A Cornered Rat Bites the Cat
At the tail end of summer, disaster broke at last.
Mengjin Ford went up in a savage blaze, red tongues of flame licking at the sky. That immense pillar of fire turned the night over Luoyang bright as noon, and terror gathered in the eyes of everyone who saw it.
"The Heishan Bandits! The Heishan Bandits are attacking!"
Rumor spread faster than the fire.
He Jin drew his sword as if he had been waiting for the moment, swelling with confidence. Trusting the solid backing of Yuan Shao and the Qingliu faction, he set about wringing the necks of the Ten Attendants.
To anyone watching, the match was already decided. The scales of power had tipped toward He Jin.
But they had overlooked one thing.
A cornered rat bites the cat.
And it bites to kill.
"Bring in the General-in-Chief!"
The Ten Attendants kicked common sense aside. Forging an imperial edict, they summoned He Jin into the palace. Drunk on victory, he barely armed himself before he walked in of his own accord and thrust his head into the tiger's jaws.
A short while later, something was flung over the wall.
It hit, and rolled.
The thing tumbling across the ground was He Jin's head — dead, eyes still glaring wide.
"These... these madmen."
When the news reached the General-in-Chief's manor, Yuan Shao shook with rage.
He Jin's death was the fuse. The bomb that had been held down all this time went off.
"The traitors have killed the General-in-Chief!"
"Slaughter every last eunuch! Don't leave a one of their seed alive!"
The troops of the manor, led by Lu Zhi, Dong Min, He Miao, Wu Kuang, and the rest, stormed the palace with murder in their eyes. Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu had been waiting for it; they brought their private soldiers into the assault as well.
Pandemonium. In a heartbeat the splendid imperial palace became a slaughterhouse.
"Wen Chong."
"Yes."
Yan Liang, waiting at the manor, called to him. Wen Chong rose, settling the weight of his long spear in his grip.
"We go."
"Kill them all?"
"If the Colonel of the Central Army orders it, we kill them all."
Yan Liang, Wen Chong, and more than a hundred elite retainers fell in beneath Yuan Shao's banner.
From beyond the wall came the sound of a world coming apart — screams, shouts, and the acrid stink of something burning. My brothers were surely swinging blades out in that fire, but I could not even cross the threshold of my own door.
Eleven years old.
This damned age was the heaviest shackle of all.
"Shang'er... I'm frightened. What in the world is happening?"
Mother's hand trembled around her teacup. The tea slopped and wet the table.
I wrapped her hand in both of mine, warm.
"Mother, please don't worry. Father is teaching the villains a lesson, isn't he? It will all come right."
"Even so, the rumors are dreadful. If something were to go wrong..."
"Oh, come now — who do you think my father is? This isn't a battle. It's a sweeping-out. A sweeping-out. Father will win."
I grinned on purpose and played the fool. Only then did the stiffness in her face ease a little.
"You rascal. Aren't you afraid of anything?"
"What's there to fear, with you beside me?"
"Aigoo. That mouth of yours."
Relieved, she stroked my hair. I felt the warmth of her hand and, inwardly, ran the numbers cold.
Right. The sweeping-out is finished.
The Ten Attendants had been scoured away. Soon that fat pig, Dong Zhuo, would appear and close his fist on power. Father would lose it and leave Luoyang as if he were being driven out. The clan would wail. For me, it was a blessing. The Han imperial house and its court had to be smashed without mercy, their authority dragged through the dirt, before we of the Yuan clan could raise a new house on top of the ruins.
Hardship is brief. Endure it, and the world becomes mine.
The problem was me. My ambition pierced the sky, and my hands held nothing. Who bows his head to an eleven-year-old? At best they call you a prodigy and find you charming.
Stifling.
The age of chaos coming toward us was far too vast to spend merely whispering advice from my father's side. Held in my mother's arms, I glared at an invisible wall and thought about what I could actually do.
The next day, I stepped out from the shelter of my mother's skirts and left the house.
The streets were still, the way a city is still before a storm. Before the thundercloud named Dong Zhuo rolled in, roughly two days remained.
"Open this gate!"
At my guard's bellow, the barred gate cracked open.
"Who goes there?"
"The Third Young Master of the Colonel of the Central Army."
The might of the Yuan clan, foremost house under heaven, was no small thing. The old man keeping the gate started in alarm and bolted inside. A moment later a young-faced officer came clattering out in armor.
Wu Kuang's son. Wu Ban.
"The Third Young Master... might your name be Shang?"
He doubted his own eyes, looking at how small I was. I clasped my hands behind my back and smiled.
"Yuan Shang, of the Ruyang Yuans. A bit short, aren't I?"
"N-no! What brings so noble a person to a shabby place like this..."
Still dazed, Wu Ban showed me in. The moment we entered the room he barred the door and fixed me with a look full of suspicion.
"Why come yourself, in the middle of all this, and at such risk? You might have sent a man."
"It isn't a matter for a messenger. I'll ask you plainly. How do you read this disordered court?"
The hand offering me tea stopped. For an instant he nearly laughed — what was an eleven-year-old saying? — and then he saw that my eyes were serious.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Once the Ten Attendants are crushed, the armies of the Inspector of Bingzhou and the General of the Front will enter Luoyang. A General-in-Chief's manor that has lost its head will be hard-pressed to hold two powers like those."
"That is not for the Third Young Master to worry over. The manor's troops are still intact."
He snorted. The groundless confidence peculiar to fighting men.
I clicked my tongue and held up a single finger.
"Brother, let's do a little arithmetic."
"Arithmetic?"
"Right now, who is closest to your father, Colonel Wu? The Colonel of the Imperial Chariots, isn't he?"
"That is so, but..."
"And who is that colonel's own elder brother?"
Wu Ban's mouth fell open.
He had never thought of it — that Dong Zhuo, General of the Front, and Dong Min, Colonel of the Imperial Chariots, were brothers. For the moment Dong Min was a comrade, purging the Ten Attendants alongside Wu Kuang. When Dong Zhuo arrived, he would be the younger brother of the enemy's commander.
"Blood runs thicker than water. When the General of the Front enters the city, whose side will the Colonel of the Imperial Chariots take? Colonel Wu's? Or his own brother's?"
"...!"
The color drained clean out of Wu Ban's face. Why had he never seen so simple a fact? No — he had been making light of the variable named Dong Zhuo, and so the thought had never come. Darkest under the lamp, as they say.
I pressed a personal letter into his slack hand.
"The General-in-Chief's manor will fall. If you have nowhere to go when it does, take this letter and seek out the Yuan clan."
"Why... give this to me?"
"Call it an investment. I wanted you to know that someone in this world stands on your side, Brother."
I smiled and rose.
"Until we meet again."
The shock must have been too great. Wu Ban could not even see me out. He simply stood there, blank. A pebble thrown by a small child had smashed straight through his skull.
Eleven... years old? Impossible.
Listening to the gate shut, Wu Ban swallowed dryly. The more he turned it over, the more it felt like a crisis.
"Brother!"
The moment the door opened, Wu Ban rushed in and seized his elder kinsman, Wu Yi, by the arm. Wu Yi's armor smelled of acrid smoke and the raw iron of blood. Proof that the world outside was hell.
"You're not hurt anywhere?"
"I'm fine. More to the point, why is the house this quiet? Still as a dead mouse."
Wu Yi pulled off his helmet, tucked it under his arm, and glanced about. Instead of answering, Wu Ban hurriedly sent everyone else away and barred the door. From deep in his robes he drew a letter he had kept with care, lest it crease.
"Brother. A ghost came by."
"A ghost?"
"Yuan Shang. Third son of the Colonel of the Central Army. They say he's only eleven..."
Wu Ban swallowed and poured out the conversation of a little while ago like a volley of bolts — Dong Zhuo and Ding Yuan entering the city, the chance that Dong Min would turn, the fall of the General-in-Chief's manor. All the while he spoke, Wu Yi's brows twitched.
"That child really said such things?"
"Not a word out of place. I couldn't refute him with the head I've got."
Wu Yi unfolded the letter Yuan Shang had left. The hand was spare, but it had force. The wording was courteous. The intent beneath it was cold.
If you wish to live, come.
"Well, now."
Wu Yi let out a hollow laugh and gave the letter a brisk flick.
"We'll keep this from Uncle."
"What? Even so, we ought to tell the elder..."
"Tell him now and he'll only thunder that we're dancing to a child's nonsense. You know Uncle — stubborn as an ox. When the General of the Front enters the city, then we'll warn him how dangerous the Colonel of the Imperial Chariots is. Though their friendship runs so deep, I wonder whether he'll listen at all."
He folded the letter neatly once more and tucked it into his own robes. His eyes glinted cold.
"This isn't just paper. When the typhoon named Dong Zhuo hits, it's the rope that may save our lives. We'll watch. We've nothing to lose. If it's the Yuan clan, they can protect us well enough."
"...You think so?"
"If things settle, we laugh it off. If the worst comes, we hide under the Yuan umbrella. Either way, we don't lose."
Wu Ban nodded hard.
Wu Yi was still bewildered. He could hardly believe it — but it let them prepare for what came after, and the other party was Yuan Shao's third son. For now, they would watch.
Home again, I sat quietly in a chair, looked up at the sky, and thought.
Wu Kuang dies anyway. I only hope Wu Ban judges rightly and comes to me with part of the imperial guards. Of course he'll be coming to see Father, not me.
What I coveted was not the general called Wu Ban. It was the elite imperial guards Wu Kuang commanded. Dong Zhuo would certainly kill Wu Kuang if he meant to seize the manor's military authority. Let Wu Ban bring the guards who rose against that. With nowhere else to go, they would swallow their despair and follow Dong Zhuo; if the shade of the Yuan clan existed, they would think again.
Those guards had to become the backbone that trained the able-bodied men following Father into elite troops. Only then could we pull ahead of the other powers. They would be Father's men — and at the same time, they would follow not my brothers, but me.
The feeling that I had managed one real stroke eased a little of my impatience.
That evening, Father came home to change out of clothes soaked in blood. Grim-faced, he ate quickly, changed, and called his strategists to council.
"We must find His Majesty at once. Where in the world has he gone?"
"Imperial Secretary Lu and the Central Major of Henan set off in pursuit at once. Those who fled with His Majesty are nothing but aged men of the Ten Attendants. It should not be difficult to restore him to the palace."
Yuan Shao thought of Lu Zhi and Min Gong, and nodded slowly.
"Now that you are properly dressed again, you should hurry to the General-in-Chief's manor. Wait there, and you can answer whatever breaks out."
The situation was urgent. Feng Ji urged it at once. Yuan Shao rose, and the strategists rose with him.
"Xiansi. Xianhe."
"Yes."
At their father's call, Yuan Tan and Yuan Xi answered smartly.
"I am going to the manor to settle this chaos, so guard the household well. Do you understand?"
"Yes! Set your heart at ease. And please, take care of yourself."
Yuan Shao nodded, patted Yuan Tan and Yuan Xi on the shoulders, and walked on. He was opening the gate to leave when he stopped.
"Wait a moment."
He turned at once.
"Father."
I rose the moment I saw him, smiling bright. I had greeted him when he arrived, but he had sent me back to my room, saying matters were too pressing. I had thought the chance to advise him was gone. Here it was, dramatic as a stage entrance.
Father sat in the seat of honor without a word. His skin had gone rough, and the hollows beneath his eyes were dark. He looked exhausted.
"Shang'er."
"Yes."
"We have put down the revolt of the Ten Attendants. His Majesty left the palace, but he will return soon. There was a great deal of disorder in the doing of it, but I believe we have set things right."
I heard him out, patient.
"I thought it was finished. And yet, somehow, I am uneasy. I want to hear your thoughts again."
He was treating his young son as an adviser. As expected, Father's eye was superb.
"The true chaos is only beginning."
"What?"
His eyes opened wider than seemed possible. He looked as if he could not believe me at all.
"Why?"
I had already given him cause to trust me twice, so he listened closely.
"If a man who holds strong military power serves His Majesty, he can seize the government. Is that not so?"
"It is."
"Then if the Inspector of Bingzhou or the General of the Front finds His Majesty first, escorts him, and enters Luoyang — what pretext will we have to stop them?"
"Could that happen?"
He thought of Lu Zhi and Min Gong and shook his head. He believed they would find the emperor before Dong Zhuo or Ding Yuan ever did.
"Father. The troops of the General of the Front and the Inspector of Bingzhou are elites tempered in battle after battle, and each commands more than several thousand men. The manor's forces, by contrast, have never been joined into one. They are split among many commands. As things stand, the moment anyone enters those gates escorting His Majesty, he seizes power."
It was Yuan Shao who had summoned Dong Zhuo and Ding Yuan. He had no choice but to own the mistake. He had calculated that so long as he kept them out of the city, he could hold his power — but when the emperor left the city, a road opened for them. He had never considered it when he laid his plans, and the knowledge was bitter. No. Until he heard it from his youngest, the thought had not even occurred to him.
I was too complacent. What am I to do if Dong Zhuo or Ding Yuan truly enters and tries to take power?
No proper remedy offered itself. If they held the emperor, issued commands in his name, and set about dissolving the manor's faction, there would be no answer. The only way was to find the emperor first and enter with him. Then Dong Zhuo and Ding Yuan would lose any pretext for entering the city and, in the end, go back to the frontier.
"We must make haste."
Father rose, his face set, and I rose quickly after him.
"Father."
"Speak."
"Bringing His Majesty back swiftly matters. But you must also assume the worst, and prepare for it."
"I will see to it that the General-in-Chief's manor is not broken apart."
"Yes. Guard that, no matter what happens. Later, when you come to unfold your will, it will be a great help."
"My will..."
"Go safely."
I wanted him to preserve as much of the manor's strength as he could. Only then could he settle the chaos all the faster. It would be far from easy. Still, I hoped for it with everything I had.
I offered a formal bow. He looked curious what that great will might be, but he asked no more.
"Thank you."
Smiling, he quietly lifted me into his arms. Raised into the air until my eyes were level with his, I was happier than I could say.
"Grow up just like this. Don't get hurt."
"Yes."
"Your father won't lose, either. I'll be a father you need not be ashamed of."
He set me down and strode out through the door.
"Move out."
He gave the order in a voice full of strength, and, ringed by more than twenty strategists and guards, set off for the General-in-Chief's manor.