Preparing to March
The moment the council in the main hall broke up, I followed Ju Shou to his office.
True to his office as Military Supervisor, charged by my father's stern command with overall direction of the Jizhou Inspectorate's military operations, more than fifty departmental officers were hard at work in that spacious headquarters. Messengers came and went without pause, and the place had a brisk, living energy to it.
"Sit, Dudu Yuan."
"You carry a heavy burden, Military Supervisor."
I took the seat opposite Ju Shou. If one were to name the two men of real power in the Jizhou Inspectorate after my father, they were, without question, Feng Ji, the Biejia Zongshi who held the civil administration, and Ju Shou, Military Supervisor of the army. To sit with these giants—men I had looked up to until only recently—and speak in a dry, level register, stripped of the most extreme honorifics, brought home how far my station had risen.
"Is there a general you are determined to take on this Qingzhou campaign?"
"You will be leading the Inspectorate's main host north to crush Gongsun Zan, so there must be veteran commanders who have to remain bound to that army. Set only their names aside and show me the list that remains. I will choose the rest myself."
At my calm reply Ju Shou gave a quiet nod and spread across the desk the bamboo slips that bore the full roster of Jizhou's armed officers. Then he took up a vermilion brush and began drawing small circles beside certain names.
The principal stage of the war to come would be the north, where we fought Gongsun Zan. Tian Kai of Qingzhou, the man entrusted to me, was no more than an auxiliary shaking the rear. Most of Jizhou's seasoned fierce generals would be taken north.
I ran carefully down the list he set before me once the brush was laid aside, then stopped at one passage and lifted my head. A red circle stood sharp beside Wen Chong's name. Beside Zhang He's, the space was blank.
"Was Zhang He left off by mistake?"
In truth, it surprised me. I had assumed Ju Shou would take Zhang He with the main host no matter what. He must have served alongside Zhang He from the days when Jia Cong was Inspector of Jizhou, and he would have taken the measure of Zhang He's inborn gift as a commander, and of the potential still in him.
"Yan Liang pressed hard to have Wen Chong as the timber for his vanguard. They have matched hands and feet against Gongsun Zan these past two years, and he says there is no deputy who fits him so well. But Wen Chong is a right hand you cherish in particular, is he not, Dudu Yuan? If a man would take another's prized blade and use it, it is only proper that he pay a fitting price."
Ju Shou's gaze sank deep as an abyss. In exchange for taking Wen Chong into the main host, he was offering up Zhang He, the general he himself held dear.
My heart beat hard. When I reached back through the memory of my previous life and weighed every commander of the Three Kingdoms together, Zhang He and Zhang Liao always stood in the highest rank. Wen Chong, my loyal right hand, was certainly an excellent general, but in the cold reading of a battle, in potential, in the sum of things, he did not reach the names of Zhang He and Zhang Liao. Wen Chong had been mine already. This time I had gained a chance to draw close to Zhang He. The trade was to my profit.
"I will not refuse the Military Supervisor's consideration. In that case..."
I took up the brush and ran quickly over the names that bore no red circle. Yan Liang, Wen Chong, Qu Yi, Chunyu Qiong—the veteran generals of Jizhou were all bound to the main host and, in effect, set beyond my reach. My eye, however, was already finding the uncut stones whose worth in the years ahead was far greater. I drew heavy lines across the roster.
Zhang Liao. Zhang He. Zhao Yun. Wu Ban. Zhao Du.
Ju Shou could not have failed to know Zhang Liao's value. That he had nevertheless left the space beside that name empty was a second courtesy, and a tacit show of support—a deliberate placing of real strength in my hands.
"I will take these."
"You have plucked out precisely the generals I expected. Ah—and what do you mean to do with Commander Sui's detached force, stationed at Liyang?"
"I mean to take them to Qingzhou, of course, put them to use, and give them the chance to win merit. For the peace of Zhaojun, Chi Zhaoyan, Yan Bai, and Zuo Shou will more than suffice. If the Heishan Bandits raise a clamor, we levy able-bodied men at once and trample them. That is all. I have firm faith in the officers and men under the Office of the Zhao Dudu."
I answered without a hair of hesitation, and Ju Shou's eyes narrowed. A short silence settled over the office. He smoothed the brush between his fingers, and when he spoke again his voice was low, laying his thoughts bare.
"Every time I see you, Dudu Yuan, I find myself thinking how strange you are, and how uncommon. You have only just undergone the Capping Ceremony and shed a boy's shell, and yet a man of middle years keeps jutting out of you, seasoned and shrewd. Honestly, there are more moments when I am at a loss than when I am merely surprised."
"......"
"When I think of the future of our Jizhou Inspectorate, it is truly a blessing beyond measure, and yet..."
Ju Shou let the words trail off behind a subtle smile, then returned at once to the dry face of a bureaucrat and changed the subject.
"The force is four thousand cavalry, two thousand heavy crossbowmen, and fourteen thousand infantry. Ah—and the elite troops Commander Sui raised in Zhaojun are under your direct command, so they stand apart from the count. With a host of this size, I believe you can break Tian Kai. Is it insufficient?"
"More than enough. It overflows."
I leaned back against the chair and answered with force. The twenty thousand Ju Shou had given me, joined to the troops Sui Gu had drilled so hard, came to roughly twenty-six thousand. It was force enough to trample Tian Kai as he built his power in Qingzhou, and to bring down Kong Rong and Guan Tong as well.
"Dudu Yuan. Have the host in order so that you can march before the middle of the second month is past. When the spring wind blows in the third month, Gongsun Zan will surely push south. You must move one step ahead and break Tian Kai before full battle breaks out in the north. Then Gongsun Zan's momentum will break as well."
"I will. I shall hasten the preparations to take the field at once."
"Grain and military stores for the campaign will be sent from Ye without the slightest error. Do not trouble yourself over that. Concentrate solely on defeating Tian Kai."
"I am deeply grateful for the Military Supervisor's flawless arrangements."
The negotiation closed with perfect smoothness, perfectly clean. The higher my place rose in the heart of power, the colder the talk that passed between us, edged and bare of private feeling. This was the language of those who rule.
I took a brief leave of Ju Shou and stepped out of the office. The moment I was outside, I ordered Li Hui, who had come as my escort, to send an urgent messenger to Liyang. Sui Gu's troops, waiting under the Office of the Zhao Dudu, had to be called in at once to the neighborhood of Ye.
It was as I had expected. I would not be returning to Liyang. I had to march straight for the battlefields of Qingzhou, reeking of blood. The hour had come to put my true ability to work.
"Elder brother."
"Well now. I'll be damned."
Guo Jia opened the door, saw me come in, and ran his eyes up and down me with them round as coins. While I had spent the past two years settling Zhaojun and tempering body and mind, Guo Jia had gone to Yingchuan and then remained in Ye the whole time. In those years I had shot up. My frame had hardened and my bulk had grown until I would not have been out of place taking the field as a general. To meet again after two years and find a proper man standing there—he had reason to be astonished.
I dismissed the eyes around us and led him into an inner room. With watchers present we would have had to observe that stifling courtesy and form again, and that was a weariness I had no wish to bear.
"Have you been well?"
"Of course. When it's just the two of us, drop that suffocating extreme courtesy. How many years are there between us, really?"
"Understood. More to the point, didn't you miss your younger brother? How is it that for two years you shut yourself up in Ye and never so much as showed your nose at Liyang? I was sorely put out."
"Our lord had laid a grave charge on you and was watching. It wouldn't have looked well for this foolish elder brother to come and go with a clatter. Don't be too hurt. In my own way I was laying the board so our worthy younger brother could spread his wings wide. So—you're going to take Tian Kai's head, are you?"
"How do you know so well? I only just received the order in the council hall and came straight here."
"Lately the greatest concern among the officials of Ye has been precisely this: how do we raise our worthy younger brother as heir, as fast and as perfectly as it can be done? Qingzhou, where Tian Kai has coiled himself, was settled on as the first offering after they had analyzed it dozens of times."
"Just as I expected, then. You'll accompany my march, of course?"
"Of course. There's no one in Jizhou who has dug into the soil of Qingzhou more relentlessly than I have."
Guo Jia showed his confidence in that easy smile peculiar to him.
"I'll trust no one but you, elder brother."
"Let me ask one thing. Do you mean to strike only Tian Kai? Or do you intend to swallow the lands of Kong Rong and Guan Tong as well?"
"The latter, obviously. The sword is drawn. I mean to sweep all of Qingzhou clean and bring it perfectly under the Jizhou Inspectorate. Gongsun Zan's power is so strong that it will be hard to break him at a stroke. So while our lord pins Gongsun Zan's feet in the north, if I annex Qingzhou entire from the south, the prestige of the Jizhou Inspectorate will pierce the sky."
"That appetite of yours, at any rate—outrageously large."
Guo Jia slapped his knee and burst out in admiration.
"Good. Let's push it that way. Have you picked the generals you'll use as your own hands and feet?"
I told him the names I had brought from Ju Shou, tossing the list out as if it were nothing. I did not add why I had marked them. I was curious, privately, how Guo Jia would weigh these men.
"A superb eye, and one that raises the hair on my neck. Zhang Liao and Zhang He especially—tend those two well. They're still young and short on experience, but they hold an enormous potential to command the world. Their talent even now is outstanding."
"And Zhao Yun, Wu Ban, and Zhao Du?"
"Zhao Du is seasoned, and Wu Ban never hesitates. Zhao Yun is loyal, and his martial skill pierces heaven, so he is perfect as your sharpest spear. But Zhang Liao and Zhang He are of a different grade. Later, when you hold Hebei and Qingzhou entire, they are the stuff of commanders to whom you can detach a whole army and entrust an entire front in one direction."
Guo Jia's insight was sharp enough to match, perfectly, the knowledge of my previous life. I thought I understood why Cao Cao had coveted him so, and cherished him.
"And before you strike Tian Kai, Kong Rong, and Guan Tong, you must recruit these men first. I scoured the floor of Qingzhou and found them. Men with ability and with potential. Write personal letters in the name of the Dudu of Qingzhou, saying you wish to employ them, and I'll loose men with good tongues and try to bring them in."
"It would be well to put in that I want them earnestly, too."
"That's true enough, but... can you?"
Guo Jia looked at me, puzzled. I had been born to the foremost house under heaven, and I was being raised up as heir. In the ordinary way of such things, one sent men out in arrogance and summoned people to come. One did not readily say, I want you earnestly. Of course, before a great Confucian scholar of world renown such as Zheng Xuan, one had to observe humble courtesy.
"I must. I earnestly want the world made stable. If I can seize Qingzhou quickly and settle it, I mean to do whatever it takes."
"You really are a strange one."
Guo Jia laughed, a broad, easy laugh. It was a pleasant sound, and it drew a smile out of me as well.
"When battle breaks out, they answer my designs and shake the enemy from within. After the occupation, we put them forward, take hold of the hearts of Qingzhou, and settle the province. That is the shape of it."
"Exactly, younger brother."
"Yes."
"I truly like you. You catch on at once without my spelling out every point. This foolish elder brother finds the work wonderfully easy!"
"And I truly like you, elder brother. You see to everything of your own accord, and the work is smooth and sure."
Guo Jia burst into cheerful laughter. That was already the second time. It meant we fit, and that pleased me.
I looked calmly through the bamboo slips he had handed me. More than ten names were written there, but two seized my eye at once: Sun Shao of Beihai Commandery, and Taishi Ci of Donglai Commandery. Sun Shao was the great figure who would later rise to be the first Chancellor of Eastern Wu. Taishi Ci was a fierce general and a wise one, a man who had contended on even terms with Sun Ce, the Little Conqueror. My heart began to pound.
"But the great Confucian scholar of Beihai, Master Zheng Xuan—his name isn't here?"
"Our lord has already moved to invite that man, so you needn't concern yourself. No. Erase him from your mind."
It meant Zheng Xuan was someone my father was handling himself. I nodded without lingering on it. Every man swims in his own water. To embrace a giant of Zheng Xuan's measure, one needed a giant of my father's measure. My own station had risen very high, but I was still a long way from matching him.
I drew the desk close and took up the brush. For each of the talents Guo Jia had marked, one by one, I poured in the effort and wrote a courteous personal letter steeped in earnestness. By the time the seal of the Dudu of Qingzhou had been stamped on every slip, the world beyond the window had darkened.
"Let's make the effort. Taishi Ci will likely be the first to bite the bait and come running. I hear he hasn't taken office yet. His talent in both civil and martial arts is outstanding, and the ambition he holds inside is vast. You must keep him at your side and use him heavily."
Guo Jia warmed to the subject and laid out Taishi Ci's true worth. As an officer of the Donglai bureau he had gone to Luoyang, completed his mission by astonishing improvisation, and escaped. Hearing that tale, I nodded of myself. A martial skill rarely matched under heaven, and brilliant stratagem besides, and the gift of meeting the moment as it came—if he had all of that, he was without doubt a talent who could shake the world. He seemed far beyond the records of Taishi Ci that I remembered from my previous life.
"Kong Rong, Administrator of Beihai, tried hard to keep him close, but Taishi Ci politely refused the offer. Yet if you yourself extend a hand, he'll seize it at once. You are the son of the Inspector of Jizhou, and living power, holding both the office of Zhao Dudu and that of Dudu of Qingzhou. In many respects you cannot be compared with Kong Rong. Of course, in an age of order Kong Rong would overwhelm you, but this is an age of chaos. He knows that chaos. He judged that Kong Rong could not stabilize Qingzhou, and he refused."
In an age of chaos, the sweetest bait was, in the end, a vast halo and overwhelming force. I possessed both. That was why Guo Jia spoke as he did.
"Loose your men as secretly and as swiftly as you can. By the middle of the month I must raise the army without fail."
"I'll see to it, so don't worry. The preparations are already made."
Guo Jia grinned, gathered up the slips, and rose. Now the persuaders, their speech running like a clear mountain stream, would become my blades. Bearing the personal letters, they would set out for the soil of Qingzhou.