The Invoice for Xuzhou Will Not Come Cheap
After their return, Liu Bei and his two sworn brothers bathed for the first time in a long while and slept like the dead.
Then a victory feast was opened within Xiaopei.
Soldiers and commoners inside the city could eat meat again, and a banquet was laid even within the government offices.
"We may have won the war, but in the fighting itself we were beaten hollow. Too much blood was spilled."
Liu Bei rolled his cup this way and that and shook his head, his face clouded.
Just as Lu Su had proposed, they had let it be known to everyone that they were going to save Xuzhou — and among the people of Xuzhou and Yuzhou, those common folk who bore a grudge against Cao Cao rose as volunteers. They swelled like a snowball and held Cao Cao's army at Tan, though the losses must have been terrible. When the three brothers arrived, a great tide of refugees came with them, and a good number, their wounds too grave, died after reaching this place.
"Elder Brother, they rose out of chivalry, to stand against the enemy. And the wish they carried — you have fulfilled it."
"Brother Yunchang's right, he is! This ain't our first war or our second, and we've driven off that Cao Cao bastard's army. Ain't that enough!"
When Guan Yu and Zhang Fei spoke up, Liu Bei gave a bitter smile and drained his cup in one pull. Guan Yu, as ever, steadied him and offered comfort, while Zhang Fei soothed him now and then in that gravelly voice of his, northern dialect braided through the speech of the central plains.
"And the folks inside Xiaopei held this place just fine! Even Baijin, standing in for our brother — I'll allow he's worth something!"
Zhang Fei looked at me and raised a thumb. It was a hearty bit of praise, and yet somewhere in it I could feel him sorting men into ranks.
"These people carried out their duties admirably even while I was gone. Every one of them deserves praise. Zilong, Zijing, Junyi, Xianhua, Ziyou, Wenxiang, Zichan — all of you!"
Liu Bei went so far as to name them all, and they laughed, a little abashed, and passed the cups around.
Then Lu Su raised a hand.
"Inspector. Permit me to speak here. Let us make ready together and report this merit in person to General Tao, Governor of Xuzhou."
"I agree."
At Lu Su's proposal and mine, Guan Yu's eyes narrowed.
"Aid from Xiapi... When I think of what happened at Tan...!"
His face had flushed red all over again. Something else must have happened.
Don't tell me Xiapi never even sent help to Tan?
"While we were fighting that wretch Cao Cao, and the thing was nearly done, Zhao Bao crept in, planted a banner, and squeaked that he would pursue the Yanzhou army. A rat's trick, nothing more."
"Yunchang, enough. Even so, thanks to Colonel Zhao bringing the Danyang troops, we were spared a greater loss."
Well now. I'd thought Xiapi wouldn't move at all, and that sly Zhao Bao had wedged himself in at the last moment to snatch the finishing blow?
Then old Tao Qian would know nothing of it, and Zhao Bao would become, overnight, the man who led the Danyang troops and stopped Cao Cao's invasion. The greatest merit was Liu Bei's, of course. Zhao Bao would simply preen as though he had done his part.
"Even so, say what anyone will, this battle could never have been won without Lord Xuande. Come with me to Xiapi."
"I agree with Baijin."
Lu Su and I raised our hands and spoke to the three brothers.
"Lord Xuande, you have saved Xuzhou twice. Go to Xiapi, the seat of Xuzhou's government, announce it openly, and brand into them, beyond all doubt, who their protector is."
"Hmm. So you're saying you'll go again, Baijin?"
"The work is finished. An invoice always arrives last. That's the way of it."
Liu Bei gazed at me for a long moment, then laughed aloud and lifted his cup.
"Yunchang and Yide will hold this place. Those who ride with me need only be Zilong, Zijing, and Baijin."
"Elder Brother!"
"How can you go and leave us behind?"
Liu Bei stretched a hand toward Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.
"Listen well. Once Yanzhou's army has withdrawn, a great many wanderers will pour into Xiaopei. Restoring a Xiaopei that has just ended a war, and commanding so many refugees — only you, my brothers, can do it."
"You mean we are to restore Xiaopei?"
"Yunchang will take the watch and the works. Yide will take in the wanderers and command the officers who remain."
"If that is your judgment, I will do it."
Give Liu Bei a sound reason, and Guan Yu accepted at once. Zhang Fei grumbled, but he nodded.
"Tch. I was gonna take one look at those high-and-mighty mugs in Xiapi, and if they rubbed me wrong, crack their skulls."
"That is precisely why you must stay, Yide. Not only Yunchang — you too would charge straight into the great clans of Xiapi, would you not?"
"The one who went at them hardest was Baijin, mind..."
Bring Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, and we could make the unseen will of Liu Bei plain for all to see — but he meant to see that no such catastrophe came to pass. Besides, Liu Bei himself was no mean swordsman, Zhao Yun would be at his side, and if I went, Zhang He would follow. Escorts would be no trouble.
"And so I mean to go to Xiapi and come back."
"Then we ought to prepare to leave with you."
"You as well, Sister?"
Yanhua said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world: she and Su Shuang would make ready together.
"It's time we loosened a few of the household treasures. Gold and cloth that can be spent at once must always be kept turning."
In other words, they meant to ply a gentleman's trade inside Xiapi.
"Once matters in Xuzhou are settled, we'll have to go to Jizhou sooner or later. The whole family has come south, but we still need to look in on the ventures in Bohai Commandery."
Su Shuang was right. When we slipped free of Yuan Shao's grasp, we had wound up most of the businesses, and what remained in Hebei was in the hands of Yuan Shao's kinsmen. Whether they had properly set aside our share was anyone's guess — and in the worst case, they might have been unable even to manage the concerns and made a complete wreck of them.
"They say Yuan Shao is burning enormous sums on war materiel while he fights Gongsun Zan, so I don't know how much will be left. Still, we ought to show our faces."
"Let's leave that for later. For now we have to prepare."
"Ah — and the Zhuge family staying in the upper residence. What do you mean to do about them?"
The brothers Zhuge Jin, Zhuge Liang, and Zhuge Jun, and the Zhuge sisters with them, were all lodging in the upper residence. Zhuge Jin had kept proposing the match, and Zhuge Xue, the one concerned, had taken it to heart as well.
"After I return from Xiapi, I mean to speak of the marriage in proper form."
"So you've decided at last? I am truly glad."
"However I turn it over, Ying seems far better suited to our little brother... Well, taking a wife and a concubine together is nothing so strange."
"We'll have to hear what the two of them say first."
Not only Zhuge Xue — my brother-in-law and my sister were telling me to take Huan Ying in as well. And as she said it, Sister Yanhua gave her husband Su Shuang a sly nudge in the ribs.
"Your brother is getting married. Shouldn't we be quick about having a child of our own?"
"H-hm! That is..."
True enough. Both of them were young, and they still had no children.
With a clatter the door opened, and Huan Ying came in with the tea. She must have heard every word from outside. Smiling wide and quiet, she set a cup before each of us, then pressed close at my side and smiled with her eyes. A woman of truly breathtaking beauty, and sharp-eyed besides — quick-witted through and through. She fidgeted with perfect ease until she was settled flush against me, and both Su Shuang and Sister Yanhua broke into bright smiles.
And so I set out for Xiapi with Liu Bei.
"Hahaha — so you've decided to take them both, wife and concubine?"
"They gave their leave more easily than I expected. Both of them say that in an age of chaos, several women entering the household of a man of influence is nothing to fret over."
Polygamy in this era was hardly counted a blemish to begin with, and the two of them had assented with remarkable coolness. The moment we returned, I was to be married with a flower in each hand.
"There'll be a grand feast in Xiaopei. I can't write you a fine line of verse, but I learned a great deal of music as a boy. I'll give you a performance worthy of the day."
"If Lord Xuande sings the wedding song, it will be a feast beyond compare."
Once the war was over, Liu Bei was a cheerful man, the sort who never stopped talking with the people around him — a talker, and then some. Thanks to that, laughter never left a face along the road, and the old stories he traded now and then with Su Shuang were genuinely entertaining.
"Well then, since the subject has come up, let me ask you, Lord Su. Merchants, I'm told, look for interest when funds are advanced. By now, those five hundred warhorses I borrowed from you and Lord Zhang — how much have they grown to?"
"Lord Xuande, that was no simple loan. It was patronage. And the later support for the Inspector's army was driven by the head of the house, my brother-in-law, so it is not a sum I can speak of lightly."
"Ho. Hearing that, it seems I ought to deepen my friendship with Baijin all the more."
"The chivalry of that band of three now includes the Inspectorate of Yuzhou, so I count it investment enough. We ask that you continue to look kindly on our house."
"What kind of talk is that? This Liu Bei never forgets a benefactor's grace!"
Liu Bei struck his chest with complete confidence, made the promise to Su Shuang, and raised a thumb at me.
When we arrived at Xiapi, the mood was quite different from the last time. Not only the people of Xiapi, but even the garrison looked up at us, and from horseback I felt the strength gather in my shoulders of its own accord.
"It is certainly different from when we came before. The rumors seem to have spread already."
Zhao Yun looked about and smiled, and Liu Bei nodded, confidence written plain on his face.
"Zilong, I see it too. This must be what they mean by a hero's return."
"Inspector — you have come?"
The man hurrying out from the Xiapi government office was Chen Deng. Recognizing him, Lu Su, Zhang He, Zhao Yun, and I each offered a greeting, and he seized both of Liu Bei's hands at once and cried out, moved.
"I have heard the tale of Xuzhou. Truly, with a hero's spirit, you saved this Xuzhou!"
"Ah — you have my thanks."
"Please come inside. General Tao is here."
So at last I would see Tao Qian?
Guided by Chen Deng, we went in. The officials of Xiapi still cast us unfriendly looks, but now that they knew our strength, they did not step forward lightly. Liu Bei kept me at his side so that we walked abreast, and behind us came Zhao Yun, Lu Su, Zhang He, and Su Shuang.
"Welcome, Xuande. I have been waiting for you."
"Liu Bei pays his respects to the Governor of Xuzhou!"
"Sit... at your ease."
I raised my head, and there was the aged master of Xuzhou. They said he was past sixty, yet his face looked older by far — a full white beard, the flesh of his cheeks drawn in. The armor and saddle hung about the room suggested that in his youth he had been a warrior of tremendous bulk; now, old and wasted, he forced his shrunken body into robes too large and too splendid, straining to show authority.
"Lord Xuande. This body of mine is old and failing, no longer fit to keep Xuzhou whole. Yet a hero such as you stepped forward and held Cao Cao back. Words alone cannot carry all my thanks."
"Not at all, Governor."
When Tao Qian raised a hand, one of the men at his side came forward and bowed to Liu Bei. He was in his early forties, with a likeness to Tao Qian, though a paler presence by far.
"What my worthless son Shang could not do, you have done."
"I report to the Governor. We came down to do a righteous thing, and afterward we rendered aid. That is all."
"In the days to come... will you still be able to aid us?"
"If danger comes, I will."
"Yes. Yes..."
"And the Thousand-Gold Merchant Zhang Baijin, here beside me, aided my army and saved people beyond counting. Baijin's devotion is no less than my own."
"A truly admirable man of talent..."
Not a word of reward. Even when Liu Bei mentioned me, Tao Qian spoke only at the level of well done. I had truly thought something large was coming, and it was a few words of praise? I could pile on a hundred more of those myself. And so, having seen Tao Qian once, I came away without so much as a scrap of amusement.
"Baijin. Make ready this evening."
"What? Ready for what?"
Su Shuang came up quietly and whispered so that only I could hear.
"The Governor introduced his son in the open. If he means to pass down the governorship, then today was for letting faces be seen and remembered."
"Ho."
"Lord Xuande introduced our house, so they know we are merchants, and they will surely summon us apart. By my guess, it will be the Governor's close retainers — or else his own family. So prepare yourself."
So it wouldn't end in a simple word of praise. There was something more?
"Why us, and not Lord Xuande?"
"As for him, Lu Su will draw him aside and have him make himself known to the great clans and the men of power in Xiapi. Remember it that way."
I took Su Shuang's words and decided, for the time being, to wait at our lodgings in Xiapi. Before long, not only I, but my sister and Su Shuang as well, received an invitation together.
The place we had been summoned to was the residence of Tao Qian, Governor of Xuzhou.
In a detached house in the rear garden of Tao Qian's principal hall sat Madam Gan, mistress of his inner household. A woman of Danyang in Yangzhou, she had met Tao Qian young, and now, in her fifties, she was the formidable lady of Xuzhou — mother of two grown sons, and shelter to the people of the Gan clan who had followed her.
"Mother, it is Shang."
"Come in."
Her son entered the chamber of a noblewoman dressed in full splendor and reported with due courtesy.
"Have you met the man called Liu Bei?"
"Yes. And I confirmed as well the Thousand-Gold Merchant Zhang Qian, the power at his back."
"The spirited fellow who raised such a commotion in Xiapi. Well then. How did Liu Bei and this Zhang Qian seem to you?"
"Liu Bei was a man who truly bore a hero's air, and Zhang Qian was one with the quickness to make such a hero."
"Ho ho. Is that so? Both of them interest me greatly. One way or another, they are men we must bring in for the peace of our house."
Madam Gan laughed softly and looked with pity upon her eldest son, who had grown older and nothing more.
"What can be done? His Lordship is uneasy about entrusting Xuzhou to you, so we must find a talent certain to bear responsibility for you all your life."
"Mother, what of our promise with Colonel Zhao?"
"Zhao Bao... he has helped our house through many difficulties, true, but we shall have to weigh which of the two brings the greater gain. And behind Liu Bei stands the son of Zhang Shiping, once the greatest merchant in Hebei. I expect he will offer terms most generous indeed."
In place of a husband old and wasted, the principal wife moved quickly over the future of the house.
"Is Mei, the one brought from Yuzhou, well?"
"Yes, Mother."
"Today we will look upon the household of Zhang Qian, and next we will invite Liu Bei to our house apart from the rest. So make your preparations well."
Unbeknownst to Liu Bei himself, the air of private schemes and private profit was beginning, little by little, to rise through Xuzhou.