The Difference Between a Lord to Serve and a Partner to Work With
After I left Yuan Shao's residence, my heart hammered in my chest.
"Hoo—!"
I had already flung the demand out there, but Yuan Shao was never going to give me what I wanted. The Bohai salt rights Su Shuang had named, and the other concessions besides, were things he could easily have tossed over with a lordly sweep of the hand. Yuan Shao was not that man. He built a magnificent reputation for generosity where the world could see it, then turned stingy the moment anything had to be divided. That was why I had pitched a five-year deal. He had answered by cutting it to three, and now I had to decide what to do with an answer like that.
"Well, now. Who is this? The great merchant of Jizhou, chasing Lü Buwei's footsteps?"
"!"
I looked up. A tall scholar stood there, stroking his beard—a Jizhou official in his early to mid-forties, with an easy, unhurried face. I had seen him once in passing. It was unmistakably Feng Ji.
"Attendant Feng, isn't it?"
"Will you take a cup of tea? My house is nearby."
"If you're inviting me, gladly."
I followed him home. Among Yuan Shao's advisors he was, together with Guo Tu, a scholar said to keep company even with the men of the Yuan house from the generation before Yuan Shao. He was also famed as a brilliant administrator: a staggering gift for figures, and the ability to glance once through a mountain of documents and clear every one of them, so that Jizhou's civil government ran without a hitch.
True to that reputation, the inner study had a desk buried under bamboo slips. Feng Ji cleared them aside, served tea, and smiled a thin smile. It felt as if he were running his accounts on me while he looked.
"I heard what happened in Xuzhou, and I couldn't stop laughing. To think a single merchant would empty his private coffers and take that chaos in hand."
"It was a dangerous venture, but it put a reputation in my hands."
"A man of Jizhou—and in Xuzhou, of all places?"
Feng Ji chuckled, took a sip, and then asked me in earnest.
"Do you mean to leave Jizhou for good?"
"I only mean to plant a foothold in the Central Plains. How could I abandon a market as vast as Hebei?"
"Then the sister and the brother-in-law who keep your house—they stay here?"
That he asked it so bluntly set him cleanly apart from the rest of Yuan Shao's advisors, who had eyes for nothing but money. The only men who had ever cut this sharply were Ju Shou and Tian Feng, back in the day.
"My sister knows little of trade, and my brother-in-law must look over the commercial base we're about to open in Xuzhou."
"So if the whole family goes down to Xuzhou, it's no different from leaving entirely, is it?"
"The Governor of Jizhou already knows that. It's why I entrusted him with the army-horse pastures and the farmland. The salt rights remain, of course, and I intend to keep the Hebei base in operation."
"Merchants don't liquidate their capital so easily. Not after swallowing a loss that steep."
"You're telling me. There's really nothing left in it, is there?"
Feng Ji's eyes narrowed.
Right. However greedy Yuan Shao's advisors might be, they were not idiots who rubbed their palms in front of him and merely warmed a seat.
"Anyone can see you're scrambling for the Central Plains by whatever means you can find, and that you mean to keep Jizhou's markets turning while you do it. And yet your head is already in Xuzhou."
"I carry my father's dying charge. I only wish to go far into the Central Plains with a great purpose."
"Around Xuzhou there is Yang Province, Qing Province, Yan Province, Yu Province…"
He kept probing. I listened and said nothing.
Play this right, and I won't have to move at all. He'll jump to his own conclusions—and I can use them.
"You wouldn't happen to be…"
"What is it you mean to ask?"
"Have you set your eye on Yingchuan in Yu Province?"
"!"
Oh-ho. Yingchuan Commandery. I hadn't even thought of that, and Feng Ji had gone and handed it to me.
Yingchuan lay southwest of Xuzhou and south of Yan, an administrative seat under Yu Province. Speak of Yingchuan, and you spoke of a place that, in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, poured out an astonishing number of famous men. Xun Yu and Xun You, to begin with, and the hometown of Xun Shen, Xun Yu's elder brother, now in Yuan Shao's service. Guo Jia and Guo Tu. Xin Pi and Xin Ping. Zhong Yao, Chen Qun, and Chen Tai. And, as it happened, the hometown of Han Fu as well—the previous Governor of Jizhou, whom my father had backed before Yuan Shao.
"If you are moving with Yingchuan in mind, I shall report you to my lord at once and see that you are not permitted to go south."
"Why?"
"You ask because you don't know?"
"I truly don't. Why shouldn't I think of Yingchuan?"
Feng Ji stared at me as if he had taken a solid blow.
Yes. Yuan Shao's camp was several factions at once. Guo Tu, Xin Ping, Xin Pi, Chunyu Qiong, and their like were the Yingchuan faction out of Yu Province. Tian Feng, Ju Shou, Shen Pei, and Cui Yan were the Hebei faction. And Feng Ji, Xu You, and Guo Tu—Guo Tu himself a man of Yingchuan—had followed Yuan Shao without a break since the days when he served as a staff officer under Grand General He Jin.
"A mere merchant has no reason to scheme around where those gentlemen were born. Aren't they all celebrated men under the same Governor of Jizhou? I'm genuinely curious."
"A man of your discernment could send people into the Central Plains and go on growing here in Hebei himself."
The moment I played ignorant, he changed his offer.
"If you settle in Hebei and keep leading your caravan, I will speak to my lord and have every difficulty of yours resolved. The salt trade, of course—and you could even take back the markets of You Province that wretch Gongsun Zan has occupied."
What Feng Ji wanted, no matter what, was to pin me in Yecheng and keep a patronage that ran one hundred percent to Yuan Shao. Honestly, if a man followed the prevailing current of this age, that was the orthodox play. He was wary I might take some other warlord's hand and harbor a second loyalty.
"I don't know what you fear, Attendant, but I will never set myself against the House of Yuan. Quite the opposite. Even from Xuzhou, I want only the Governor's support, and a trade route that can pass freely between Xuzhou and Jizhou."
"Couldn't you do all of that from Jizhou alone?"
"The goodwill of the people of Xuzhou is something I won by going there myself. I want to see the thing I started through to its fruit."
"Mm. Mmm."
"Rather, I would ask you, Attendant Feng, to look over the supplies I send up from Xuzhou—and, when the Governor advances into the Central Plains after Hebei is secured, to remind him that Xuzhou is a steadfast ally."
"I see. Very well."
"Thank you for the tea."
Leaving Feng Ji's house, one thing was certain. These were men who moved by nothing but calculation and advantage. Let someone appear who could replace me, and my usefulness would be discarded without a moment's hesitation.
Money, information, the know-how of trade. Without those, would the reason for our house's existence even catch Yuan Shao's eye?
I took the fierce wind of a Hebei winter on the road home, and once I was inside the house I sank into thought.
The fifth year of Xingping. The year 194.
I saw the new year in at Yecheng in Jizhou, and was making ready before long to set out for Xuzhou again, when Su Shuang called for me. My sister Yanhua was there as well. It had the look of a family council.
"Baijin. Before you leave for Xuzhou, there's something I want to ask."
"Yes, brother-in-law."
"Do you truly have to go right away?"
"What do you mean?"
I couldn't imagine what he was saying at this late hour. My sister let out sigh after heavy sigh.
"I'm sorry, Qian'er. I should have told you sooner. We haven't been able to dispose of even half the property here."
"What? How?"
"The luxuries and household goods we meant to put on the Yecheng market. General Yuan, preparing his campaign against Bing Province, has choked the flow of goods tight. At a time like this, ornaments won't fetch a tenth of their price."
Ah. And what was this, now?
"With war in front of us, the price of valuables has fallen past all reason. Do you see what that means?"
"That he's made up his mind to control the market—so luxuries can be bought, and can't be sold?"
Su Shuang nodded, and a real sigh escaped me.
Looking at it now, he meant to turn every commodity into war matériel, and had shut valuables out of circulation altogether. Every coin moving through Hebei was going to military supplies. Hold a fire sale of the house's property and there still wouldn't be money out there to buy or sell with. And on top of that, someone had blocked it in the open: don't deal in that sort of thing.
"I'm sorry, Qian'er. Last winter you went through such dangerous places to prepare all this…"
"If not Yecheng, can we sell in Zhongshan, or in Pingyuan in Qing Province?"
"The money supply of all Hebei is stopped. Yan and Bing won't handle valuables either. Jing Province or Huainan might be another matter, but carrying this down there is even more impossible."
"Hah…"
"Still, if my brother-in-law's resolve is firm, I'll dispose of as much as I can, raise the funds, and go to Xuzhou with you."
"The loss would be ruinous, wouldn't it?"
"You are the head of the house. Following the head's will is my part."
Hearing Su Shuang say that steadied me more than I could easily admit. Even so, I couldn't openly take the hit—dump the family fortune for shit prices, swallow a brutal loss, and force my way south.
Just then Huan Ying knocked twice on the door.
"My lord~ You've a visitor outside. He gives his name as Major Zhang Junyi."
"!?"
"Junyi? Isn't that the solid-looking commander who went with you, Qian'er?"
"Sister, brother-in-law. I'll go and see him."
With Huan Ying guiding me, I went to the reception room where Zhang He was waiting. He rose when he saw me and bowed, his face as weighty and composed as ever.
"Lord Junyi, please sit. I'll have tea brought."
"I'll take it gladly. But first, there is something I must say."
Zhang He sat and came straight to the point.
"The Governor of Jizhou has given his permission regarding your journey to Xuzhou."
"So I may make use of you and a thousand soldiers again, Lord Junyi."
"On one condition. The force going south this time will escort the Caravan Master, but our principal order is to act for the alliance between Xuzhou and Jizhou."
"Like the army of Zhu Ling, sent to Yan Province?"
Zhang He nodded.
When Yuan Shao marched to strike Bing Province, he meant to set his footing properly, so that Yan and Xuzhou at his rear would lie entirely under his heel.
"In addition, the Caravan Master himself is to pay the wages of as many men as are required to escort him and the caravan. This is proposed for the journey down to Xuzhou, and it applies from the moment the Caravan Master departs."
So that was it. He knew perfectly well our house couldn't liquidate its property, and this was how he "helped"? Regrettable. But borrowing Zhang He and a thousand soldiers again had given me the answer—a way to settle the whole thing without losing so much as a single coin.
"I ought to pay my respects to the Governor. To think he would grant every unreasonable demand of a mere tradesman like me."
"If you leave for Xuzhou soon, I shall make ready as well."
"Brother Junyi, why not bring your whole family with you?"
"!?"
I held out to him the ornamental coral tree that stood in the reception room.
"I'll find you a house more than twice the size of the one you have now, and fill it with fine furnishings. Your children will study under Xuzhou's renowned scholars, and you'll live far more comfortably than you do in Jizhou."
"Do you mean that?"
"Of course. I already have more to take than I can carry. When I'm reunited with my thousand comrades, I mean to share it all out—wardrobes, cauldrons, jars, mirrors, dressing tables, bedding, the lot."
"…I can't decide that alone."
"Then think it over at your leisure. Before I leave for Xuzhou, I mean to call on the Governor as he prepares to march, and offer my thanks."
If Zhang He agreed, I would entrust every stick of our household goods to him and his thousand soldiers. Haul that to Xuzhou, and I would release it onto the markets of southern Xuzhou, where wealthy local clans still abounded, and trade in valuables as far as Huainan and Yu Province. I would of course arrange the transport fees, and wages for room and board in Xuzhou, for Zhang He and the thousand. Even so, a great deal would be left over.
Whether he kept following the Yuan Shao of today, or—like Zhu Ling of Yan Province—left under the name of a dispatch and then settled in Xuzhou, depended on his own will.
But I would bet on this: Zhang He would ride with me to the very end.