Negotiating with an Open Heart
The moment Guo Daxian returned, Sui Gu, Zuo Xu, and Yan Bai crowded in around him. Sui Gu shot the other two a savage look that warned them to keep their mouths shut, then put his question to Guo Daxian.
"Where's Chief Sun?"
"He's fallen into Sima Yuan's hands."
"How?"
"How should I know? Most likely they struck by surprise and took Qingxue Peak."
Guo Daxian answered with a bitter face. He had been uneasy from the moment a man who commanded thirty thousand climbed the mountain with only a few dozen guards at his back.
"Then we take up arms and fight, right now!"
"I'll cut Yuan Shang's throat myself!"
Zuo Xu and Yan Bai flared and shouted, but Sui Gu, to their surprise, only rolled his eyes, cold as stone. He silenced them with a glance and asked Guo Daxian again.
"What does Sima Yuan say?"
"He gave me this. I read it on the way..."
"Explain it. Keep it short."
"He'll grant us farmland and have us live as decent subjects. We pay the tax and serve our turn at military duty."
"Hah. We turned bandit because we were sick of being stripped bare and left to starve, and he wants us to go back to that?"
"Sima Yuan says he'll take only half the harvest, and that he'll stop the great clans and the rest from bleeding us dry."
"And how are we supposed to believe that?"
Zuo Xu barked it.
"Think of it as agricultural colonies. And we get a letter in Sima Yuan's own hand. Men like him live and die by reputation and face, so a broken promise doesn't come easy. When a parent dies, there are people who watch to see whether the son mourns correctly. One small slip, and they put out a vicious rumor to shame him. So if he writes it himself, he won't go back on it."
"Madmen, the lot of them."
"Tell me about it. All that time, and they'd be better off reading one more line of a book."
Yan Bai and Zuo Xu clicked their tongues at the ways of the scholar-gentry and the great clans, and at the same time the thought that a personal letter would be enough set them somewhat at ease. Sui Gu, though, did not loosen his hard expression. He asked again.
"Plenty of the men under me are too savage to go back to farming."
"Those we gather apart and fold into the army. You'd command them, Sub-chief Sui. If you take a proper office from the Inspectorate of Jizhou, that serves just as well."
"And us?"
"For the two of you, a youzhi ought to be enough."
A youzhi was an official appointed by the grand administrator and charged with a township. The local order of the Han ran from province to commandery, county, township, pavilion, and hamlet. Gaozu Liu Bang, founder of the Han, had himself been a Pavilion Chief over a pavilion, so a youzhi was by no means a humble post. If the Heishan Bandits were to settle, someone would have to govern them, and Guo Daxian judged that a youzhi was about as far as the court would go. A county magistrate was out of the question, however he turned it over. In truth even a youzhi was a stretch—but he thought they might allow that much.
Sui Gu caught him by the hand and drew him forward, leaving the others behind.
"Before that... what do we do about Chief Sun? Whether this comes out well or badly, someone's going to be the target of his rage."
"Are you interested in Sima Yuan's offer?"
"If they treat us right, sure."
"And you, Sub-chief Sui?"
"......"
"Better to kill him."
"......!"
"Then you become the commander."
"You've been thinking this way for a while?"
"I was afraid of Chief Sun, so no. But someone's going to take the blame, and the more I turn it over, the more it looks like me. I have to live too. I've endured all this to get here."
Sui Gu grimaced and kicked a stone. He feared Sun Qing's revenge, and surrender grated on his pride.
"We just put it about that Chief Sun is dead, I become chief, and I lead them—"
"If Sima Yuan lets Chief Sun go, he'll likely let Li Damu go as well. Are you confident you can handle Li Damu's cunning?"
"You think I can't handle him?"
"You might, Sub-chief Sui. Those two will not."
Guo Daxian turned his gaze on Yan Bai and Zuo Xu, and Sui Gu's face twisted at once. Even he had to admit that if Sun Qing put pressure on them, both were the sort to betray him and think nothing of it.
"Setting that aside... what office do you reckon they'll give me? I don't want to be a garrison chief."
"Heh."
"What are you laughing at?"
"You brought this many men in to surrender, and a garrison chief is all you imagined? You ought to be looking at colonel, or army sima. The stipend is equivalent to two thousand shi."
"If it's two thousand shi, it's two thousand shi. Why stick 'equivalent' on the front of it?"
"Add 'equivalent,' and it gets a little smaller. A rank of two thousand shi pays a hundred and twenty shi a month. Equivalent to two thousand shi pays a hundred a month."
"That's strange. Add up every month and it still doesn't come to two thousand shi."
"It never has. This way the court can boast that it pays a great sum, and the man who draws it can swagger that he receives a great sum. Officials come from the great clans anyway. They don't lie awake over their next meal."
"Tch."
Sui Gu let out a breath and kicked another stone. He had the feeling of a man driven into a dead end.
"You've got a plan?"
"The plan?"
"We make it a condition of surrender that they kill Sun Qing and Li Damu. Not our hands—Sima Yuan's. We take the Inspector of Jizhou's formal order appointing the sub-chiefs. We take Sima Yuan's own official dispatch as well. And a personal letter guaranteeing our safety."
"Damn it all. Why does it have to be this tangled?"
Sui Gu shook his head. He thought a long while, and at last his eyes flashed.
"We surrender only after it's firm in our hands. And—"
He looked toward Qingxue Peak and drew a finger across his throat.
"I'll go negotiate again."
Guo Daxian made to spur his horse, and Sui Gu asked in haste.
"What do you want out of this, Deputy Chief Guo?"
"Well. I'll have to think on it."
He gave a vague answer, then rode on at an easy pace toward the walls of Yiyang.
"No telling what's packed into that old man's skull."
Sui Gu muttered it and turned. He called Yan Bai and Zuo Xu over and laid the situation out. When he pressed them with the warning that if Sun Qing lived, someone among them would die, the two at last fell in with his plan.
"I'll see you get offices higher than a youzhi."
"Oh!"
"We're grateful."
"From now on you wait on me as properly as you waited on Chief Sun."
"......?"
"......!"
"I'm the chief now."
"Once we surrender, that's the end of it, isn't it?"
"Until then, you treat me as chief!"
Yan Bai and Zuo Xu looked at each other. Both wore the face of a man swallowing a curse.
I met Guo Daxian again.
This time I had a low table and chairs brought in, and warm tea set out, so the meeting would have its proper form.
"State your terms. I'll grant whatever is reasonable."
I could hear the wheels turning in his head, but I let it pass. Even if I had to yield a good deal more, I wanted these men wholly inside my own camp.
"Kill Sun Qing and Li Damu for us."
"......"
Not a demand I had expected. I had been turning over what to do with the pair.
"Then who commands?"
"There are three sub-chiefs. Sui Gu will be the commander."
The name was familiar. Only after I asked how it was written did I know the man.
So he was a Heishan bandit to begin with. When the Heishan host took some great defeat along the way, he must have given himself over to Zhang Yang. The brave officer who stopped Yang Chou's betrayal. A capable commander.
I gave a short nod. Sun Qing could hardly be left alive in any case. If the Heishan Bandits gathered again around him, it would mean trouble.
"Very well. Go on."
"Of the men gathered here, several thousand can't go back to farming. Too savage, and they've got a taste for robbery and murder. Make an army of them, and let Sub-chief Sui govern it. In return, give him an office."
This was what I had wanted. Cao Cao had crushed the remnants of the Yellow Turbans on Mount Tai and gained the Qingzhou Troops from it. Men inured to killing and theft would show their worth the moment battle was joined.
"How many do you have in mind?"
"About seven thousand."
"Then I'll appoint him colonel. I'll band them by hundreds under garrison chiefs, and by thousands under army captains. By that reckoning, Colonel Sui commands seven army captains and seventy garrison chiefs. I'll have the Inspector of Jizhou confirm it and issue the formal order. Then no one will be able to slight you."
Guo Daxian had not looked for so much. His eyes went wide.
"You object?"
"Not that. It's only... men of that birth..."
"Loyalty and courage. Those two are enough. If I command and they move faithfully to it, that will do."
In truth I could not ask too much of them yet. They would have to be taught one thing at a time. They were already fit to be sent into a fight, though, and for that I could grant this much.
"The other sub-chiefs are Zuo Xu and Yan Bai. I'd like them helping the Heishan men settle as farmers. So I'll ask—could you give them something on the order of a youzhi?"
"A youzhi is an administrative post. It wants a man whose mind turns readily."
"......"
"Not them, then. I'll appoint them army captains. Give them troops and have them keep the peace against anything coming in from outside. That should serve."
"That ought to be fine."
A smile touched Guo Daxian's face. He had been uneasy over what to do with Zuo Xu and Yan Bai, and an army captain was plainly better than a youzhi.
"And you, Deputy Chief Guo, will oversee the agricultural colonies as a whole. The post is sima. You'll answer to the Office of the Colonel for Agricultural Colonies in Ye. How does that sit?"
He nodded quietly. In rough outline, the matter was settled. Then his face turned severe, as if the true business were only now beginning.
"Where do we belong?"
"Why, to the Inspectorate of Jizhou..."
"That isn't what I mean. Do we follow the Inspector of Jizhou? Or do we follow Sima Yuan?"
Old ginger bites hardest. He had put his finger on the difficult question first, and I was almost grateful for it.
"You follow me."
"Count the women and children left in the valleys, and we number past sixty thousand. Can you bear that?"
"Of course. In all but name, I am our lord's heir."
To make him understand, I set out Yuan Tan's circumstances and Yuan Xi's in detail, and I told him without omission or varnish the course of the life I had lived. He exclaimed more than once.
"At your age, bringing a great host here, I expected something remarkable. This surpasses that by a vast distance. I would doubt such a thing could be done, yet it stands before my eyes, so I have no choice but to believe it. From this day I will trust Sima Yuan, and follow him."
He rose all at once and offered a formal salute. I rose as well, returned it, and seated him again.
"What is still lacking are the documents to back my word—the Inspector of Jizhou's order, my own dispatch, and a personal letter. A promise made only with the mouth can be broken at any time."
"I will wait."
"Do you trust me?"
"In fifty years I have met every sort of man. In my youth I read a fair amount, and they called me clever. All of it came to nothing. I am nothing great, and yet I have one thing worth the using. An eye for people. Sima Yuan is a man who will rise very high. Though, strangely... no. It is nothing."
"That only makes me more curious. Speak."
He hesitated, then went on.
"I studied the Daoist scripture, the Scripture of Great Peace. And I read the books of prophetic omens."
I nodded as one who understood. In these days the cult of omens and apocrypha had spread past all control. The Yellow Turban Rebellion, when you came down to it, had rested on that same ground. Guo Daxian might even have stood among the Yellow Turbans' inner circle.
"So I read faces a little, and I cast a divination... Sima Yuan's is truly a noble face, and yet it is the face of a man who dies young. Look closer, though, and it is also the face of a man who lives long... Forgive me. I am talking nonsense."
He looked apologetic. Inwardly, I startled.
Mine was a face meant to die young. Gongsun Kang was to kill me. But I am rewriting history with the memory of another life, and if it goes as I intend, I will live long. I am reaching for the throne itself, so the nobility in the reading is true as well. It was probably this gift of his that let him answer so firmly that he would follow me.
"I'll take it in the favorable sense."
"Go to Ye, and go soon. You must hurry. Let time pass, and their hearts may turn. I want to step out into the light and live, but they may not want the same. I'll persuade them and hold them as best I can, so go. And if you have gold and silver, loose it. It will do a great deal to set them at ease."
"Understood."
I thanked him and drew the personal letter from my breast—a writing that guaranteed their safety. Then and there I composed another, confirming all I had said, stamped it with my seal, and put it in his hands. I turned and ordered Zhao Yun to bring gold and silver from the city.
"I'll take Sun Qing's head and Li Damu's after I return from Ye."
The Heishan Bandits had not yet truly bent to me. They feared Sun Qing's revenge, and I meant to use that fear to govern what they did. I would come back from Ye, deliver the order of appointment and the dispatch, sort the savage from the rest, speak with Sui Gu and take his pledge of loyalty—and only then cut off Sun Qing's head.
Questions and answers after that cleared what doubts remained. He asked about the Inspectorate of Jizhou; I asked about the Heishan Bandits. Zhao Yun returned and set a small chest in my hands, and I passed it to Guo Daxian. The gesture was meant to show, plainly enough, that loyalty to me could buy wealth and rank.
"Here. Distribute it as you see fit, Sima Guo."
I put weight behind him. A man who holds precious gold and silver and portions it out gathers power whether he seeks it or not. I did everything I could to win their hearts.
"How many days will you need?"
"Ten days should be enough."
"I will wait."
He took my letter and the chest, mounted, and rode for the Heishan camp. Zhao Yun asked, careful with the words.
"Your intent is a fine one, Sima Yuan. But if our lord refuses?"
"Then I persuade him. It has to be done."
I answered with my face set. I was certain there was no better course than this. I had gained a powerful army, and I had secured people who would bear the duties of tax and military service.