The Temperature Gap Between Jizhou and Xuzhou
I packed my belongings and made ready to return to Yecheng in Jizhou.
The great store of supplies I had brought with me was nearly spent in any case, so I handed what remained over to Liu Bei with a generous sweep of the hand.
"Lord Xuande, you'll have a hard time getting through the winter."
"Don't trouble yourself. I'll set this place to rights one way or another."
"You must keep the bean seed back, no matter what. As for the kelp, I'll try to secure more from Bohai later, so put it to good use as relief rations."
"Of course. That's how it should be. Truly, one might call it the sea-grass that saved Xuzhou."
Camp fare in this age, it turned out, was river snails and water weeds boiled up out of streams and paddy fields, not anything that came from the sea. They had taken to it better than I expected, and I was glad of that. Once soybean oil and kelp were established as the main line, I meant to dream up a whole variety of other goods and sell those as well.
"If Cao Cao comes again, I expect it will be before the spring sowing. Yuan Shao's mediation this time was really a matter of supply, so he'll gather what he needs inside Yanzhou itself and move from there."
"Yes. You've seen it clearly. You really are a remarkable talent."
Liu Bei clasped both my hands and nodded, resolve burning in his eyes.
"We must meet again."
"Once Jizhou is settled, I will come to pay my respects."
With that farewell done, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei waved from behind him. Two giants waving like that was somehow both ridiculous and endearing.
I sorted the books in the tent and had the carriage brought around.
"I didn't even get through half of them."
I had hauled along a whole library — the Zuo Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Book of Rites, Yanzi's Spring and Autumn, the Discourses on Salt and Iron — but Xuzhou had given me so much to do that I had left most of them half-read. I meant to keep at them on the road and then work through them slowly back home in Yecheng, and I was packing them one by one when a voice came from outside.
"Lord Baijin, are you within?"
"That voice is familiar. The friend who told me to drop the formalities."
"...Baijin, may I come in?"
"Come in, then."
The man who entered at my word was Zhuge Jin. The fellow who had been filling his belly however he could in the rags of a refugee now wore new clothes and a groomed countenance, and he offered a gentle smile worthy of one of the great talents of the age.
"So you came."
"I heard you were leaving, so I've come as the family's representative to see you off."
While I was sorting the luggage I happened on a tea set and held it out. Zhuge Jin hurried to fetch water and set the leaves to steeping.
"That set would serve you better than me. Take it."
"Even at a glance, a craftsman labored over it. Are you certain?"
"In a harsh world, a man ought to have tools of some kind."
I drank, and put the question to him.
"I recommended you for a formal place in Lord Xuande's army. How did it go?"
"As it happens, I've been offered a post as military counselor. I'm hardly equal to it, but if we're to eat and live, I must do my utmost."
Zhuge Jin was a youth of barely twenty, and as head of the household he had every younger sibling to keep alive. There would be no end of work for now, and the pay would be meager, but he would carry great weight until Zhuge Liang came into his own. Zhuge Jin himself was famous as a talent of the age even if he did not quite match his brother, and Liu Bei's army — which until now had lacked a strategist with a true eye for grand planning — had just gained a remarkable prospect.
"You said you were going to Yecheng?"
"I am."
"I don't know if I ought to ask this, but how do you see my elder sister?"
I went still.
"My eldest sister, Xue. She's only a year apart from me, and her looks have drawn no end of marriage talks even in Langya. I wondered what you thought of her."
Hearing Zhuge Jin put it that way, I found the whole thing rather curious. She was tall for a woman of this age, her features strikingly fine — a beauty by modern standards — but our entire connection amounted to her having mended a set of clothes for me once.
"I'm ashamed to say I've never given a thought to matters between men and women."
"You need only take her in. For the sake of the house, even a place as your secondary wife would do."
"Hm?"
"I know what it means for me to say this, as her elder brother and head of the family. But I've already settled it with my sisters and my younger brothers."
I finished the last of the tea and rose.
"The tea's decent, isn't it?"
"Baijin."
"As I said, I'll be back in Xuzhou next year. I hope your family will have put down roots here by then."
"Next year?"
"This year's as good as finished, isn't it? A month or two more and it'll be the fifth year of Chuping — 194. We'll see each other then."
"Ah — ah, yes! I understand."
Zhuge Jin rose and saluted me with cupped fists. I returned the courtesy, and when I stepped outside the tent the Zhuge family was waiting. Zhuge Xue met my eyes, flinched, and turned her face away, though a flush was creeping unmistakably up her cheeks. Zhuge Hua had the two younger ones gathered close, and from within that little cluster Zhuge Liang was studying me with careful attention.
"I'll be back down before long, so we'll meet again then. I've made a friend in Zhuge Ziyu, and I mean to stay close with the Zhuge house."
"Y-yes."
Xue turned back and bowed deeply. Well. We could come to know each other in time.
With everything settled, I climbed into the carriage for the journey home.
"We depart."
"Yes, of course."
"...And why are you in here?"
"A gentleman called Steward Ak said I was to ride with you and attend you at your side."
I had no answer for that.
I had boarded meaning to see Zhuge Xue again another day, and there sat Huan Ying. She was small, but perched like that the curve above her waist stood out all the more — the pouch of her beauty, in other words. Her chest.
"Ah, I've never been to Yecheng. I've never even set foot in Jizhou."
She was humming under her breath as if we were off to view the spring flowers, and I spoke to that bright, restless face.
"There's no telling what will happen once we're there."
"At least no one's going to put a blade to us, right?"
"And if we turn back for Xuzhou soon, you'll get to meet a daughter of a great house."
"Oh, you mean the terribly tall lady? Her looks really were exceptional. Not quite mine, of course."
Once I had saved her, Huan Ying had turned out impossible to predict, and her nerve looked formidable. And this woman, if fate had run its course, was supposed to become Cao Cao's wife and bear him Cao Chong and Cao Ju.
"When we reach Yecheng I'll greet your family, and if there's work to be done I'll do all of it."
"I've never considered a formal marriage with you."
"And I'm only getting to know you, little by little."
Keep her around, and at least I wouldn't be bored.
After we arrived in Yecheng, Su Shuang and my elder sister Yanhua, who had been waiting at the house, took one look at me and threw their arms around me.
"You've had a hard road. My brother-in-law has come safely home from a truly dangerous journey."
"Qian! How could you go to a place like that? Thank heaven you've returned!"
Welcomed by sister and brother-in-law, I came inside and could rest at last.
Before long, scholars from all over Jizhou began calling at our house.
"To aid the fighting in Xuzhou with a merchant's wealth — truly, you have done a magnificent thing."
"Did you truly move for righteousness and chivalry? A hero of all under heaven!"
"Your father was forever seeking heroes amid the wars. That spirit seems to have passed to you unbroken."
Famous scholars and powerful clans came and went, sparing no praise, and I understood that this was what it meant to have a name known throughout the realm. Of course, not everyone who came offered only compliments. If they had, I might have thought it no bad thing to settle in Jizhou for good.
"Baijin, do you happen to know who it was that had Cao Cao's army held off in Xuzhou?"
"Was it not the Governor of Jizhou?"
"The Governor made a most wise decision, yes. But I tell you — the man who went to Cao Cao in person and persuaded him to stop the war was this Guo Gongze! Ahem!"
I said nothing.
"Baijin, you have done a truly great thing. But who was it that furnished the soldiers who took you all the way to Xuzhou? And who kept you from being trampled under the hooves of Cao Cao's cavalry?"
Ah. So he's asking what's in it for him. He wants a show of sincerity for going as envoy and stopping the fighting? Not even Yuan Shao himself — the men under Yuan Shao?
"That discussion can wait until after I have met the Governor. I will show my sincerity to each of you in proper order."
"What?"
"Why ever not? The greatest merit belongs to Lord Yuan, so I ought to offer my thanks to him first and work my way down. Is that not so?"
"Er — ahem!"
Guo Tu had come drooling over a great many expectations, but the news that any reward would follow a meeting with Yuan Shao left him smacking his lips in regret.
"Hmm, yes! It is only proper to pay one's respects to one's lord first."
"The moment I arrived I began waiting for Lord Yuan's return from campaign. He comes within a few days, I hear?"
"Th-that is so."
"The rest of you I will receive at leisure, once I have seen Lord Yuan."
I drove Guo Tu off in that fashion, and Su Shuang came over.
"Baijin, how much did you slip Guo Tu?"
"I didn't slip him anything."
"Haaah. The problem is who's coming next. Shen Pei and Xu You, they say."
"A pack of hungry ghosts..."
Yuan Shao had given the permission and I had done the work, and yet here they all were, gathering from who knew where to hold out their hands.
"While I was sweeping the bandit bands across Hebei, I heard a great many extraordinary rumors out of Xuzhou. They say you, Baijin, are no different from Lü Buwei of old."
"The thousand soldiers you lent me were an enormous help."
"Hahaha! Then make good use of them for as long as they're borrowed!"
A private audience with Yuan Shao, in the government office of Yecheng, the seat of Jizhou. He had finished pacifying the province, swept away every bandit band eyeing his lands, and come back flushed with triumph.
"I said a merchant who survives a dangerous place is a merchant worth keeping, did I not? So now that you've been to that dangerous place and come back, what will you do?"
"First I carried out the righteousness of saving people. Next I mean to sell profit."
"Hmm. Good. Before long a great merchant surpassing even your father will rise inside my Jizhou. But listen."
Yuan Shao had been smiling at his ease. All at once his eyes went wide and fixed on me.
"If it's trade conducted on a battlefield, I have need of it myself."
"Does the Governor of Jizhou not possess the genius of arms to win victory after victory?"
"That is so. And yet a war, each time one is fought, demands a great many things. Salt, above all, and iron, and warhorses."
"You mean..."
"The horses — I'm making good use of the pastures you gave me. The iron, too; the merchants' networks serve well enough. But the salt. Your house's rights to the Bohai salt trade — I wonder if I might draw on those a little ahead of time?"
I stared.
"You're going to Xuzhou anyway, to secure the salt rights there, are you not? Then while you're away, I'd like our nephew, who's staying behind, to make thorough use of the Jizhou salt rights."
This is nothing like his underlings angling for a token of sincerity. Yuan Shao, you're the greediest of them all.
Plenty of warlords took a cut of a merchant house's profits. A man who demanded the distribution rights themselves, whole and entire, I was seeing for the first time. In this age salt was supposed to be a state monopoly, with the rights to move it parceled out among the local magnates of each region. But the Han of the present day could no longer exercise real administrative power, and the inspectors and governors of the provinces wielded, in practice, every authority there was.
"Ordinarily I wouldn't make so unreasonable a demand. But I'm about to strike the Black Mountain bandits of Bingzhou, and I'll need a great deal of materiel for it. Don't worry, though. Once Bingzhou is taken, I'll settle the price handsomely later."
"Governor, the sum we spent in Xuzhou was considerable, and we meant to recover it through the salt and oil trade out of Bohai."
"Don't fret over that. While I was mediating between Xuzhou and Yanzhou this time, Governor Tao Qian of Xuzhou proposed an alliance. Xuzhou has the sea in plenty at Donghai and Langya, does it not? I'll recommend you there."
"I am ashamed to say I only made use of supplies on the open plain, and I have never met the magnates of that region, nor the Governor of Xuzhou. Might you grant me a little time?"
"Oh? Time?"
"Let me trade for ten years — no, five. If within that span I secure the salt rights in Xuzhou, I will gladly turn the Jizhou rights over to Gao Yuanze, Your Excellency's nephew."
So this was why Yuan Shao had planted Gao Gan in the Jizhou salt rights. Before I handed them over, he wanted me to take one last cut and be done.
"You mean the trade continues, and our army buys its salt from your house? And later you turn the whole of it over to that nephew of mine?"
"No. Wartime materiel I will hand over without taking a price. I only need the trade that flows to the common people."
"Then three years."
Three years to wind it all up? He's set on swallowing the whole of Hebei, one way or another.
"I am head of the house, but my brother-in-law keeps the accounts. Allow me to consult with him and call on you again."
"Is that so? Then I, too, shall merely consider it for now. You may go."
With that, I rose from the audience with Yuan Shao.
After Zhang Qian had gone, Yuan Shao let out a thin laugh and muttered to himself.
"A peddler is a peddler. Daring to click an abacus at me?"
However much wealth a mere merchant might scatter, however many private soldiers he might keep, all of it existed because Yuan Shao stood behind him. And the man thought to match wits? Yuan Shao would have liked to watch and see just how far he meant to play the fool, but first he had to settle the matter of Cao Cao's Yanzhou and Tao Qian's Xuzhou, and then prepare at once for the great expedition into Bingzhou.
"My lord, the Major has arrived."
"Send him in."
The door opened, and Zhang He appeared in formal military dress. He offered a respectful salute before Yuan Shao and knelt. Of everyone on the late expedition to Xuzhou, he was the man who had seen the most from closest at hand.
"Junyi. How was Xuzhou?"
"I went and returned safely, in accordance with your command."
"I mean to ask you now about that young peddler I ordered you to guard. You can answer me without hiding anything, I trust?"
Yuan Shao bared his white teeth and put every question he had to Zhang He.