Making My Own People, Heart and Soul
Guo Jia came through the door with both eyes bloodshot, and a thick reek of wine hung about him.
"My congratulations on your rise to Commander-in-Chief of Zhao."
"To have you turn so stiff and formal all at once feels terribly strange. It makes me uneasy."
"I said with my own mouth that I would remain in Ye. I have to bear it."
He sat, and let out a short sigh. It did not seem a sigh aimed at me in resentment.
"Elder brother, what do you make of the decision I reached this time?"
"You did well. There is nothing in it to fault."
Guo Jia tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. The lightness he usually wore was gone entirely, and his face had sunk into something heavy. Then he looked at me with a gravity I had never once seen on him.
"I must go to Yingchuan. Elder brother Gongze and I walked different roads, but we are still Guo blood out of Yangzhai. I will recover the body myself and lay every particular of this affair before the clan. If I do not, the Guos and the Yuans may become enemies."
"Might Uncle Guo not have left a letter explaining himself? What would the Guo clan gain by setting themselves against the Yuans? Above all, this was a plain betrayal. The fault is entirely his."
Guo Jia only nodded. He sank into thought for a while, then opened his mouth as if the words had weight.
"It may take as long as two months. When the work is done I will come back, and I will keep my promise to help you. But when it is only the two of us, do not bind me so tight. If you demand stiff courtesy even in private, I will suffocate. I cannot live that way."
"Aigoo — I would far rather it that way myself. In private, please treat me without reserve, as you used to."
"Good. You have suffered much in your heart. It does me good to see you holding so vast a purpose and pressing on without a waver."
Guo Jia rose and pulled me into a hard embrace.
"You have grown well. Keep growing sturdy, just as you are."
He loosened his arms and turned. Guo Jia had always carried himself with room to spare, but today a deep loneliness clung to the back he showed me as he went toward the door.
"Ah — elder brother. I sent cavalry to the ferry at Wushajin to seize Zhang Fan."
"Give me a personal letter. I will take him in on the road down to Yingchuan. There is no need, at this pass, to cut off a subordinate's head as well."
"Yes."
I drew the desk close, took out brush, ink, and paper, and wrote the letter. Once Guo Tu had taken his own life, Father had issued a strict command that the affair be closed. There was no longer any pretext for arresting Zhang Fan, nor any reason to question him. He, too, had only followed the orders of his superior without a thought of his own. There was no need to stain our hands with more blood. It was right to let him go with my elder brother and live a new life.
"I will be going."
"Yes. Travel safely."
Guo Jia had already opened the door and stepped outside, so he used the honorific once more, paid his respects, and withdrew. I watched the door shut firm and thought the old days had been better, when he tossed out idle jokes for no reason at all. Guo Tu's death seemed to press hard upon his heart, and the ache of it reached mine as well.
Go safely. When we meet again in Yiyang, I hope you will have found that old vitality. Others may see you however they will. To me, you are as good as a true elder brother.
The higher one's station climbs, the more inevitable the solitude. A man needs someone before whom he can set the weight of power down, if only for a while, and give his mind entire — and Guo Jia was that person to me. I hoped with all my heart that he would shake the burden from his spirit and come back to my side.
Yiyang, in Zhaojun.
"Congratulations on your appointment as Commander-in-Chief of Zhao!"
Wen Chong, Zhao Yun, and Zhao Du offered the salute together, their voices ringing.
"Thank you. But there is no time to rejoice. The work ahead is a mountain. How are the Heishan Bandits? They have not made trouble, have they?"
"There were small frictions, but they sheathed their own blades and kept themselves in hand. Deputy Chief Guo and Junior Chief Sui seem to have set their hearts firmly on surrender. Have you brought His Lordship's strict order?"
"Of course."
An order from my father, master of Jizhou, would settle them a hundred times more surely than any dispatch I might issue as Commander-in-Chief of Zhao. He stood above me, and the final word in Jizhou was his.
"Commander Yuan. Sun Qing and Li Damu beg for their lives every day, pleading to be spared..."
Zhao Du, reporting with care, let the end of the sentence trail away.
"Continue."
"If we keep those two lives in our grip, they would make an excellent piece — enough to keep Deputy Chief Guo and Junior Chief Sui from daring to harbor any other thought."
"No. They are to be killed today."
I cut Zhao Du's tempting proposal short with a single stroke. I would not commit the folly of snatching at a shallow gain before my eyes and overturning a board built on trust.
"If we play a petty trick upon the very terms we first pledged, how are they to trust us wholly? Even if we scrape our own bones to build that trust, it will scarcely be enough. Let the thing creak from the start, and this county of Yiyang will fall into a chaos no one can hold. Behead them today, as promised. There is no reason to delay by so much as a day."
"This general's thinking was shallow. I am ashamed."
"Not at all. Do not take it to heart. Offer counsel whenever you wish, from this day on. The door of my office stands always open."
I set a hand on Zhao Du's stiffened shoulder to ease him, and had a staff officer write two letters — one for Guo Daxian, and one for Li Hui.
So today those two lives come to an end. Their crime was to be born into this terrible age. In the next life, may they live as ordinary people, and warm ones.
Because I believed in a former life and in the turning of rebirth, I sent that short, dry prayer inward and no further.
Around noon the next day, I loaded a chest holding the heads of Sun Qing and Li Damu onto a cart and set out for the ground midway between Yiyang and the Heishan camp. Zhao Yun held my side without yielding. Beside Guo Daxian stood a warrior of savage looks, killing intent pouring off his whole frame.
So that one is Sui Gu. The fierce pressure rolling off so huge a body is not like other men's. Yan Bai and Zuo Shou would not dare stir against him. He is fit to be called a fierce general, one who can lead an army.
I took the man's measure in silence and gave a small nod.
"Junior Chief Sui Gu."
Sui Gu stepped forward first and offered a military salute, rough in the voice and exact in the form.
"Yuan Shang, Commander-in-Chief of Zhao. I am glad to meet you."
I returned the salute with due courtesy and gestured to Zhao Yun. He brought the chest and lifted the lid, and the heads of Sun Qing and Li Damu showed themselves, hideous to look upon. Guo Daxian and Sui Gu thrust their faces in close, confirmed the things were genuine, and in the same instant let out heavy sighs of relief.
"Ptui!"
It happened then. Sui Gu spat a gob of phlegm onto Sun Qing's face and began to pour out curses foul enough to turn the stomach. Not content with that, he could not hold his rage: he drew his waist-blade and hacked the dead man's face to pieces like a madman.
"Enough! Junior Chief Sui! Stop that blade at once! What vulgar spectacle is this before Commander Yuan?"
Guo Daxian, horrified, rushed to restrain him. Sui Gu flung the sword aside, panting hard, and spun away. One could guess how viciously Sun Qing had used his own men while he lived. Li Damu's head had been cut off beside him, and Sui Gu had not so much as glanced at it; he had savaged only Sun Qing. The depth of that grudge was plain.
If I had followed Zhao Du's counsel, this would have been a disaster. I never knew Sui Gu carried a hatred so dreadful. Force a man down by fear, and sooner or later the wound festers and bursts.
I took Sun Qing's end as a warning cut from another man's stone. Guo Daxian apologized in haste.
"Commander Yuan. I am sorry you were shown so ugly and dreadful a sight."
"A grudge knotted deep in the chest must be vented clean, one way or another. I will leave the chest as it stands. Spend your anger on it to your heart's content, until none is left."
Zhao Yun pushed the chest all the way to their feet. From my breast I set down, side by side, my father's order and the dispatch I had sealed with my own hand as Commander.
"Deputy Chief Guo. You will now see to it that the Heishan host — no. From this moment I will not use the words Heishan Bandits. Take full charge of the administration, so that those people may put down roots in Yiyang County and settle as ordinary farmers. Your post is Duntian Sima, with authority over the whole body. Your stipend is one thousand shi."
"I will not forget this grace. I will give you my loyalty to the last."
"Junior Chief Sui. From among them, sift out only those whose tempers are so savage that a sword-hilt suits them better than a farm tool, and found an elite unit with them. Your office is Biebu Sima. It will be a powerful independent command. You need not glance at the other generals. You will take your orders from me alone. Your stipend, likewise, is one thousand shi."
"I'll give my life to carry out your command! And I'm ashamed of what I did just now. It won't happen again."
Sui Gu's eyes flashed with the shock of gratitude, and he offered a loyal military salute. A Biebu Sima was a special office, customarily granted to a surrendered chieftain so that his command over his old followers would be guaranteed. By cutting the generals of Jizhou off from him at the root, I had set his pride firmly upright.
"I will also appoint Yan Bai and Zuo Shou as Zeicao Yuan, charged with keeping the peace. It is a grave post — sweeping out bandits and protecting the people — and the Duntian Sima will control it directly. Once the Biebu Sima has first chosen his elite, the rest may be assigned as the Zeicao Yuan's peacekeeping troops."
"Then... the force Biebu Sima Sui is to lead — how should we reckon its full strength? Some several thousand?"
"Select with a strict hand only those so savage to the bone that a farm tool in their grip could never remake them as farmers. We will speak of exact numbers later. I do not want the headcount swollen blindly with a rabble. Go about it as if you were choosing none but elite soldiers, each worth a hundred men. What matters most is that the great majority of them settle fully as farmers."
"I will take Commander Yuan's deep intent to heart, and I will carry it out."
Guo Daxian bent at the waist once more in courteous salute and tucked the order and the dispatch from the desk carefully into his breast. Through the whole of the bargaining I had firmly expected some resistance, some contest of spirit. Yet the talks ended so tamely that a hollow feeling washed through me — and with it a strange relief. Had I left Sun Qing alive, Sui Gu would have hidden that dreadful fit of a moment ago, and in the end the rift would have burst. The mere thought of it made me dizzy.
"Ah... even if my life were cut this very moment, I would have no regret left. All this while I dragged out a shameful existence, and every night I lay awake fearing how I would face the ancestors in the Nine Springs..."
"This is only the beginning. As Duntian Sima, feed the people full, pile up greater merit, and rise in dignity among the high officials of the Jizhou Inspectorate. Ah — are you by any chance connected with the Guo clan of Yingchuan?"
"No, Commander Yuan. This humble official's roots are in a small, nameless house of Gaoyi County, in Changshan. Our blood is not of the same root as those great clans of Yingchuan."
"Do you still have kin in your home country, people with whom you might share life and death, joy and sorrow?"
"Yes. Now I can visit Gaoyi with my shoulders squared, as an official of Jizhou in full dignity."
A bright smile spread over Guo Daxian's lined face. How dreadful those years must have been for him — a once-lofty scholar trained in the Confucian learning, clinging to life in the press of bandits and forced to condone their theft. I comforted him for that old pain, and I meant it.
Sui Gu, when his eyes met mine, flinched and jerked his head aside. He plainly hated the thought of his clan or his origins coming into the light. From the moment Guo Daxian and I had begun to question one another about family, he had sat as if on a cushion of needles, so I did not press him about his birth.
"Please entrust every practical matter entirely to me. Each morning I will report to Commander Yuan without a false word."
"I will go forward trusting in nothing but the loyal hearts of you two — the Duntian Sima and the Biebu Sima."
I rose without lingering. Of course, in the long and grinding work of dealing with these men, I would strike against many problems. But I would not avoid them. I would meet them head-on and settle them one by one.
The office of the Commander-in-Chief of Zhao, in the city of Yiyang.
When I returned to the city, Chief Clerk Min Chun was moving at a rush, beads of sweat standing on his brow. He had brought ten staff officers from Ye, men whose work he had matched with care so they might oversee the administration of the command, and he was giving them their duties in a voice both clear and sharp.
"Commander Yuan."
Seeing me, Min Chun hurried over and offered a military salute.
"Yes. You have worked hard."
"The work is too heavy, and hands are far too few. We must quickly recruit more capable staff officers from across Zhaojun. I submit a proposal, and ask that the Commander issue the order."
I scanned the memorial he had set on the desk, drew the seal of the Commander-in-Chief of Zhao from my waist, and stamped it at once.
"See to whatever the administration requires, and see to it at once. Duntian Guo was trained as a Confucian scholar, so you will be able to speak with him. Consult him closely on the practical work of the settlements, and put your heads together with Rider-Commandant Zhao so the cavalry may be used with flexibility."
"I will obey."
Min Chun acknowledged the order with courtesy. If I was to see every corner of Yiyang County with my own eyes and issue orders on the spot, cavalry was indispensable.
"Ah — I hear Duntian Guo is from Gaoyi County, in Changshan."
"Ah. You mean the Guo clan?"
"Does Chief Clerk Min know the house as well?"
"In its day it was a clan of some name through the Changshan region. Some ten years ago, when the Yellow Turbans rose and all of Jizhou was in uproar, a rumor went round that they had dealt in secret with the rebels, and they suffered the unjust extermination of their house. Later it was shown to be an empty tale — but by then the bloodline was already cut, and it was far too late."
"So that was it. A dreadful story, and a bitter one. Tsk."
Only now did I understand why Guo Daxian had spoken so of the ancestors in the Nine Springs, and how wretched the meaning of those words had been.
"Who dared contrive so cruel a slander?"
"I heard it was a corrupt official who fed dirty money to those rotten Ten Attendants. In the end his own house was smashed to pieces when the Ten Attendants fell. The Yellow Turban rebellion, you might say, drove every innocent great clan of Jizhou to ruin."
Min Chun shook his head hard, as if even to call up that blood-reeking madness of the past was more than he could bear.
"However it was, the Guo clan will now stand upright again as officials of Jizhou. It is a good thing."
"Yes. A mercy."
"That dark past must be buried, and they must begin wholly anew. Meet often with Duntian Guo, speak with him face to face, and handle the details with care, so they do not grow faint with hunger and turn bandit again."
"I will do my utmost, even if it costs me my neck. Before I came here I conferred endlessly with the officials in Ye, and I have their firm pledge that administrative supplies will not be spared. If we work hard, I believe these people too may settle as fine commoners."
"That is truly reassuring. I leave it in your hands."
Min Chun closed his mouth for a moment and regarded me steadily. Then he waved the staff officers well back, took one step in close, and offered counsel in a grave, private voice.
"Commander Yuan. Every worthy civil and military official gathered here in Yiyang stands within your great shadow. When you held only the temporary post of Acting Sima, your place was roughly level with theirs. Now that you have become Commander-in-Chief of Zhao, the weight of power on your shoulders is entirely different. Of course their political careers are longer than yours, and they are far older. Their houses are distinguished as well."
I said nothing.
"Even so, you must now change your heart completely, as a ruler. Begin with the way you speak to them. Make it a firm language of command. I include myself in that."
Min Chun fell silent a moment, then went on.
"I will meet the civil and military officials myself, persuade them of your deep intent, and set the discipline. Of course, to use a tone of command at once upon men old enough to be your father or your uncle will at first feel heavy, and as uncomfortable as a seat of thorns. But only if you do so will the stern order of this command take root quickly, and only then can you grow into a true master of this age of chaos."
His eyes shone, steady with a loyalty that allowed not an inch of compromise.
"Had this been an ordered age of great peace, a man who has not yet reached his twentieth year could never have risen to a commander's seat holding power this vast, and even this remonstrance would be empty talk. But you have received the benefit of this chaotic age. Enjoy a ruler's power in full. I look to the day you break your present limits and grow still further into the master of the age."
"I thank you to the marrow for this sincere counsel, Chief Clerk Min."
"When you preside over formal council, I will strike first and lead the mood. You need only follow, as if you knew nothing of it."
After that, in a calm and coldly clear tone, Min Chun laid out for me every blind spot and trait of Jizhou's native officials and of the proud local clans. He marked the fatal traps I would have to watch for when handling men as Commander. The bone of that advice was simple. Change only the speech that leaves the mouth, and make it a firm language of command; within, go on cherishing talent, and keep the same warm sincerity of respect.
I carved the counsel deep into my chest. From now on I would have to govern myself more coldly, and with greater care. The men I would face for the rest of my life were veteran clansmen in their middle years, tested in a hundred fights, and high officials of Confucian stock, worn smooth as old serpents. Min Chun himself, who had stepped out before me as a loyal blade, had once been one of those who held Jizhou in his grip and shook it.
Someday, when my years have deepened and I stand fully in my father's place, the world's eyes will change as well.
Until that day came, I would have to keep my own people at my side without cease, give no one a hold upon me, and labor without rest to produce results. I swore that in this age of chaos, I would succeed.