard journey. You are truly welcome."
"I have decided nothing yet, so a premature expectation would be a mistake."
"You need only remain at your ease in Ye, and stand at my side to correct me sharply, so that I, lacking as I am, may walk the proper road."
"Hahahaha!"
Guo Jia threw his head back and burst into laughter, then answered him playfully.
"You know full well how this foolish brother of yours has lived, don't you? I can't even keep my own affairs in order, sunk in women and wine — what sort of correction is that? It may be that you'll have to teach me."
As if that could be so. Guo Jia lived mocking the world, but I knew precisely that he was a man of heaven-sent talent. If he were not, would I have gone to such pains, sending a carefully written letter to bring him here? In the memories of my past life, Cao Cao had appraised him thus: Guo Jia would help him accomplish the great work he harbored.
"I do not find that joke amusing."
"It isn't a joke. These days even the rites are growing hazy to me."
"Then if we debate the teachings of the sages and the state of the realm here, your memory will return. After that, give me your instruction. I know full well that you are a talent of the realm."
"A little old man."
A little old man. For this fellow to say something so cutting — and yet, when I thought on it, he was not wrong.
"Will you tell me why this foolish brother ought to remain in Ye? Specifically."
Guo Jia's expression grew grave as it could be. I wiped clean from my mind every polite inducement I had prepared until now. The genius before my eyes was urging me to show him my true face. If that face disappointed him, he would leave; if it exceeded what he expected, he would remain in Ye. I let the gentleness I had feigned fall away, and resolved to lay bare, down to the bottom, the true intent hidden deep in my bones. I could not rashly be certain this was the right move, but I thought it the best one, and so I resolved to stake the match upon it. It sprang from a desperation: to win the realm, I first had to make Guo Jia my own man.
At that weighty declaration, Guo Jia's eyes flashed for an instant, sharp as a drawn sword. He could not have expected it.
"My eldest brother has been cast out of the line and made our uncle's adopted son, and my second brother has no ambition. Will you help me?"
"Those are words that could bring disaster down on you. Absolute master of Hebei. I wonder if you are not dreaming too large a dream."
"I have already grown fearsome enough to push my eldest brother — a thorn in the eye — out of the succession. Of course I believe that when you were my age, elder brother, you were more brilliant than I am now. But I dare say with certainty that you, at thirteen, did not have the eye I have now: the eye to see through the state of the realm and set the board."
"...That I will grant you. Experience is something one learns by living, not something one comes into the world clutching. That is why you are strange, and remarkable."
"But I have already overcome even that gap in experience, completely. If I have proven ambition and insight of this degree... is that not qualification enough to bind a rare talent of the realm like you to my side?"
"Then that Gatekeeper Shen I met just now — he has become your man as well? It seems a fair number of the officials in the Jizhou inspectorate mean to follow you too. Am I wrong?"
Guo Jia poured the questions out like a storm. That, in itself, was proof of how startled he was.
"Yes. That is so. For one who dreams of being absolute master of Hebei, gathering men of my own is nothing more than the natural order, is it not?"
"Hah. Well, now."
Guo Jia gave a hollow laugh, clasped his hands behind his back, and quietly looked up at the cloudy winter sky. I could feel tens of thousands of gains and losses colliding furiously inside his head. I pretended at calm and swallowed dryly, hoping this provocative choice of mine had been the right one, wishing with all my heart that he would not leave me. One thing was certain: I had shaken that genius's arrogant heart, if only a little.
After a long silence, Guo Jia slowly lowered his head and gazed deep into me.
"My mind is not settled yet. When I think of your age... no. That was a foolish thing to say. For the time being, I wish to remain and watch. And show me ability I can be sure of — so that I cannot think of anything else."
"I am truly grateful, elder brother!"
Permission, of a sort, had fallen halfway. I could not contain my joy, and I threw my arms around him.
"Thank you. Truly, thank you."
Startled by the warmth of me in his arms, Guo Jia held both arms awkwardly aloft with a troubled look, then smiled a warm smile.
Does he want this Guo Jia so desperately? What in me did he look at so closely? All we did was meet once in Luoyang. He has changed so much I hardly know where I am.
I laughed brightly and lifted my head.
"From now on, I will take perfect charge of your life, elder brother, and attend you."
"Hm."
"Please, come inside."
When I seized his hand and pulled, Guo Jia let himself be drawn in, pretending he could not win. Until now he had lived disappointed in an age of chaos, deceiving the world with wine and women. But he thought that now, that would have to change.
Much of this bewilders me, but one thing is certain. Yuan Shang was born clutching something tight in both hands — something I do not have, nor does anyone else. I do not know what it is, but it will shake this age of chaos.
In Guo Jia's heart, surprise and fear and a thrill existed side by side. Steadying a chaotic age together with Yuan Shang, he thought, might be rather enjoyable at that.