Let the Right Hand Point to What the Left Has Done
"This place is safe now. Come out, all of you."
The women inside kept glancing at one another, then emerged one by one.
"I don't know where you've come from, but for now you may rest here in Tan County and make your way home in your own time. They say the war is over, so no one ought to come chasing you."
At my words they came out in twos and threes, catching one another in their arms and weeping, then bowed to me with eyes swollen from tears.
"Thank you. Truly, thank you."
"You are the savior of our lives, my lord!"
"Don't thank only me. Give your thanks to the gallants and the officers over there as well."
I had also saved the women who had been seized by Cao Cao's troops out of Yanzhou—or by men one might as well call a detachment of Yuan Shao's—and who had come within a hair of being sold off to parts unknown. The voices praising me swelled louder still, and I drank them in to the full.
So this is what it feels like to be hailed a hero. My shoulders squared themselves of their own accord.
"It's a mercy things ended cleanly," Zhang He said. "Otherwise a great deal of blood would have been spilled. You nearly put yourself in danger too, young master."
"We did a righteous thing, so Heaven lent a hand. Wouldn't you say so, Master Junyi?"
"I don't believe in fate of that sort."
"I gave my word all the same. The moment we return to Jizhou, everyone who carried out today's chivalry will be rewarded. Triple wages, each of them."
Zhang He stared.
Once we were back in Yecheng, the sum would be pocket money beside the fortune of the main house. A purse and a storehouse key exist to be opened on days like this.
"In this single venture through Xuzhou, young master, you poured out a sum that even a respectable magnate house could not shoulder."
"All of it is meant to come back later. That's the way of these things."
"I know nothing of how coin moves, or of trade. But a risk like this is not something a man can take without laying several lives on the table."
"It was only possible because you stood with me, Master Junyi. I hope the bond between us continues."
"A bond..."
"Ah—and this stays with you alone, Brother Junyi. What I spent here was only the smallest fraction."
His eyes sharpened.
"Travel with me, and there's a great deal more I can put into play."
Zhang He gave no answer. He hesitated, then turned and walked away.
He was a stiff man, but his skill was beyond question, and the longer I watched him the more clearly I saw he was the genuine article—the sort of friend a man wants to keep at his side.
With the rescue behind us and word that the war had ended, I meant to change clothes and share a cup with Guan Yu. Then an odd set of footsteps came up behind me.
"Hm?"
I turned. One of the women from the cart I had just saved was following me. She flinched when my eyes found her, then nodded to herself and came on again.
"You've been rescued. You ought to go home."
"I have nowhere to go."
"Then stay in the city of Tan, like the others, and look for a place to live."
"You saved me. Couldn't you keep me, after that?"
I stopped and looked at her again.
The woman who had been dragged toward Yanzhou was on the short side, but she was a beauty all the same—thick dark brows, large bright eyes, and a round face made for smiling. For a face like that to chase a man down and demand he take responsibility, her nerve was anything but ordinary.
"The women taken with me are no different, but I lost my family and was dragged all this way with nothing but the clothes on my back. I've nowhere to go, so even a maid's place would do. Please."
"N-no. That isn't why I saved you..."
"If I get three wheat-cakes and a bowl of soup a day, I can sweep, wash, and sew—all of it!"
"I wasn't talking about food."
"...Then two a day. You don't even have to put meat in the soup."
"How is a person supposed to work on that alone—no, that isn't the point!"
I had saved them, yes, and then simply turned them loose here, and that was becoming a problem. I could hardly send every one of them back to her original home one by one. My plan had been to place them in Guan Yu's care and, once Liu Bei returned, ask him to see that they were settled somehow. But someone following me and bargaining like this? That was a first.
"It isn't a bad offer, is it? One look at you and it's obvious. You're either a famous magnate or one of the warlords."
"I'm neither. I'm a merchant."
"Then among merchants you must be the greatest under heaven. One of those who deal in benevolence and righteousness, yes? That only makes me want to stay closer!"
I couldn't say I disliked a pretty girl pursuing me this far. It was simply awkward.
Just then a tall woman was hesitating in front of my lodgings. It was Zhuge Xue, sister of Zhuge Liang and Zhuge Jin, who had taken my traveling robe the other day and promised to mend it.
"I've come to return—ah!"
"Oh my?"
What is this?
Zhuge Xue had come smiling, the torn robe stitched whole and painstaking embroidery laid over the mend, and her eyes met, dead on, those of the girl trailing at my back—a refugee until a moment ago. Silence followed. Then the short woman behind me seized my arm and clung to it.
"You said you were a merchant, didn't you? My lord, I'll follow you all my life!"
"Um... this robe..."
Zhuge Xue thrust the robe into my hands and retreated in a flurry. The woman linked through my arm wore a victor's smile as she introduced herself.
"My surname is Huan, and my name is Ying. I'm from Xuzhou. My elderly parents died of the shock of the chaos, so I'm looking for a way to live. Please take me in."
"Haa..."
I called a servant at once and asked him to take this Miss Huan off somewhere for the time being. Huan? Had there been a woman by that name in the Xuzhou of the Three Kingdoms I knew? The only one I could recall was Lady Huan of Pengcheng, whom Cao Cao had taken in during his invasion of the province—the woman who bore Cao Chong and Cao Ju, the genius sons he favored above all the rest. Wait—?!
I rounded on Huan Ying, whom the servant was already leading away.
"Hold on, Miss Huan!"
"Yes!"
"Where are you from?"
"Pengcheng Kingdom, in Xuzhou. They say that's where the Hegemon-King of Western Chu came from, long ago."
"Ah... ah—?"
Aigoo. I had just snatched the girl bound for Cao Cao and taken her in myself. Cao Cao wouldn't know the difference, I supposed, but I had a feeling it would sit sour in his stomach someday. Well. Even Cao Cao has to lose a woman he has had his eye on, once in a while.
Some time later Liu Bei returned with Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun, and their homecoming drew a thunderous welcome from every soul of Xuzhou in Tan County. The cheers shook heaven and earth, and Liu Bei, lifting his sword high before them, looked every inch a hero of the realm.
He was far more resolute than I had imagined, and brimming with the spirit of chivalry. A great man is a great man.
That evening Liu Bei himself hosted a banquet.
"Come—drink, all of you, and celebrate that we meet again alive!"
When Liu Bei raised his cup, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei lifted theirs, and so did Jian Yong, Tian Yu, Zhang He, and I.
"Wine drunk because you lived to drink it—that's a taste a man never forgets! Brothers, every one of you suffered greatly this time."
They all nodded and laughed aloud, and I found myself thinking that this, then, was what a brotherhood of knights-errant looked like.
"And Lord Zhang."
"Yes, Lord Xuande."
Liu Bei came to me with the wine jar, filled my cup with his own hand, and raised his. When I had drained it, he settled formally onto his knees and bowed his head to me.
"B-brother?!"
"Brother, what are you doing!"
Guan Yu and Zhang Fei cried out in shock. Liu Bei only held the bow, then raised both hands in a proud fist-and-palm salute.
"Not at all. It is only my late father's discernment, bearing fruit."
At that salute I took his hands and made him lift his head.
"Coming here, I too have learned how cruel and wasted an age of chaos can be. A flower raised in a greenhouse has seen the danger outside, and found the will to move."
Watching Liu Bei swear to keep faith with righteousness and chivalry, with grace given and grace repaid, I could tell this night's drinking would run very long.
"Elder brother, as it happens I have proposed to Young Master Zhang more than once that he join us in accomplishing our aim."
"What? You're tellin' me Brother Yunchang made the offer himself?"
"Yide. This is a lord our elder brother has acknowledged—and one I have acknowledged."
With even Guan Yu speaking so, Zhang Fei studied my face several times over, nodded, and poured the wine down his throat in great gulps.
Before long Zhang He excused himself, saying he could not hold his liquor, and Zhao Yun rose as well, together with Tian Yu and the others. What remained was myself and the three sworn brothers—Liu, Guan, and Zhang.
Guan Yu first relayed to Liu Bei what I had told him of my family's circumstances, and those famous long ears of Liu Bei's stirred.
"And so it seemed to me that Baijin was much troubled over what the future holds."
"Ho. So that is why he came to Xuzhou?"
"Rather than sit still while that money was offered up as bribes to the powerful of Jizhou, he brought it out to see the world."
"And Baijin gave that fortune freely to a righteous cause. Hearing it again, he is a friend of remarkable heart. He will become the greatest merchant under heaven."
The talk between them had slipped, quite naturally, into the familiar, and so Liu Bei turned to me more warmly still.
"So. What will you do from here?"
"I have to return to Yecheng."
"Would it not be better to come with us to Xiapi, pay your respects to Lord Tao, Governor of Xuzhou, and go on from there? I will report every righteous deed you performed in this province, one by one."
Liu Bei's proposal: meet Tao Qian at once and stamp my name onto Xuzhou. Tempting. But not now.
"No. I will consider my work here finished and return to Yecheng."
"Well, now."
In that instant the look Liu Bei turned on me was anything but ordinary. He studied me again and again, and at last he nodded.
"Have you truly no thought of accomplishing this aim together with us?"
"Lord Xuande certainly seems a gentleman overflowing with chivalry, but..."
And then Liu Bei began to lay his heart bare.
"Then I will be honest as well. I did not truly know Xuzhou. With my friend Gongsun Zan, with whom I studied near my home in Youzhou, I governed a posting in Hebei. But Gongsun Zan, Lord Tao, and Yuan Shu of Nanyang were allies, and when word came that they were in peril, I came south through Qingzhou."
He drank a cup and went on.
"But the Xuzhou I saw with my own eyes was too dreadful. Brother Mengde, who led the army of Yanzhou, has been my comrade since the campaign to punish the traitor Dong Zhuo, and I thought we might settle it with words. I saw what had been done here, and I could not stand idle. That is why I have fought until now."
"Then, having protected Xuzhou, what will you do next?"
"I must see Governor Tao, tell him the war is over, set affairs in order, and return to Pingyuan. As for my debt to you... yes. I will have to begin repaying it slowly, from there."
"You mean to go up at once?"
I stared straight through him. Liu Bei thought a moment, then nodded.
"Very well. I will tell you all of it. He is my friend, yes—but the truth is, I do not wish to return to where that fellow Gongsun Zan waits."
"Elder brother!"
"Big brother!"
"Brothers, be still."
Was Liu Bei showing me his true mind? Then of course I had to hear him out.
"I told you Gongsun Zan, Lord Tao, and Yuan Shu in the south are allies. And though I ought to go back, I no longer wish to keep ties with that friend Gongsun Zan."
"Because of Lord Liu Yu, the former Inspector of Youzhou, who was murdered?"
"You know it well. Lord Bo'an was a scion of the imperial house of Han, a descendant of Emperor Guangwu. However bitterly Gongsun Zan opposed him, he could not assassinate that man so. It makes no sense!"
This was not merely an amiable gentleman of benevolence and righteousness. This was a Liu Bei who judged right and wrong for himself, and decided.
"And so it is also true that I came down to Xuzhou in order to leave him. Knowing myself to be a Liu of Han, how could I abide what was done to Lord Liu, an elder of the realm and of the clan..."
"I understand. I will remember that as well."
"Baijin!"
"I will go to Jizhou now and settle what remains. Yuan Shao of Jizhou means to fight Gongsun Zan, and to raise the funds for it he will wring the wealthy—my house among them—for every coin he can. So I will find a pretext and come back to Xuzhou."
"After you have gone to Yecheng, you will truly return here?"
"When I do, I will be asking a great deal of help from you, Lord Xuande."
"Heh. Help, is it? Whatever you need."
"If you remain here, General Tao, Governor of Xuzhou, will entrust you with a suitable city—Langya, Pengcheng, Xiaopei, somewhere of that kind. Then I will negotiate with the Governor. In exchange for restoring Xuzhou's trade routes, I will take the commercial rights to one of three things: salt, iron, or grain."
If that came to pass, everything I had spent so far would amount to nothing more than the cost of an initial look at the market, and I could run trade out of Xuzhou through Yuzhou, Qingzhou, Yangzhou, and Jingzhou.
"Of course, it depends entirely on how you speak of me to the magnates of Xuzhou. After that you will need a pretext to remain. Say this: Cao Cao of Yanzhou may come again at any time, so you will hold the front once more. The magnates left in Xuzhou will surely support it, and you need only build a defensive line where the province meets Yanzhou."
"You seem to know not only a merchant's gift for calculation, but strategy and politics as well. I want you with me. I must have you with me."
"Lord Xuande, while I am away, hold fast to the scholars of Xuzhou we saved here. The Zhuge clan of Langya in particular are talents without peer under heaven. If you also take in Yan Jun, Xu Sheng, Bu Zhi, and Wei Jing, they will be of great use to you."
"I understand. I will take every one of them into my care."
I confirmed it, and drew a single note from inside my robe.
"It is a small thing, but it should at least be enough to feed your officers wine and meat for what they have endured, and to put new clothes on their backs. It is a promissory note honored by the merchant houses of both Hebei and the Central Plains."
I handed over that note—a draft and a bond, in the manner of this age—and prepared to take my leave. Liu Bei, and Guan Yu and Zhang Fei with him, looked at me with faces full of set resolve, nodded, and raised the fist-and-palm salute.