Yuan Shao's Torment
The great matter had slipped from my grasp, and I was an ordinary eleven-year-old boy again.
By day I studied the classics, and in the pauses between lessons I pored over the secret book I had tucked among the volumes. It was a record I had set down before the memories of my past life could blur, crowded with the great events and figures of the Three Kingdoms. This was the treasure map that would one day make me master of all under heaven.
I'm still too young to do much of anything. It chafes.
I set down my brush and stretched. From a corner of the room came the sound of someone reading. Wen Chong.
A man the size of a mountain, crouched over a slender bamboo slip—the sight sat awkwardly on him. More time would have to pass before a proper posture came of it.
"Oh? You can manage a four-character idiom now?"
"Ah—young master! No. My lord."
Wen Chong started and straightened where he sat. His eyes had certainly changed. Once they had flashed with nothing but a beast's killing intent; now a cold composure showed through as well. And this, after only a few days. I could see, just barely, the makings of another Lü Meng.
"My lord's grace is carved into my bones. I shall never forget it."
"Haha. You even sound the part. Who would take you for a mere bodyguard now?"
At the praise, Wen Chong scratched his head, abashed. I let the smile fall and grew serious.
"Huicheng."
"Yes."
When I called the courtesy name I had given him, he set himself straight.
"If my reading is right, the world turns upside down within two years. When that time comes, I will need your strength."
"Two years?"
"Yes. So until then, win my father's heart."
"You mean the Middle Colonel?"
"Right now you are my bodyguard, and that alone is not enough. Catch my father's eye and become a general in earnest. Only then can you hold military authority. You can't spend your whole life as a guard, can you?"
He had to become General Wen Chong, not Bodyguard Wen Chong. Only then would he be my strength at the decisive moment.
Understanding me, Wen Chong's eyes blazed with resolve.
"I will remember. I swear I will become my lord's keenest spear."
"I trust you, Huicheng."
It steadied me. Watching his back as he drove himself at his studies deep into the night, I smiled, well pleased. Wen Chong was no longer that illiterate Wen Chou of history.
When I saw his gaze return to the book of bamboo slips, I slipped quietly from the room.
The night air was cold. My steps as I paced the courtyard looked idle enough, but inside I was burning.
His Majesty ought to be dying about now...
Suspicion surged that some grave matter was being kept hidden. Why was it so quiet? They say the sea lies calmest before the storm. This was precisely that.
I clasped my hands behind my back to shake the thoughts loose, and from beyond the wall came the sound of hurried feet. A chill ran down my spine on instinct.
At last.
It was Father.
He looked as though he wore a mask. He seemed on the verge of bursting into laughter, and yet he was pale as a man who had seen a ghost. I knew at once. It had broken. My prediction had struck true.
"Shang'er."
His voice trembled, ever so slightly. I bowed my head with all due courtesy.
"You have come, Father."
"Come inside. There is something I must say."
He strode into the room and took the seat of honor. I sat opposite. He wasted no time on preamble.
"His Majesty has passed away."
I could not make a sound.
"And Supreme Colonel Jian Shuo was caught trying to attack the General-in-Chief's Manor. He is in the underground prison even now. The General-in-Chief struck first."
Father poured the news out like a volley of arrows, watching my face with relentless attention.
"And yet... you are not surprised in the least."
A slip.
I had expected this, and I had been careless with my face. I widened my eyes, feigning shock.
"It is all so immense... it doesn't feel real. Your son is only eleven."
"Is that so? Then tell me. Which of the two surprises you more?"
Father leaned forward, just a little. It was no simple question. This was a test. Would I remain the adorable youngest son of eleven, or be acknowledged as someone with whom grave matters could be discussed? I let a moment pass, meeting his eyes. Playing the child would no longer suffice.
"The General-in-Chief."
"The General-in-Chief? Why?"
"Yes. His Majesty's death is the will of Heaven, and Jian Shuo's revolt is a rat's dying thrash. Neither surprises me."
I swallowed once, then drove at the heart of it.
Father's eyes flew wide, then narrowed. Slowly he leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath. It was an answer that pierced not the emperor's death or the revolt itself, but the nature of a man, and the change in him. It must have been the answer he had wanted.
"Hah. Well, now..."
He gave a hollow laugh and stared at me. There was no longer any warmth in that gaze for a darling youngest son. What lay there instead was wonder, and a hunger—the look of a man who had found a son worth using, a son who might even be frightening, a son with whom he could take counsel and to whom he might entrust the future.
"Astonishing. You are my own son, and still you astonish me."
He rose, smiling brightly. His mouth smiled, but his eyes stayed sharp.
"Yes. Study hard. The night is late."
"Go safely, Father."
I watched the door he had shut behind him and clenched my fist. The exchange had been brief, but the result was certain. From now on he would seek me out at every crucial moment, and he would listen to my counsel.
This is only the beginning.
The moment Yuan Shao returned to his room, he summoned Yuan Tan and Yuan Xi. The thrill of his talk with his youngest had not yet faded. He looked over the two grown sons standing before him—lads built like mountains, the shadow of new mustaches already darkening their lips. What, he wondered, was actually inside those heads?
"What do you two think?"
He offered no account of what had come before. He simply asked their opinion of the crisis just unfolded: the emperor's death, and Jian Shuo's arrest.
His eldest, Yuan Tan, stepped forward as if he had been waiting, chest thrown out.
"That eunuch Jian Shuo is utterly detestable! How dare he try to raise a rebellion. Drag him out to the marketplace this instant, cut off his head, and hang it high! Only then will the realm fall quiet. In any case, the General-in-Chief must take the lead now and steady the empire."
His voice boomed. His spirit ran high. Inwardly, Yuan Shao clicked his tongue.
The right answer. And yet why is it so stifling? Why can't my eldest think as the youngest does?
Yuan Tan knew only how to swing a blade. He did not know from where the blade was coming. Yuan Shao's gaze shifted to his second son.
"Xianhe. And you?"
"Since you lead the Qingliu faction, Father, I believe our first duty is to join our strength with the General-in-Chief, serve His Majesty faithfully, and steady the realm."
Yuan Xi watched his father's face and recited something out of a textbook. It was not wrong. It was as bland as plain water. Yuan Shao pressed hard at his temple. That keen flavor he had tasted in his youngest was nowhere in these two.
"Enough. You may withdraw."
He waved them off.
"Ah. And Xiansi."
"Yes, Father."
"This is a state mourning. If I catch you drinking and whoring, I will not let it pass. Conduct yourself properly."
"I will bear it in mind."
Yuan Tan flinched and drew his neck in. When the two sons had shuffled out, silence returned to the room. Yuan Shao sank into the deep back of his chair and closed his eyes.
Fools. They only bark at what they can see.
Yuan Tan and Yuan Xi had seen only the result—that Jian Shuo was a villain. That was not the heart of it. As the youngest had pointed out, one had to look at how that indecisive He Jin had moved with the speed of lightning. Yuan Shao had pressed strong counsel upon He Jin, and still he had not expected the man to move so suddenly.
He Jin has changed. Or someone shoved him from behind. I must watch whether this was a single stroke or a change that will last. Only then can I lay my plans.
He Jin was a man who had climbed to that seat with the help of the Ten Attendants. And that same man had struck Jian Shuo as if cutting off his own limbs? This was no mere matter of seizing military authority. It was a sign that the board of power was being laid out anew.
"Haa..."
Yuan Shao let the sigh go long. His head throbbed. The situation was tangling into ever greater complexity, and there was no one he could trust to carry it. No. There was exactly one.
And he is only eleven.
A bitter smile touched his lips. If only he could set Yuan Shang's mind atop Yuan Tan's frame, settling this chaotic realm would be no great labor at all. Heaven had granted the Yuan clan a genius—so why had it scrambled the order of their birth?
Perhaps... the order does not matter after all.
Gazing at the guttering candle, Yuan Shao began to turn over a thought both dangerous and alluring.
The court proclaimed that the emperor had passed away. The day was the third of the sixth month.
The late emperor—Emperor Ling—had in truth died on the thirteenth of the fifth month. Supreme Colonel Jian Shuo had concealed the death and moved to destroy General-in-Chief He Jin, only to be turned back upon and stripped of his command. Afterward He Jin took counsel with the generals under him, with the Qingliu faction, with his nephew the newly enthroned emperor, and with his younger sister, Empress Dowager He. Only once he had set the foundations of his power beyond doubt did he announce Emperor Ling's death. That, too, was the third of the sixth month.
The imperial throne could not stand empty for so much as an hour. And so Emperor Ling's son, Liu Bian, ascended as emperor.
Yuan Shao's headquarters.
"The Ten Attendants must all be put to death. Men so shrewd in politics as they are will never sit still."
Guo Tu opened the assault, and Xu You spoke in support.
"The Ten Attendants are posted within arm's reach of His Majesty. If they go whispering their sly counsels into his ear, he is very likely to distance himself from our Qingliu faction and draw near the Ten Attendants and the Turbid Stream faction. Should the Turbid Stream and the Ten Attendants then join hands, dismiss the General-in-Chief, and seize the army, the Qingliu will be suppressed once more—driven from Luoyang, or killed."
Xin Ping, Xin Pi, and Feng Ji followed, all urging in the strongest terms that the Ten Attendants be punished.
Yuan Shao listened with a frown and gave no answer at all. He only drank, now and then. Seeing that he would not show his mind, his strategists gradually fell silent.
"It will not be so simple. Those men are far more cunning than we thought."
A fierce anger broke from him.
"The Lady of Wuyang and the General of Chariots and Cavalry have already colluded with the Ten Attendants."
The Lady of Wuyang was He Jin's mother. The General of Chariots and Cavalry was He Jin's younger brother. The two of them had persuaded Empress Dowager He, and she had set herself clearly against He Jin's proposal to punish the Ten Attendants. Even with the empress dowager opposed—she who ruled from behind the curtain—He Jin could have forced the punishment through, had he pressed hard enough. At the decisive moment he had shown himself indecisive once more.
Fool. When he struck at Jian Shuo I still held out some hope. His limits were plain after all.
Unable to contain his fury, Yuan Shao slammed his fist down on the desk.
At that moment Xu You's eyes glinted, cunning, and he offered a scheme.
"If the General-in-Chief will not resolve himself, then we must create a situation in which Her Majesty the Empress Dowager has no choice but to resolve herself."
"How?"
"Use the Heishan Bandits running rampant through the Taihang Mountains. The Ten Attendants have kept up a policy of appeasement toward them, even recommending their chieftain, Zhang Yan, for General of the Household Who Pacifies Disorder. If the Heishan Bandits were to commit slaughter, plunder, and arson on a great scale near Luoyang, and public opinion turned sharply foul, we could take that as grounds to impeach the Ten Attendants and purge them. Crush the bandits afterward, and the matter is cleanly finished."
"We all know the Heishan Bandits are vicious. But will they commit evils foul enough to sour opinion in Luoyang? They hold the office of General of the Household Who Pacifies Disorder, so they plunder lands far from the capital."
Xin Pi objected at once, calling it absurd.
"Go on."
Yuan Shao knew Xu You had not finished, and he shut Xin Pi's mouth. Xu You smiled a venomous smile and continued.
"It is simple. The Inspector of Bingzhou is of one mind with our Qingliu faction. Send him a letter. Order him to burn the great villages near Luoyang and kill the people in them. Then spread the word that it was the work of the Heishan Bandits."
"Have you gone mad? Such an unthinkable thing!"
Xin Pi flared up at once. Feng Ji and Xin Ping frowned. Then Guo Tu backed Xu You and offered a scheme of his own.
"If the Inspector of Bingzhou comes down at the head of his troops and lingers in Luoyang, it becomes a headache. Better to summon the General of the Front as well. The two powers will check one another, and then the General-in-Chief can step forward, grant them suitable offices and treasure, and send them back to the frontier."
"We must not draw the armies of the frontier into Luoyang. There is no telling what they might do. If they join together and seize power, the chaos will be worse than when the Ten Attendants held it."
The Inspector of Bingzhou was Ding Yuan. The General of the Front was Dong Zhuo. Xin Ping fixed Guo Tu with a fierce glare and rebuked him.
"The one thing the Ten Attendants ever did right was refusing to summon the frontier armies to Luoyang. And now you would have us commit that folly? The General of the Front in particular is a man of extreme wickedness who has defied His Majesty's orders more than once. He cannot be controlled. This must never be carried out."
When Feng Ji joined Xin Ping in rebuking Guo Tu, opinions tangled in an instant and the room grew loud. Yuan Shao quietly raised a hand.
"It is dangerous. Above all, we must not summon the General of the Front. If the situation twists even slightly, the disorder will only grow worse."
Feng Ji moved hastily to dissuade him.
"No. If we are to check the Inspector of Bingzhou, we need the General of the Front as well."
Guo Tu rebutted him at once.
"Enough."
Yuan Shao brought his palm down hard upon the desk.