Liu Bei, Lady Gan, and the Governorship of Xuzhou
It was the small hours of the morning before the three of us finally emerged, after a truly extraordinary reception.
“They’ve even sent a carriage to see us home. I’d say that means the whole thing ended on good terms.”
I shrugged at Yanhua, still wide-eyed and dumbstruck, and at my brother-in-law Su Shuang.
“Qian’er, at that lady’s house today they were handling an enormous quantity of precious metal. And I saw his niece.”
“How was she?”
“A remarkable beauty. But she’s missed the season for marriage — a little old. Twenty-six, was it, or twenty-seven?”
So in this age, that was what counted as having missed one’s chance. Fair enough. Liu Bei himself had been born in the year 160, which put him at roughly thirty-four or thirty-five, so it hardly mattered.
On the way back, I turned to Su Shuang.
“If we want the governorship of Xuzhou to change hands smoothly, what matters most?”
“Winning over Xuzhou’s native great clans can be managed through the two wars. After that, it will be a matter of bringing across the retainers who make up General Tao’s personal power.”
“I hear the Governor of Xuzhou keeps an elite force of his own — the Danyang troops. They rose with him in Danyang of Yangzhou and followed him all the way here. If the governorship changes hands, their sense of loss, and their anger, will be considerable.”
“And the head of those Danyang troops is this Zhao Bao whose name keeps coming up, isn’t he?”
“I leave it in your hands.”
Su Shuang stared blankly up at the ceiling of the carriage for a moment, then nodded and gave me his assent.
“Before, when we left Governor Yuan Shao of Jizhou, I asked you whether we could sponsor a Liu Bei with no foundation under him and raise the man that high. Didn’t I?”
He had once put the question to me obliquely, in writing. If we invested in Liu Bei, could we raise him as high as Yuan Shao?
“It was my late father-in-law’s dying wish as well. And if this Liu Bei you chose to invest in becomes Governor of Xuzhou… yes. Very well. We’ll lay our interests and our real power on the table and see it through.”
Now I only had to persuade Liu Bei, and the game was as good as won.
So the moment we reached the house, I made ready to go back out with Su Shuang and his wife.
“Qian’er, where are you going at this hour?”
“There should be exactly one other place in the city with its lamps still burning, besides General Tao’s. I’ll only be a little while.”
Yanhua’s lips parted, and no words came.
I went straight to the house beside the lodgings where we were staying in Xiapi.
“—and so, having said all this, and having settled it properly with General Tao’s household, I am bringing the matter to you.”
Liu Bei said nothing.
Wine trickled, thin and steady, into the cup.
“Lord Xuande, your cup is full.”
“Ahem. Ahem!”
Ever since he had left Guan Yu and Zhang Fei behind in Xiaopei, he had called in Zhao Zilong and Jian Yong and started a drinking bout — and into the middle of it, at this hour, I had come.
I told them all of it: our house’s invitation to Tao Qian, and everything his wife, Madam Gan, and his son Tao Shang had in mind.
Zhao Yun would never speak on a matter like this. Jian Yong, though, stuck fast at Liu Bei’s side in his accustomed role as friend, and put the question to me again.
“So our lord is to marry the Governor of Xuzhou’s wife’s niece?”
“That was the proposal.”
“Not a daughter. Not even a niece. A niece of his wife — so he’d be some sort of nephew-in-law? And on a blood-tie that thin, they want him to go on playing hired sword for Xuzhou?”
Jian Yong cocked his head, his expression peculiar, and kept watching Liu Bei all the while.
“Zilong. What do you think?”
“This is not a matter I ought to answer. That is why I am keeping silent.”
Leaving that block of wood, Zhao Yun, where he sat, Jian Yong asked one thing after another in Liu Bei’s place.
“Baijin. Listen. Did General Tao’s family have anything else they wanted passed along?”
“The marriage itself was spoken of only to Lord Xuande. But when the talk turned to the future of Xuzhou, other names came up. Mi Zhu of Juxian, off in Xuzhou — and Zhao Bao, the man who led the elite Danyang troops under General Tao and has been boasting that he was the one who helped Lord Xuande this time.”
“My lord, that’s what he says. What do we do?”
What mattered most was Liu Bei’s own heart. Would he do as the Liu Bei everyone thought they knew, set it all aside with a show of humility, and declare that our work in Xuzhou was finished? Or would he play the old serpent in truth, say nothing at all, and simply wait for Tao Qian to die?
“A fine hour, drinking with my brothers, and what a curious tale I hear. You’re telling me to take a wife here in Xuzhou?”
“Having me carry the message was curious enough in itself. Even so, the choice belongs to Lord Xuande.”
“Well. It isn’t someone else getting married. I’m the one who would be going.”
“Heavens, what am I to do with this. I can’t help thinking our lord ought to have brought Guan Yu or Zhang Fei instead of me…”
“How will you answer? I’ll convey it.”
At that, Liu Bei flicked away the wine that had brimmed over and spilled down the cup, filled it afresh to the rim, and drank it off in a single draught. Then he studied me.
It was not Cao Cao’s sharpness, nor Yuan Shao’s arrogance. It was only a man sitting still and looking at you — and yet the pressure in that gaze was something you could not name. His face was a smiling Buddha’s, great ears and all, but the eyes alone were truly uncanny.
“Baijin. From this moment, there is exactly one thing I want to ask.”
The real intent behind the match? Or, having seen through it, whether he truly had to enter Tao Qian’s house and take the real power of Xuzhou in his hands? Or else a courteous refusal — whether he might say he could not accept?
Whatever it was, I had braced myself to answer.
“That talk of a marriage. The one that was raised by everyone except the person actually concerned. Meaning me.”
“Yes, Lord Xuande.”
…Oh. That was the question?
“They say if you’re to wear a skirt, it might as well be crimson. A matchmaker has already been back and forth — I ought to know the face of the woman who might become my bride, shouldn’t I?”
I couldn’t help it. Laughter burst out of me, and I raised a thumb to him.
“I heard it through my sister. They say she’s a peerless beauty. She may have missed the usual season, but she is, of course, a great deal younger than you, Lord Xuande.”
“Then that’s enough. Baijin, you take three jars of wine tonight, and you sleep in this room before you go!”
In a room crowded with wine jars, Liu Bei, Zhao Yun, Jian Yong, and I drank ourselves into a stupor, and all four of us simply spread bedding on the floor of that one room and lay down to sleep.
The next morning, Liu Bei rose early, his face clear and without a trace of hangover, and laid the whole of the night’s business before the comrades who had come with him from Xiaopei.
“And so I have received a proposal to bind my house by marriage to General Tao’s family, and today I mean to give my answer.”
“My lord, if it is Madam Gan, she is General Tao’s principal wife, and her clan has considerable numbers around Xiaopei and throughout Xuzhou.”
Lu Su was a native of the place, so he knew it at once — and was rather in favor.
“A better understanding with Governor Tao may well come of this, so I think we ought first to pay a formal call and offer our greetings.”
“Even you say so, Zijing?”
No one else had the slightest reason to object, and Liu Bei, taking that for a final confirmation, resolved to accept it all.
The day was still cold. The moment I stepped outside, my breath poured out in a white plume.
“Baijin, that was an exquisitely subtle move.”
I started.
“In that situation, I never dreamed you would go straight to the Governor’s family and push a marriage of policy between our lord and General Tao’s wife’s niece.”
The council had only just ended. I had come outside, and Lu Su, following right on my heels, smiled and nodded.
“Better than being raised up by the great clans. If he becomes General Tao’s nephew by marriage and enters the family as kin, the succession to the governorship of Xuzhou will go very smoothly indeed. The hearts of the common people, of course — and the gentry as well — will all accept it.”
Lu Su had already fitted every piece of the puzzle together on the premise that the next master of Xuzhou would be Liu Bei.
“The difficulty, though, is Lord Xuande’s own will.”
“From the common folk to the gentry, the great majority will agree. To my mind, General Tao is already old, and he has set his family’s safety — and wealth enough for his line to live on, generation after generation — on the table as the price.”
As expected of Lu Zijing. I had given him only a brief account of yesterday, and he already had the whole situation in his grasp. With Lu Su come in during the earliest days of Liu Bei’s army to serve as strategist, I could not have felt more secure.
“What comes next will matter. We must win the support of General Tao’s retainers, and we will have to pursue diplomacy with powers outside as well.”
“There will also be negotiations with Yuan Shao, Governor of Jizhou — a loose ally, but an ally all the same.”
“He will agree. By my expectation, he will recognize our lord’s seat as Governor of Xuzhou, on conditions: that we check Yuan Shu to the south of Xuzhou, and that we do not join again with Gongsun Zan, the chief enemy Yuan Shao is fighting now.”
Entirely plausible. Liu Bei and Gongsun Zan might once have been the closest of friends, but there would be no going back. From the moment Gongsun Zan murdered Inspector Liu Yu of Youzhou — a scion of the Han imperial house, and a man who had commanded absolute reverence in Youzhou — the bond between them was past mending.
And a fight with Yuan Shu… if we poured everything we had into recovery, we could bear it. At least, so long as we kept that bastard Lu Bu, busy fighting in Yanzhou, from ever reaching this place.
“Baijin, not even a month ago I was a man who believed Xuzhou had no hope left, and who meant to settle his estate and leave for somewhere else.”
“And I’m the one who sat on you and made you stay. Do you resent me for it?”
Lu Su smiled faintly at that.
“Not in the least. If our present lord becomes Governor of Xuzhou, I expect the situation will be thoroughly interesting, and I am looking forward to it. Besides, that great purpose which comes after this, the one you spoke of in Xiaopei — I still keep it clear in my mind.”
Hearing the set of Lu Su’s will, I was certain of it. Liu Bei’s life, beginning here in Xuzhou, would be far mightier than in the history I knew, and with absolute support from within he would become one of the pillars of the Central Plains.
“Chief Zhang! Zijing! Where are you?”
Zhang He had been calling for us. He caught sight of us and came running.
“Brother Junyi?”
“Lord Xuande says everyone is to come in. We’re all to bathe together.”
“Bathe?”
I called a nearby servant at once and sent word to Su Shuang: fine clothes from the market, and goods fit to serve as betrothal gifts.
“A bath — of course. Scour off the grime, put on a polish, dress properly, and then go to the house the marriage talk came from. That’s what he means, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. Then, on a day this cold, let us all ease our bodies in hot water.”
And so, at Liu Bei’s summons, everyone gathered. A dozen and more veteran comrades who had fought through Xiaopei and Xuzhou washed themselves clean and easy, not a thread on their bodies, with nothing left to hide.
“The water in Xuzhou is wonderfully fresh.”
“The bath is broad as well. I enjoyed a proper soaking.”
“Bathing is best done together, that’s the pleasure of it. Scrub off the dirt, put a shine on, then a good crisp drink — though the wine will have to wait until tonight.”
It had been something like a sauna summit convened by Liu Bei, but thanks to it the fatigue fell clean away from all of us, and we seemed closer than before.
Now we had only to towel ourselves dry and choose one of the robes hung along the wall.
“Oh ho. Fine color on this one.”
“The measurements have all been checked, so choose whatever pleases you and put it on. I’ve prepared something for everyone here, not only for Lord Xuande.”
“Mm. Red does suit me best.”
They were new clothes I had asked Su Shuang to ready in a hurry while the rest of them were bathing. From among them Liu Bei picked out a tunic and trousers cut to his measure, threw a long robe of crimson silk over them, and struck a thoroughly satisfied pose before the mirror. With no war in front of him, he had the air of a fashionable idler, a man who loved music and splendid clothes as much as he loved a drinking table.
“Thanks to Baijin, I’m gifted a new silk robe.”
“This looks like it was made from cloth that costs a fortune even in the market.”
“This fabric is far too showy. I wonder if it is really all right for someone like me to wear it…”
Zhao Yun, Jian Yong, Lu Su, Zhang He — each of them had a word at the sight of the splendid clothes Su Shuang had bought. They seemed burdened by them, so I handed the garments out to everyone myself.
“We are on our way to meet the Governor of Xuzhou, and we are attending Lord Xuande’s matchmaking visit. From of old, clothing has been what shows a man’s courtesy and his character. Now is the time to dress properly and show a bearing we need not be ashamed of.”
“I am of the same mind.”
Lu Su took a set and put it on first. Zhao Yun, who had called the clothes a burden, took a set as well, and Zhang He chose one and dressed in full.
“Well then. Shall we go?”
Twin swords at his waist, a freshly bound topknot and a black silk cap on his head, a long robe of crimson silk over it all — Liu Bei strode out at the front with perfect composure. The people of Xuzhou within the walls of Xiapi looked on our procession with awe in their eyes.
And when we reached the residence of Tao Qian, Governor of Xuzhou, he called out in a ringing voice.
“Is anyone within? Liu Xuande has come to pay his respects to the Governor of Xuzhou!”