To My Dear Xuzhou Gentry... Eat Shit!
"First time I've had to move without Brother Junyi beside me."
"Then I'll simply have to keep you company instead."
"And why, exactly, did you come along?"
"Lord Su sent me. He said I was to attend you properly."
Inside the carriage rolling from Xiaopei toward Xiapi, Huan Ying had bundled up every last piece of luggage and stuck herself fast to my side. Guan Yu was with us, and Zhao Yun, and Zhuge Jin had come along as well. Zhang He had been left behind — and yet here was Ying.
"The madam was especially firm. She told me to look after you very, very well all the way to Xiapi."
"There won't be much worth seeing once we get there."
"Looking after you is something I can do."
It gnawed at me all the more that Zhuge Jin was traveling in the same party.
While we stayed in Xiaopei I had accepted an invitation from the Zhuge family, and Zhuge Xue, meeting me again, had hesitated time after time before the color rose in her face. Zhuge Jin had pushed the matter with precious little disguise, the look on him all but asking whether his sister might do after all.
"Marriage..."
Zhuge Xue was a remarkably beautiful woman. She was Zhuge Jin's younger sister, and Zhuge Liang's elder sister besides. As a kinship alone, the match would be an extraordinary gain.
"Mmm."
Huan Ying was watching that mutter of mine with keen attention. She smiled until her eyes bent like crescents, pressed herself against my side, and nuzzled close.
"I don't mind if I'm only a concubine."
"...I wasn't thinking about that."
"From the moment you saved me, my lord, my life was already yours. I don't care who the principal wife is. I'll cook well for you — and if I give you a son first, that will be enough."
However it was that Huan had ended up at my side, I meant to settle the whole of it once the trouble at Xiapi was resolved and Cao Cao's second invasion of Xuzhou was finished. And really, in an age like this, keeping several wives and concubines could hardly even be called a flaw. If pretty girls wanted to stay near me, I wasn't about to complain.
We talked of this and that, dozed through the daylight hours inside the carriage, lodged overnight in nearby counties, and set out again, until at last we reached the seat of Xuzhou.
When we arrived at Xiapi County in the Principality of Xiapi and stepped down from the carriage, a landscape unfolded that was nothing like the Xuzhou I had seen before. Crowds packed the streets. Merchants cried their wares on every side. A troupe of marketplace performers danced, and the smell of good food never once broke off.
"Is this really the same Xuzhou...?"
"When men of the Central Plains speak of Xuzhou as a land of plenty, they mean the region around Xiapi."
"Even so — the district right above this one has been burned to a wasteland, and here they feast and live soft? This is the same province, isn't it?"
I asked because I could not begin to grasp the sensibility of the age, and Zhuge Jin, answering at my side, only managed an awkward smile. As for Guan Yu's face, I had no need to look any further.
"Hnnngh!"
Truly furious, his face flushed red as a jujube. He clenched his fists until the veins stood out in ridges, and a giant of more than nine chi standing there like that was enough to send every passing soul of Xuzhou scrambling aside in terror, whether they knew who he was or not.
"Even if the Inspector of Xuzhou is too old and feeble to see to affairs of state, I should very much like to look upon the faces of the dogs beneath him."
"Let us go to the government office. Our lord told us not to raise a disturbance, so let us try words first."
Zhao Yun soothed Guan Yu as best he could, and together we made for the yamen.
"You have had a long, hard road. This man is Commandant Zhao Bao, military aide to General Tao."
Solid of build, and armored even inside the yamen, Zhao Bao was the military chief who led the Danyang troops — the finest elite in Xuzhou at present. He had followed Tao Qian since the days the governor raised his banner in Danyang as a warlord of Yangzhou, and was in truth the second power in the province. Even before Guan Yu and Zhao Yun he did not yield an inch, and tried to match them aura for aura.
"I am Zhang Baijin. I have been charged with raising the fortifications at Xiaopei, to hold off Cao Cao's army. Yet the support General Tao promised has never come, and everything has stopped. I have come to beg that aid be sent at once, so we may keep the enemy from our gates."
"Ah. So that was it. I take your meaning. But Xuzhou's situation at present is very poor."
I could only stare.
Zhao Bao clicked his tongue and flicked his hands this way and that.
"General Tao is ill, and the Principality of Xiapi stands under emergency measures. We are wholly occupied defending the Xiapi region so strictly that we cannot move a single soldier, nor a single ingot of gold."
"I am told General Tao has two grown sons. Could we not lay the matter before them in his stead, and receive the support that way?"
"The two young masters are occupied nursing the general. What nonsense is this?"
With Zhao Bao taking that line, the faces of Guan Yu, Zhuge Jin, and Zhao Yun behind me were a sight to behold. I quieted the three of them and rose to my feet.
The magnates of Xuzhou sitting there were shameless indeed, but I had no thought of overturning the room.
"Are all of you taking last year's affair so lightly? Only a few months ago Cao Cao's army came down out of Yanzhou, slaughtered tens of thousands of common people, and burned fortress after fortress, county after county, across northern Xuzhou. It happened right before your noses. It happened in this very province."
"And so the general forged an alliance with the Inspector of Jizhou, and through mediation we found our peace. After Cao Cao, we'd only be left naked before Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shu — our own allies of old!"
I went still.
One ill-favored official who had been sitting quietly tossed that out, and the man beside him burst into a guffaw and chimed right in.
"Cao Cao may or may not raise another great host and come this way. And with Jizhou and Qingzhou aiding us, if the man called Cao Cao has any sense at all, would he come here again?"
Do these bastards have a thought in their heads?
So Xiapi had come through unharmed, and they themselves were warm-backed and full-bellied. They had scraped past once, and so they had decided there would be no second time — counting on Yuan Shao and Qingzhou, perfectly at their ease.
"What matters now is that our lord, General Tao, recover from his illness. Help from outside is appreciated, but for Xuzhou the Inspector's health comes first. When he wakes, then we may discuss support."
"Well said. Endure quietly, and once our recovered lord is informed, the aid can be sent amply enough, even if it comes late. So the rest of you may go back to whatever you were doing."
Every so-called gentryman and official of Xuzhou in that room was thoroughly uncooperative, and Zhao Bao, too, shook his head with a solemn face.
"Is that your answer? You've nothing more to say?"
"Return to Xiaopei, where you belong, and we'll see to everything ourselves. Don't worry."
"Ha."
There was nothing more worth seeing.
"Ziyu. Bring out the invoices."
"Eh — wh-what?"
"The ones prepared in your robe."
From his breast Zhuge Jin drew the bamboo slips on which we had set down every cost of fortification, supplies, and labor. Not one slip — several. I had meant to pass them round to each official of Xuzhou and have the accounts acknowledged for settlement.
I took the bundle and simply flung it at them.
"If you have eyes, look well. This is the blood-price of the soldiers at the front who meant to keep you alive."
"Oho. Look at this young fellow. And where do you think you're throwing bamboo slips?"
"Are these even properly drawn up? You're not trying to line your pockets under the pretext of defending the front, are you?"
I picked up one of them and spoke.
"Enough. You needn't trouble yourselves over this any longer."
"What did you say? 'You people'?"
"Insolent brat!"
I gathered every bamboo slip that bore a bill, cast them into the brazier before me, and burned them.
"If each man seated here had put in a hundred taels of silver and a hundred bushels of rice, I would have taken it as a token of sincerity. If you won't — fine. I'll pay the whole of it myself."
The room jerked as if struck.
"Baijin!"
Someone shouted behind me. I paid it no mind.
"Shameless whelp!"
A heavy thud rolled through the hall.
In that instant Guan Yu fixed them with a glare as if he meant to kill any one of them, and the air among the officials of Xuzhou froze solid. Beside him, Zhao Yun's usual gentle, handsome face twisted hard, and when those tiger-eyes opened, not a man dared open his mouth.
"Still, since we've come all this way, let us enjoy a night in plentiful Xuzhou! You fine gentlemen will know better than I where the best inn is, and the best courtesans. I'll be there. Discuss it among yourselves!"
I left them with the invoices already ash before their eyes.
"Come. Drink."
"Baijin, you've done something enormous. You've struck the gentry of Xuzhou head-on!"
Zhuge Jin cried it with a startled face, but I quietly filled his cup.
"Baijin said everything that needed saying. Had it been me, I would have smashed that Zhao Bao's skull and ordered the granary doors thrown open!"
When Guan Yu said it in that voice like rolling thunder, nothing in the world felt more reassuring.
Just as I had told them in the yamen of Xuzhou, we took our ease at an inn where the food was good and the wine better.
"Lord Baijin, if we simply return like this, I fear we will come to great grief."
"Zilong, there's nothing to worry about. Whatever Xiaopei lacks, I'll make up myself."
"The support you have given our lord until now is a kindness beyond thanks. But feeding an entire fortress for months on end — will that not be too heavy a burden?"
When Zhao Yun asked it, worry threaded through his voice, I set my cup down.
"I mean to stay here a few days. Things may change before we leave."
"Change how? The men we saw in that office are not the sort to extend a hand. Not ever, I think."
"True. But if they speak of what happened today, there will be others who come looking for us."
The three of them stared.
Life, as it turns out, really is a matter of timing.
The moment the words left my mouth, the inn's steward came in wearing fine robes, bringing a crowd of cooks and courtesans with him.
"Might you be Lord Zhang Baijin?"
"I am. And you are?"
"Hearing that you were lodging at this inn, a guest who has just arrived instructed us to serve you wine and food without stint."
Brows twitched — Guan Yu's, Zhao Yun's, Zhuge Jin's alike — and I turned to them.
"What did I tell you? Let the rumor spread, I said, and someone with an interest in us will come."
I looked at the cooks bearing a whole pig, freshly slaughtered, the meat still bright, and great jars of wine rich with fragrance, and I rose from my seat.
"I don't know what guest prepared all this to entertain us, but tell him we've already eaten our fill here."
"Oh my. Then what are we to do with so much...?"
"Consider it paid for, and eat it yourselves. Ah — and give this message to the guest who sent it. Tell him I'd like the second round at his house."
In that instant the steward's face changed sharply. He murmured with several men who looked to be his own subordinates, then sent two of them off at once.
"I will convey it to the guest immediately."
"Lord Yunchang. Brother Zilong. Ziyu. Let us make ready. We'll be receiving an invitation from one of the upright men still left in Xuzhou."
And before long, servants truly did come to escort us.
"I heard you were treated shamefully at the government office, and so this man has taken the liberty of inviting you here."
"Not at all. Wherever people live, it is the same. If there are wicked men, then there are also good men, such as yourself."
The man who had invited us to a mansion of considerable scale within the walls of Xiapi was a tall young gentleman, strikingly handsome.
"Allow me to introduce myself properly. My name is Lu Su, my courtesy name Zijing. I am an unworthy scholar, born of Xiapi."
"Zhang Qian, courtesy name Baijin. A merchant of Zhongshan in Jizhou, come here in search of a new foundation."
A clean chill ran straight down my spine.
Shove aside every mediocrity in that yamen — win the heart of this one man, Lu Su, and that alone would be enormous.
"I am Guan Yu, courtesy name Yunchang. You look very young. How old are you?"
"I was born in the first year of Xiping — the year 172 — so this year I am twenty-three."
"A young man, and yet your spirit is remarkable. I came to Xiapi thinking it held nothing but greedy rats, and here I find a worthy man like you."
"You flatter me."
Lu Su smiled, quiet and unruffled, and came to the point.
"The Xuzhou gentry of the Xiapi region originally took great profit as middlemen on the roads that run through Hebei, the Central Plains, and the Yangtze. For most of them, the wealth they have piled up here and the safety of their own houses are the whole of their concern. Even if someone new comes to replace the aged Inspector of Xuzhou, they will follow anyone at all, so long as that someone preserves their families."
"Even after they have seen with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, what became of Langya and Dongguan?"
"Even if the district right above them burns, their own lives and their own wealth were kept safe. And so there are few among them who worry overmuch."
Lu Su himself was a man of Xiapi in Xuzhou, yet he lashed the gentry of that region without mercy.
"By chance, the people of Lord Xuande at Xiaopei have come to us. But the 'righteous scholars' who would support him, and the 'wealthy gentry who would open their granaries,' are either away from their seats or in no position to step forward. So, having heard the news, I thought that if even I would do, I might help you a little."
"Is that truly so?"
"I, too, have thought that I cannot unfold any great ambition in a city like Xiapi, and I had meant to leave this place. The wealth of Xuzhou, handed down through the generations — if it will save the people of Xuzhou, I will give it gladly, and depart to seek a new land."
When Lu Su said it so cleanly, I clenched my fist.
But one thing was wrong.
Leave? Leave for where? You're going to hear me tell you to stay, and come with me.